Chapter 4: John Pride's Story

“I am a member,” John Pride began, “of a firm called Pride, Conroy, and Wilson. We are a very old firm of private bankers with offices in Wall Street. Both Conroy and Wilson died before I was born, leaving no issue, so the company has been controlled by a Pride for many years.

“This affair in which we are interested had its inception one hundred years ago. At that time, a man came to see my great grandfather in his office. He was a most remarkable man and gained my grandfather’s respect and confidence from the very first. He never stated from whence he came, being more interested in the future than in the past. He put up at a New York City hotel and my great grandfather knew there were three in his party; the man himself, another man and a woman both somewhat older than he.

“At one time when my great grandfather visited them in their hotel suite, he saw the woman fleetingly as she was leaving the room. She was carrying something that he thought could have been an infant snuggled in a blanket. He could not be sure however and he did not ask questions.

“The man was interested in obtaining a place of abode, a place that had to possess certain definite qualifications. First, it had to be built upon solid rock and set in the most secluded location possible.

“Second, it had to be so completely free of legal involvements that when he secured title, no possible claim of another could ever be taken seriously enough to even cause the property to be visited. In short, the strange man said, details relevant to the property must integrate to a point where no one would visit it for one hundred years.”

At this place in his narrative, John Pride stopped a moment to rest his voice. After a pause, the young man in the purple robe inquired, “Why do you smile?”

“At the recollection. My great grandfather had just a white elephant--”

“A white elephant?”

“Merely a descriptive term. A place that had been built before the Revolution but which even at that early time had been bypassed by the trend of progress until it was completely isolated. No one wanted it. No one would ever want it so far as my great grandfather could judge.”

“Except this strange man you speak of.”

“Precisely. He was delighted with the place and when my great grandfather pointed out that even with the location and the high surrounding wall there was no guarantee that wandering adventurers might not move in and take possession at some distant date, the man smiled cryptically and said he would see to it that that did not occur.”

The young man was scowling. “I know that man. He is somewhere back in my mind, but he will not come forward.”

John Pride regarded his listener for a moment and then went on. “The man seemed in ample funds and paid for the property with a giant ruby the like of which my great grandfather had never before set eyes on.

“But the affair was far from ended. The man moved his ménage into the mansion saying he would call upon my great grandfather later.

“All the legal formalities had been of course taken care of--an indisputable deed, guaranteed by the strongest trust company in the land. But that was not enough.

“After a few weeks, during which time the man had inquired of my great grandfather where certain materials could be obtained, he returned to the old gentleman’s office with the most startling request of all.

“He said that he had set in motion a procedure that would terminate in exactly one hundred years from a given moment and that he wished to retain grandfather’s firm as trust agents in relation to that procedure. The duties of the firm would be negligible during the hundred-year period. My great grandfather and his issue were merely to remain completely away from the property which was certainly a simple thing to do.

“But knowledge of what had taken place must be passed down to his son and in case the latter did not survive the one hundred years, to his son’s son.

“At this point my great grandfather interposed reality in the form of a question: ‘I have a son but suppose he is so inconsiderate as to not duplicate with a male heir?’