ARTHUR.T Stories ------500 Million Dollars --II---Page 06

This story, which ends in New York, begins in the Department of the

Gironde at the town of Monsegur, seventy-five kilometers from Bordeaux, in the little vineyard of Monsieur Emile Lapierre--"landowner." In 1901 Lapierre was a happy and contented man, making a good living out of his modest farm. To-day he is--well, if you understand the language of the
Gironde, he will tell you with a shrug of his broad shoulders that he
might have been a Monte Cristo had not _le bon Dieu_ willed it
otherwise. For did he not almost have five hundred million dollars--two and a half _milliards_ of francs--in his very hands? _Hein_? But he did! Does M'sieu' have doubts? Nevertheless it is all true. _C'est trop vrai_! Is M'sieu' tired? And would he care to hear the story? There is a comfortable chair _sous le grand arbre_ in front of the veranda, and Madame will give M'sieu' a glass of wine from the presses, across the road. Yes, it _is_ good wine, but there is little profit in it, when one  thinks in _milliards_.

The landowner lights his pipe and seats himself cross-legged against the trunk of the big chestnut. Back of the house the vineyard slopes away
toward the distant woods in straight, green, trellised alleys. A dim
haze hangs over the landscape sleeping so quietly in the midsummer
afternoon. Down the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a wain
loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and drawn by two oxen, their
heads swinging to the dust. Yes, it is hard to _comprendre_ twenty-five
hundred million francs.

It was this way. Madame Lapierre was a Tessier of Bordeaux--an ancient _bourgeois_ family, and very proud indeed of being _bourgeois_. You can see her passing and repassing the window if you watch carefully the
kitchen, where she is superintending dinner. The Tessiers have always
lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by marriage with
everybody--from the blacksmith up to the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier was Mayor himself. Years and years ago Madame's great-uncle Jean had emigrated to America, and from time to time vague rumors of the wealth
he had achieved in the new country reached the ears of his
relatives--but no direct word ever came.

Then one hot day--like this--appeared M. le General. He came walking
down the road in the dust from the _gare_, in his tall silk hat and
frock coat and gold-headed cane, and stopped before the house to ask if
one of the descendants of a certain Jean Tessier did not live
hereabouts. He was fat and red-faced, and he perspired, but--_Dieu_!--he
was _distingue_, and he had an order in his buttonhole. Madame Lapierre,
who came out to answer his question, knew at once that he was an
aristocrat.

Ah! was she herself the grandniece of Jean Tessier? Then, Heaven be
thanked! the General's toilsome journey was ended. He had much to tell
them--when he should be rested. He removed the silk hat and mopped his
shining forehead. He must introduce himself that he might have credit
with Madame, else she might hardly listen to his story, for there had
never been a tale like it before since the world was. Let him present
himself--M. le General Pedro Suarez de Moreno, Count de Tinoco and
Marquis de la d'Essa. Although one was fatigued it refreshed one to be
the bearer of good news, and such was his mission. Let Madame prepare
herself to hear. Yes, it would be proper for her to call M'sieu', her
husband, that he might participate.

Over a draft of this same vintage M. le General imparted to them the secret. Lapierre laughs and shrugs his shoulders as he recalls the
scene--the apoplectic General, with the glass of wine in one hand,
waving the other grandiloquently as he described the wealth about to descend upon them.

Yes, the General must begin at the beginning, for it was a long story.
First, as to himself and how he came to know of the affair. It had been
on his return from the Philippines after the surrender of Manila, where
he had been in command of the armies of Spain, that he had paused for
repose in New York and had first learned of the Tessier inheritance. The
precise manner of his discovery was left somewhat indefinite, but the
Lapierres were not particular. So many distinguished persons had played
a part in the drama that the recital left but a vague impression as to
individuals. A certain Madame Luchia, widow of one Roquefailaire, whom
he had accidentally met, had apparently been the instrument of
Providence in disclosing the history of Jean Tessier to the General. She
herself had been wronged by the villains and knew all the secrets of the
conspirators. But she had waited for a suitable opportunity to speak.
Jean Tessier had died possessed of properties which to-day, seventy
years after, were worth in the neighborhood of five hundred million
dollars! The General paused for the effect, solemnly nodding his head
at his astounded auditors in affirmance. Yes, it was even so!

Five hundred million dollars! No more--and no less! Then he once more took up the thread of his narrative.

Tessier's lands, originally farms, were to-day occupied by huge

_magasins_, government buildings, palaces and hotels. He had been a
frugal, hardworking, far-seeing man of affairs whose money had doubled
itself year by year. Then had appeared one Emmeric Lespinasse, a
Frenchman, also from Bordeaux, who had plotted to rob him of his estate,
and the better to accomplish his purpose had entered the millionaire's
employ. When Tessier died, in 1884, Lespinasse had seized his papers and
the property, destroyed his will, dispersed the clerks, secretaries,
"notaries" and accountants of the deceased, and quietly got rid of such
persons as stood actively in his way. The great wealth thus acquired had
enabled him to defy those who knew that he was not entitled to the
fortune, and that the real heirs were in far-away France.

He had prospered like the bay tree. His daughter, Marie Louise, had
married a distinguished English nobleman, and his sons were now the
richest men in America. Yet they lived with the sword of Damocles over their heads, suspended by a single thread, and the General had the knife wherewith to cut it. Lespinasse, among other things, had caused the
murder of the husband of Madame Luchia, and she was in possession of conclusive proofs which, at the proper moment, could be produced to
convict him of his many crimes, or at least to oust his sons and
daughter from the stolen inheritance.

It was a weird, bizarre nightmare, no more astonishing than the novels
the Lapierres had read. America, they understood, was a land where the
rivers were full of gold--a country of bronzed and handsome savages, of

birds of paradise and ruined Aztec temples, of vast tobacco fields and
plantations of thousands of acres of cotton cultivated by naked slaves,
while one lay in a hammock fanned by a "_petite negre_" and languidly
sipped _eau sucree_. The General had made it all seem very, very real.
At the weak spots he had gesticulated convincingly and digressed upon
his health. Then, while the narrative was fresh and he might have had to
answer questions about it had he given his listeners opportunity to ask
them, he had hastily told of a visit to Tunis. There he had by chance

encountered Marie Louise, the daughter of Lespinasse, living with her

noble husband in a "handsome Oriental palace," had been invited to dine
with them and had afterward seized the occasion while "walking in the
garden" with the lady to disclose the fact that he knew all, and had it
in his power to ruin them as impostors. Marie Louise had been
frightfully angry, but afterward her better nature had suggested the
return of the inheritance, or at least a hundred millions or so, to the
rightful heirs. The General had left the palace believing all would be
well, and had retired to Paris to await letters and further
developments, but these had never come, and he had discovered that he
had been deceived. It had been merely a ruse on the part of the woman
and her husband to gain time, and now every step that he took was dogged
by spies in the pay of the Lespinasses, who followed him everywhere. But
the right would triumph! He had sworn to run the conspiracy to earth!

Many hours were consumed in the telling of the story. The Lapierres were enchanted. More than that, they were convinced--persuaded that they were heirs to the richest inheritance in the world, which comprised most of
the great American city of New York.

Persons who were going to participate in twenty-five hundred millions of
francs could afford to be hospitable. M. le General stayed to dinner. A
list of the heirs living in or near Bordeaux was made out with the share
of each in the inheritance carefully computed. Madame Lapierre's was
only fifty million dollars--but still that was almost enough to buy up
Bordeaux. And they could purchase Monsegur as a country place. The
General spoke of a stable of automobiles by means of which the journey
from Bordeaux to the farm could be accomplished in the space of an hour.

That night the good man and his wife scarcely closed their eyes, and the
next day, accompanied by the General, they visited Bordeaux and the
neighboring towns and broke the news gently to the other heirs. There
was M. Pettit, the veterinary at Mormand; Tessier, the blacksmith in
Bordeaux; M. Pelegue and his wife, M. Rozier, M. Cazenava and his son,
and others. One branch of the family lived in Brazil--the Joubin Freres
and one Tessier of "Saint Bezeille." These last had to be reached by
post, a most annoyingly slow means of communication--_mais que
voulez-vous_?