The Cross-Cut | Page 2

and rested for a moment on the young man's knee.
"I wrote something to you, Boy, a day or so ago," he had said. "That little illness I had prompted me to do it. I--I thought it was only fair to you. After I 'm gone, look in the safe. You 'll find the combination on a piece of paper hidden in a hole cut in that old European history in the bookcase. I have your promise, I know--that you 'll not do it until after I 'm gone."
Now Thornton Fairchild was gone. But a message had remained behind; one which the patient lips evidently had feared to utter during life. The heart of the son began to pound, slow and hard, as, with the memory of that conversation, he turned toward the bookcase and unlatched the paneled door. A moment more and the hollowed history had given up its trust, a bit of paper scratched with numbers. Robert Fairchild turned toward the stairs and the small room on the second floor which had served as his father's bedroom.
There he hesitated before the little iron safe in the corner, summoning the courage to unlock the doors of a dead man's past. At last he forced himself to his knees and to the numerals of the combination.
The safe had not been opened in years; that was evident from the creaking of the plungers as they fell, the gummy resistance of the knob as Fairchild turned it in accordance with the directions on the paper. Finally, a great wrench, and the bolt was drawn grudgingly back; a strong pull, and the safe opened.
A few old books; ledgers in sheepskin binding. Fairchild disregarded these for the more important things that might lie behind the little inner door of the cabinet. His hand went forward, and he noticed, in a hazy sort of way, that it was trembling. The door was unlocked; he drew it open and crouched a moment, staring, before he reached for the thinner of two envelopes which lay before him. A moment later he straightened and turned toward the light. A crinkling of paper, a quick-drawn sigh between clenched teeth; it was a letter; his strange, quiet, hunted-appearing father was talking to him through the medium of ink and paper, after death.
Closely written, hurriedly, as though to finish an irksome task in as short a space as possible, the missive was one of several pages,--pages which Robert Fairchild hesitated to read. The secret--and he knew full well that there was a secret--had been in the atmosphere about him ever since he could remember. Whether or not this was the solution of it, Robert Fairchild did not know, and the natural reticence with which he had always approached anything regarding his father's life gave him an instinctive fear, a sense of cringing retreat from anything that might now open the doors of mystery. But it was before him, waiting in his father's writing, and at last his gaze centered; he read:
My son:
Before I begin this letter to you I must ask that you take no action whatever until you have seen my attorney--he will be yours from now on. I have never mentioned him to you before; it was not necessary and would only have brought you curiosity which I could not have satisfied. But now, I am afraid, the doors must be unlocked. I am gone. You are young, you have been a faithful son and you are deserving of every good fortune that may possibly come to you. I am praying that the years have made a difference, and that Fortune may smile upon you as she frowned on me. Certainly, she can injure me no longer. My race is run; I am beyond earthly fortunes.
Therefore, when you have finished with this, take the deeds inclosed in the larger envelope and go to St. Louis. There, look up Henry F. Beamish, attorney-at-law, in the Princess Building. He will explain them to you.
Beyond this, I fear, there is little that can aid you. I cannot find the strength, now that I face it, to tell you what you may find if you follow the lure that the other envelope holds forth to you.
There is always the hope that Fortune may be kind to me at last, and smile upon my memory by never letting you know why I have been the sort of man you have known, and not the jovial, genial companion that a father should be. But there are certain things, my son, which defeat a man. It killed your mother--every day since her death I have been haunted by that fact; my prayer is that it may not kill you, spiritually, if not physically. Therefore is it not better that it remain behind a cloud until such time