A Bid for Fortune - Guy Boothby (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

clerk returned, and begged me to follow him, which I did. At the end of a long passage we passed through a curtained doorway, and I stood in the presence of the chief partner, Mr. Dawson. He was a short, podgy man, with white whiskers and a bald head, and painfully precise.

“I have great pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Hatteras,” he said, as I came to an anchor in a chair. “You have noticed our advertisement, I presume?”

“I saw it this morning,” I answered. “And it is on that account I am here.”

“One moment before we proceed any further. Forgive what I am about to say⁠—but you will see yourself that it is a point I am compelled not to neglect. Can you convince me as to your identity?”

“Very easily,” I replied, diving my hand into my breast-pocket and taking out some papers. “First and foremost, here is my bankbook. Here is my card-case. And here are two or three letters addressed to me by London and Sydney firms. The Hon. Sylvester Wetherell, Colonial Secretary, will be glad, I’m sure, to vouch for me. Is that sufficient to convince you?”

“More than sufficient,” he answered, smiling. “Now let me tell you for what purpose we desired you to call upon us.” Here he opened a drawer and took out a letter.

“First and foremost, you must understand that we are the Sydney agents of Messrs Atwin, Dobbs & Forsyth, of Furnival’s Inn, London. From them, by the last English mail, we received this letter. I gather that you are the son of James Dymoke Hatteras, who was drowned at sea in the year 1880⁠—is that so?”

“I am.”

“Your father was the third son of Sir Edward Hatteras of Murdlestone, in the county of Hampshire?”

“He was.”

“And the brother of Sir William, who had one daughter Gwendoline Mary?”

“That is so.”

“Well, Mr. Hatteras, it is my sad duty to inform you that within a week of your departure from England your cousin, the young lady just referred to, was drowned by accident in a pond near her home and that her father, who had been ailing for some few days, died of heart disease on hearing the sad tidings. In that case, so my correspondents inform me, there being no nearer issue, you succeed to the title and estates⁠—which I also learn are of considerable value, including the house and park, ten farms, and a large amount of house property, a rent roll of fifteen thousand a year, and accumulated capital of nearly a hundred thousand pounds.”

“Good gracious! Is this really true?”

“Quite true. You can examine the letter for yourself.”

I took it up from the table and read it through, hardly able to believe my eyes.

“You are indeed a man to be envied, Mr. Hatteras,” said the lawyer. “The title is an old one, and I believe the property is considered one of the best in that part of England.”

“It is! But I can hardly believe that it is really mine.”

“There is no doubt about that, however. You are a baronet as certainly as I am a lawyer. I presume you would like us to take whatever action is necessary in the matter?”

“By all means. This afternoon I am leaving Sydney, for a week or two, for the Islands. I will sign any papers when I come back.”

“I will bear that in mind. And your address in Sydney is⁠—”

“Care of the Honourable Sylvester Wetherell, Potts Point.”

“Thank you. And, by the way, my correspondents have desired me on their behalf to pay in to your account at the Oceania the sum of five thousand pounds. This I will do today.”

“I am obliged to you. Now I think I must be going. To tell the truth, I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels.”

“Oh, you will soon get over that.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Sir Richard.”

With that, I bade him farewell, and went out of the office, feeling quite dazed by my good fortune. I thought of the poor idiot whose end had been so tragic, and of the old man as I had last seen him, shaking his fist at me from the window of the house. And to think that that lovely home was mine, and that I was a baronet, the principal representative of a race as old as any in the countryside! It seemed too wonderful to be true!

Hearty were the congratulations showered upon me at Pott Point, you may be sure, when I told my tale, and my health was drunk at lunch with much goodwill. But our minds were too much taken up with the arrangements for our departure that afternoon to allow us to think very much of anything else. By two o’clock we were ready to leave the house, by half-past we were on board the yacht, at three fifteen the anchor was up, and a few moments later we were ploughing our way down the harbour.

Our search for Phyllis had reached another stage.

V The Islands and What We Found There

To those who have had no experience of the South Pacific the constantly recurring beauties of our voyage would have seemed like a foretaste of Heaven itself. From Sydney, until the Loyalty Group lay behind us, we had one long spell of exquisite weather. By night under the winking stars, and by day in the warm sunlight, our trim little craft ploughed her way across smooth seas, and our only occupation was to promenade or loaf about the decks and to speculate as to the result of the expedition upon which we had embarked.

Having sighted the Isle of Pines we turned our bows almost due north and headed for the New Hebrides. Every hour our impatience was growing greater. In less than two days, all being well, we should be at our destination, and twenty-four hours after that, if our fortune proved in the ascendant, we ought to be on our way back with Phyllis in our possession once more. And what this would mean to me I