"How's McLatchie?" he asked. The judge, with emphasis, consigned McLatchie to torment.
"A bellyache!" he exclaimed, "and he thought he was going to die. I wanted Wilkes to cut him open, just as a lesson. And will you believe me, the damned Scotch—I beg your pardon, Angus, I mean the damned lowlander—when the fear of God produced by the fear of death left his rotten heart with the pain from his equally rotten stomach, refused to make his will. I made him do it, though—and pay for it. Well, you got my note. Come up to the office, where we can talk."
But when he had lit a couple of lamps which illuminated his office and turned to his desk he stopped short.
"Somebody's been in here," he said. "Things are not as I left them." He drew out the drawers of his desk. "Aha!" he exclaimed, for the papers they held had evidently been taken out and jammed back in disorder. "Now what misguided idiot thought a law office worth robbing? I wonder, now—By the Lord! but I believe that's it!"
"What?"
"Why somebody's been after your documents," the judge replied. "O-ho, Braden, me buck! You must think I'm a fool!"
"You mean you think Braden was trying to get back the original deeds?"
"And something else. It's a poor tribute he pays to my intelligence, thinking I'd leave such papers lying at the mercy of a flimsy door lock. People think I am careless, old-fashioned, because they can't see a safe in my office. Well, anybody can blow a safe—if the safe can be found. I had one blown once, and it was nearly the ruin of me. But look here!" A section of wainscoting swung out under his hand, revealing the face of a steel safe. "No local man had anything to do with installing this," the judge said; "and back of it is a false wall to my inner room." He spun the combination and threw the door open. Taking out a thick envelope he drew from it a single sheet of paper which he handed to Angus.
Angus read in amazement. It was a brief statement signed by Braden acknowledging forgery by French and himself, and an acknowledgment of the authenticity of the original deeds.
"How on earth did you get this?" he asked.