Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 27, No. 3. Whole No. 148, March 1956

Of More Value Than Sparrows by Melville Davisson Post[3]

Alas, there are too few tales of Uncle Abner, one of the truly great detectives of all time; but if there is one Virginian gentleman and scholar who could substitute for Uncle Abner, and do his name proud, it is Mr. Post’s other great humanitarian, Colonel Braxton.

Colonel Braxton was profoundly puzzled.

It was afternoon and he had made a considerable journey.

The house sat on a hill in a grove of trees, with only a path to reach it. The unused country road below ran through a forest to the little railway station at the distant end of the valley.

Colonel Braxton came up the path alone to the house.

Not a soul was to be seen, and opening an unlatched door on the portico he went in.

It was a library that he entered, a great room, the four walls of which were filled with books on open shelves to the height of a man’s shoulder.

But no one had ever used it.

The man who built it by political accident had been a senator, and for appearance had filled this room with government reports, gathered at no cost, and of no interest to any living creature.

The earth had finally received him, and the later occupant had acquired the property at the sale that followed. He had made no change in the room, for no book intrigued him. He had permitted the volumes to remain, as one permits a permanent decoration in his house. No hand had ever removed a book from its shelf, and they became with time, like the beautiful walnut paneling above them, a part of the four walls.

There was a heavy, long, old walnut writing desk sitting near a window, with a worn upholstered chair. This desk the late owner used for his papers and accounts.

Colonel Braxton had stopped beside this desk as he came in.

The drawers had been pulled out, and the contents left in confusion. In the partly open drawer below the writing desk, a big pistol of an early model was half concealed. Colonel Braxton took it up for a moment, and then replaced it. He touched nothing else and went on to the middle of the room. Here another thing caught his eye, and he remained unmoving, his hands behind him, his big shoulders thrown forward, his face fixed in concerned reflection.

He was profoundly puzzled.

Two things had happened on this morning in strange sequence:

A girl had come into his office and asked him to make this journey in the interest of her affairs, and then, just as he was setting out, a message had arrived from this same house, asking him to come at once.

There could be no collusion in these two events, as they were from opposing interests.

To Colonel Braxton their identity in time was the mere coincidence of chance. Another in the practice of the law might believe that opposing interests raced here for the option of his professional services. But in the obscurity that surrounded these events the colonel thought he saw the dim outline of a definite purpose.

The owner of the estate, Marshall Lurty, had been dead and buried ten days. He had come here from New Orleans, bought this house and lands at the sale of the deceased senator’s effects, and had maintained the outdoor, leisurely life of a country gentleman.

He lived alone. No relative appeared until death removed him; then came the brother and this girl, as though they had winged out of distant countries, with no knowledge that either was on the way.

Of his dead client Colonel Braxton had no foreknowledge. But of this brother he had got on occasion a suggestive hint. The colonel had been attorney for the dead man in some simple matters, had seen him now and then, and had been in this house. It was in the chance vagaries of the dead man’s conversation * that he had learned a little about the brother...

There was a slight sound, and, turning swiftly, Colonel Braxton saw the new occupant before him.

He had entered softly through the open doorway at the attorney’s back. And at once, when one saw the man, one understood that method of approach — the instinct of caution, as though he were accustomed to subterranean maneuvers.

But, also, at the sight of him a doubt departed.

He was what he claimed to be, the dead man’s brother. The likeness was unmistakable. Here was no imposter. But this man was sinister, as though he might have received the last heavy dregs of evil lying in the blood of his race.

He was big, like his dead brother; but he looked soft, like a mushroom fattened in tropic cellars — a poisonous mushroom! And Colonel Braxton remembered the hint in the dead man’s talk — counselor to doubtful enterprises, cunning, untrustworthy, and dangerous.

The stranger addressed the attorney with a courteous introduction.

He was Caleb Lurty, whom doubtless his brother, Marshall Lurty, had mentioned. He was concerned in the settlement of the dead man’s estate. He had sent for Colonel Braxton in order to make a certain inquiry. Would he be seated?

He crossed then to the big old walnut desk, and sat down behind it. Colonel Braxton replied with a conventional rejoinder, but remained standing, with his hands behind him.

Mr. Caleb Lurty seemed, for some moments, as though uncertain how the conversation should be opened.

Then he put this query: “Colonel Braxton,” he said, “you have acted as attorney for my brother?”

“Yes.”

“He has consulted with no other?”

“No other,” replied Colonel Braxton.

The man gave a little whistling sigh. There came a certain resolution into his face.

“Then you can settle an important point.”

He paused as though in reflection, and then got up.

“Pardon me a moment, sir,” he said. “I will show you a daguerreotype of my brother and myself taken together, as an evidence of my identity.”

He went out, and in his absence Colonel Braxton moved toward the object on the wall that had caught his eye when he first entered the library. He was back in the middle of the room, however, when Lurty returned.

Paying scant attention to the old picture that Lurty had brought with him, he said, “I have no doubt of your identity. You are Caleb Lurty.”

The man went back to his chair behind the desk. He seemed to gather himself together, as if to launch some pointed question. Then, as though the long habit of indirection prevailed, he turned obliquely.

“My brother doubtless spoke of me in discussing his affairs?”

“He mentioned you,” replied Colonel Braxton.

“As his brother, the only member of his family living?”

“Among other things,” replied the attorney, in a quiet drawl, “he also said that.”

Mr. Caleb Lurty repeated three of those Delphic words softly to himself... “Among other things!... Ah.”

He hesitated, then went on: “You would know then that I am his sole heir at law.”

“At law!” Colonel Braxton’s voice went sharply up.

“Why, yes,” the man repeated, “at law. It is by law that estates descend and are inherited. Does not Mr. Jefferson’s Statute of Descents name the heirs who inherit in their proper order? If a son dies unmarried, his entire estate goes to his father; if the father be not living, then it goes to the mother, brothers, and sisters equally; if the mother be also dead, and but one brother be alive, that brother takes. Do I not state the law correctly?”

“You state it like a judge,” replied Colonel Braxton. “It is Mr. Jefferson’s Statute of Descents, and I fear it gives the world a false idea of Virginia’s value of a mother.”

He turned about, his voice again in its lengthened drawl: “Upon what theory of justice, Mr. Lurty, could such a law be founded? In what manner is our paternal ancestor of greater value to us, that a child’s estate should go to the father, while the mother who brought him into the world takes nothing?”

“Upon the theory, sir,” said Mr. Caleb Lurty, “that the man made the fortune.”

“Upon the theory, rather,” replied Colonel Braxton, “that the man made the laws!”

He shrugged his shoulders and looked about the room.

“When I consider,” he added, “how our paternal ancestors thus concerned themselves with such little, covert precautions in their own selfish interest, I am obliged to believe that any generous and noble impulses in us are inherited from the other side.

“Observe, sir, if you please, the injustice of these selfish laws that our worthy fathers wrote down in their statutes. If the wife dies, the husband takes her whole estate; but if the husband dies, the wife takes only a third portion of his lands for her life. And it may happen, sir, that the foundation of the husband’s fortune came to him as a marriage portion with his wife. Nevertheless, it passes on to others, and she gets but a third! In caring for himself, Mr. Caleb Lurty, our paternal ancestor, in his laws, neglected no precaution.”

Colonel Braxton went on, his drawling voice sinking to a soft cadence: “And in a further instance: If a child were born out of wedlock, observe how our fathers, in their laws, got themselves clear of that. Such a child could not inherit their estates — they saw to that. It could inherit from its mother — they conceded this generous privilege. But the father’s money and lands were exempt from such a claimant.”

Again Colonel Braxton paused. Then he added a final sentence: “And so, Mr. Caleb Lurty, when you ask me if you are your brother’s sole heir at law, I have repeated those legal words, ‘at law!’ That is to say, sir, if Marshall Lurty’s estate is to pass by operation of law, it goes to you.”

The man behind the long, heavy walnut desk sat back and looked at Colonel Braxton. He did not seem wholly relieved by this conclusive verdict. He reflected as upon a doubtful matter.

Finally he spoke: “You know about this child?”

“I do,” replied Colonel Braxton.

The big pasty-colored creature leaned over and put his elbow on the table.

“It was a youthful indiscretion of my brother’s. But there was no marriage. The eloping parties were too [young; no court would grant them a license. The girl was sent to distant relatives and died at the daughter’s birth. The child took the mother’s name. It was never recognized in any legal manner by my brother. The thing was hushed, forgotten, dropped out of human knowledge.”

Colonel Braxton interrupted.

“Precisely,” he said. “Out of human knowledge.”

Mr. Caleb Lurty looked up sharply. “What do you mean, sir?”

Colonel Braxton made a vague gesture. His voice drawled in an idle monotony.

“I was thinking,” he said, “of a knowledge somewhat larger — I was, in fact, thinking of a verse in the Gospel of St. Luke.”

“The Gospel of St. Luke!” echoed Lurty. “What has the Gospel of St. Luke got to do with this?”

“It might have a good deal to do with it,” replied Colonel Braxton. “A good deal to do with it before this thing is ended. Is not Marshall Lurty’s daughter of more value than many I sparrows?”

The big man behind the desk got up. He took a turn about his chair, replaced it, and sat down. In that instant he decided to face the thing he feared.

“Colonel Braxton,” he said, “I have sent for you to inquire upon a certain point. Did you ever write out a form of will for my brother, Marshall Lurty?”

There was profound concern in the thick voice.

Colonel Braxton replied at once and with no equivocation.

“I did not,” he said.

“Did my brother ever consult you about a will?”

“He did not.”

“Or in any manner about the distribution of his estate at death?”

The questions were volleyed at the lawyer.

And again Colonel Braxton answered with his formula: “He did not.”

Mr. Caleb Lurty relaxed, and for a moment his heavy body seemed to heap up in the chair as though devitalized. He was like one escaped out of a peril, and breathless from it. This was the thing he feared. This was the thing that alone concerned him. This was the reason for his message to the man before him. It was to make certain whether or not his brother’s lawyer had any knowledge of a will! And now that he was certain, the pressure of fear lying on his back was lifted.

He was free!

He had hesitated before an irrevocable act, lest in this attorney’s hands there might be collateral evidence. Counselor to doubtful enterprises, as the dead man had defined him, he was habituated to an excess of caution. He knew that when an irrevocable act was done, it could not be undone. But when one knew, indirections could be given up. One could go forward with a decisive unconcern.

He now spoke sharply and with decision: “Then my brother’s estate descends to me by operation of law, and I take it.”

He got on his feet firmly, like a man ashore out of treacherous waters.

“And Marshall Lurty’s daughter?” replied Colonel Braxton. “Shall she take nothing?”

There came an ugly sneer into the man’s face.

“The law will give her nothing, and I will give her less!”

Colonel Braxton looked vaguely about the room.

“It is not the law that gives,” he said. “The law permits one to take. It is the owner who gives.”

“And am I not the one to take?” cried Mr. Caleb Lurty, in some heat.

“You are the heir, as the letter of the law reads,” replied Colonel Braxton.

“And do I not take?”

“You take,” replied the lawyer, “if your brother has not already given.” He paused; his eyes wandered about the room. His voice dropped to its leisurely drawl. He shifted his weight a little, like a man at ease.

“Mr. Caleb Lurty,” he said, “it is a strange world. There is something behind it that is hard to fool. Human ingenuity moves with every sly precaution, and by some accident of chance, as it seems to us, the very subtleties of these precautions trip us.

“Observe, sir, if you please, what has happened here. This morning Marshall Lurty’s daughter came to me, and against all right, against all justice, against all honor, I was forced to say that she was not her father’s heir, and that the law distributing the estate would give her nothing. But I undertook to see you, in the hope that you might be moved by humane considerations outside the law, and so at least divide your brother’s property with his daughter. As I was setting out, your message reached me, and it cheered me, Mr. Caleb Lurty, for I reflected that perhaps you also were considering such an act of justice.” His eyes moved slowly from Caleb Lurty’s face to his feet. “When I looked you over I realized that this hope was foolish!”

He went on. The big putty-colored man standing behind the walnut desk neither moved nor spoke. His habit of caution held. He would hear, first, what this thing was that threatened.

“But what happened?... Look, sir, if you please, what happened.”

The attorney’s voice moved distinctly, although unhurried.

“When I entered this house, I was certain that your brother had died intestate. I had no knowledge of any existing will, and all my answers to your interrogations were precisely true. Marshall Lurty had never consulted me about the distribution of his estate, nor the form of any will, and no such testament had been lodged with me. And yet, Mr. Caleb Lurty,” his voice went up sharp and decisive on the words, “I now have such a paper in my possession: Marshall Lurty’s will, written by himself, and bequeathing his estate, real and personal, to his daughter!”

And putting his hand into the bosom of his coat, he drew out a folded paper.

And for once — for a single instant in his cautious life — the man by the desk was toppled off his balance.

“You got it out of that book!” he cried.

Then, as though he caught swiftly at the words to get them back, he brought his hand up sharply over his I open mouth. But the words were out. And Colonel Braxton repeated them in his even voice.

“Out of that book,” he said, indicating one on a shelf before him. “I got it out of that book while you were absent seeking your confirmatory picture. And I have it properly in my possession, for I am named in the closing line as executor.”

Colonel Braxton went on, unhurried, like one in a leisurely explanation of some ordinary and trivial event, while the other stood, his hand clenched over his open mouth, his eyes and face fixed in desperate introspection.

“Mr. Caleb Lurty,” he said, “I have had some experience with men who contemplate a criminal act, and their precautions. And during our conversation I understand precisely what you had in mind. Only the fool destroys an important paper in the moment that he finds it. A clever person, a cautious person, like yourself, takes no such chance. He conceals it, and sets about to discover what collateral evidences may lie about to indicate that such a paper exists. And so, when you found this will among your brother’s papers, you concealed it in that book and sent for me, to discover what I knew, seeing that I was mentioned as the executor in it.”

Colonel Braxton continued, while the man before him remained in an attitude of indecision.

“That was clever of you, for it might happen that I, as attorney for your brother, had some knowledge of this will, a copy of some notes, upon which a suit for the daughter could be founded, if the will did not turn up. And it would be a wise precaution to learn beforehand precisely what you would have to face in such a suit. It would determine your defense and the advisability of some sort of compromise. And so you concealed the will in that book, and sent for me, before you burned it.

“In your extremity of caution, Mr. Caleb Lurty, you were thinking of a great many things. But there was one thing you did not think of.” The colonel paused a moment as if to lend emphasis to the words that followed. “You did not think how a volume on this wall, if displaced, would indicate that fact by the disturbed dust on the shelf. Well, I thought of that, and when I saw it, knowing what you had in mind, I deemed it advisable to see why that particular volume among all the others should have been disturbed.”

And now the big, wavering creature came to a decision, as though the submerged desperado in him rose, scattering its disguises. Caleb Lurty’s hand moved toward the half-open drawer in the desk before him. He looked the lawyer steadily in the face.

“You think, sir, that it was my plan to burn this paper. Well, I have changed my plan... You shall burn it for me.”

His voice was cold, measured, and exact.

“You will find a box of matches on the table before you. Strike one and hold the paper in the flame.”

He brought his hand up from behind the desk, the big pistol gripped in his fingers, and, extending his arm, he pointed the weapon at the lawyer.

Colonel Braxton did not change his posture. His voice, when he spoke, maintained its leisurely drawl.

“Mr. Caleb Lurty,” he said, “you have made one mistake that would get you in the penitentiary... Will you make another that would get you hanged?... If you could not conceal this folded paper, how are you going to conceal the body of a dead man? When you have shot, sir, what are you going to do after that? If I am a peril to you living, think what a menace I will be to you when I am dead... Think about that, sir. What are you going to do with the body? When you have fired, Mr. Caleb Lurty, you will have a dead man on your hands.”

For answer, the man took a watch out of his pocket and put it on top of the desk before him.

“I will give you three minutes by the watch,” he replied.

The long heavy barrel of the pistol remained leveled at the lawyer, the hammer back, Lurty’s big finger on the trigger. The hand holding the weapon now rested on the desk top beside the watch, as for ease and for a steady aim. The menace was determined and deadly beyond question.

Colonel Braxton put the folded paper into his pocket and faced the man stooping over the desk.

“Mr. Caleb Lurty,” he said, “since you give me this time of grace, I will use it in some suggestions for your benefit. The Commonwealth of Virginia will presently try you for this murder; and I cannot see a theory of defense. You are known to be here on this day in this house, and so no alibi would hold; no animus against your person could be shown in me, and so no plea of self-defense would stick. And all the vagaries of insanity would go to pieces before the definite and directing motive that moved you to the act. It will be a desperate case, sir, in its every feature.”

Colonel Braxton paused, as in some reflection.

“There are only two men in Virginia who could possibly save you from the gallows, who could by any chance get you off with imprisonment for life, and I fear that you could bring neither to your aid. One is Mr. Wellington Monroe, and the other is Judge Coleman Northcote. Mr. Wellington Monroe would not take the case of an assassin whom he believed guilty. And you would find, I think, Judge Coleman Northcote on the other side, for he has a persisting notion that I have been of some service in certain critical periods of his life.”

There was a slight pause, and then he went on: “You might get old Fontain Dever. But his tears — and he depends on tears — would hardly move a jury in a case like this.”

The lawyer seemed to consider the hard point.

“And yet,” he said, “it will be a case to put the best among us on his mettle. You will have made so many conspicuous blunders in it.”

The thick voice of the big creature behind the desk broke in: “You have one minute longer.”

Colonel Braxton made a courteous gesture of acknowledgment.

“And I will use it, if you please, to point out one of those blunders to you. You imagine, sir, that I came here alone, and therefore there would be no witness to your act. But if you take a step beyond your desk and look out through an opening in the trees, you will see, at the foot of the hill, within an easy stone’s throw, a carriage with a Negro driver, and a gentleman at leisure on the seat behind him reading a Richmond paper. That gentleman is Mr. Dabney Mason. He is no fearful person like myself! When he hears your shot, he will come up, and you will have him to kill. And after that, the Negro driver will come up, and you must shoot him too, for you cannot permit an escaping witness to this affair. Thus, Mr. Caleb Lurty, once on the way, there will be no end to murder.”

The trapped creature glanced side-wise at the window, for he feared some trick. He started like one awakened from a dream. And the primordial brute that had emerged to dominate his will withdrew. He turned toward the window, leaving the weapon.

Colonel Braxton gave the beaten man no further notice. He walked past him to the door. But there, as he went out, he paused and addressed a final word to him:

“You gave me three minutes, sir,” he said; “I will do better. I will give you three hours — three hours to cross the border of Virginia.”

There came an iron vigor into his voice: “And I pledge you my word of honor, Mr. Caleb Lurty, that if I find you in this state tomorrow, I will promptly get you the three things that the acts of your abominable life have earned: a striped suit, a shaved head, and a seven-foot cell... all free, at no cost, sir, and with my distinguished compliments!”

In the carriage on the road below, Colonel Braxton related the incidents of the adventure to Dabney Mason. That gentleman was not astonished at the recovery of the purloined will, for he was accustomed to these spectacular successes in the affairs of this eccentric lawyer. But the peril in which the man had stood disturbed him.

“My friend,” he said, “why did you go alone into this danger?”

“Danger!” echoed Colonel Braxton. “Why, Dabney, I was never in any danger!”

“In no danger!” cried the man. “The man might have killed you.”

“Now, Dabney,” replied Colonel Braxton, as in a soft reproach, “you must credit me with some rudiments of common sense... Whenever I see a deadly weapon accessible to fools or children, I unload it.”

And opening his hand he disclosed the half-dozen cartridges he had taken from Caleb Lurty’s weapon when, upon entering the room, he had paused for a moment beside the desk.

He balanced them thoughtfully in his hand, and then tossed them into the bushes by the roadside.