cidentally in my stray
wanderings. He and a sickly boy named Ernest Gregg were living in a
fixed-over building at Fordham Spur. I seemed to be just the person
Clark was waiting for. He hired me to do some work for him. He was
planning to get the poor boy, Gregg, his rights."

"Yes, I know about that," observed Ralph.

"Then if you do, I can hurry over things. It seems that when he began
to look up Gregg's affairs, he found out that Ernest had a strange
hermit of a grandfather, named Abijah Gregg. Ernest's father was an
only son. About five years ago the old man discovered a terrible
forgery in which he was robbed of over ten thousand dollars. He had
reason to believe that Ernest's father and a man named Howard were
responsible for it. He disowned his son and all his family, and a
month later Ernest's father died, leaving his son a disowned and
homeless outcast."

"And what became of Howard?" inquired the interested Ralph.

"He disappeared. Old Gregg became soured at all humanity after that,"
narrated Zeph; "the more so because he had a profligate nephew who
turned out bad. This was the man in jail here now."

"Lord Lionel Montague--Morris?"

"Yes, Morris robbed the old man, who became afraid of him. The old man
tried to hide away from everybody. In his wanderings he picked up the
two Canaries and settled down at the lonely place at Fordham Cut. He
was very rich, partly paralyzed, and intended to leave his fortune to
the state, rather than have any relative benefit by it. Well, Marvin
Clark, the splendid, unselfish fellow, got a clew to all this. He
located old Abijah Gregg. He spent just loads of money following down
points, until he discovered that the man Howard was a broken-down
invalid in New Mexico. Clark was sick himself for a month, and that
was why Fred Porter did not hear from him."

"And later?" asked Ralph.

"I ran across Porter and brought him to the Spur about a month ago. He
is there now. Well, Clark found out positively that Ernest's father
never had a thing to do with forgery. It had been really committed by
Howard and this villain, Morris. He got in touch with Howard in New
Mexico, who was a dying man. He found him anxious to make what
reparation he could for a wicked deed. Old Gregg would not go to New
Mexico. Howard could only live where the air was just right for him.
The physicians said that if he ever went to any other climate, the
change of atmosphere would kill him. With plenty of money