Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad
Frascatti came limping back with his tired followers in the early dawn,
and reported that no trace of the missing man had been observed. There
were no brigands and no Mafia; on that point all his fellow townsmen
agreed with him fully. But it was barely possible some lawless ones who
were all unknown to the honest Taorminians had made the rich American a
prisoner.
Il Duca? Oh, no, signorini! A thousand times, no. Il Duca was queer and
unsociable, but not lawless. He was of noble family and a native of the
district. It would be very wrong and foolish to question Il Duca's
integrity.
With this assertion Frascatti went to bed. He had not shirked the
search, because he was paid for it, and he and his men had tramped the
mountains faithfully all night, well knowing it would result in nothing
but earning their money.
On the morning train from Catania arrived Silas Watson and his young
ward Kenneth Forbes, the boy who had so unexpectedly inherited Aunt
Jane's fine estate of Elmhurst on her death. The discovery of a will
which gave to Kenneth all the property their aunt had intended for her
nieces had not caused the slightest estrangement between the young
folks, then or afterward. On the contrary, the girls were all glad that
the gloomy, neglected boy, with his artistic, high-strung temperament,
would be so well provided for. Without the inheritance he would have
been an outcast; now he was able to travel with his guardian, the kindly
old Elmhurst lawyer, and fit himself for his future important position
in the world. More than all this, however, Kenneth had resolved to be a
great landscape painter, and Italy and Sicily had done much, in the past
year, to prepare him for this career.
The boy greeted his old friends with eager delight, not noticing for the
moment their anxious faces and perturbed demeanor. But the lawyer's
sharp eyes saw at once that something was wrong.
"Where is John Merrick?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" cried Patsy, clinging to his hand.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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