“That is the conclusion my partners and I came to. But, Tempest, ought we to disclose the other simply to catch the murderer?”
“No, I think not. Sir John is dead. You can’t bring him to life again. All you can do is to regard his wishes. I bet he’d prefer that to the stringing up of some poor devil.”
When the motion came on in court the trust was upheld. As constituted under the will it had been perfectly valid; but now under the terms of the will the litigation had put an end to it, and the court ruled that the capital moneys had now vested in the surviving partners for their own benefit.
“Come and dine with all of us to-night, Tempest,” said one of the partners, as they left the law courts after hearing judgment given. “We’re in a deuce of a quandary!”
The invitation was accepted, and after dinner the four men sat over the walnuts and the wine in the sumptuously furnished bachelor chambers of Arthur Baxter.
“You see, Tempest,” said the host, “the secret trust is already reconstituted. We did it this afternoon. We can’t afford to run the risk of one of us dying and his executors claiming any proprietorship in the money. So the position now is exactly as it was when the will was first proved. But now that the court has declared the money to belong to us personally, the state of affairs isn’t particularly pleasant, because that infernal evening rag is bound to adopt the standpoint that by preventing the elucidation of the murder we have advantaged our own pockets, and that we took the line we did for that reason.”
“Is that as far as you’ve got, Baxter?”
“Yes, but what do you mean?”
“My dear man, don’t you see what the logical consequence is? Don’t any of you see it?”
The three solicitors looked at each other in surprise, and then glanced back at Tempest, as his grave face filled with concern, and they looked the question to him which they waited for the barrister to answer.