Verne The Begum's Fortune

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-8496-4581-6
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 181 Seiten

Jules Verne's conceptions are as brilliant as ever. Dr. Sarrasin, a French savant, simple in taste and absorbed in science, delivers an address at the Brighton Scientific Association. The publication of it with his name in ' The Daily Telegraph' discovers him to a London lawyer as the lost heir of the Begum, whom his uncle had married in India. He inherits a moderate property of twenty-one millions sterling, all ready for him in the Bank of England. Dr. Schultz, a German professor, also a connection by marriage, threatens to dispute it. They settle the dispute by dividing it. Dr. Sarrasin founds in the Rocky Mountains a city of health, modelled on Dr. Richardson's lines. Dr. Schultz founds at thirty miles distance a stupendous cannon manufactory. One piece fires a shot with a velocity and force that give it perpetual motion. He resolves to destroy Dr. Sarrasin's city. How he fails and perishes by his own science the story must tell ; but it is prodigious. The magnificence and the verisimilitude are perfect.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Verne, Jules

Weitere Mitwirkende

Bennett, Leon

Leseproben

Chapter IV

TWO CLAIMANTS

On the 6th November, at 7 A.M., Professor Schultz arrived at the Charing Cross Station. At noon he presented himself at No. 94 Southampton Row, entering a large room divided by a wooden barrier, one side being for the clerks, the other for the public. In it there were six chairs, a table, numberless green tin boxes, and a London Directory. Two young men, seated at the table, were quietly eating the traditional luncheon of bread and cheese usual with their class.

“Messrs. Billows, Green and Sharp?” said the professor, in the tone of a man calling for his dinner.

“Mr. Sharp is in his private room—what name? On what business?”

“Professor Schultz, of Jena. On the Langévol business.”

This information was murmured into the speaking-tube by the young clerk; a reply being returned into his ear which he did not choose to repeat, “Hang the Langévol business! Another fool come to put in a claim!”

Clerk’s answer: “This man seems respectable enough. Does not look exactly agreeable, though.”

Another mysterious whisper conveyed the words, “And he comes from Germany?”

“So he says.”

With a sigh came the order, “Send him upstairs.”

“Second story, door facing you,” said the clerk aloud, pointing to an inner entrance. The professor plunged into the passage, mounted the stairs, and found himself opposite a green baize door, on which the name of Mr. Sharp stood out in black letters on a brass plate.

That personage was seated at a large mahogany writing table, in a common looking room, with a felt carpet, leather chairs, and many open boxes. He half rose from his seat, and then, according to the polite fashion of business men, began to rummage among his papers for several minutes to show how busy he was. At last, turning to Professor Schultz, who remained standing near him, he said, “Have the goodness, sir, to tell me your business here in as few words as possible. My time is limited; I can give you but a very few minutes.”

The professor smiled slightly, evidently not at all put out by the way he was received.

“Perhaps,” he said, “when you know what brings me here, you will think it advisable to grant me a few minutes more.”

“Proceed, sir.”

“My business relates to the inheritance left by Jean Jacques Langévol, of Bar-le-Duc, I am the grandson of the elder sister, Theresa Langévol, who married in 1792 my grandfather, Martin Schultz, a surgeon in the army of Brunswick; he died in 1814. I have in my possession three letters from my great-uncle, written to his sister, and many accounts of his return home after the battle of Jena besides the legal documents which prove my birth.”

We need not follow Professor Schultz through the prolix explanations which he gave to Mr. Sharp. On this point he seemed, contrary to his nature, quite inexhaustible. His aim was to demonstrate to this Englishman, this Mr. Sharp, that by rights the German race should, in all things, predominate over all others. His object in putting forward a claim to this inheritance was chiefly that it might be snatched from French hands, which could not fail to make a silly use of it. What he hated in his rival was his nationality. Had he been a German he certainly should not have interfered, etc., etc.

But that a Frenchman—a would-be “savant”—should have this enormous wealth to spend upon French fancies, was distracting to his feelings, and he considered it his duty to contest his right to it at all costs.

At first sight, the connection between these political opinions and the opulent inheritance in question was not very clear. But the experienced eye of the man of business plainly detected the relation which patriotic ambition for the advantage of the German nation generally bore to the private interests of Professor Schultz individually. He saw that this apparently double aim had in reality but one motive.

There was no doubt about it. However humiliating it might be for a professor of the University of Jena to be connected with beings of an inferior race, it was evident that a French ancestress had had a share in the responsibility of giving to the world this matchless human being.

But this relationship being in a secondary degree to that of Dr. Sarrasin, would only give secondary rights to the said inheritance. The solicitor perceived, however, the possibility of lawfully sustaining them, and in this possibility he foresaw another which would be much to the advantage of Billows, Green and Sharp, something which would change the Langévol affair, already productive, into a very good thing, indeed, a second case of the “Jarndyce versus Jarndyce” of Dickens. An extensive horizon of stamped paper, deeds, documents of all sorts, rose before the eyes of the man of law; and, what was worth more, he saw a compromise conducted by himself, Sharp, to the interest of both his clients, which would bring to himself equal parts of honor and profit.

In the meanwhile he made known to Professor Schultz the claims of Dr. Sarrasin, gave him proofs in corroboration, and insinuated that if Billows, Green and Sharp undertook to make something advantageous for the professor out of the claims, “shadowy though they are, my dear sir, it would, I fear, not hold water in a lawsuit,” which his relationship to the doctor gave him—he hoped that the remarkable sense of justice, possessed by all Germans, would admit that to Messrs. Billows, Green and Sharp, he, the professor, owed a large debt of gratitude.

The latter was practical enough to understand the drift of this argument, and soon put the mind of the business man at rest on this point, though without committing himself in any way. Mr. Sharp politely begged permission to examine into the affair at his leisure, showed him out with marked respect, nothing more having been said as to the very limited time of which before he had been so sparing.

Professor Schultz retired convinced that he had no sufficient claim to put forward for the Begum’s inheritance, but all the same persuaded that a struggle between the Saxon and Latin races, besides being always meritorious, would not fail, if set about properly, to tum to the advantage of the former.

The next important step was to get Dr. Sarrasin’s opinion on the subject. A telegram despatched immediately to Brighton had the effect of bringing that gentleman to Mr. Sharp’s office by five o’clock. Dr. Sarrasin heard all that had occurred with a calmness which astonished the solicitor. He frankly declared that he perfectly remembered a tradition in his family of a great-aunt brought up by a rich and titled lady, who had emigrated with her, and who had married in Germany. He knew neither the name nor the exact degree of relationship of this great-aunt.

Mr. Sharp was busily looking over his notes, carefully numbered in portfolios, which he now exhibited with considerable complacency to the doctor. There was—Mr. Sharp did not seek to hide it—matter for a lawsuit, and lawsuits of this character may easily be lengthened out. Indeed, it was not at all necessary to acknowledge to the adverse party that family tradition which Dr. Sarrasin had in his honesty just now confided to his solicitor. To be sure, there were those letters from Jean Jacques Langévol to his sister, of which Professor Schultz had spoken, and which were a point in his favor. A very small point indeed, destitute of any legal character, but still a point—no doubt other proofs would be exhumed from the dust of municipal archives. Perhaps even the adverse party, ill default of authentic documents, would even dare to manufacture false ones. Everything must be foreseen. Who knew but that fresh investigations might assign to this Thérèse Langévol and her descendants, who had suddenly started up, superior claims to Dr. Sarrasin’s? In any case, there would be long disputes, tedious examinations—no end of them. There was good hope of success for both sides, each could easily form a limited liability company to advance the cost of the proceedings and exhaust all the pleas of jurisdiction.

A celebrated suit of the same sort had been in the Court of Chancery for eighty-three consecutive years, and was only ended at last for want of funds—interest and capital, all had gone! What with inquiries, commissions, transfers, the proceedings would take an indefinite period! In ten years’ time the...