As he spoke his voice grew clearer. It was a relief to his overwrought brain to fight them on ground he had often mentally surveyed. With an insolent smile on his face he leaned both hands on the table and looked at them.
“Come,” he said, “you have not won everything yet. The Hurst is mine; I laugh your forgery to scorn. I will spend every penny of the estate to contest it. I assert that this paper was forged—last night—if you like. You cannot prove it was in existence an hour sooner; I defy you. You have overreached yourselves. Take care! This is your hour. Mine will come when I see you in the dock.”
In his excitement he had not noticed the entrance of the bent figure of Skettle, and he turned with a start as the thin, dry voice, close to his elbow, croaked:
“Quite right, Mr. Stephen. That’s their weak point—want of connection. If they could carry it back, say to the night of the squire’s death, now, it would be different.”
Stephen looked round with a cunning smile of defiance.
“This old fool will bear me out. Show him your will.”
“A daring forgery this, Mr. Stephen, if it is a forgery. Leaves the Hurst to Miss Una, the squire’s legitimate daughter. Fifty thousand to Master Jack; and a set of sermons to you.”
“No doubt,” he said, with a hoarse laugh; “it was not worth their while to do things by halves.”
“Been scorched, too,” said Skettle. “Bit torn out by the seal. Now, if they could find that bit in the possession of a respectable man, who could prove that he found it on the night, say, of the squire’s death, well—it would go hard with you, Mr. Stephen.”
“But they cannot.”