Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/254

 "I mean," said the other, fiercely earnest, "that for a month I've worked to sell that land! I had young Maillard hooked and landed—it would have been poetic justice to make him hand over a small fortune to Lucie! But that deal is off, since he's in jail. And do you know why young Maillard wanted to buy the land? For the same reason you don't want to sell. I sent him out there and he saw that oil seepage, as I meant that he should! He thought he would skin Lucie out of her land, not dreaming that I had prepared a nice little trap to swallow him. And now you come along"

"Man, what are you driving at?" exclaimed Gramont. He was startled by what he read in the other man's face.

"Merely that I planted that oil seepage myself—or had it done by men I could trust," said Jachin Fell, calmly. He sat back in his chair and took up his cigar with an air of finality. "The confession is shameless. I love Lucie more than my own ethical purity. Besides, I intend to wrong no one in the matter."

Gramont sat stunned beyond words. The oil seepage—a plant!