Then father died, and Travers was instructed to cable my
uncle. He knew that the man who answered that summons was an impostor;
but he did not know, until they had admitted it to him that night, that
both my father and my uncle had been murdered, and that I, too, was to
be made away with."
She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out bitterly.
"No; you don't understand, even yet, the patient, ingenious deviltry
of those fiends. It was they, at the time the new will was drawn, who
offered to buy out my real uncle's sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettled
district in Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand.
My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered on his way there.
And in his place, assuming his name, appeared the man who has been
posing as my uncle ever since. Do you begin to see! For five years
they were patiently working out their plans, for five years before
my father's death that man lived and became known and accepted, and
ESTABLISHED himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now why he cabled us to
postpone our visit? He ran very little risk. The chances were one in a
thousand that any of his few acquaintances in Australia would ever run
across him in New Zealand; and besides, he was chosen because it
seems there was a slight resemblance between him and the real Henry
LaSalle--enough, with his changed mode of living and more elaborate and
pretentious surroundings, to have enabled him to carry through a bluff
had it become necessary.
Pages:
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534