“I do. What did they tell you, Yardley? You can speak frankly, for I know all there is to be known about it, and I’m curious to know how much they disclosed to you.”
“I think they told me all they knew themselves.”
“About the secret trust?”
“Oh, yes, they told me that;” and Yardley briefly recapitulated the details Tempest already knew.
“I’m glad they told you, Yardley, else I should have had to hold my tongue. You’ve seen the letter Sir John wrote?”
“I’ve got a copy,” and the detective produced it from his letter-case. “Can you give me any tips about that? I want some badly, though I’m not at the end of my tether with that case yet.”
“Well, Yardley, there’s one very curious sentence. Sir John says that if the eventuality the trust is to provide for doesn’t turn up in one hundred years from the 18th of August, 1881, it never will. What do you make of that?”
“If you want to know my candid opinion, I think it’s all damned rot! I believe Sir John was insane, and I’ve been interviewing his doctors. I can’t say they welcome the suggestion, but that’s what I think. Look here, Tempest, how can you call such a trust sane? Did you ever hear of one like it before? It just seems wildly preposterous to me. I think the fact that he could create such a trust—the will’s all in his own handwriting, so he couldn’t have had advice—is just the best proof you could want to demonstrate the truth of his insanity.”
“Yardley, I’m a lawyer—you aren’t. You can take it from me—even if it were not a judgment in court—that the trust is legal, and I think it is perfectly sane. The difficulty is this. Sir John had to deal with a secret, and he did his best to make that secret sacred. But Sir John knew nothing apparently about deduction, for it’s possible to get a good deal of explanation out of the thing as it stands. All I am doubtful about is how far one is justified in trying to find any explanation at all. You see, he leaves things to his partners, trusting blindly in their honour and integrity, and they accept the matter as sacred. I don’t blame them. It’s what they ought to do. They retain me in one way and you in another, and they disclose to us what they decline to make public. You see, you and I in all decency—paid by them, working in their interests—must adopt their standpoint. If they are not justified in ferretting, neither are we.”
“Well, Tempest, your morality is chalks above mine; but take it as you say, I don’t see what you are driving at.”