The Man from Brodneys | Page 7

wife or no wife, and there's not much time to
be lost. Lady Deppingham won't let the grass grow under her feet if I
know anything about the needs of English nobility, and I'll bet my hat

she's packing her trunks now for a long stay in Japat. You have farther
to go than she, but you must get over there inside of sixty days. I
daresay your practice can take care of itself," ironically. Browne
nodded cheerfully. "You can't tell what may happen in the next six
months."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's possible that you may become a widower and she a wid--"
"Good heaven, Judge Garrett! Impossible!" gasped Bobby Browne,
clutching the arms of his chair.
"Nothing is impossible, my boy--"
"Well, if that's what you're counting on you can count me out, I won't
speculate on my wife's death."
"But, man, suppose that it did happen!" roared the judge irascibly.
"You should be prepared for the best--I mean the worst. Don't look like
a sick dog. We've got to watch every corner, that's all, and be
Johnny-on-the-spot when the time comes. You go to the island at once.
Take your wife along if you like. You'll find her ladyship there, and
she'll need a woman to tell her troubles to. I'll have the papers ready for
you to sign in three days, and I don't think we'll have any trouble
getting the British heirs to join in the suit to overthrow the will. The
only point is this: the islanders must not have the advantage that your
absence from Japat will give to them. Now, I'll----"
"But, good Lord, Judge Garrett, I can't go to that confounded island,"
wailed Browne. "Take my wife over among those heathenish----"
"Do you expect me to handle this case for you, sir?"
"Sure."
"Then let me handle it. Don't interfere. When you start in to get
somebody else's money you have to do a good many things you don't

like, no matter whether you are a lawyer or a client."
"But I don't like the suggestion that my wife will be obliged to die in
order----"
"Please leave all the details to me, Mr. Browne. It may not be necessary
for her to die. There are other alternatives in law. Give the lawyers a
chance. We'll see what we can do. Besides, it would be unreasonable to
expect his lordship to die also. All you have to do is to plant yourself
on that island and stay there until we tell you to get off."
"Or the islanders push me off," lugubriously.
"Now, listen intently and I'll tell you just what you are to do."
Young Mr. Browne went away at dusk, half reeling under the
responsibility of existence, and eventually reached the side of the
anxious young woman uptown. He bared the facts and awaited the wail
of dismay.
"I think it will be perfectly jolly," she cried, instead, and kissed him
rapturously.
Over on the opposite side of the Atlantic the excitement in certain
circles was even more intense than that produced in Boston. Lord
Deppingham needed the money, but he was a whole day in grasping the
fact that his wife could not have it and him at the same time. The
beautiful and fashionable Lady Deppingham, once little Agnes Ruthven,
came as near to having hysteria as Englishwomen ever do, but she
called in a lawyer instead of a doctor. For three days she neglected her
social duties (and they were many), ignored her gallant admirers (and
they were many), and hurried back and forth between home and
chambers so vigorously that his lordship was seldom closer than a day
behind in anything she did.
There was a great rattling of trunks, a jangling of keys, a thousand
good-byes, a cast-off season, and the Deppinghams were racing away
for the island of Japat somewhere in the far South Seas.

CHAPTER III
INTRODUCING HOLLINGSWORTH CHASE
While all this was being threshed out by the persons most vitally
interested in the affairs of Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme,
events of a most unusual character were happening to one who not only
had no interest in the aforesaid heritage, but no knowledge whatever of
its existence. The excitement attending the Skaggs-Wyckholme
revelations had not yet spread to the Grand Duchy of Rapp-Thorberg,
apparently lost as it was in the cluster of small units which went to
make up a certain empire: one of the world powers. The Grand Duke
Michael disdained the world at large; he had but little in common with
anything that moved beyond the confines of his narrow domain. His
court was sleepy, lackadaisical, unemotional, impregnable to the taunts
of progression; his people were thrifty, stolid and absolutely stationary
in their loyalty to the ancient traditions of the