"Quincy, I am glad to see you," exclaimed Mr. Merry. "I was on the point of sending a messenger out to Cambridge to have you come right in. Something very strange has happened this morning and it may be a question which even your friend Miss Dana may find worthy of her skill in attempting to solve."

"What is it, Uncle Harry? There is nothing I love like a mystery, and Miss Dana often talks her cases over with me."

"This is a mystery in which you and your mother in England may be greatly concerned; but before letting her know anything about it I think it better to find out what it really means. For you to understand the matter clearly, I will have to go back a number of years. In your father's will your grandfather and Dr. Paul Culver were named as executors. After a while the doctor wished to resign, and as you know I was appointed in his place."

"Yes, and you have always done more than your duty, and I am truly grateful. But, pardon me for interrupting you. Please go on."

"To make myself thoroughly familiar with all the details of my trust, I went over all the old accounts. When your father and mother started on that unfortunate trip to Europe, your father took with him some English gold, some bank notes, and, to last him for his further expenses while abroad, five bills of exchange, each for two hundred pounds, Sterling, a total of about five thousand dollars. These bills of exchange were drawn by his bank here in Boston, and in favour of the bank's agents in London. About six years ago I changed the deposits of your trust account to another bank. Until then I had always kept that five thousand still intact, as it was drawing fair interest, and as, you may not know, your mother has always had an idea that your father was not drowned. But, when I changed the account, it seemed foolish to leave that money still there, and as the bills of exchange had never been presented for payment, I had no trouble in having them cancelled, and receiving the money.

"But, and here is where the important part of the matter comes in for you, one of those bills of exchange, drawn over twenty-three years ago, has to-day been returned to the bank here in Boston from the London agents."

"Why, Uncle Harry," cried Quincy, "what can it mean? Is it possible that my father is still alive? I can't understand it, I am bewildered," and strong man as he was he was unnerved.

"Calm yourself, Quincy," said Harry Merry, "I am afraid that would be entirely too good news to be true, but at least it must mean that your father's body was found some time or other, and probably the bill of exchange got into the hands of some dishonest person who has cashed it."

"Have you got it here?"

"Yes," and Mr. Merry handed a paper to him.

"Is the signature that of my father?" asked Quincy turning the bill over, and looking at the various endors.e.m.e.nts on the back.

"I am not sure. If I were, there would be one great question solved, for he would never have put his name to it, of course, until he was ready to cash it. In a way it looks a little like his writing, but it may be, and I think it is, a rather bungling forgery. It is more than likely that in the wallet in which he kept the bills of exchange he may have had some papers to which he had signed his name, and the signature was copied from that."

"I want to show this to Miss Dana," said Quincy, "perhaps she can help me solve the problem. Have you got any paper with my father's signature to it?"

"Wait a few minutes, and I will see if I can find any in the old files."

After a good quarter of an hour, which to Quincy seemed as though it would never end, Mr. Merry came back, covered with dust, but with the required paper in his hand.

"A lawyer should never destroy a paper," said Mr. Merry, "and I am glad to say this firm never does. Here is a letter your father wrote to your grandfather nearly thirty years ago, and is dated from Mason's Corner.

Take it, and the bill of exchange with you. I hope you can solve the mystery, and let's pray it will turn out to mean that you are Quincy Adams Sawyer, Junior; but, my boy," and Harry put his hand on Quincy's shoulder, "do not build too many air castles on it. If you do, I am afraid you have a bitter disappointment before you."

Quincy immediately called on Mary Dana, and had a long talk with her about the matter. He told her all his conversation with Harry Merry and showed her the bill of exchange, and the signature of his father's which he knew to be genuine. After examining them both Mary said,

"In many ways, this looks like a very clever forgery. The characters are all made the same as in the signature to the letter,--notice the peculiar little twist to the S in the word Adams, but your father wrote a very firm, strong hand, and the writing on the bill of exchange is weaker and a little shaky. That is undoubtedly due partly to the fact that the signature on the bill of exchange is written with a very fine steel pen, while that in the letter was written with a quill. But, what makes me doubt the genuineness of the signature is this,--although the characters are practically the same on the two pieces of paper, your father's name in the letter is the writing of an educated man, that on the bill of exchange looks like the efforts of a man unaccustomed to write, probably through ignorance, but perhaps due to the fact that he has not held a pen for a long time."

"But, Mary," asked Quincy, "how are we going to find out about it, how can we learn who did sign it?"

"There are the endors.e.m.e.nts on the back. They are the only clues. Below your father's name appears that of Jonathan Drake; then that of Agostino Tombini, and, below that, Macquay Hooker. There is also the stamp of the London bank. Where the bill of exchange was cashed does not appear.

It is evident, however, that the last person who signed it before it reached the bank in London was Macquay Hooker. We will cable London now, and in the morning will have an answer. Be in to see me early, but, if I were you, I would hold myself in readiness to leave for Europe at a moment's notice. Is your work all finished at Cambridge?"

"Yes, I had my last examination yesterday, and I should leave for the summer in a few days. Cla.s.s Day is all that keeps me now, but I am perfectly willing to recall the invitations I have sent out, and can leave at any time."

On his return to his rooms Quincy told Tom what had happened.

"I had been intending to speak about our going abroad anyway this summer," said Quincy. "It's the style for college boys after being graduated to go to Europe. I want to see my mother and aunt, too. To be sure, I have had nice long, loving letters from them, and I've kept them fully posted as to my doings, but that doesn't quite come up to seeing them. Now, with this mystery on my hands, with all it may mean to me, I must go anyway. Will you come along with me?"

"If dad don't mind, I'll go."

"We'll run down to Fernborough for a day or two to say good-bye, if there is time, and you can see your father about it."

At ten o'clock the next morning, Quincy entered the office of the Isburn Detective Bureau.

"I have good news for you, Quincy," said Mary. "I have found out from London that Macquay Hooker is a banker in Rome, and I have cabled him, asking who the other two endorsers are. We should receive a reply by noon at the latest."

A good half hour before noon a messenger boy came in and handed Mary an envelope. She scanned the cablegram quickly, and handed it over to Quincy. It read, "Tombini banker, Drake American consul, Palermo, Sicily."

"You see," said Mary, with a smile, "matters are simplifying themselves considerably. I shall cable now to Drake at Palermo, and find out what I can about the original signer of the bill of exchange. This is Wednesday. The Gallia sails from here to England on Sat.u.r.day. You had better engage pa.s.sage, and make arrangements to go then. Come back late this afternoon, and I will tell you what has developed in the meantime."

After engaging a stateroom for Sat.u.r.day, Quincy returned to Cambridge, packed what things he needed for a couple of days, and with Tom came back to Boston, intending to go to Fernborough on the late train in the evening.

"The answer has just come," said Mary, when Quincy saw her later in the day, "but, I am sorry it is not as satisfactory as I could wish. Mr.

Drake is away from Palermo at present, and beyond the fact that a Quincy Adams Sawyer had registered at the consulate about a month ago and has since left the town, they seem to know nothing about the matter."

"Well," said Quincy, "we have a starting point anyway, and more than we had in Bob Wood's case in the beginning. I shall go directly to Fernborough Hall to see my mother for a day or so, but I think I will not mention the real reason for my trip abroad until I have found out more. I will tell her that Tom and I are anxious to get to the continent as soon as possible, and that we will return to England later on. Then we will go down through Italy to Sicily, and start in there tracing the signer of that bill of exchange."

"I think that is the best plan," said Mary. "In the meantime I will keep in close touch with Mr. Merry here, and if another one of those bills of exchange comes in I will cable you, care of your bankers in London, the names of the endorsers."

"Mary," said Quincy as he took her hand at parting, and held it perhaps a little longer than was really necessary, "I can't thank you for all you have done for me. I am truly grateful, and wish there were some way in which I could show you my true appreciation."

"Your thanks are all I want. Besides, you may be the means of bringing a very clever criminal to justice," and the smile left her face as she said it, "for I am afraid that is all you will find. You must not hope too much for what seems the impossible."

On their way to Fernborough that evening, Quincy and Tom decided it would be best not to mention the real object of their going to Europe, so Mr. Chripp thought it was only a pleasure trip. He did not object to his son going,--but he made one condition, that Tom should visit the village in old England in which he was born and bring him back a picture of the little thatched cottage in which Mr. Chripp had lived until the tales of high wages and better prospects in America had drawn him from his native land.

Quincy had said good-bye to all his relatives, friends, and acquaintances except Mr. Obadiah Strout. That gentleman should have no reason to say he had been snubbed.

When Quincy entered the store Mr. Strout was weighing some b.u.t.ter.

Quincy noticed that the wooden plate and a sheet of thick paper were put on the scales before the b.u.t.ter was cut from the tub.

"Well, what can I do for you, Master Sawyer?" said Strout when the customer who had paid thirty cents a pound for b.u.t.ter including wood and paper had departed.

"I came to say good-bye. I am going to Europe."

"I s'pose you'll like England with its 'ristocrats and kings so well that you won't come back to these ordinary United States."

Quincy knew that Mr. Strout wished he would stay in England, so he replied,

"Oh, no. I'm coming back sure. I know a little about weighing groceries and I've decided to come back and go into business."

"What good will your book larnin' do you then?"

"For one thing, they teach something besides dead languages in colleges nowadays. I studied moral philosophy, which points out the difference between right and wrong, between honesty and dishonesty, between fifteen ounces of b.u.t.ter and one ounce of wood and paper, and sixteen ounces of b.u.t.ter to the pound."

With this parting shot, Quincy joined Tom in front of the store and they started for Boston, from which port the _Gallia_ was to sail two days later.

CHAPTER XXII