“She, and it was not till then that she noticed that one of them was empty. She says, and the plausibility of her surmise you must acknowledge, that it was during the time she was below with Orpha, that Uncle took out the will now missing from its envelope and hid it away. Where, we cannot conceive.”
“What do you know of this woman?”
“Nothing but what is good. She has had the confidence of many people for years.”
“It is an extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves,” I commented, approaching him where he still stood in the open window. “But there cannot be any real difficulty ahead of us. The hiding-places which in his feeble state he could reach, are few. To-morrow will see this necessary document in hand. Meanwhile, you are the master.”
I said it to try him. Though my tone was a matter-of-fact one he could not but feel the sting of such a declaration from me.
And he did, and fully as much as I expected.
“You seem to think,” he said, with a dilation of the nostril and a sudden straightening of his lips which while it lasted made him look years older than his age, “that there is such a thing as the possibility of some other person taking that place upon the finding and probating of the remaining will.”
“I have reason to, Edgar.”
“How much reason, Quenton?”
“Only my uncle’s word.”