by Howard Mason
Glumly he gazed out of the broad window next to the capacious chair in which he sat, which looked down on the morning traffic pouring, this sunny June morning, past 47th and Broadway, far, far below; then, withdrawing his gaze, he contemplated himself glumly, across the thickly green carpeted and mahogany-furnished office, in the tall cheval mirror fastened to the closet door in the opposite wall, seeing only, however, just a young man of 28 or so, with steel grey eyes, who, not so terribly long ago, as it seemed to him, had been wearing a blue naval coast patrol uniform, but who today, now that the war was over and gone, was dressed in a brisk pepper-and-salt suit, and four-in-hand tie with a colorful plaid of just such a degree as a modern New Yorker might safely wear.
Oliver Tydings—of Tydings and Plenderleith, Attorneys-at-Law—was, in the meantime, gazing puzzledly at Barkstone, tapping thoughtfully on his glass-topped desk with the fingers of one hand, adjusting with the other a small bronze ashtray to a better position, moving slightly the little onyx desk clock whose hands now stood at 9:01 o’clock.
“What on earth do you mean, Boyce?” he asked curiously. “About knowing ‘smart-alecky wisecracks’—and handing them out free gratis? Just because you’ve run your grandfather’s poky, stodgy little real-estate business for 6 years, there at the 242nd Street station of the Broadway Subway—or 6 years minus your year-and-a-quarter time out while serving on that Navy coast patrol vessel—doesn’t mean you can’t speak—as a young man might—any longer. Real-estate men aren’t supposed to be old fogies, are they? And besides, the matter has nothing whatsoever to do with your grandfather’s will, so far as I see it.”
“Oh, no?” was Boyce Barkstone’s sepulchral rejoinder, the while he gazed oddly, in turn, at the other. “Well, listen to this little incident then.” He paused. “The last time I saw Grandfather alive—which, according to the date on this will, was the morning of the day he drew the will—I said, inadvertently, and not knowing I was addressing him—it was a beastly comedy of errors, understand—a ghastly mistake—a case of—of two other men, as you might put it—anyway, I said to him—inadvertently and unwittingly: ‘Nuts to you, you old fool!’”
“Oh-oh!” echoed the attorney. And gazed, understanding written on his face for the first time, at a large white tag, attached to a tiny white cotton tobacco bag sealed with wax, placed on the desk, the uppermost side of which tag bore handwriting which read:
Beans to YOU, sonnyboy, as per my will!
“And so that’s what’s back of his bitter bequest, eh, Boyce?” he echoed, “That you’d said to him—to your own grandfather—who had befriended you—‘Nuts to you’—and called him an old fool to boot?” He frowned deprecatingly, though still puzzledly, unbelievingly. “And so you said that to him, in the morning? And he comes straight down here, in the late afternoon, and makes out a will which leaves to you—”
“Beans—yes!” retorted the younger man frankly. “The perfect comeback! Nuts to him—from me; beans to me—from him! Of all the prime snappy retorts in all History, this—this wins the hand-painted rolling-pin. Oh, not because I got cut out of his estate—no!—I give you my word on that—but because he should even die thinking he had to slap me down. Why, Mr. Tydings, those words from my mouth were all due to a miserable grotesque mistake in which I didn’t even know I was addressing Grandfather—didn’t even know I was talking in his direction.”
The other man passed a hand helplessly over his brow.
“We-ell,” he said undecidedly, not wholly and unreservedly accepting such a statement, “I—I don’t just get it, of course; but if you didn’t know it—well, it looks as though your little mistake—‘error’—or call it what you will—has tossed a hundred thousand dollars squarely into the laps of a bunch of crackpots down there in Greenwich Village that call themselves by the hifaluting title of the Academy for the Proving of Social Theories—and who don’t even need the bequest, thanks to the fact that that fool ‘Corporation Not for Profit’ already has a hundred and fifty thousand in its treasury due to a bequest from old Beachcroft, the one member they had who was rich, and thanks to the more important fact that they never ‘prove’ any social theories except with words, words, words—which cost absolutely nothing.”
“I know—I know,” nodded Boyce Barkstone. “But again, I tell you, my saying ‘Nuts to you, you old fool!’ to Grandfather was—was a mistake.”
“Mistake I’d rather say it was,” commented the lawyer dryly and skeptically. “And a ‘mistake’—as you persist in terming it—that’s cost you a hundred thousand, Boyce. For Balhatchet Barkstone certainly had nobody in the world to—”
He broke off, and withdrawing one of the drawers of his desk took forth a large photograph.
“Of course you have one of these, I suppose—it’s the last one, I think, the old gentleman had taken. He gave me this one a couple of months back.”
“No,” said Boyce interestedly, catching a glimpse of the front of it, “I haven’t. He ran out of copies before he got as far as me—then the photographer burned up, and no more could be gotten.” Curiously and sadly he contemplated his grandfather, who, when living, had been his only existent relative—his grandfather whom he would never again see in this world. The photograph showed Balhatchet Barkstone seated in a huge hand-carved throne chair—a little and exceedingly slight-looking man, showing plainly all the 76 years which had been his when he had died, with black string tie etched sharply against his white shirt—a combination of clothing he always wore, rain or shine, Sundays or weekdays!—so frail in stature one would imagine any breeze would have blown him away—his white hair so thin on top that he seemed practically bald. Either his eyes held a twinkle, else the twinkle was suggested by certain small radiating humorous wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, but at the same time, there was severity in the tightly compressed lids of those eyes, and in the somewhat tight line of his lips, which betokened one who brooked no discourtesy, laxness, weakness, follies nor foibles!
The lawyer set the photograph up on the back of his desk, against the wall, a bit apologetically, as does a man doing another man an honor after it is too late to mean anything.
“But as I was saying,” he resumed, “when I thought to fetch out this photo of him, Balhatchet Barkstone certainly had nobody in the world to leave his estate to but you, Boyce. Unless ’twas the old Negro—I’m referring to Josiah, of course—who, after all, has only been with him 10 years as it is. And I think he rewarded Josiah very handsomely for that 10 years of service—in that bequest of $10,000 cash, plus the full use of his bungalow up there on Van Cortlandt Park during the entire year of Probate—and then all the furnishings therein.”
Boyce Barkstone’s face was grim.
“It was Josiah who was the cause of my being cut off this way,” he said quietly.
“You mean,” queried the lawyer, “that he influenced your grandfather against you?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Boyce hastened to explain. “That’s the last thing on earth that faithful old Negro would ever do. No, it was because I thought I was talking to Josiah, when I said, ‘Nuts to you, you old fool!’—and was, instead, talking to Grandfather.”
The lawyer passed a hand helplessly over his chin. “Frankly, I don’t get it. It’s not like you, Boyce, to be insolent or—or uppity even with a Negro servant. It—but what on earth are the circumstances? If you don’t object to revealing them? After all, they’re water over the mill now, you know.”
“Water over the mill is right,” said Boyce Barkstone grimly. “And water that, believe it or not, Mr. Tydings, has swept away all possibilities whatsoever of my marrying the girl I love. For there just happens, you see, to be some damned peculiar complications in my getting cut off this way without a red penny. But I shan’t trouble you with ’em! No. But here are the circumstances of the little incident which has cost me $100,000 and, believe it or not, the swellest girl in the world.”
Chapter II
MISTAKE GROTESQUE
“Now just a minute,” said the lawyer, leaning forward, frowning. “Don’t forget that I’ve met that girl you were to marry, and talked with her, too, the several times she’s stopped off here, for you, with an abstract or something you wanted us to examine. And even though she’s one person who knows what the real Lap of Luxury is, she’s not the girl, if you ask me, to walk out on you just because you’ve failed to inherit. I’ll—I’ll stake my life on that. And so, when you speak of your failure to inherit any money as indubitably sweeping away your marria— Boyce, you’re not by any chance, are you, short in your accounts up there—in the business?”
“Ow-woo!” said Boyce Barkstone to himself, though without moving a muscle of his face. “Is that getting close! If he knew the curious facts of what’s wrong up there—” He broke off speculating to himself, and looked curiously toward the other. “The executors, who took over everything last night, haven’t said I was, have they?”
“We-ell—they haven’t had time to audit yet, remember. But that business of your grandfather’s was a business, you know—and audited completely, moreover, when you came back from the War and took over again, and you’re officially entered in its records as manager and treasurer—and so if you were short, I could understand your words— Now please don’t be offended—” He broke off helplessly.
Boyce Barkstone looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m not in the least offended. And I still say that this little disinheritance—or shall I call it bean-inheritance—has cost me that swell girl. Though why, I can’t just say. But I may also add that I haven’t stolen or embezzled a red cent—if that’s what you mean. Or—or even borrowed it. What I had reference to a few minutes back is just something—well—personal. I—I won’t attempt to go into it.” He stopped. And to himself only added, “He’ll be finding out soon enough, when they audit those books!”
The lawyer looked relieved.
“That’s fine. So tell me then—about this incident which you say has cost you your grandfather’s fortune and this girl. Which latter, of course, I refuse to believe.”
Boyce only shrugged his shoulders to that.
“Well, on the morning of June 1st,” he began, “which is, of course, 6 days ago—and the day, as it also appears, this will was drawn—you say your partner said it was drawn around 5 o’clock that day?—yes?—well, on that morning I was in the office, bag packed, ready to go to Frisco by the noon train and get the affidavit of that chap in the Golden Gate Hospital there, which would straighten out that quit claim on that Newark property. And which, incidentally, I got, and have turned over to the executors. So as I say, I was in the office, winding up details, and Grandfather was in there with me—a place he seldom or never came to—didn’t even keep a key to the place. We had been having a discussion about several matters, one being that he suggested that the place just be closed up during my absence—to which I was glad to accede, naturally, as I didn’t care to have some outside real-estater messing around with my books and records; the other point involved a little more dispute, for it was about a point of business policy. On which we both disagreed. And so we had a bit of discussion on it. Oh, nothing acrimonious, you understand—nothing acerbic—just a mere difference of opinion so far as I was concerned.
“We both left the office at the same time,” Boyce continued, “after I had put up a card in the door saying, ‘Closed Temporarily till Further Notice.’ I locked up, and we parted then, Grandfather saying he was going over to see the Horticultural Exhibit in Bronx Park which opened that morning, for—”
“What,” queried the lawyer, “made your grandfather so interested, ever and always, and so well versed, in flowers, vegetables and grains? He was always going to all sorts of agricultural exhibits.”
“The fact, I suppose,” Boyce ventured, “of his having himself grown up on a farm. Coupled, of course,” he added, a bit sourly, “with his eternal interest in practically everything in the Universe except his own real-estate business, which he really operated, you know, just to keep an old man’s name alive and active, and—I’ll admit—to give me a respectable job.” He waited politely to see whether there were to be more interruptions, then went on with his story. “Well, Grandfather told me goodbye and told me to wire him only in case the chap failed, for any reason, to deliver the affidavit. After which, I went on over to the bungalow to see Josiah. For Josiah, let me explain, thought he had a long lost sister in San Francisco, and wanted me to look her up for him; and I wanted to get from him all possible leads he had to her. The leads were very slight—I may anticipate a bit here and say that I found her all right!—only she’s been dead 30 years! All right. But, over there at the house, Josiah asked my advice on another matter. A matter concerning—”
Boyce paused a second, to get at his facts from the right end thereof, then continued with his story.
“It seems,” he went on, “that a new Negro had come in on that block facing the park—some old fellow, far, far older than Josiah, and who was acting as houseman or valet or something to some new residents. And this old fellow had fastened on poor Josiah to bait. It seems that, old as he was, he considered himself very much a chicken—wore a loud checked suit, a big glass diamond pin, sporty yellow shoes, and acted like a colt, trying to win the affections of all the yellow girls who work as servant girls along that quaint street facing the park. Josiah had, unfortunately, led with his chin, early in the game, by chiding the sporty old coon and saying to him, with a sniff, ‘W’y you don’ leab all dem young gals alone?’ The old sport had come back at Josiah so quick it had taken Josiah’s breath away; for the ancient roué had said, as near as I can figure it out: ‘Go blow yo’ tin trumpet elsewhah, yo’ moronic quatah-wit’—to which, Josiah, being, as you probably know, an old-fashioned Negro, and very slow-witted, couldn’t think of a single comeback. And every time, after that, that the sporty old Negro met Josiah, he handed Josiah some kind of a hot-shot. So Josiah wanted me to give him—Josiah—some sort of an all-round comeback to hand this old smart-aleck next time—and every time—the latter dished out a crack. Well, I figured I knew just the proper comeback to ’most any sort of crack, and I had just finished saying, to Josiah, in the parlor there, ‘All right. You say to him, next time he hands you any kind of a hot-shot, this:—’ when the phone rang. ‘Hold ever’thing, Josiah,’ I said, ‘till I answer that call, and I’ll be right back in and give you your half-Nelson for this old Senegambian.’ With which I went to answer that phone. It was, however, a wrong number. But I was looking up at the hall clock as I answered it—my own watch had stopped, you see—and I was knocked galley west at the time, for I saw that I was going to miss my confounded train sure unless I got pronto over to that subway—if not quicker. And so, grabbing up my handbag in the hall, out of the house I piled—like nobody’s business—like a hayrack on fire—without even saying hail, goodbye, nor farewell to Josiah. Leaving him, to all intents and purposes, waiting in the parlor for my words of wisdom. But, halfway up the block, a political sound wagon was going by, broadcasting some radio program, and just then its loud-speaking radio was giving the correct time. And I saw I was a full half hour to the good—I realized then that the confounded hour hand of that old hall clock must have gotten loose again—and had fallen by a half hour. So I turned and went back, in order to complete, for Josiah, what I had broken off. I hadn’t, it seems even drawn the door tight when I lammed out, so it hadn’t locked, and in I went—on my own steampower—went down the hall the half dozen feet or so to the parlor door, stuck my head into the parlor, saw Josiah’s reflection moving in the half-swung-open polished door of the back parlor where he’d presumably repaired meanwhile to do something, and shouted out, loud enough for him to hear: ‘Nuts to you, you old fool!’ And went.”
“And,” the lawyer said, nodding gravely, “’twas, of course, your grandfather in that other room? And not Josiah? But how—when you
r grandfather had said—”
“Yes,” declared Boyce sadly. “It was Grandfather. As I discovered a minute later myself. Though too late! He had evidently changed his mind about going to Bronx Park early, and had retraced his steps over to the house, but had come in the back way. And Josiah, as I also found out shortly, had gone out into the back yard. All of which I discovered only after I’d gone out again—the second time, that is—drawn the door to, and gone down the street. For, looking back, about a quarter block down, I saw Grandfather’s white head bobbing about in the back parlor window, and at the same time saw Josiah out in the back yard, in his shirtsleeves, doing something. At which I said to myself: ‘My God, I hope Grandfather didn’t think I was peeved about our little discussion, and said that to him?’”
“But why didn’t you go back,” demanded the attorney, “and explain?”
“I did! But couldn’t walk into the house, because the front door was locked. So I rang. But Grandfather wouldn’t open. I rang again and again, in fact. I saw him peering out through the thick lace curtains, but he wouldn’t open. So I knew he was angry as hell. And that, if I expected to make that train at all, I could do nothing but write him, on the way, and explain.”
“Well, did you?” asked the lawyer puzzledly.
“I did. In a penciled note, written on the train. Which, damn it, I found yesterday at my room on Waldo Avenue, after flying back in order to be at the funeral, returned as ‘No such street.’ For I’d had a mind slip, and written ‘Van Cortland Parkway.’ And the overly officious mail clerk who returned it to me on that mere technicality has cost me plenty.” He was silent.
The lawyer too. And regretfully so, plainly. Then he spoke.
“He came down, around 3:30 or 4 that afternoon, with blood in his eye. His spiritual eye, of course, I mean! As I’ve told you, however, I wasn’t here myself. But he found Alex in, and insisted on drawing up a will. And did! And named MacKinlock and MacKinlock, those private bankers who so often serve as estate auditors, bankers, and executors, as Administrators and Executors, since Alex, of course, told him we here meticulously refrain from that sort of thing because of the enmities it creates. And your grandfather deposited the original of his will, as now you also know, safe and tight, with MacKinlock Brothers late that same day.”
