I think that the odds would be very much
in our favour but for one thing. Your father has a paper which we
foolishly enough all signed one night, which places us practically in
his power. If that paper were given to the Press, we should all of us be
ruined men--I mean so far as prestige and position are concerned.
Further, I am not sure that we should not have to leave the country
altogether."
She looked at him in wonder. "Whatever made you sign such a paper?" she
asked.
He shook his head.
"Heaven knows!" he answered. "We were a little mad. We did not mean to
leave it in your father's charge, however. That is why this illness of
his is so embarrassing to us. We can't help an idea that it is to keep
out of our way for a few days, and to retain possession of that wretched
document, that he is lying by. If, on the other hand, his illness is
genuine, and he were, to put it bluntly, to die, that paper would be
discovered by his lawyer, and Heaven knows what he would do with it!"
"I am beginning to understand," Stella said. "Now please tell me where I
come in."
"We are willing," Littleson said quietly, "to give a hundred thousand
dollars to the person who places that paper in our charge.
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