“Gladly,” she replied, “if you will condescend to speak out plainly, instead of confining yourself to generalities.”
“All right, my dear; here goes. In the State of Virginia, bordering on the Potomac River, and washed by the waters of two other streams—which by courtesy are also called rivers—lies an estate which consists of something more than eight hundred acres. The title to that estate is in the name of James Ledger Dinwiddie, who——”
“Who, at the present moment lies dead in the adjoining room in this house,” she interrupted him; but he only chuckled as he responded:
“On the contrary, he is seated here before you, now; he is talking with you; he is referring to that dear old plantation in dearer old Virginia which, ever since the days of Bushrod Washington, has been called by the name of Kingsgift—the Lord only knows why, unless some dead and forgotten king gave it as a present to the original Dinwiddie. Henceforth, my dear, I am Ledger Dinwiddie, owner of an estate in Virginia that is mortgaged for more than it was ever worth; for much more than it would ever bring at a forced sale. I am also the undisputed owner of a choice collection of debts, of an old colonial house that is now falling into ruins, of numerous other buildings that are in various stages of dilapidation, and of numerous other things of the same sort, all of which are not only entirely worthless, but are really much worse than worthless; and there you are.”
“Will you tell me, Jimmy, just what you expect to gain, then, by this remarkable adventure, as you call it?” the woman asked quizzically.
“Decidedly I will tell you. I gain the one thing I need most, just now—a name. My own—but I have never told you what my own really was, have I? No; and there is no use going into that, now—but my own name has been so long abandoned that I have forgotten the use of it; especially the application of it. The name that has been given me by the police of various localities, isn’t sufficiently high-sounding; and——”
“No. Bare-Faced Jimmy is hardly a name to have engraved upon one’s cards,” she interrupted him.
“——and, as I was saying, James Duryea, who has been called Bare-Faced Jimmy, is popularly supposed to lie buried on an island in the Sound, just off South Norwalk, Connecticut. I would much rather that the police should not be undeceived about that, and so we will let Jimmy Duryea, cracksman, lie there and rot; eh?”
“If you please. I don’t mind. A rose by any other name, you know.”