Powers of Attorney by Louis Auchincloss Page B

way.”
    Rutherford’s heart gradually sank. One simply didn’t walk in off the street and give one’s fortune to a total stranger—not if one was sane. It was like the day, as a child at his grandmother’s table, when she suddenly gave him a gold saltcellar in the form of a naked mermaid with a rounded, smooth figure that he had loved to stroke, only to be told by his mother that it was all in fun, that “Granny didn’t mean it.” It had been his introduction to senility. Projects like the Colonel’s, he had heard, were common in Wall Street. It was a natural place for the demented to live out their fantasies. Nevertheless, as the old Colonel’s imagined gold dissolved like Valhalla, he felt cheated and bitter. Abruptly, he stood up. “It’s a most interesting scheme, Colonel,” he said dryly. “I’d like a few days to think it over, if you don’t mind. Why don’t you leave me your name and address, and I can call you?”
    The Colonel seemed surprised. “You mean that’s all? For now?”
    â€œIf you please, sir, I’m afraid I have an appointment.”
    After the old man had placed his card on the desk, Rutherford relentlessly ushered him out to the foyer, where he waited until the elevator doors had safely closed between them. Returning, he told the receptionist that he would not be “in” again to Colonel Hubert.
    That night, Rutherford tried to salvage what he could out of his disappointment by making a good story of it to his wife as she sat knitting in the living room of their apartment. Phyllis Tower was one of those plain, tall, angular women who are apt to be tense and sharp before marriage and almost stonily contented thereafter. It never seemed to occur to her that she didn’t have everything in the world that a well-brought-up girl could possibly want. Limited, unrapturous, but of an even disposition, she made of New York a respectable small town and believed completely that her husband had inherited an excellent law practice.
    She followed his story without any particular show of interest. “Hubert,” she repeated when he had finished. “You don’t suppose it was old Colonel Bill Hubert, do you? He’s not really mad, you know. Eccentric, but not mad.”
    Rutherford felt his heart sink for the second time as he thought of the card left on his desk—“William Lyon Hubert.” He watched her placid knitting with a sudden stab of resentment, but closed his lips tightly. After all, to be made ridiculous was worse than
anything.
Then he said guardedly: “This man’s name was Frank. Who is Colonel Bill?”
    â€œOh, you know, dear. He’s that old diner-out who married Grandma’s friend Mrs. Jack Tyson. Everyone said she was mad for him right up to the day she died.”
    Again his mouth was dry. It was too much, in one day. “And did she leave him that—that
fortune?”
    â€œWell, I don’t suppose she left him all of it,” she said, breaking a strand of yarn. “There were the Tysons, you know. But he still keeps up the house on Fifth Avenue. And
that
takes something.”
    â€œYes,” he murmured, a vast impression of masonry clouding his mind. “Yes, I suppose it must.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, dear?” she asked. “You look funny. You don’t suppose you could have been wrong about the name, do you? Are you sure it was Frank?”
    â€œQuite sure.”
    Buried in the evening newspaper, he pondered his discovery. And then, in a flash, he remembered. Of course! Mrs. Jack Tyson had become Mrs. W. L. Hubert! What devil was it that made him forget these things, which Phyllis remembered so effortlessly? And fifteen million—wasn’t that just the slice that a grateful widow
might
have left him?
    The next morning, after a restless night, Rutherford looked up Colonel Hubert’s number and tried to reach