CHAPTER XI.

"CRACK THE LAWYER'S VOICE THAT HE MAY NEVER MORE FALSE TITLES PLEAD, NOR

SOUND HIS QUILLETS SHRILLY."

The Eastward Ho was a hint of a project we had frequently talked over as

a possible speculation. Here we see how men are led on step by step from

bad to worse when once they set out on the Primrose Way.

In returning from Europe with the $10,000 commission in my pocket, I

vowed never again to engage in any unlawful speculation. I was through!

No criminal life for me! Then came the day when we struck for the

$20,000 and won, and we were all happy in the thought that our last

unlawful deed was over.

Then we took the third step we had vowed never to take, and had

discussed the $240,000 project. We had spent money on it, had laid our

plans cunningly and deep, and were confident of success. We had even

planned how to invest our thousands in an honest business, and so win

the esteem of all good men, and, of course, in some happy future would

make restitution. But that is a future which never comes in the history

of crime. These three wrong steps had been taken only after convincing

ourselves that the circumstances justified each separate act.

Such is the contradiction of human nature that even when planning crime

we not only intended to make restitution, but despised all other

wrongdoers and reprobated their crimes. Each wrongful act of ours was

to be the last, and it was with something like despair that we began to

realize that there was no stopping place on the dangerous road we were

treading.

My $13,000 commission from the European trip had melted away. Our share

of the $20,000 got from Jay Cooke & Co. was fast going. Our deep-laid

plot to win $240,000 had miscarried, and now the necessity was upon us

of engaging in another illegitimate operation if we would continue in

our life of ease and luxury.

For the next few days we did little but dine and plan. Discussion

followed discussion, and through them all we clung to the general

proposition that we would not do any more in our particular line in

America. At last we resolved to go to Europe and realize the fortune

that seemed to elude our grasp at home.

We resolved to tell Irving in a general way that we were going to Europe

to make some money, and would pay him and his two fellows their

percentage. Then we could (apparently) work with impunity; for, of

course, if we committed a forgery in Europe and were recognised as

Americans--as probably we would be--the foreign police would report the

case to the New York police--that is, to Irving--and we should be safe

in New York.

Edwin James and Brea had dropped out of our lives for good, but as my

readers will be curious to know of their fate in after times, I will

relate it in this chapter.

The morning our scheme on Jay Cooke & Co. fell to pieces, as soon as the

manager left the office, telling Brea he was to pay cash for the bonds

in place of the check, it was recognized at once that the game was up,

and the only thing remaining was to shield James as much as possible. So

Brea left the office, but first instructed the clerk to tell the

messenger when he came that he had gone for the money, and would call

for the bonds. This was done, the messenger arrived, being accompanied

by Detective Elder all the time, and took the bonds back again.

At 2 o'clock James went down to the bankers, where he was well known,

and inquired for Mr. Newman. Being told he was not in, he said he had

made an appointment to meet him there. Invited into the inner office,

the manager asked him if he had any personal knowledge of this Mr.

Newman, and James said no further than that he had called and given him

a retaining fee of $250, and had engaged him as legal adviser, etc. Then

the manager produced a telegram he had received in answer to one he had

sent to the Philadelphia house, inquiring about Newman, and asking if

his letter of introduction was genuine or not. James read the reply; it

said the letter was genuine, but that they knew absolutely nothing about

the man, and warned him to be cautious. James pretended astonishment,

and feigned to be very indignant, declaring that if Mr. Newman did not

put in an appearance within half an hour he should begin to fear a fraud

had been attempted. When the closing hour came at 3 o'clock, the manager

announced to James that he should give the whole matter to the press,

but would keep his name out of it.

So they parted with warm congratulations over their escape, the manager

pretending to believe James was an innocent tool, but no doubt with a

shrewd suspicion that he intended to have a finger in this pie, had the

pie ever been baked and divided. Had the bankers been victimized they

would have striven with all their power to keep the fact a secret and

forbidden their employees to breathe a word about it to any one. But now

the case was different. All the morning papers had long accounts of the

transaction. They were absurdly inaccurate, but all agreed as to the

extreme cleverness of the manager, and noticed how he had suspected,

etc., while poor Elder, who both expected and really deserved all the

glory, was not even mentioned in the newspaper accounts. However, his

feelings were soon after solaced, as Irving informed us that Elder had

stood in on a deal that paid him well.

The $5,000 we gave James eased up matters for a time. Practice he had

none, but managed to hold on in the hope of realizing on the Brea will

matter, but getting deeper and deeper in debt. One night, four years

later, the old lady, Brea's mother-in-law, had a more than usually

furious outbreak of temper, and fell to beating the three daughters

still living with her. Before it was over she had attacked and seriously

injured the eldest, and then flew to her room in a passion. Not

appearing at breakfast the next morning her daughter went to her room,

but she was not there, and the bed was undisturbed. Going to the room

that served for office and library, they found the door, as usual,

locked. Bursting it open the poor old maids found their mother huddled

in a corner of the room dead.

Truly a happy relief for the daughters. Poor girls, theirs had been a

hard life. Every suitor who tried to cultivate their acquaintance had

been driven from the door by the mother, who never spent a dollar on

their education, and her death found them all unused to the ways of the

world. The result was that all became victims of fortune-hunters, and

the unhappy ladies only changed the tyranny of an unnatural mother for

the tyranny of a husband, who in each case wedded for wealth alone, and

all three husbands were uncultured men. What an experience! Two of the

three still live. How sweet the rest of the grave will be to them!

The genuine will was destroyed and the "family lawyer," James,

immediately after the funeral, produced and read "the last will and

testament" of the dead woman. The four sisters and a host of poor

relations were present at the reading. When Sarah, Brea's wife, heard

her name read as chief heir of the vast estate, she was stunned, but if

she was stunned, the rest of the family were paralyzed. Legacies were

left to many, small in amount, save in the case of the other three

sisters, who were to have a certain tenement and land in Harlem and

three thousand a year for life out of the estate. None of those present

thought for a moment of questioning either the genuineness of the will

or the validity of the testaments, save only a poor relation, a nephew,

whose name was down for $500. He was indignant with the old lady and

loudly declared that he would not put up with it. The next day he

employed a briefless lawyer, one that had wit and brass enough and who

had his way to make in the world, and was determined to make it.

Without waiting for the will to be probated or having legal authority to

do so, Brea and his wife, the very day of the funeral, moved into the

house and took possession. But before the week was out he had persuaded

the three old maids that they would be happier if away from the scene of

their parent's death, so he had them installed in their own house at

Harlem, he remaining in undisturbed possession, waiting only for the

will to be probated in order to take possession of upward of $200,000 in

cash and bonds still in the custody of the old lady's bank. He had full

possession of the house, and with entire confidence waited to be put in

legal possession of all. But little did he dream that at that moment

there was one poor torn sheet of foolscap in the library, casually

thrust in a book, lying completely at his mercy to destroy, if he could

only have known it, which was going to tear all his wealth from his

grasp and drive him forth a foiled plotter, to become an adventurer and

ultimately to perish a miserable outcast.

The executors of the will (the same in the forged will as in the

genuine) were two simple shopkeepers living near. Eagan was the name of

the nephew, and to the surprise of the executors his attorney notified

them he should contest the will on behalf of his client, and warned them

to dispossess Brea of the house until such time as the law decreed it

to be his wife's property. The attorney knew the standing of James in

his profession, and, being capable of pretty sharp practice himself, he,

by some extraordinary intuition, boldly asserted his belief that the

will was a forgery. The three sisters declared they would not contest

the will, and had Brea acted wisely by fixing it up to give the attorney

a liberal fee, and Eagan a paltry thousand dollars, it would have ended

there. But, feeling perfectly secure, no doubt he thought an appearance

of firmness would strengthen his position still more, and he was so rash

as to denounce the attorney as a shyster and blackmailer.

The attorney's blood was up; he frightened the sisters into supporting

him in disputing the will, and had Brea and his wife ousted from the

house and the sisters reinstalled. Brea then attempted negotiations with

the attorney. Cautious as he was, he said enough to convince the lawyer

that for some reason he did not want the case to come before the courts;

still the attorney was half inclined to join hands with Brea. In the

mean time Ezra (this was the name of the man of law) had acquired great

power over the sisters, and they all looked to him both as champion and

protector. He resolved to be protector to one, at least, paying

assiduous court to Jane, the youngest. Although past 30 and without

education or accomplishments, she was warm-hearted and extremely

sentimental, and a thrill went through her tender heart when it became

evident that Ezra's attention pointed at her. She quickly made him a

hero, and invested the thin-shanked, narrow-chested, waspish attorney

with a thousand tender attributes, and when, after one month's

acquaintance, she found herself alone with him in the poky little parlor

and he asking her to be his wife, her woman's heart overflowed, and

telling him she had loved him from the first hour they met she threw

herself into his arms, crying she was the happiest and most favored

woman in the world. In the midst of the happy lovers' talk she ran to

the shelf, took down a book, and, opening it, revealed a soiled sheet

of paper and asked her lover what it was. His love had given him a gift,

indeed. His trained eye recognized it at once as a draft of a new will,

in the handwriting of the deceased mother, and dated the very night of

her death. It was a rough draft, but across the bottom was drawn the

bold, masculine signature of the old lady. There were no signatures of

witnesses, but Ezra was lawyer enough to know it would stand and that it

revoked all previous wills. Calling in the two elder sisters he read the

will to their amazed ears, and then and there wrote out a full statement

as to the circumstance under which it was found. All four attached their

signatures to the document, and when Ezra kissed his love a tender good

night and went home, he hardly felt the paving stones under his feet,

for he had carefully tucked away in the inside pocket of his vest, just

over his heart, the little soiled piece of paper which told him in

unmistakable terms that his fortune was made, and the wedding ceremony

once over, that it was beyond all chance of change.

It would seem that the old lady, after her quarrel with her daughters,

went to the library in a rage and made the draft of a new will. The

chief change in it, as compared with the old genuine will which the

conspirators had destroyed, was that it was more favorable to Jane,

Ezra's wife to be. But what gave Ezra the greatest satisfaction was the

fact that Brea's wife was down by name in the new will for one dollar

lawful currency. The will was promptly filed and probated. Ezra gave

bonds and was appointed one of the executors, and he had what to him was

the immense satisfaction of denouncing Brea to his face as a forger and

villain.

Before the discovery of the new will, while it was believed that Mrs.

Brea was an heiress and her credit good, she and her husband had made

use of the fact, and had incurred debts to a large amount. Brea got his

wife to indorse his note for $10,000, and he borrowed that sum from the

bankers, but as soon as the true state of the case was known, his

creditors became clamorous and had him arrested on civil suits. Unable

to give bonds, he was locked up in Ludlow Street Jail, and there he

remained six months, until, acting upon Ezra's advice, the sisters

agreed to pay all his debts and give him and his wife $1,000 each if

they would live west of Chicago. This they were forced to accept, and

went to Montana. Brea opened a saloon at Butte City, but he never

recovered his spirits again. He became his own best customer, and that,

of course, meant ruin, but what, after all, killed him was the knowledge

that he had been for more than a score of days in full possession of

that old house and had spent scores of hours alone in the old library,

and yet had not discovered and destroyed the new will lying there at his

mercy.

The Sheriff soon sold out his saloon, while his wife eloped with his

best friend. Ruined in pocket, health and character, poor old Brea was

left bare to every storm that blew. One morning, as the sun was rising

over the town, surprising half a dozen belated gamblers in Ned Wright's

saloon as they were getting up to leave, they found lying across the

threshold the body of a man, ragged, emaciated, forlorn. It was Brea.

As soon as James had read the will he insisted upon having $5,000 from

Brea at once, and he got the money. But when that thunderbolt of the new

will fell on the two men, James sadly recognized that fortune and he

would shake hands no more, so far as this world is concerned, and he

resolved to chance returning to London before the whole of the $5,000 he

had from Brea was gone. To London he went; he lived a few years in

extreme poverty, driven to all manner of miserable shifts, and at last

died. This man died who ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey,

so adding one more brilliant name to the long line of illustrious Lord

Chancellors from Thomas a Becket and Cardinal Wolsey down; but he,

hating his own soul, took the first step in wrongdoing, and, instead of

resting in the mighty Abbey and bequeathing his dust as a precious

legacy to succeeding generations, perished forlorn and alone, and was

buried in a pauper's grave.

[Illustration: GARRAWAY'S.]