“Right!” frothed Jellison. “Right! I’m the heir. I own every stick and stone of the place!”
“Really?” Dick questioned. “I was under the impression that it was the property of Barry Lawrence, from whom we rented it for a few days.”
Jellison’s pompous self-assertion collapsed with the swiftness of a pricked balloon. He had evidently tried to bluff the Yale men, having no idea that they knew the truth, and for a moment he was nonplused.
His eyes shifted about the room and he moistened his dry lips with an equally dry tongue.
“Impossible!” he muttered at length. “There wasn’t any will. I am the heir-at-law.”
Dick smiled.
“I think you have been misinformed,” he said significantly. “There was a will, which left everything to Barry Lawrence, Mr. Hickey’s nephew.”
Jellison dropped into a chair, and, taking out his handkerchief, mopped his forehead.
“You’ll excuse my somewhat hasty words, I’m sure,” he said presently. “I didn’t understand what you were doing here, or I shouldn’t have spoken as I did. This has been a great shock!”
Dick dropped back into his chair without replying. He wondered whether the shock had been as great as Jellison would have it appear. He had a shrewd suspicion that the man was acting. It seemed incredible that he could really be ignorant of the fact that Hickey had cut him off without a cent and that everything had been left to Lawrence.