“I don’t get your drift,” remarked Edgerton, wrinkling his forehead. “We own this property and can use it as we see fit.”
“The Wadsworth property has always been used for administrative purposes,” put in Gobbet. “It is steadily increasing in value. Sometime, no doubt, it will be sold.”
“Isn’t this all a question of management, Mr. Tutt?” asked Mr. Hepplewhite politely. “I really fail to see how it concerns you or Mrs. Benton.”
Mr. Tutt took a paper from his pocket. “Have you ever seen the phraseology of the devise? I’ll read it:
“To the Home for Aged Gentlewomen, Incorporated, I give the sum of $25,000, together with my lot of land bordering upon the East River in the city of New York, the house and all other buildings thereon, absolutely and in fee simple, provided that the same be used for an old ladies’ home, otherwise said house and land shall fall into and become a part of my residuary estate.”
He paused and peered over his glasses at the two gentlemen.
“Well,” replied Edgerton, “what of it?”
“Merely that my client, Mrs. Benton, happens to be the residuary legatee of her father’s estate and that, since your corporation has never used the property for the purposes specified in his will, it has reverted to her.”
Mr. Edgerton was the first to break the silence which followed the detonation of Mr. Tutt’s legal bombshell.
“Your claim is preposterous!” he asserted vehemently. “So long as our plant in Westchester remains sufficient for our needs, Mr. Wadsworth would not wish us to cramp ourselves financially by duplicating it in the city. He certainly intended to allow some discretion in the handling of this property!”
“Discretion!” cried Mr. Tutt. “That is precisely what he did not intend to allow! His language is perfectly plain. Green versus Old People’s Home of Chicago, 269 Illinois 134, directly establishes my contention. The corporation has forfeited the devise for the simple reason that it has neglected to fulfill his conditions.”
Mr. Edgerton rubbed his chin. It certainly was a tough one, but as a high-priced lawyer, he could not afford to yield without putting up some sort of an argument.
“It’s not so easy as that!” he retorted. “I concede that the corporation, by accepting the devise, covenanted to carry out its terms, but a breach of covenant—even if there had been one, which I do not for a moment admit—is quite different from a forfeiture under which a residuary legatee can enter and take possession of the property. In Graves versus Deterling—in 120 New York, I think it is—it was held that where there is any doubt whether a clause contains a covenant or a condition, the courts will construe it so as to avoid a forfeiture.”
“Covenant my eye!” snorted the old man. “Any first-year law student could tell that this was a condition and not a covenant!”
“Anyhow,” continued the attorney feebly, “the law will allow a reasonable time for any condition to to be carried out, particularly by a charity. A complicated institution can’t be organized in a minute.”
“Twenty-seven years is rather more than a minute, isn’t it?” grinned Mr. Tutt. “You haven’t a leg to stand on, Edgerton, and you know it. Why drag out the agony? Mrs. Benton has only to bring an action in ejectment and the courts will instantly hand the property over to her.”
“I hope you do not mean to imply, Mr. Tutt, that we have been recreant to our trust,” said Mr. Hepplewhite.
“I certainly do,” retorted the old man. “Your institution has hardly made even a colorable attempt to serve the purposes for which it was originally founded. What it does is pure camouflage—window dressing. Its investments yield upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum, out of which it supports exactly twenty-two old ladies! I hold in my hand a list of the salaries paid to its officials. They aggregate more than eighty thousand dollars. There’s something wrong when it costs an institution twelve thousand dollars a year to support each object of its charity. I make no charges against the board of management save that of negligence. There has been no dishonesty in the technical sense. But for the last eighteen years the Home for Aged Gentlewomen has been run as a racket. It is a shocking example of one-man control.”
“Do you refer to me, sir?” choaked Mr. Hepplewhite.
“I do not. The man to whom I refer is the one who, throughout that time, has lived in luxury with his wife and family in the former home of Eben Wadsworth, drawing a salary of twenty thousand dollars per year, with all expenses, and whose friends and relatives pad the pay roll of the corporation. I refer to that man behind the desk—Wallace T. Gobbet!”
The superintendent sat slumped in his chair, his head sunk on his breast, his face a sickly yellow.
“That is why he was so anxious to get Mrs. Benton to assign her interest in her father’s estate, for he very well knew that, owing to his own misconduct, this property has now, through legal reversion, become hers by right. I believe I told you that a million dollars hung on your coming here; I might better have said three millions.”
And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite proved himself a man. Grandma Benton could not but feel sorry for him.
“I am chagrined and humiliated at what you have disclosed,” he confessed. “It could not have occurred had I given proper attention to the affairs of the institution. I’m not an attorney, but what you say as to the law seems clearly good morals and good sense. I have no doubt it is correct. I have rarely visited Wadsworth Place and I am astonished to learn the actual use to which it has been put.” He faced the wretched superintendent. “As for you, Gobbet, I’ve no words to describe what I think of you. We directors have been negligent, but you have been far worse. You treacherously took advantage of our negligence to feather your own nest and tried to extort from Mrs. Benton a deed for this property which would cover your delinquencies. You are discharged! Make arrangements to leave here with your family at once!”
“But,” whined Gobbet, getting to his feet, “are you going to put me out of my home without a hearing?”
“Hearing! Home!” sputtered Mr. Hepplewhite.
“How about Mrs. Benton, you—you——”
“The boys have a word for it,” suggested Mr. Tutt. “It begins with an l!”
“Anyhow, g-get out!” shouted the chairman of the board. He turned to the others after Gobbet had slunk past them. “And, of course, I shall resign myself,” he added.
“What would be the point of that, sir?” returned Mr. Tutt sympathetically. “Probably the same thing would have happened whoever had been chairman. This isn’t the only institution that suffers from absentee landlordism. If the Home for Aged Gentlewomen has got to be a one-man show, why not be that man?”
Grandma Benton’s heart was thumping and her eyes were bright.
“I don’t want to do anything to thwart father’s wishes,” she said, “but I don’t think he would have approved of Mr. Gobbet, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have wished me to go to the almshouse. I’m not so very old yet and I’m really quite strong. Couldn’t the corporation keep the property, turn it into a real old ladies’ home, just as he intended, and let me run it as resident manager? Of course, I should want to make a clean sweep of everyone that’s here now—all except Mrs. Liscomb. I’d like her to stay. She’s really a dear old thing.”
Mr. Hepplewhite blew his nose. Then he put his handkerchief carefully back in his pocket, walked over to Grandma Benton, bowed and raised her wrinkled hand to his lips.
“May I be permitted to say the same of you?” he asked.
One evening a month later, Grandma Benton stood with Mr. Tutt on the terrace, watching the electric signs as they flashed on and off, making paths of red and yellow across the blue-black river; behind them rose the glittering