The Rich Shall Inherit Read Online Free PDF Page B

chance, he had found a clue. Now he was sure that there was someone right here in Santa Barbara, a daughter, or maybe a grandchild, of the Konstant family, who would know about Poppy Mallory. As usual in his business, he knew the simplest method was the best. All he needed to do was look in the telephone directory under the name “Konstant”!
    Hilliard Konstant was cool and a little edgy on the phone. “I don’t see many people these days,” he told Mike, “and I don’t see any good reason why I should see you, young man.” It was only when Mike mentioned that he was an author in search of a story that his attitude warmed up. “A book you say? About the Konstants?”
    “The Konstants
and
the Mallorys, sir,” Mike added hastily.
    “Be here this evening at five. Do you know your way to the ranch?”
    “I imagine it’ll be hard to miss,” Mike replied, envisaging unbroken acres of pasture. He was wrong.
    The wide Rancho Road, cambered to drain the heavy spring rains, split through the middle of sprawling housing developments on what had once been the Rancho Santa Vittoria. Walled tracts with names like Vittoria Oaks and El Rancho revealed glimpses of pretty suburban houses and neat lawns. Occasionally there was the massive spread of an ancient oak or the remains of a hazelnut thicket, or a hundred yards or so of split-rail fence around a paddock with grazing ponies, as a reminder that in Poppy Mallory’s day, all this had been acres of pasture, with cattle and sheep, and real cowboys.
    Mike drove the rented Suzuki four-wheel-drive through the endless winding suburban avenues until the paved road ended suddenly at the crest of a hill, changing into a single blacktop track bordered on each side with old poplars, so tall, they lookedto be scraping the bright blue sky. A wrought-iron arch bore a sign THE RANCHO SANTA VITTORIA and the brand NK .
    After half a mile the drive ended in a courtyard in front of an old white hacienda, with a riot of clematis and bougainvillaea spilling from its verandahs. A blue-tiled fountain sprayed sparkling arcs of water into the quiet sunlight and a Japanese gardener glanced up curiously, bowing to him before returning to his labor of love in the flower beds. As he walked to the house Mike noticed that everything was well kept; the grounds were immaculate and the worn terra-cotta tile steps had been polished until they shone like lacquer. The front door stood open, and as he peered inside a masculine voice called testily,
    “Come in, come in. It’s Mr. Preston, I assume?”
    The cool tiled hall seemed gloomy after the bright sunlight, but still it would have been impossible to miss Hilliard Konstant—even though he was in a wheelchair. He was well over six feet, with the shoulders of an ex-football player. His sparse white hair had been combed carefully over his balding crown, and his pale blue eyes beneath their bristling white brows seemed to look into the distance beyond Mike, as though he were already impatient for him to leave.
    “Come on in then, hurry up …” Hilliard said crabbily, wheeling himself through a pair of oaken doors into his sanctum. “I expect you’d like a drink while you tell me why you’re wasting my time.”
    Books filled the walls from floor to ceiling, and some—obviously a valuable collection of ancient volumes—were locked safely behind glass doors. A fire burned in the enormous stone grate even though the evening was warm, and over the mantel hung a portrait of a tall, broad-shouldered young man with wheat-blond hair and Hilliard’s pale eyes. He had his arm around a pretty Spanish-looking woman whose laughing dark eyes twinkled mischievously.
    “I know, I know what you’re thinking,” Hilliard said irritably. “Of
course
I look like him. He’s my grandfather—Nikolai Konstantinov—and that’s my grandmother. He was Russian and she was Mexican—an extraordinary combination, don’t you think, for that era? It was painted about 1885, I