"
"And he wants his share of the estate?" asked Ricky shrewdly.
"Yes."
"He can keep on wanting," Val said shortly. "We've nothing to give."
"There's Pirate's Haven," pointed out Mr. LeFleur.
"But he can't--" Ricky's hand closed about her brother's wrist.
"Naturally he can't take it," Val assured her hotly. "Pirate's Haven is
ours. This looks to me like blackmail. He'll threaten to stir up a lot
of trouble unless we buy him off."
Mr. LeFleur nodded. "That is perhaps the motive behind it all."
"Well," Val forced a laugh, "then he loses. We haven't the money to buy
him off."
"Neither have you the money to fight a case through the courts, Mr.
Valerius," answered the lawyer soberly.
"But there is some chance, there must be!" urged Ricky.
"I submitted the full case to Mr. John Stanton yesterday--Mr. Stanton is
our local authority on cases of this type. He has informed me that there
is a single ray of hope. Frankly, I find this claimant a dubious person,
but a shrewd one. He knows that he has the advantage now, but should we
gain the upper hand, we could, I believe, rid ourselves of him. Our
chance lies in the past. This was first a French and then a Spanish
colony. Under both rules the law of primogeniture sometimes held force.
That is, an estate passed to the eldest son of a family. Your estate was
such a one. In fact, we possess in this very office old charters and
papers which state that the property was entailed after the European
custom.
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