THE MISSING MISER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11752, 2 December 1898, Page 3

THE MISSING MISER.

; , (By WALTER JBREOLD.) * [All Rights Reserved.] CHAPTER I. The time was the evening of a summer’s day ; the place a small Surrey village within thirty miles of London ; the immediate scene an old-fashioned brick-and-timber cottage, standing at the extreme end of the village, and inhabited by an old solitary, 'Gregory liarlow by name. Gregory was a man of over seventy, a. recluse, who was something of a mystery to the whole of the neighbourhood. The present generation knew him only as an eccentric old fellow who lived by himself, spending very few shillings each week on his living. The younger folk called him a “ miser,” but their elders thought that they knew better, seeing that each month he was known to receive a postal order for one pound from someone in London,, presumably a wealthier relative.

On the July evening on which our story opens-the old man might have been seen in the large, brick-floored sitting-room of his cottage, and could any of the villagers have glanced in they would have concluded at once. that he well merited the title of miser so liberally bestowed on him by the juveniles. Daylight was rapidly fading, so he lit a tin oil-lamp which hung from the great centre beam which crossed the ceiling supporting the others, and went to the window to draw across it the hpavy piece of stuff which uni duty for a curtain. As he did this he failed to notice a man’s face that was quickly withdrawn from tire diamond-leaded panes against which it had been pressed, but he did observe that the gate was open at the end of the red-tiled path which ran between borders well filled with a flourishing potato crop 4 At once all his fears were alert. Who could have opened his gate ? He turned to the table in feverish haste, seized some papers, and pushed them into bis pocket, and then catching up the gold and silver which he had been counting, pushed it into a coarse linen bag and went 'to the open hearth, with its.quaint, old-fashioned, overhanging chimney. He stooped under the front of this and stood up to put his small hoard on the deep shelf at the side; His head and shoulders were hidden by the front of the chimney, and he did not, therefore, see a strange man enter, the room, and was indeed totally unaware of the presence of any intruder until he heard a muttered—

“ Damn the old hunks, where have he and his money got to?”

The poor old man trembled with double fear—for himself and for his precious money —as he stooped down in a cramped posture on the hearth and looked out with livid face and horror-struck eyes at the speaker. The latter heard the slight movement which the old man made, and rushed upon him, hissing : “ That’s where "you keep your money, is it?” • i Poor old Garlow was dragged rudely from the hearth and, began shrieking for assistance as loudly as his worn-out strength would permit. “ Help ! help !” in piteous tones, rang out his aged treble. “ You'd best be quiet,” said the other, with a muttered oath ; “ and you’d best give up some of that money quietly.” “No ; leave me. Help ! help!” said the old fellow, with strength born of despair in realising that he must help himself, turned on the robber.

The latter, younger by nearly half a century, seized the other by the throat and swore that if he did not hold his tongue it would be the worse for him. Firmly gripping his victim he shook him backwards and forwards, and as the old man’s grasp on his arms suddenly relaxed, threw him to the floor.

“ So much the better,” said his assailant; “ perhaps you’ll lie quiet for a minute or two now.”

Saying this, he. stooped within the chimney and stood up as the old man, had done. Striking a match he peered over on to the sooty brick shelf at. the side. On this he found the. bag which he had seen on the table and a smaller one. Seizing them as the match which ho held burned his fingers and went out, he advanced into the middle of the room.

He looked at the old man lying inert upon the floor. “Perliaps, you old fool, you’ll' be, more generous to a visitor next time.”

On the point of leaving the , cottage with his booty a, sudden horror seized him,* and he glanced again at the man whom he had so roughly-handled, went iip to him and turned him over on his back. “My God! he’s dead!!”

The robber started with terror at the crime which he had committed for the possession of a few pounds. Then the instinct of self-preservation asserted itself, and he dragged the body across the room to the hearth. As he did so a paper fell from one of its pockets. The man picked it up, and saw on it inscribed, “ Last Will and Testament.”

“ Your last will, is it?” he said, pushing it back into the pocket from which it had fallen; “well, there it is, and much good may it do you.”

By dint of much struggling and pushing, he succeeded in getting the body up on to the shelf from which he had just taken the money. The brick recess was only about two feet deep by two and a half in length, and the old man’s limp legs hung oyer, do what his murderer might. Some distance above the shelving bricks an iron bar crossed the chimney—probably used at some time for hanging bacon during the process of smoking. Catching sight of this the stranger brought a chair on to the hearth, and standing on it succeeded in getting the old man’s body into an upright posture between the bar and the wall, and tied him to the former by his neckcloth, so that his head hung partly over it while his feet rested on the shelf.

“ That II not easily be seen,” sa,id the murdered, as he shifted the chair back into the room, “ an’ if it is they’ll think the old bloke ’anged ’isself.” Then he took the lamp and peered upwards, and turned away again in horror and fear, the fight shining directly on the old white face, which seemed to be glaring downwards.

“ It’s to be hoped the chimney don’t want sweeping yet,” said the man to himself as he drew back with a face scarcely less pallid than that of his victim. Carefully locking the front dooi he went to make his escape by the back way. In the yard he paused and wondered if “ it ” was really safe from detection. Terrified at the very suspicion of discovery, lie caught sight of a heap of lime and other materials where old Garlow’ had been engaged in erecting a pigstye. A fresh thought seemed to strike the man, and muttering “ I’m sure the chimney ain’t safe,” he returned once more to the scene of his crime, inspired by a new idea of hiding all tracesjDf the deed. b

CHAPTER 11. At the opposite end of the straggling village of Tfiornely to that where'Gariow’s cottage was situated lived the one person in existence for whom the old man evinced any real affection. So -far as the world knew the world, that is to say, of villagers—Mary Mardeau was Gregory Carlow's only living relative, and she was the orphan child of his niece, who had been the only child of his only sister. It is true that it was supposed that the old man might be the pensioner of a richer relative who did not care to acknowledge the kinship, but this was a mere ingenious surmise to account for the monthly arrival of a postal order for twenty shillings. Mary, herself, too, afforded delectable fare for the local gossips. At the time, of our story she was a beautiful girl of eighteen, and she had lived, ever since her arrival in the village, a slip of a child of ten, with a widow who kept a school for small children. Mrs Page could give but little information about her charge. All she knew - was that Mary was a very nice obliging child, and that every quarter day brought a regular and liberal remittance from a London solicitor. Man - , on her first arrival at Thornelv, had seen but little of her elderly relative, but as she grew up from girlhood to young womanhood her bright and winsome fixee, and her neat ways had won the old man’s heart, and he was quite willing thatethe

should, come to his solitary cottage twice, or sometimes three times, a week to “ tidy up ” for him. Even with her, however, he was reticent as to his family history, a. matter on which as she grew older she naturally became more curie, us. All that she could learn from him was that many years before when quite a young man he had taken part in the California gold rush, ami had returned to England worse off than when he left it; had returned to find lus only sister dead, she having married and left ababy girl—Marv'fe mother. Of her later history he knew, "or professed to know, nothing. “ Maybe you’ll know when you’re older ; you’re but a. child as yet. Be satisfied as you are.”

The girl would often have liked to question him further as to who it was that paid Mrs Page quarterly for her keep, and at the same time sent her a sufficiency of pocket money, but Uncle Greg would put a stop to such discussion by saying that it must he “some old fool or another, with more money than wit,” and she had to be con-tent_'-0r at least had to put up with ignorance.

Pleased as the old fellow had been for the last two or three years at the young girl’s •frequent visits he would not hear of her coming to live with him in the cottage. Least of all would he have entertained such a notion during the few months which immediately preceded this eventful July. For within those months Mary had been foolish enough to fall in love with and win the affectionate homage of a young artist, Francis Shirley, who had stayed for some weeks in the village that he might sketch the varied beauties of the sandy common on the edge of which the village stood and of the leafy lanes which aboimded in the neighbourhood. She had, indeed, not only fallen in love with the artist, but on the very evening on which our story opens, when they had been Wandering in one of these, isamo lanes, she had replied to his low-spoken addresses with a whispered promise to become his wife. In doing so, however, she smiled, and said that she "was something of a “mystery,” and he had better nob hind up his fate with hers, for he didn’t know what she might turn out to be.

“ Darling,” he replied, “ what does it matter? Youtaannot turn out to be anything but ,my Mary.” “I 'don’t know that, Frank,” she said, dropping her voice almost to a whisper over this first use Vf her lover’s Christian name ; “ think- of my Uncle Greg.” “Your uncle is an eccentric old brick,” said the voung- man, warmly. “ You see, you don’t know who his sister married, nor who your mother married.” “ And very little about whom it is that I’m going to marry,” broke in Mary, with half-tearful jocularity, for never did 1 her ignorance as to ono side of her family history pain her more than at this blissful time. “‘ He was but a landscape painter,’ is a!! that anyone will be able to say of your husband, for, dearest, I am not Lord Burleigh in masquerade,” Frank said, stealing his arm round heir waist as he recognised the pathetic note in her voice. “ Thank you, sir,” said she, with smiling, mock humility, and adapting Tennyson’s lines:

“ ‘ You are but a landscape painter, And a village maiden me.’ ” “Ah !” returned he, “ perhaps it is the ‘village maid’ who is the impostor, and I shall find you suddenly becoming a Lady Burleigh and soaring away into Society with a capital S, aud leaving the poor landscape painter to go down, down, down until he becomes a kerbstone artist and “ ‘ Chalks Christ and mackerel on the flags, And does extremely ill.’ ” Thus they talked on all the meaningful nonsense of young lovers who have just found their bliss in the acknowledgment of mutual affection.

Bv a strange freak of fate the conversation on which we have been prying/had taken place during the same early hours of the July evening on which so terribly different a scene had been enacted at the cottage of Gregory Garlow. ■ When the newly-engaged couple separated at Mrs Page’s garden gate it was arranged that Frank, whose third stay in the village had just come to an end, should go with Mary to her uncle’s cottage on the following morning before returning to London, that he might 'get his suit sanctioned by the girl’s only known relative. Laughing and talking at noon the nest day they went up the red-tiled path to the old man’s place. “ Naughty uncle,” said Mary to her companion, “ lie ought to begin and dig his potatoes, for see'their flowers are beginning to fade,” and she plucked a piece of the beautiful blossom of the homely vegetable. But no Uncle Greg was visible to receive, her reproaches. The door and Windows of the cottage, to the girl’s great surprise, were securely closed.

“It is funny,” said Mary, commenting on this fact, “ for uncle generally has them all open. He must be up long before this.” Then her eyes caught- sight of the curtain across one of the windows, partially overgrown by a vagrant vine. " Oh! Frank, can he be ill?”

They tried the front door. It was fast. They knocked and received no response; knocked again, but still without effect. “ Let us try the back,” she said, a nervous dread catching atelier heart, though she added, with affected cheerfulness, “perhaps he’s pottering over the wonderful pigsty he is uuilding.”

rliey parsed round the cottage, and saw brick-lime and cement as though the old man had but just left them. The back door also was shut fast. Shirley looked through the keyhole and declared that the key was still in it. They returned to the front of the house and found that the key was not in that lock. This made the position of affairs stranger still. Mary began to feel sure that her uncle was ill, and her lover, too, began naturally to feel somewhat nervous on her account.

“You see, dear,' he said, in attempted explanation, “ your uncle may have got up very early and gone out, for the door has probably been locked from the outside, or else why should the. -key have been removed?

“ Uncle Greg always gets up early,” replied the girl emphatically, “ and he would never have gone out leaving the curtain up like that.”

, oii, dearest, if you wish it we will get the door forced open.” “ Oh, do, c rank, for I feel sure that uncle may he ill and wanting our help.” , .As they were debating, tne policeman who did duty for the whole law-auding village was seen coming along the road. Frann Shirley nailed him, and he soon formted a third in the puzzled group. “ well, sir, what is it I’m wanted for?” said the constable in his best official manner, though lie knew the “ artist chap ” quite well, and had been familiar with Mary ever since her first arrival in the village. “We cannot make Mr Garlow hear, for all our knocking, and are afraid that he may be ill, and would like to force the door.”

“ Hm!” said the policeman, as he stooped sit j ftiy, aud peered through the keyhole, “ key ain’t in the door.”

“No, I had seen that.” “ Mayn’t the old chap have gone out?” “ Look at that,” said Mary, and pointed to the agitating stuff which darkened, the window of the sitting-room. “Well, miss, it do seem curious at this time of the day. Now, if you suspected foul play we could have cause to break in.” “ Surely wo can do so if we fear the old man is ill?” said Frank, in rising indignation.

“ Well,” pursued the self-important official, “’e is Miss Mardeau’s relative, an’ if she wishes it I’ll soon find a way in.” “ I wish it,” said Mary, simffiv.

Police Constable Tiffin tapped the end of his stout stick through one of the diamond panes of the window, methodically knocked away the jagged edges of glass, and putting

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his Hand through the aperture, easily opened, the window, and got through into the room. Frank followed him with agility, and they soon discovered that the old man's bed had not been slept in—that he was nowhere on the premises. They unlocked the back door and admitted Mary. Each room of the cottage was searched through ; everything wore. the. usual aspect to which one of the three was well used. Nothing was disturbed : but no Gregon* Garlow wav to be seen. There was nothing for it but to conjecture as to where the old man could have gone so mysteriously, and to patiently await his return. The constable, kept watch and ward at the cottage, and Frank and Mary promised to send the village odd-job man along at once to repair the window. “H’m!” murmured the policeman to himself as the two went clown the road. “ They’re a wellmade couple, anyhow. Shouldn't wonder !” WJiat it was ho “ shouldn’t wonder ” at a listener would not have been able to ascertain, though it may be imagined that the policeman had shrewdly guessed the. tender relations of his two late companions.

The mysterious disappearance of Gregory Garlow afforded a fruitful topic of discussion with the villagers of Thccnely, mort of whom liked to know a little more about their neighbours’ business than they ever troubled to know of their own. Many were the conjectures started as one after the other attempted to account for the unaccountable. It was recalled by some of the elders that the absentee had as a. young man taken part in the great gold rush, and it was suggested that he might have got fired once more with a greed for gold—a suggestion favoured by the childish talk of him as “ miser.”

Those same young people who called him miser soon had rumours of their own flying about the village, for one' of their number gifted with a more vivid imagination than his fellows thought it not unlikely that the devil had come suddenly and claimed the miser, and even went the length of heightening the effect of his theory by declaring that he had distinctly smelt sulphur on passing the cottage. CHAPTER 111. Day after d<ay passed, and even week after week, and still no news was received about the missing man. Mary Mardeau -was divided between an indefinable fear over her uncle’s prolonged absence and true delight over the love which had come to her. She was persuaded to leave Thomsly for a week to visit her lover’s family at Hampstead, but insisted on staying away no longer from the village, in case the old man should arrive and wonder at her being away.

Thus it came about that Francis Shirley took up permanent lodgings in Thornciy and divided his time pretty equally between Lis art and his fiancee. He had heard of the rumour that Gregory Garlow had gone geld hunting, and used to chaff Mary over it, saying that perhaps the old man had gone to seek a dowry for her. ' “Seriously,” he added, “I wish he’d told us that he was going, and how long he intended to be away, for we might have married at once and settled down in his cottage.” fi When six months had. passed, and still nothing was known as to the whereabouts of the old man it began to be freely discussed in the village whether Mary, as presumable heir, ought not to take possession of the cottage. She had paid frequent visits to it during the six months that had elapsed, and kept the place clean and tidy “ in case uncle should return as suddenly as he went.” She and Frank, too, took the garden in hand, and kept it in order ; then, as autumn advanced, slie had fires frequently going that the place might not be allowed to get damp. Winter gave way to spring, and the mystery seemed no nearer solution; month by month the usual London letters had arrived for Sir Gregory Garlow, and month by month they had been pigeon-holed by the village grocer-postmaster, pending the old man’s return.

Local gossip on the subject had even begun to flag when it was revived one day early in March by the arrival of a , stranger in the village, who it was soon known had made straight for the Post Office, and there asked to he directed to Mr Garlow’s house. The postmaster’s wife, who happened to be on duty, stared. “Mr Garlow, sir?”

‘ “Yes, Garlow; I spoke plainly enough, I believe,” answered the visitor with some irritation.

“.Well, it’s like this, sir. I can direct you to his cottage soon enough, but you won’t find him there, sir, as maybe you’ll know.” “I know nothing of the kind. Where is he then?” “That’s what we don’t know, sir. Hp went off, or leastways, he disappeared, last July, and hasn’t been heard of since by anyone in Thomely. We’ve quite a number of letters waiting for him.” “ Those let ters ” the lawyer, for such it was, began, and then broke off: “ His niece. Miss'”Mardeau, is she in the village?”

“ Yes, sir, at Mrs Page’s, but I saw her go by half an hour ago with Mr Shirley;they’ve gone to Mr Garidw’s cottage, I expect, for they spend a lot of time keeping the garden there straight.” “And this Mr Shirley, who is he?”, “He’s the young gentleman she’? going to marry. ” “I will go to the cottage and see her.” Speaking thus, Thomas Jarvis, solicitor, of the firm of Jarvis, Tunnicliffe apd Jarvis, of Bedford Row, London, left the shop and walked thoughtfully down the village. He had gone some distance when he saw a vinecovered cottage standing some fifty or sixty feet back from the road, and in the intervening garden a man and a maid leaning over a, border sowing (seeds with their heads in very close proximity. “The turtle-doves, I’ll be bound,’ said the man of law, as he turned in at the gate, which he closed with a snap to give warning of his approach. The two started up with surprise, and saw the unusual spectacle of a gentleman in frock coat and silk hat. Saluting Mary, Mr Jarvis said: “ Miss Mardeau, I believe. ’

“I am Mary Mardeau.” “And! I am Mr Thomas Jarvis, solicitor to your uncle, Mr Gregory Gasrlow,” said the new-comer, handing her his business “Have you brought news of uncle?” she asked, excitedly. “I have just learned, Miss Mardeau, of Mr Gariow’s extraordinary disappearance. Can we not get indoors for a. short time, for in these very strange circumstances I must tell you some things of which you may not have heard.” The three went into the cottage by the back way, the front door remaining a sealed entrance, and there the solicitor told the following story, having duly ascertained that Francis Shirley was in verity the girl’s affianced husband, and not only said to be such by village tattlers. “ Your uncle, as you are aware. Miss Mardeau, was, or is," a very eccentric man. So far as I know you are his only relative, and you, even, he has chosen to keep in rum ranee of his true position., Mr Garlow, was, or is, probably thought to be a poor man.”

Mary bowed assent to the statement. “ He was nothing of the kind. He chose —it was one phase of his eccentricity—that out of his money which I had invested for him and the interest thereon accruing, that I should send him one pound a month, and that I should also send! a cheque each quarter to Mrs Page for your maintenance. “Oh! that is the"mystery of it,” exclaimed Maty. “ Uncle would never tell me who paid for me, nor indeed anything about, my parents.” “Mr Garlow, when he came back a rich man from California many years ago, bought this cottage, and began living his eccentric solitary life, though still a comparatively young man. He had come back hoping to provide for his sister, hut found her dead. He provided for her daughter, your mother, as he has done for you. until she disgraced herself irretrievably in his eyes by marrying a foreigner—M. Emile Mardeau, a young French artist of great promise, of whom you may have heard. Your father and mother both died about the time that you were ten years old, and since then your uncle has, unknown to you, and through me, acted as your guardian.” So the whole mystery was cleared, and although Mr Jarvis was not able to throw any liguiT on Garlow’s strange vanishing, Mary felt grateful to him, for enlightening her as to her own birth, and also as to the fact of her being so entirely indebted to the seemingly* self-centred old solitary, bar .uncle. • “ Pendmi'rt^tar;leariHi^^mefi!ringteE-X ot ta

uncle's whereabouts, or of his fate, for we cannot ignore the fact that be was upwards of seventy years of age, we must even, go on as we are,” thus the old lawyer concluded his talk with the young couple, though he did not see lit to go on and explain that Gregory Garlow’s fortune having been practically untoucued, had very materially increased during the many years that its owner had been living the life of a poor cottager. Nor did he see fit to explain that in the event of the old man's death without a will Mary was the sole heir to all his wealth. \

It was hy no means reassuring to find that the old man’s solicitor, who was responsible for the safeguarding of his money, knew nothing of his whereabouts. Shirley thought that something must have happened to Uncle Greg, although he knew that a very diligent search had been instituted far and near. Mary clung tenaciously to the idea that her uncle would yet be seen one day working in his garden as though nothing had happened. About a month after the visit of Mr Jarvis another surprising event happened. A large envelope was one morning handed to Mary as she was in her unde’s garden. It bore the following superscription :

“ To the Vine-covered Cottage, “ At the end of Thomely, “ Surrey.”

At first she demurred at opening a letter not explicitly, directed to herself, but was afterwards persuaded to do so, when there wag found inside a very large, old-fashioned key, and the following note from-the matron of the infirmary attached to a workhouse in one of the Midland counties:

“ A man, name unknown, died here yesterday. He would give no particulars of himself, but asked to have this key—the only thing contained in his pockets—forwarded as I do it herewith. ,Tne body will be buried two days from now.” “Oh! Frank, can it be uncle, do you think?”

I cannot tell, dearest, but I will go at once and find out.” “Oh, if it should be! How dreadful to die in a workhouse infirmary, away from everybody. But,” she added, with a sudden access of the practical, “we bad better see whether it is the frontdoor key.” They tried. It was ! Francis Shirley had a fruitless and yet further mystifying journey up to the midlands, for when he arrived at, the infirmary, he found that tlxe man who had died, and who had sent the key to Thomely, was a young fellow of about thirty ’ years of age and apparently a tramp. '

CHAPTER IV. On a bright July day just one year after she had first promised to dio so, Mary Mardeau became Mrs Francis Shirley. The wedding took place quietly at Thomely Church, Mr Jareds, the solicitor, making a special journey to the village to act as her uncle’s representative, and give away the bride. Nothing had been heard of Uncle Greg, and it seemed as though nothing ever would be heard of him. A brief honeymoon, spent walking amid the Welsh mountains, having come to an end, the young couple settled down in “ the vine-covered cottage at the end of Thomely.” Beautifully aid they realise that' “love .in a cottage,” the charms of which have been so often sung ; although Mary often thought wistfully of her poor old uncle and benefactor —his fifty pounds a year, still faithfully remitted by Mr Jarvis, formed no in-. considerable portion of their joint incomes—* and wondered what could have become of. him. * . « . , * * . • Nearly two years of married life had come and gone, and a small chubby Gregory reigned supreme in Vine Cottage. Mary bad insisted, on his arrival, that he should should share his father’s and her uncle’s names, and he was as>

One day in June—just upon three-yeans 1 flatter the old inaAs-disappearance—a.cottpls', of young swallows tumbled down the sitr 1 ing-room chimney, and Mary called her hm>band to-seoto them. He was sitting before his easel in the gaaden trying to place n^obj canvas a counterfeit presentment of bis-Hay. son, but at once w-ent in and caught the ■ fluttering birds and put them.out oh'the. tiled roof. Then he returned; to look, up-the chhnney to see if there were any others. “Mary, here’s a rum go,” he said, from the hearth, his head and shoulders up the soot-grimed chimney, “ your trade rrufet-Easo been a miser, after all; look here,” and he rubbed where a tiny golden speck showed amid the rough ceanent.” “But, Frank,” said his wife, who had, joined him “ those bricks are modi newer than the rest of the chimney. And how; carelessly and roughly they’ve been put up; l they seem to have toppled oyer against the wall.”

“ So- they have. ■ you- very observant little woman. Perhaps your uncle put them there, and we’ve lighted upon his secret hoard.” Mary did not like-even her husband to jest over her uncle as miser, and made him desist. Meanwhile, Frank w-as pulling at soma bricks that seemed looser than the '.others, and suddenly he said: , ' ' . “ Get out quickly, Mary.-. I believe the bally lot is coming down.” Even as he spoke, and as.Marygot from under the projecting chimney, the .bricks came down with a rjui that nearly'oveiiseti Frank,, while the soot and 1 'dusk ;'almo& blinded him ashe felt his way into the room.; “ Frank, are you hurt?” ‘‘No, dear;, but don’t look, it’s too -tesv rible!” -i ■

It was too late to say “don’t look-” Mary had already caught sight of the ghastJf object which had fallen with the brides.! Holding Frank tightlybythe arm, she went with him to the hearth,, and there beheld a huddled up, shrivelled corpse, the haMmummiified face of which was awful to look, upon, but in all its hideous mockery of .death was recognisable as that of her missing-uncle, the long-lost Gregory Gariow! * ,* * » ...» ■

Poor Mary had clung so tenaciously to the idea that her uncle stall lived that thetragw discovery of Ms murdered remains, with ths subsequent inquiry, was a terrible shock- to her, and made Vine Cottage impossible any longer as a home; and she and her husband, •whose pictures are winning him a reputation, with their baby Greg are- at- present Irving in a beautiful villa on the shores of.-tfie Mediterranean, near Genoa.. The time and soot-stained will found; itt the old mauls pocket gave all of which he died possessed to his grand-niece, ' Mary Mardoau, as the only living rppresentative-ol his beloved sister, Mary Gaglow. -