"It would take too long to tell you all that passed between us," she went on hurriedly."The man was frankly a criminal--but not to the extent of murder.And in that respect, at least, he was honest with himself.Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I am as good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two men downstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape.He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had never seen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the other man he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an assumed name.He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he had begun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gone from one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money.He knew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band of criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, in a sense--a probationary sense, as he put it--a member; but he had never come into direct contact with them--he had received all his orders and instructions through Clarke.He had been told by Clarke that he was to cultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence, to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reach the position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney--and all this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father on a large scale.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.He had all of my uncle's papers; and the Crime Club furnished him with every detail of our lives here.I forgot to say, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached New Zealand all his letters were typewritten--an evidence in father's eyes that his brother had secured a position of some importance; as, indeed, from apparently unprejudiced sources, they took pains to assure father was a fact.This left them with only my uncle's signature to forge to the letters--not a difficult matter for them!
"Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated that he could do nothing, even if he had the inclination, which they had not for a moment imagined, and arrogant in the belief in their own power to put him out of the way in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all this to him that night when he brought up the issue of the real Henry LaSalle putting in an appearance sooner or later, and when they wanted him to smooth their path by releasing all documents where his power of attorney was involved.Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play? It was to put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry LaSalle.Not but that they were prepared with what would appear to be overwhelmingly convincing evidence to prove it if it were necessary; but if the man were accepted by the estate's lawyer there was little chance of any one else questioning his identity."She halted again by the table--and forced a smile, as her eyes met Jimmie Dale's.
"I am almost through, Jimmie.That night was a terrible one for both of us.Travers' life was not worth a moment's purchase once they found him--and mine was only under reprieve until sufficient time to obviate suspicion should have elapsed after father's death.