Your loving daughter,

Grace Haswell Martin.

* * * * *

“Some fourteen or fifteen years ago,” explained the doctor as I looked up from reading the note, “Mr. Haswell’s only daughter eloped with an artist named Martin.  He had been engaged to paint a portrait of the late Mrs. Haswell from a photograph.  It was the first time that Grace Haswell had ever been able to find expression for the artistic yearning which had always been repressed by the cold, practical sense of her father.  She remembered her mother perfectly since the sad bereavement of her girlhood and naturally she watched and helped the artist eagerly.  The result was a portrait which might well have been painted from the subject herself rather than from a cold photograph.

“Haswell saw the growing intimacy of his daughter and the artist.  His bent of mind was solely toward money and material things, and he at once conceived a bitter and unreasoning hatred for Martin, who, he believed, had ‘schemed’ to capture his daughter and an easy living.  Art was as foreign to his nature as possible.  Nevertheless they went ahead and married, and, well, it resulted in the old man disinheriting the girl.  The young couple disappeared bravely to make their way by their chosen profession and, as far as I know, have never been heard from since until now.  Haswell made a new will and I have always understood that practically all of his fortune is to be devoted to founding the technology department in a projected university of Brooklyn.”

“You have never seen this Mrs. Martin or her husband?” asked Kennedy.

“No, never.  But in some way she must have learned that I had some influence with her father, for she wrote to me not long ago, enclosing a note for him and asking me to intercede for her.  I did so.  I took the letter to him as diplomatically as I could.  The old man flew into a towering rage, refused even to look at the letter, tore it up into bits, and ordered me never to mention the subject to him again.  That is her note, which I saved.  However, it is the sequel about which I wish your help.”

The physician folded up the patched letter carefully before he continued.  “Mr. Haswell, as you perhaps know, has for many years been a prominent figure in various curious speculations or rather in loaning money to many curious speculators.  It is not necessary to go into the different schemes which he has helped to finance.  Even though most of them have been unknown to the public they have certainly given him such a reputation that he is much sought after by inventors.