Alan, as he finished reading, looked up to Sherrill, bewildered and dazed.
"What does it mean, Mr. Sherrill?— Does it mean that he has gone away and left everything he had—everything to me?"
"The properties listed here," Sherrill touched the pages Alan first had looked at, "are in the box at the vault with the executed forms of their transfer to me. If Mr. Corvet does not return, and I do not receive any other instructions, I shall take over his estate as he has instructed for your advantage."
"And, Mr. Sherrill, he didn't tell you why? This is all you know?"
"Yes; you have everything now. The fact that he did not give his reasons for this, either to you or me, made me think at first that he might have made his plan known to some one else, and that he had been opposed—to the extent even of violence done upon him—to prevent his carrying it out. But the more I have considered this, the less likely it has seemed to me. Whatever had happened to Corvet that had so much disturbed and excited him lately, seems rather to have precipitated his plan than deterred him in it. He may have determined after he had written this that his actions and the plain indication of his relationship to you, gave all the explanation he wanted to make. All we can do, Alan, is to search for him in every way we can. There will be others searching for him too now; for information of his disappearance has got out. There have been reporters at the office this morning making inquiries, and his disappearance will be in the afternoon papers."
Sherrill put the papers back in their envelope, and the envelope back into the drawer, which he relocked.
"I went over all this with Mr. Spearman this morning," he said. "He is as much at a loss to explain it as I am."
He was silent for a few moments.
"The transfer of Mr. Corvet's properties to me for you," he said suddenly, "includes, as you have seen, Corvet's interest in the firm of 'Corvet, Sherrill and Spearman.' I went very carefully through the deeds and transfers in the deposit box, and it was plain that, while he had taken great care with the forms of transfer for all the properties, he had taken particular pains with whatever related to his holdings in this company and to his shipping interests. If I make over the properties to you, Alan, I shall begin with those; for it seems to me that your father was particularly anxious that you should take a personal as well as a financial place among the men who control the traffic of the lakes. I have told Spearman that this is my intention. He has not been able to see it my way as yet; but he may change his views, I think, after meeting you."
Sherrill got up. Alan arose a little unsteadily. The list of properties he had read and the letter and Sherrill's statement portended so much that its meaning could not all come to him at once. He followed Sherrill through a short private corridor, flanked with files lettered "Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman," into the large room he had seen when he came in with Constance. They crossed this, and Sherrill, without knocking, opened the door of the office marked, "Mr. Spearman." Alan, looking on past Sherrill as the door opened, saw that there were some half dozen men in the room, smoking and talking. They were big men mostly, ruddy-skinned and weather-beaten in look, and he judged from their appearance, and from the pile of their hats and coats upon a chair, that they were officers of the company's ships, idle while the ships were laid up, but reporting now at the offices and receiving instructions as the time for fitting out approached.