The Quiet Mr. Luther

Louis stood in the hallway of the dark house, rain dripping from his windbreaker. The sky had been grey and menacing all morning, but the storm didn’t break until he was already off the bus and halfway up the hill. In a neighborhood like this, full of rich old houses from the rotten days, there was no place to take shelter.

“I’m here to see Mrs. Slyne,” he told the maid, who was looking pointedly at the pool of water forming around his feet.

“You have an appointment?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” he said. “I got a letter.” From the inside of his jacket he pulled out a small black book, the notebook he carried with him everywhere. Undoing the strap, he produced a folded letter that had come in the mail to his Aunt Netty’s house the week before.

The maid examined it critically, then handed it back. “Mrs. Slyne will call for you when she’s ready,” she said.

The maid retreated to the other end of the hallway and settled down on a chair, hands folded in her lap, keeping a watchful eye on Louis. He looked around awkwardly and found a bench by the door to sit on, careful not to let her see the soles of his shoes, which were cracked and worn. Water had soaked in, making his socks damp.

“What do you do?” she demanded from the other end of the hall.

“I work in a mailroom downtown,” he said. The maid grunted, then lapsed into silence again. Louis took a pen out of his pocket and made himself busy with his notebook. He doodled for a moment, then began sketching the maid on her chair, noting the ratty upholstery that needed mending, and the way her suspicious gaze made her face look asymmetrical.

After about fifteen minutes he heard a door open upstairs, and a voice called down. “Isabella, has Mr. Luther arrived yet?”

The maid stood quickly and brushed her hands on her apron. “He just got here, ma’am. I’ll send him up presently.” She fixed Louis with a mean stare, as if daring him to tell her mistress any different. Louis had worked hard to get to the house on time, and he didn’t want anyone to think he was late, but he didn’t feel like getting the maid in trouble either.

At the top of the stairs an elegantly dressed woman beckoned him into a small room where another woman was already seated. “Mr. Louis Luther, I’m Beatrice Slyne. May I introduce my colleague and friend, Janet Dupré?”

Louis nodded his head a mumbled greeting, then sat down at a proffered seat. A low table in front of him was stacked with papers and books.

“Janet is a genealogist,” Mrs. Slyne said. “Do you know what that is, Louis?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“Of course you do!” she said brightly, as though he had performed some wonderful trick. “Well, Janet has been researching my family history for some years now, and we have turned up something about your family as well. Would you like to know what it is?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Hm,” she smiled thinly, perhaps a little disappointed that he didn’t show more obvious excitement. “Well, I don’t know if you have heard of my ancestor, John Slyne, but he made a name for himself in the Caribbean in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He owned a whole fleet of ships, and what remained of his wealth, after the ravages of time and poor investment, has come down eventually to me, his last descendant.”

“I see, ma’am.”

“Janet here has been scouring the world to see if she can turn up anything further that might belong to me, and she has had some successes here and there.” Mrs. Slyne walked to a cluttered bookcase and took down a sword, placing it carefully on the table in front of Louis. “This beauty, for example, was waiting for me in a little museum in Florida. It’s called Al Bulbul, ‘The Nightingale,’ and it was gifted to my ancestor by the Ottoman Sultan.”

Louis looked closely at the sword, not daring to touch it. The scabbard seemed to be made of gold, and ornately decorated with Arabic script. A red and green polished jasper was set into the pommel.

“It’s beautiful, ma’am.”

“It is, isn’t it, Louis?” smiled Mrs. Slyne. “Now here is where you become part of this wonderful story. Janet, will you show him what we’ve found?”

The genealogist leaned forward and opened a folder on the table, revealing a photocopied engraving of two men in long coats and breeches, resting on long, thin canes. In the background African and Indian slaves toiled away, carrying heavy loads and clearing trees. “This, on the left, is John Slyne,” Janet explained. “On the right is his close partner Robert Lowther. We have long thought that Mr. Lowther died at sea in 1722, leaving his business interests to John Slyne. However, we recently discovered that it was his brother George who died, and Robert himself lived on for twenty more years, building an estate for himself in Suriname.”

“You may have noticed,” interrupted Mrs. Slyne, “the resemblance between your own family name and that of Robert Lowther. This is not an accident. You are, in fact, the sole surviving descendant of Robert Lowther, just as I am the last descendant of John Slyne.”

She paused to let the news sink in. Louis stared fixedly at the engraving, his eyes drawn more to the men in the background than those in the foreground.

“That’s interesting,” he murmured.

“There’s more,” continued Janet, glancing up at Mrs. Slyne. “We’ve discovered a small fortune that’s been held in trust since your great grandfather’s time, and it belongs to you.”

Louis looked up, his eyes wide for the first time. “To me?” he asked incredulously. “How much is it?”

“About forty million dollars,” said Janet casually.

“It’s held in a bank in the Cayman Islands,” explained Mrs. Slyne. “And you’ll need to go personally to get it. You’ll need to get a passport, but we’ll arrange everything else for you. And I can’t stress this enough: Time is of the essence! It took Janet years to track this down, and there’s no guarantee the lawyers won’t move the trust somewhere else. When you’re talking about money like this, you can’t rely on anybody.”

Three months later Louis stood nervously in the lobby of an opulent old building in George Town, on the island of Grand Cayman. He was wearing the same windbreaker he had worn on that rainy day when he learned of his connection to Robert Lowther, but his shoes were new, and he was carrying a backpack.

A slender woman with cat eye glasses walked over to him, her high heels clicking precisely and efficiently on the marble floor. “Can I help you?” she asked, cocking her head in a way that suggested she was looking into him to try to discern what curious motivation might have brought him into her building.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Avery,” said Louis. “Three o’clock.”

“I see,” said the woman. “Third floor, please. The lift is at the back.”

The lawyer’s office on the third floor was expansive, and his desk was broad and clean, with only a small stack of papers in the middle of it. Sun streamed in through the windows behind him, and his cologne smelled like rum and clean linen.

“Mr. Luther!” he said grandly, inviting Louis to a seat in front of his desk. “Or should I say ‘Lowther?’” He chuckled richly, and despite himself, Louis smiled.

“Yes, sir.”

“Charles Avery, at your service,” the lawyer said, seating himself at the desk opposite Luther. “Allow me to congratulate you on your good fortune, my boy. As I understand it, you wish to receive the entire sum due to you in a cashier’s check, is that right?”

Louis nodded. This had been the advice from Mrs. Slyne, to carry the check personally back to the United States and deposit it there. “Guaranteed funds,” she had called it. “You will always know exactly where it is,” she had said.

“Well, Mr. Luther, this transaction will not take us long, but I must urge you to exercise the utmost caution once you receive this check. It will be very difficult to replace the check if it is lost, and nearly impossible to recover if stolen. Do you understand?”

Louis nodded.

“Well then, I’ll summon the banker, shall I?” He reached over to a telephone on his desk and picked up the receiver. “Margaret, we’re ready for Cartwright. Can you send him over?”

The lawyer’s chair creaked as he leaned back, happily twiddling his fingers while they waited for the banker to arrive. “So, Louis, what line of work are you in?”

“I work in a mailroom,” he explained.

“Really! We have a mailroom here, you know. These little pieces of paper are the lifeblood of the Law. I’ve great respect for the men who work down there. Couldn’t do it without them!”

Louis nodded. He doubted whether Mr. Avery knew much about the work of the mailroom, but he didn’t say so.

Moments later a short, overweight, nervous little man bustled into the room. Cartwright, the banker, explained that a court had already reviewed the evidence and determined that Louis was indeed the rightful heir to the Lowther fortune, so all that remained was to verify his identity, record the transaction, and hand over the check.

When he received the cashier’s check, Louis realized he was trembling. It seemed like an impossible document, the number of digits in the amount was unreal. There were handshakes, congratulations, and pats on the back. Cigars and brandy were offered and declined, perhaps to the disappointment of Mr. Avery, but apparently to the relief of Mr. Cartwright, who seemed eager to get back to his work. In the end, Louis folded the check carefully unto the pages of his little black notebook, put the notebook into his backpack, and walked out of the office as if in a dream.

A week later, Aunt Netty listened to Louis recount what had happened to him afterwards in George Town. She heard about the car that had pulled up alongside him as he walked to the airport, the men who had wrestled him to the ground and stolen his backpack. He was a young man of few words, but she could tell he was hurt more deeply than he showed. The woman who called herself Mrs. Slyne was now long gone, and the rotten old house on the hill was empty.

“Oh, honey,” Aunt Netty consoled him, “it’s a damn shame. That money is a curse, though, and you know it. Whoever’s got it, they’ve got some real pain and suffering coming their way.”

Louis looked up. “It’s us that’s going to have the pain and suffering, auntie,” he said sadly.

“Oh, no, honey, we’re alright,” she murmured.

“That’s not what I mean, auntie.” Louis picked up a small parcel with an airmail stamp on it. “This came in the mail today.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“My notebook,” he explained. “With the check in it.”

Surprise slowly dawned on her face. “How?” she gasped.

“I didn’t put that thing in my backpack, auntie,” he said. “I took it down to their mailroom and had them mail it out from there. One look at me and they figured I was there on someone else’s business, didn’t even ask any questions. Now the trouble we’ve got is how to walk into a bank and open an account for forty million dollars. That sure isn’t going to be easy.”

Netty looked at him in astonishment for a moment, then wrapped him in her arms. “You’re right Louis,” she laughed, “that won’t be easy at all!”