Fer-De-Lance

"No. That's what I went back for. Naturally I didnt want him, my wife's family took him. They lived out on the pampa, that's where I got her from. The boy's name was Manuel, and that had been my friend's name; I had suggested naming him after my friend. I came back alone, and for twenty-six years I lived alone, and I found the market a better wife than the one I had tried. But I suppose there was a doubt in me all the time, or maybe as a man gets older he softens up. Maybe I just got lonely, or maybe I wanted to persuade myself that I really had a son. Four years ago I got things in shape and went to Beunos Aires. I found him right away. The family had gone broke when he was young and they were mostly dead, and he had had a hard time of it, but he had made good. When I found him he was one of the best aviators in the Argentine army. I had to persuade him to break away. For a while he tried my office, but he wasn't cut out for it, and he's going into the airplane business with my money. I bought a place up in Westchester and built a new house on it, and I only hope when he gets married he won't take any trips that end the way mine did."

"Of course he knows-about his mother?"

"I don't think so. I don't know, it's never been mentioned. I hope not. Not that I've got any remorse about it; if I had it to do over I'd do it again. I don't pretend, even to him, that Manuel is exactly the son I would want to get if I could just file a buy order; after all, he's Argentine and I'm Illinois. But his name's Kimball and he's got a head on him. He'll get an American girl, I hope, and that will even it up."

"Indubitably." Wolfe had left his beer untasted so long that the foam was gone, leaving it as still as tea. He reached for the glass and gulped it. "Yes, Mr. Kimball, you proved your point; the injury was to you. But you-let us say-took care of it. If there was an injury to the boy you are repairing it handsomely. Your confession is scarcely as damaging as mine; I perforce admit culpability; as Mr. Goodwin would say, I have no out. But if the boy feels the injury?"

"No."

"But if by chance he does?"

I saw Kimball's eyes fall. It was sometimes not easy to meet Wolfe's eyes, but Kimball the trader should have been impervious to any eye. He wasn't. He didn't try it again. Abruptly he got up and, standing, said:

"He doesn't. I took no such advantage of your confession, Mr. Wolfe."