The Rich Shall Inherit by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

lid of an old school desk, he ran his finger across the carved initials
AK
, imagining the pretty Angel, bored with her lessons, etching them into the soft pine with a hairpin. Inside was a collection of girlish mementos, a pile of old theater and concert programs, a bunch of dance cards with tiny gilt pencils still attached, a crumbling posy of pressed flowers. Then, at last, several batches of letters tied with ribbon. And underneath was a blue leather book imprinted in faded gilt:
Rosalia Konstant-Her Journal—Vol I, 1863.
There were more—
Vol II & III
—and then a thin pink velvet book:
Angel Konstant’s Journal, Age 12—18.
And at last, a plain brown leather book inscribed
Margaret Mallory-Her Journal—1873.
    Margaret
Mallory! Mike’s hair stood on end as he ran his dusty hand excitedly over it.
    Hurrying from the attic, he laid out his finds on the library table, arranging the dance cards in small piles alongside the packets of letters, and then the precious journals. With a satisfied sigh, he began to read.
    Two days later, he refolded the final letter, retied the red ribbon carefully, and sat back gazing out of the window, puzzled.
    “A glass of the finest manzanilla for your thoughts?” suggested Hilliard from the doorway.
    Spinning around, Mike smiled at him. “Sorry, I was miles away … or rather years!”
    “Well?” Hilliard wheeled himself across the room to the drinks table and poured two glasses of sherry. “Have you solved the mystery of Poppy Mallory’s heir?”
    Mike ran his hand thoughtfully through his hair, frowning. “No …but it’s a beginning….” The funny thing was that they had all written so much about Poppy, he felt he almost knew her—or at least the young Poppy. Because quite suddenly, she had disappeared from the pages of those journals as though she’d never existed.
    He thought Hilliard would never go to bed, but as darkness fell the old man finally said good night. Turning his wheelchair at the library door, he smiled sardonically. “I think you’ve got your work cut out for you, Mike Preston,” he said with an edge of bitterness to his voice. “Nothing in life is ever as simple as it seems—that’s my experience, anyhow.” Turning abruptly, he wheeled himself along the hall to his room.
    Mike stared after him, puzzled. Then he looked at the little pile of letters and journals on the library table. “Okay, Poppy Mallory,” he said determinedly, “you’ve hooked me …. I’ve got to know what happened. And when I do, I’m gonna tell the whole world about you!”
    He knew he would have to use his imagination to fill in the gaps left by the journals, but now he had a pretty shrewd grasp of the characters involved. Inserting a fresh sheet of paper into his typewriter, he wrote, “In the beginning, there was Nikolai Konstantinov and Jeb Mallory …”

CHAPTER 4
    1856, CALIFORNIA
    Jeb Mallory was celebrating his thirtieth birthday alone in Clancey’s Saloon, Kearney Street, San Francisco. He drank his third Irish whiskey quickly, followed by a beer chaser, and signaled the bartender for another. The memory of his turbulent passage through the years from a raw fourteen-year-old lad in southwestern Ireland, learning his craft of a gambler the hard way, to a much traveled professional gambling man wise in the ways of the world, did not depress him, simply because he barely thought about it. Jeb was a man of the moment. When he was asked, he always claimed he had no past, but the truth was, he preferred to forget it—or at least to embroider it to suit the company he was in. Not that those years had been bad ones—there had always been plenty of excitement. He’d had a great many winning streaks and a few fast losses, as well as more than any man’s fair share of beautiful women, most of them with the luxurious red hair and transparent white skin that was his downfall. And it was true that easy money ran all too quickly through his fingers. But the plain fact