. Moreover, I do not believe it is true. If you had proof of such
relationship, why didn't you go to her, and openly claim your share?"

"Go to her! me? Do you hear that Jim? Isn't he the cute little fixer?
Why, of course, she knew it; there was nothing doing on the divide. It's
all straight enough, only we couldn't quite prove it by law; anyhow that
is what they told me--so we got at it from another direction."

She seemed so convinced, so earnest in her statement that West in
perplexity turned to glance at Hobart.

"Do you make this claim also?" he asked.

"What claim?"

"That this girl is a twin sister to Natalie Coolidge? Why, it is
preposterous."

"Is it? Damned if I think so. Now look here, West; I don't know just what
the Coolidge girl has been told; maybe she never even heard she had a
twin sister. If they ever told her that she had, then they must have told
her also that the sister died in infancy. Anyhow, that's how it stands on
the records. There were just two people who knew different--do you get
me? One of them is dead, but one of them is still alive."

"Which one is dead?"

"Percival Coolidge; he knew too much and got gay; he planned to cop the
whole boodle. The fact is he started the whole scheme, soon as he learned
who Del was, and planned it all out. He was up against it hard just then
for money; he'd lost all his own, and couldn't get hold of Natalie's
because the old family lawyer watched things so close."

"But if this girl was really entitled to a part of it, why not claim
it by law?"

"We talked about that, but the chance didn't look good. Everything showed
the second child died; hospital records, doctor's certificate; there
wasn't a link in the chain we could break. Percival wouldn't go on the
stand, and there wasn't much he could swear to if he did."

"But who was the other witness--the living one?"

"The nurse; she made the exchange of the dead baby for the living one. It
was easily done as the child was really sick."

"But for what object--revenge?"

"She was poor, and yielded to temptation. Percival Coolidge paid her to
make the exchange. I have never been able to learn what his original
purpose was, but she thinks he believed the stolen child was a boy, and
that later, through him, the Coolidge money might be controlled. However
the woman lost her nerve, and disappeared with the infant. She brought it
up as her own in the west, where she married again. I am her second
husband