Kindred of the Dust

by Peter B. Kyne

"Legion d'Honneur."

A pause. "What did Dirty Dan get, son?"

"The one thing in the world he thought he despised. The Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in saving the life of a British colonel, who, by the way, happens to be an Orangeman. When he discovered it he wanted to bayonet the colonel and I won the Croix de Guerre for stopping him."

"Oh, cease your nonsense, Donald," his wife urged, "and tell your father and mother something. I think they are entitled to the news now."

"Yes, Nan, I think they are. Listen, folks. Now that you've all been nice enough to be human beings and accept my wife at her face value, I have a surprise for you. On the day when Nan married the father of my adopted son, he waited until the officiating minister had signed the marriage license and attested that he had performed the ceremony; then while the minister's attention was on something else, he took possession of the license and put it in his overcoat pocket. Later he and Nan drove to a restaurant for luncheon and the overcoat with the license in the pocket was stolen, from the automobile. The thief pawned the coat later and the pawnbroker discovered the license in the pocket after the thief had departed. The following day the fellow was arrested in the act of stealing another overcoat; the pawnbroker read of the arrest and remembered he had loaned five dollars on an overcoat to a man who gave the same name this thief gave to the police. So the pawnbroker—"

"I am not interested, my son. I require no proofs."

"Thank you for that, father. But you're entitled to them and you're going to get them. The pawnbroker found on the inside lining of the inner breast pocket of the overcoat the tag which all tailors sew there when, they make the garment. This tag bore the name of the owner of the overcoat, his address and the date of delivery of the overcoat."

"Now, the pawnbroker noticed that the man who owned the overcoat was not the person named in the marriage license. Also he noticed that the marriage license was attested by a minister but that it had not been recorded by the state board of health, as required by law—and the pawnbroker was aware that marriage licenses are not permitted, by law, to come into the possession of the contracting parties until the fact that they have been legally married has been duly recorded on the evidence of the marriage—which is, of course, the marriage license."

"Why didn't the idiot send the license back to the minister who had performed the ceremony?" The Laird demanded. "Then this tangle would never have occurred."

"He says he thought of that, but he was suspicious. It was barely possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address therein given. In the course of time that letter was returned by the post-office department with the notation that the location of the addressee was unknown. The pawnbroker then wrote to the man whose name appeared on the tailor's tag in the overcoat, and promptly received a reply. Yes, an overcoat had been stolen from his automobile on a certain date. He described the overcoat and stated that the marriage license of a friend of his might be found in the breast pocket, provided the thief had not removed it. If the license was there he would thank the pawnbroker to forward it to him. He enclosed a check to redeem the overcoat and pay the cost of forwarding it to him by parcel post, insured. The pawnbroker had that check photographed before cashing it and he forwarded the overcoat but retained the marriage license, for he was more than ever convinced that things were not as they should have been.