The Man from Brodneys | Page 4

life. That night they took an inventory. Jack
Wyckholme, gentleman's son and ne'er-do-well, possessed nine pounds
and a fraction, an appetite and excellent spirits, while Taswell Skaggs
exhibited a balance of one thousand pounds in a Shanghai bank, a fairly
successful trade in Celestial necessities, and an unbounded eagerness to
change his luck.
"I have a proposition to make to you, Tazzy," said Mr. Wyckholme,

late in the night.
"I think I'll listen to it, Jackie," replied Mr. Skaggs, quite soberly.
As the outcome of this midnight proposition, Taswell Skaggs and John
Wyckholme arrived, two months later, at the tiny island of Japat,
somewhere south of the Arabian Sea, there to remain until their dying
days and there to accumulate the wealth which gave the first named a
chance to make an extraordinary will. For thirty years they lived on the
island of Japat. Wyckholme preceded Skaggs to the grave by two
winters and he willed his share of everything to his partner of thirty
years' standing. But there was a proviso in Wyckholme's bequest, just
as there was in that of Skaggs. Each had made his will some fifteen
years or more before death and each had bequeathed his fortune to the
survivor. At the death of the survivor the entire property was to go to
the grandchild of each testator, with certain reservations to be
mentioned later on, each having, by investigation, discovered that he
possessed a single grandchild.
The island of Japat had been the home of a Mohammedan race, the
outgrowth of Arabian adventurers who had fared far from home many
years before Wyckholme happened upon the island by accident. It was
a British possession and there were two or three thousand inhabitants,
all Mohammedans. Skaggs and Wyckholme purchased the land from
the natives, protected and eased their rights with the government and
proceeded to realise on what the natives had unwittingly prepared for
them. In course of time the natives repented of the deal which gave the
Englishmen the right to pick and sell the rubies and other precious
stones that they had been trading away for such trifles as silks,
gewgaws and women; a revolution was imminent. Whereupon the
owners organised the entire population into a great stock company,
retaining four-fifths of the property themselves. This seemed to be a
satisfactory arrangement, despite the fact that some of the more warlike
leaders were difficult to appease. But, as Messrs. Wyckholme and
Skaggs owned the land and the other grants, there was little left for the
islanders but arbitration. It is only necessary to add that the beautiful
island of Japat, standing like an emerald in the sapphire waters of the

Orient, brought millions in money to the two men who had been
unlucky in love.
And now, after more than thirty years of voluntary exile, both of them
were dead, and both of them were buried in the heart of an island of
rubies, their deed and their deeds remaining to posterity--with
reservations.
CHAPTER II
AN EXTRAORDINARY DOCUMENT
It appears that the Messrs. Skaggs and Wyckholme, as their dual career
drew to a close, set about to learn what had become of their daughters.
Investigation proved that Wyckholme's daughter had married a London
artist named Ruthven. The Ruthvens in turn had one child, a daughter.
Wyckholme's wife and his daughter died when this grandchild was
eight or ten years old. By last report, the grandchild was living with her
father in London. She was a pretty young woman with scores of
admirers on her hands and a very level head on her shoulders.
Wyckholme held to his agreement with Skaggs by bequeathing his
share of the property to him, but it was definitely set forth that at the
death of his partner it was to go to Agnes Ruthven, the
grandchild--with reservations.
Skaggs found that his daughter, who married Browne the American,
likewise had died, but that she had left behind a son and heir. This son,
Robert Browne, was in school when the joint will was designed, and he
was to have Skaggs's fortune at the death of Wyckholme, in case that
worthy survived.
All this would have been very simple had it not been for the
instructions and conditions agreed upon by the two men. In order to
keep the business and the property intact and under the perpetual
control of one partnership, the granddaughter of Wyckholme was to
marry the grandson of Skaggs within the year after the death of the
surviving partner. The penalty to be imposed upon them if the

conditions were not complied with--neither to be excusable for the
defection of the other--lay in the provision that the whole industry and
its accumulated fortune, including the land (and they owned practically
the entire island), was to go to the islanders--or, in