“No,” she returned; “what do you mean?”
“Natalie Vernon altered her bequest from seven thousand dollars to seventy thousand.”
“How could she?”
“It wasn’t difficult. Eric wrote the will himself. He wrote seven and she made it seventy—the words, I mean. Then he wrote a figure seven and three ciphers, and she squeezed in another cipher. Mighty clever work, but as plain to be seen as a blot on a letter.”
“What possessed the child?”
“Don’t call her a child. The woman who could and would do that, is a Machiavelli in petticoats. But don’t you see where the knowledge of her act leads us?”
“You mean——” Joyce could not say it.
“Of course I do. I’ve thought all along there was still a doubt of her.”
“Oh, I haven’t. Even if she did alter the will, that doesn’t prove——”
“It doesn’t prove—anything. But you know this will was made very recently——”