Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1912 — The Corrector of Destinies [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Corrector of Destinies

Being Tales of Randolph Mason as Related by His Private Secretary, Courtland Parks 4 The Burgoyne-Hayes Dinner

By Melville Davisson Post

The dinner given by Mrs. BurgoyneHayes to Prince ‘Edward of Hesse Mechel-Schweren will be always remembered by New York. The proud old dowager cot society like a butcher. The list was a streak of blood. No massacre of King Philip’s war ever left more savagery skulking in the bushes. The terrible old woman openly declared that she intended to give New York the bayonet, as her great relative did in 1777. I shall always remember this dinner for another reason. It was the first appearance in America of Beatrix Waldo after her marriage with Capt. Gordon Smith of his majesty’s lines in South Africa. There were a lot of floating, disconnected rumors about this marriage. Beatrix certainly posed as an heiress before the Englishman went under the yoke, and we got the impression, doubtless directly, that he had a large estate somewhere on Loch Codan, £5,000, at any rate, over his pay. Then we heard later on, through Jimmie Dale, I think —he always knew the foreign gossip—that the Englishman did not have a brass far-' thing over his pay, and was rather worse off than that by a fat budget of debts. We knew that Beatrix had no income tb speak of —her aunt kept the gown-makerß going for her. There were wild lands, back inland somewhere, that Beatrix used to turn into oil, coal and spruce lumber when she got to dreaming, but the over-drained old aunt used to pay taxes on them, and I think that was about the only reminder of the fortune that ever came along to New York.* I had Sarah Lamarr on my right at this dinner, and, fortunately, an impossible German person on her right, who kept his nose well in his wines and pates. I wanted to ask Sarah Lemarr about Beatrix, and was glad of the Teuton’s exclusive interest in his stomach. I shared a rather general euriosity. The Englishman was here with Beatrix, putting in his leave of absence. If they mooned for vanished Eldorados, one saw no tear-stains In it. I thought the pair of them at the far end of the table looked happy enough, pretty oomfortable for disillusioned fortune hunters. Presently I got Sarah Lemarr to myself, and was about to inquire into the mystery When ' she took the very subject from the tip of my tongue.

“I have been hoping for a word with you, Courtlandt," she said; “it’s about Beatrix Smith. She needs your assistance.” “I ajn not a divorce lawyer,” I said. “Nonsense, Courtlandt,” she answered ; “they love' each other. They are lovers. Can you gather the significance of such an undreamed of ending to the effort each of them made to marry a fortune?” “Then,” I said, “Beatrix cannot need assistance. Poets tell us that lovers do not dwell in this land of trolley cars and spindles, but somewhere on blessed islands they are happy." “But, my dear boy,” said Sarah Lemarr, “one might take a stone bruise or a thorn in the thumb even on a blessed island.” "Not so,” I answered; "the Well at the World’s End is there, and whosoever tasteth thereof shall be perfect as his dreams are' perfect, and around and all about this land Lethe, the River of Oblivion, rolls its watery labyrinth. Nay, do not interrupt me; the human heart longs with a longing that cannot be uttered for this enchanted country where, you tell me, Beatrix walks with her Englishman.” “Well!” said Sarah Lemarr. “Who is the girl,, Courtlandt?” “There you go,” I said, “demonstrating the greatest unwritten truth about a yoman; namely, that every reflection arises from a personal experience. If one deplores sin, he has robbed his employer in his youth; if one apostrophizes love, he is about to marry Miss Jones of Forty-eighth street. The girl in my case, dear Madame von Hubert, Is that mysterious fairy-woman, daughter of Abu JafTfer, surnamed the Victorious, second Caliph of Bagdad under tbe dynasty of the Abbasides, asleep on her silk carpet in Arabia.” Here the impossible German person interrupted to inquire if I thought the truffles were canned. 1 did not think they were canned, and he was content; but the moment gave Sarah Lemarr a lead and she seized it with the practical directness of a New Bedford skipper. “Now, Courtlandt,” she said, "be sensible. Beatrix needs $40,000.” “How original of Beatrix," I replied. "Most of us need only a couple of hundred.” “If you are going to be nasty about It, Courtlandt,” she said, "I will never speak to you again. You must help Beatrix to find this $40,000. The poor girl is dreadfully worried about it. You see, Courtlandt, when the two of them awoke after the honeymoon to find their estate all Castilian haze, instead of a conventional separation they fell in lore wltt each other like a couple of Breton peasants. Beatrix told me all about it; she is lovely. She does not want the money for herself; she wants R to pay Lieut. Gordon Smith’s debts. When bis debts are he will be made a captain and transferred to his old regiment in In4it. Beatrix adore* India; she is, ■ _

quite content to'go .out there and live quietly on a captain’s pay, and love her big Englishman and be happy. But she wants his debts cleared off; ‘his honor untarnished,’ she calls it It seems to mean a lot to her, and she is so absurdly in love with the tall soldier that it is enough to break a body’s heart. Now, Courtiandt, where are we to get this money for her?" "Unfortunately,” I replied, “I do not at this moment think of a convenient orphan to rob. How would it do to rifle the poor box at St. Thomas’?” Sarah Lemarr ignored my second offense after the manner of a woman, and, likewise, true to the same manner, gave the remainder of the story after, having asked a decision in the midst of it. “You remember Beatrix owned several thousand acreß of forest land back somewhere in the Alleghanies, in some county of the Virginias. Let —me—see, she said the name had been a fortunate one for the first Captain Smith in America, and ought not to fall the second one.” “Pocahontas,” I suggested. , "How stupid! ” she said. “Of course, Pocahontas. Well, some lumber coihpany has managed to steal half of Beatrix’s land, and it, and some other rival companies, now want to buy the remainder of her. They will give $20,000. They have been dogging her footsteps ever since she landed in New York. But this is only $20,000, and Beatrix needs could get back 1 the land which has been stolen, It would bring the other $20,000. 1 don’t know how they managed to get it. BShtrix has the whole story in detail, with maps and so forth. I think she failed to pay the taxes at some time, and they stole it that way. Now, Courtiandt, you must induce Mr. Mason to get Beatrix’s land for her. She is stopping with me, you know. Bring him to my house tomorrow for dinner. Lieut. Gordon Smith is going to Washington tomorrow to call on the British legation and will not return until very late; but he knows nothing about it. Beatrix is the business agent for the pair of them.” I smiled at the artlessness of Mme. von Hubert. “Certainly,” I said; “but why not bring the man in the moon, too, and the Witch of Endor. Randolph Mason is hardly the sort of person that goes out to dinner.” “Well, then,” said Sarah Lemarr, “bring him after dinner. I will write him a little note.”

I could have laughed in the girl’s face. “What will you say in your little note?” I inquired. “Oh, well, what any one would say,” she answered, “that I wish to see him on an important business matter.” “And do you know,” I said, “what would happen to your little note?” “What would happen to it?” she said. Her chin went up. She was a social overlord, this Mme. von Hubert. Her invitations were commands. The social aspirant dreamed of their coming, as of that of Abou bep Adhem’s Angel. “This would happen,” I answered. “Randolph Mason would rip open the envelope with his long finger, fold back the paper where you creased it across the middle, and drop it into the waste basket.” A red flush sprang up along her dog collar of diamonds. I hurried to explain. “I beg your pardon,” I said; “but you must think of Randolph Mason as you would of an eccentric scientist—Darwin or Agassiz—an Intellectual recluse without emotions, a sort of Hindoo ascetic of a high order. You could not write any of these such a note; neither could you write such a not to him. Now, there is a sort of note which you might write to any of these, and you might try «uch a note on him, although I have little hope oL it.” Mme. von Hubert’s head was still in the air. "You mean,” she said, “such a note ought to run; ‘Will the ogre kindly meet a kissable fairy on the north side of'the hawthorn thicket at moonrised’ I believe your scientist, no matter how old, usually comes out of his shell for this sort of thing.” But she could not keep her exquisite good nature under a bushel for long. She began to laugh. “Really, Courtlandt, to be serious, what ought I to write him? We must have his help for Beatrix” “The sort of note,” I said, “that you would write to a famous archaeologist, if you wished him to call and examine a rare Egyptian pot, or to a numismatist if you possessed a coin of the time of Cyrus, or to a bacteriologist if you had a culture of the bubonic plague for him, Invite him to the examination of a case of rare and interesting injustice, at your residence on Eighty-sixth street at nine o’clock tomorrow night” I was going on to explain about this note a little in detail, but the impossible German suddenly realised that he ought to talk, and,at once set about it with the persistence and regularity of a man filing a saw. We resisted as long as we could, and then gave it op for another Sedan. We were rescued finally by Mme. Castaigne, who gave some fragments from Moliere. I tried to set a further word with Beatrix

Smith, but Mrs. Burgoyne-Hayes descended on me. T must present you to the prince* Courtiandt,” she l said. "Your, greatgrandfather on your mother’s side, I think, was a soldier of our King George.” “Yes, madam,” I said, “but the grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt drew Ws pay." I did not see the note which Mme. von Hubert wrote to Randolph Mason; but it was effective. He requested me to return after dinner and accompany him to Eighty-sixth street The von Huberts have a residence on Eighty-sixth street. We arrived there on the hour' and were shown into the library. Randolph Mason at once sat down in a heavy black oak chair before the fire. This chair was a massive and curious piece. It was carved by the peasants of the Black Forest for the baron’s grandfather. The tortuous' shapes forming its arms and legs are like the gargoyles to be seen under the roofs of castles bn the Rhine, and now and then in Paris. I was impressed by the picture of Mason in this massive chair. His long, sinewy fingers gripping the writhing features of the hideous oaken monsters, his face thrown partly into shadow by the flaming logs on the hearth. The masterful iron face, the lean, hard jaw with its projecting chin, the bony nose appearing in the fantastic light flattened a little at the end, like that of a beast of prey, and the craggy forehead —all colored r browned, reddened by the Are. I heard the latch of the door click, and looked up to see Beatrix Smith standing on the threshold, looking at Mason with profound interest. Her lips were parted and her eyes wide. She had not thought to come on this curious picture of the middle ages taken down from some Italian gallery and

propped up here in the library of the von Huberts. She bowed to me, crossed the room and sat down by the library table a little beyond Randolph Mason, at the corner of the fire. Presently Mason looked up at her. “Is this Mme. von Hubert?” he said, without rising, without an inflection of interest or courtesy, as he would have said: “Is this the contract?” “The bond in question?” _ She flushed a little. “No,” she answered; “I am merely the interesting case that you came to examine into.” “Give me the details of It,” said Mason. She began at once without introduction or verbiage and told, her story with a brevity and directness that I could not associate with that rather silly Beatrix Waldo who used to go up and down through the drawingrooms of Newport looking for a rich husband. She had inherited from her father two thousand acres of wild forest land in the county" of Pocahontas in the state of West Virginia. She and her aunt had watched it carefully and paid the taxes on It each year; they had even taken the little local newspaper, published at the county seat, in order that they might know what lands were returned delinquent for taxes and sold. They had been .warned against

the horde of dangerous and unscrupulous land thieves said to Infest the mountain districts of the Virginias. But her great care was not sufficient against the ingenuity of these pirates. After one of the periodio assessments of real estate, one thousand acres of her estate wape listed on the land books under the name of Walden, returned delinquent, and sold for taxes. The land was purchased by Gilbert Williams, presidentxpf the Black Creek Lumber company, for $36.85. She had paid no attention to the sale, not recognizing her land under this name until she came to have the estate surveyed a few months ago, some five or six years after Its purchase at the tax sale by Gilbert Williams. She also learned that the whole thing was a well planned and effective scheme of this owner of the Black Creek Lumber company tb steal her land. These wild lands had vastly increased in value. This company and a rival one, the Export Spruce company, were exceedingly anxious to purchase the remaining tract They would give, she thought twenty dollars an acre for it. The agents of the two companies had been at her heels ever since she arrived in New York. Gilbert Williams was now at this Fifth Avenue hotel. He had endeavored to reach her by telephone this very evening. He offered a little better price than the Export Spruce company, but he could well afford to, since he it was that had stolen half the land. The agent of the Export Spruce company was at the Holland. His note, on the table, requested an Interview with her at any hour she would name, day or night. This indicated how very desirous they were for the land. Such a sale would yield her twenty thousand dollars. All the lands would have given her the forty thousand which she needed. Her ' name now was Beatrix Smith; she had married Lleu-

tenant Gordon Smith the year before. He was in Washington , today, but would return before eleven o’clock this night That was the whole history, brief, accurate and devoid of superfluous comment. She had there on the table the original deed, mape and tax receipts. j Mason’s face showed marked annoyance, as that of an eminent surgeon would, who, having been sent for in hot haste, arrives to find the patient with a bumped nose. “Why do you send for me?" he said; “any lawyer could adjust this problem.” “It is vital to me,” replied the woman; “it means my happiness and my husband’s career. I beg you to help me.” Her eyes began to fill up and her lips trembled with distress. Randolph Mason gave no attention to thei,woman’s emotions. He sat, beating the Ups of his fingers on the arms of the chair, with evident annoyance. “Let us get the thing over, then,” he said. “Call up this man Gilbert Williams. Say to him that Mrs. Smith has determined to sell the lands; ask him to come here at once with a notary.” “What!” cried Beatrix Smith “sell

the land to Williams? the man who robbed me! How can that help?" “Madam,” said Randolph Mason, "dp not worry me with petty bickering? I signaled Beatrix Smith to a conference with me in the hall. "Do exactly as he says,” I whispered when we were outside the door, “and hurry.” She promised and went swiftly upstairs to the telephone. In a very few minutes Gilbert Williams arrived. He was a red-haired old fellow with a face like a fox, and beady eyes set obliquely in his head. Randolph Mason arose when he came In, and explained that as Mrs. Smith wished to leave America at once, the had determined to sell her lands, provided cash was paid. The lands were worth thirty thousand dollars, bnt her husband was absent and could not convey his curtesy in the deed. She would therefore take twenty thousand cash and make a deed on the spot. •Gilbert Williams snapped up the offer. He did npt care anything about the curtesy of the husband. The land itself was worth nothing, the timber only was valuable. His mills would cut it off in a year, and he was willing to take the chance of Mrs. Smith’s living that long. He produced a deed, which he had brought with him to New York, and ran a pen through the blank which it contained for the husband’s name. Beatrix signed the deed, and the notary who accompanied Williams filled in the acknowledgment and affixed -his seal in proper form, Gilbert Williams wrote out a check on the Importers’ Bank of Commerce for twenty thousand dollars. We ascertained by telephone to the cashier at his residence that the check was good. Williams then folded his deed, put it in his pocket and departed with the notary. The whole matter had taken less than twenty minutes to bring to a close. Randolph Mason inquired at what

hour Lieutenant Gordon Smith would arrive, : and was told that he would be at the house at half-past ten. “Direct the agent of the Export Spruce company to be here at that hour,” he said. Then he sat down in the oak chair before the fire. We were all greatly puzzled. We did not see why this second purchaser should be invited to come. Beatrix Smith had nothing more to selL The transaction seemed to us to have arrived at its final act, the curtain down and the lights out. Sarah Lemarr came down to the hall and peeped through the door at Mason, where he sat motionless, his right elbow on the twisted arm of the grotesquely carved chair, his clenched fingers propping up his jaw. “O Courtlandt,” she whispered, “he is splendid!' I think Lancelot must have looked like that when he sat in Arthur’s doubledragoned chair to umpire the last tournament. Just fancy, with what freezing, acid irony he would have said, ‘Hast thou won?* ‘Art thou*the purest brother?* to such an unconscionable rake as Tristan.” Then she swore Beatrix to obedience and slipped back up the great stairway. A few minutes after ten o’clock. Lieutenant Gordon Smith arrived, and, a little later, the agent of the Export

Spruce company. Mason arose what this agent entered, and explained, M he had done to Gilbert Williams, that Mrs. Smith was about to sail for Eng land, and had decided to sell her land She would take twenty thousand dot lars In cash for it, the deed to be exe cuted and the money to be paid down The agent agreed once, and pro duced his deed. He was prepared u Williams was. Mason directed fteatrls Smith and her husband to execute tb« deed. I had no end of trouble wlti Beatrix in the hall this time. Slu did, not want to make another deed; she had sold her land; she would nos rob the Export Spruce company. It waa not the company that had stoles her land; Mr. Mason had clearly gob ten the two companies confused. H# was making an awful blunder. I must call him out and set him right about itInstead, I called Sarah Lemarr. Shi berated Beatrlx'like a pirate. Disobey Randolph Mason? the thing was unthinkable! Make a mistake? not that big, fine, bronze god brooding by hia sacred fire. “Why, girl," she said, T would shoot every one of you in your tracks if that man told me to do it. He is adorable. I could follow him around like a dog and bite people if he whistled to me. Not another word out of you, or I will come down with the dog-whip." And she shook her little clenched hand over the banisters. Finally we got the matter over. Beatrix and her husband executed the deed. I got a notary from the Plaza. The agent gave certified drafts on Dexter & Company for the twenty thousand dollars, and, like Gilbert Williams, folded his deed and departed. -—- Beatrix Smith bearded the lion with eyes swimming in tears. “Mr. Mason," she said, ‘‘you have made a terrible mistake. The Export Spruce company is not the one who stole my land. I cannot take its money; it will not get the property.” And she went on with a torrent of lamentation. “Madam,” said Mason, rising, “all this is drivel. I have made no mistake. The- Export Spruce company will get every acre that it has this night purchased.” Then he directed Beatrix to cash the checks at the earliest hour in the morning and sail at once for England. When we went down the steps to his carriage, Sarah Lemarr slipped out from behind the door and caught my arm, "I shall see to it,” she whispered. “They shall sail on the St. Paul at eleven o’clock.” Then she gripped me uhtil her nails hurt through my sleeve. “Oh, Courtiandt,” she said, T have at last seen a man!” and she closed the big door behind me. The solution of the matter arrived a month later. I was taking a hasty luncheon at a down-town case, when Freddie Harland of the firm of Milton, Harland & Gaynor, came in apd seated himself in the chair beside me. “Hello, Parkshe said. “Old Williams, tells me you were present when he bought a gold brick the other night” "You mean the Smith deed?” I said. “Well, rather,” he answered. “Williams took it down to West Virginia to have it recorded, and discovered, to use his spectacular language, that It was not worth Three hurrahs in hell’.” "What was wrong with it?” I said. “It did not convey the husband’s curtesy, I know; but Williams knew that too. He did not care for that he said; he could cut the timber off in a year and he was willing to take the chance of Mrs. Smith living until then.” , . y; v "That,” replied Freddie Harland, "is A mere bagatelle in the trouble. It seems that the supreme court of West Virginia has decided that a deed made by a wife, in which the husband does not Join, conveys no estate of any character whatever, is merely a worthless piece of paper. The Export Spruce company has the land under a proper deed. Mrs. Beatrix Smith has vanished into the fog beyond Fire Island and the* b6b-cats have pre-empted old William's mills.” "Good," I said, “good! Gilbert stole half that land, so the chicken is home to roost.” "We reminded him of that,” replied Freddie Harland, "when he began to Jump around in the office.”

For the legal principle involved In this story see Austin et al. v. Brown et at., 37 W. Va, 634. Syllabus, Austin et al. v. Brown et al, supra. “M. A. B, a married woman, not living separate and apart, but with her husband, undertook by deed ... to soil and convey a certain tract of land, pai£ of her real estate . . . Held, said pretended deed was wholly ineffectual to diveat M. A. B, the grantor, of her ownership of such land, and did not pass any interest therein, legal' or equitable, to the said grantees.”

"Madam," said Randolph Mason, ‘do not worry me with petty bickering."