Old Mr. Highcrofft finally took his eyes off the sleeping baby. “No, no, no, of course not, Franklin. But there’s hardly a need to bring that up now.”
“I believe there is, Grandfather,” Jonathan Highcrofft said. “For the baby is not adopted. He is the son born to Adelaide.”
“What? Why? How?” stammered old Mr. Highcrofft.
“Why don’t you ask Franklin?” said Jonathan Highcrofft, looking steadily at his cousin. “I believe he can tell you all about it.”
By now, all blood had drained from Franklin Highcrofft’s face. It had become nearly as pale as his elegant, starched collar. But he must have been studying Robin all along, for now he swiftly raised an accusing finger at him.
“What is that boy doing here?” he asked coldly. “And what has he been telling you? I know him. He’s Hawker Doak’s stepson, and a born liar. You can’t believe a word he tells you, Hawker informed me. I myself tested him. I asked him if he were the boy who shined my shoes for me outside St. Katherine’s, and he point blank denied it. Said he didn’t know the place. But I’m not stupid or blind. Of course, he was the boy!”
“I …I had to lie!” Robin cried to Jonathan Highcrofft. “When I was at St. Katherine’s, Hawker was having me followed every day. It was his friend Quill who was doing it. I knew he was, and I led him every which way, but never near St. Katherine’s until I knew he’d given up. If Hawker ever found out it’s where I went after Quill stopped following me, he would have guessed that my baby brother was somewhere near there and searched every building to find him. I had to lie!” Robins voice broke. “I had to!”
“And there’s the grand liar for you, Franklin,” said his cousin. “He lied to save the baby from his wretched stepfather. I’d buy a bushel of such lies if they ever came on the market. But are you going to tell Grandfather what part you played in all this, or should I?”
“You might as well,” Franklin Highcrofft replied with an indifferent shrug. “Why not, if it gives you any pleasure.”
“It gives me no pleasure, Franklin. I can promise you that much,” said Jonathan Highcrofft. “But first I must tell you that what I have learned did not come from Robin, the ‘born liar,’ as you choose to call him. Hawker Doak is dead, Franklin. He was in a fight and, as he lay dying from a fatal wound, he sent for me. You must have given him my name and address in the event you were needed for business dealings you had with him, and could not be located. In any event, I was with him when he died. Shall I go on, Franklin?”
“Be my guest, Jonathan,” he replied coolly.
“All right, then,” said his cousin. “Apparently Hawker Doak had a deathbed conversion, as they call it. I’m sure he committed a great many sins in his life, but this one weighed most heavily on his soul, and he was able to make his confession to one of the people he had most injured.
“It seems that his wife gave birth to her baby son at the same time and in the same hospital where Adelaide gave birth to our baby. You may recall, Grandfather, that we had arranged for her to be there rather than at home, on the recommendation of her physicians. How Hawker Doak did the deed, he wouldn’t say, but he somehow managed to exchange his baby, dead but a few minutes after birth, with our baby.”
“The poor, distraught man!” said the anguished Adelaide Highcrofft. “So desperate to have a baby he could do such a terrible thing.”
Her husband shook his head. “No, Adelaide, his baby was probably one he never wanted. It was to be another stepson to him, another burden on its way before he had even married the baby’s mother. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the whole truth when I brought our baby to you. But the exchange was made purely for money, money paid him by my cousin Franklin.”
“Franklin!” Adelaide Highcrofft threw a hand to her mouth to hold back a cry of horror.
“Is this then the ‘part’ you say Franklin played …instigating this act of madness?” old Mr. Highcrofft asked, his face a picture of revulsion. “But why would he do such a thing. Why?”
“Can’t you guess, Grandfather?” asked his grandson. “I have. It’s that miserable vow you made, already referred to by Franklin—the vow made in writing, mind you, that whichever one of your two grandsons produced the first male heir to carry on the blessed Highcrofft name …spelled with the two f’s you loved informing us when we were growing up …would inherit all your extensive tenement holdings.”
“God help us!” exclaimed old Mr. Highcrofft. “Is that what’s at the root of all this?”
“I believe it is. Am I right, Franklin?” asked Jonathan Highcrofft.
“If you say so,” returned his cousin.
“The irony of it is,” continued Jonathan Highcrofft, “is that I’ve never wanted those blessed tenements. Great Scott, doesn’t this family have enough wealth as it is? I told you I didn’t want them many a time, Grandfather. Before Mother and Father died, they often heard me say I never even wanted to go near those places. It’s why Franklin took them over when he lost his own parents and you needed someone to run them for you. That misery and wretchedness doesn’t seem to bother him.”
“Oh, what have my pride and stupidity brought me to?” groaned old Mr. Highcrofft. “I’ve always known you had a dark streak in you, Franklin. But heaven help me, I never thought you capable of anything so vile as this. All because of greed. Your greed and my stupidity. Greed and stupidity! What a wonderful combination!”
“Not just because of greed on my part,” Franklin Highcrofft hurled back. “You may attribute more of this to retribution, if
