Mr. Mix rolled his eyes heavenward. "So young, and so heartless!" he
murmured, and went sedately forward to the reception room.
The door of the private office was not quite closed; so that the
voices of two men were faintly audible. Mr. Mix cast about him, made
sure that he was unobserved, and dignifiedly changed his seat--nearer
that door.
"Yes," said a voice which at first he couldn't recognize. "The deed's
recorded. So legally, Henry owns the property now." Mr. Mix nodded
triumphantly; the voice belonged to Mr. Archer, a leading lawyer and
Mr. Starkweather's closest friend.
"That's the idea." This was in Mr. Starkweather's familiar bass. "Now
how'd you fix the will?"
"Why, it was very simple. Your point was that you didn't want
everybody to know what was going on. So--"
"No. And if I put a lot o' conditions like that in a will, why just as
soon as it was probated, Henry and Mirabelle'd both get an awful lot
o' bum publicity. They'd both be sore, and I'd look like a nut....
Naturally, I don't plan to die off as soon as all this, but better be
safe. I just want to fix it up so Henry'll get the same deal no matter
what happens."
"Very wise, very wise,... Well, here's what I've done. I've changed
the will so that the entire residuary estate is left to me in trust
for your sister and nephew to be administered according to the
trust-deed we're executing today. They can probate that until they're
black in the face, but nobody's going to find out any more than we
want them to."
"Sounds all right so far, but don't you have to take a trust agreement
like that into Court, too?"
"Sooner or later, yes. But you'll notice that I've covered it so that
unless Henry or Miss Starkweather says something, nobody's going to
know until the year's out, and I make the accounting. Now for the
trust agreement itself--if Henry demonstrates to me that within a
year--"
"A year from August first. The lease don't expire 'till then, and
Henry won't be home 'till then. August to August's what I'm goin' to
put up to him."
"Correct. If he demonstrates to me that within the calendar year he's
made a net profit of ten thousand dollars from the property--by the
way, isn't that rather steep?"
"No. Man's in there now's made three thousand and manhandled it. Just
horse-sense and some alterations and advertising'll bring it up to
ten."
"You're the doctor. If Henry makes ten out of it, then he receives
from me, as trustee, the whole residuary estate, otherwise it goes to
your sister. And during that trial year, she gets the whole income
from it, anyway."
Mr. Mix was sitting motionless as a cat.
"That's right."
"Well, then, if you'll just read these over and make sure I've got
your meaning, and then get a couple of witnesses in here, we can
clear the whole thing up and have it out of the way."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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