"Gradually—we've all had a lot to think about in the last seven years—I forgot the whole incident. Then, some two months ago, when I was at Brooch, a fellow gives evidence before me in a burglary case. A footman called Anthony Lyveden. For a long time I couldn't imagine where I'd heard the names before. Then something—I'll tell you what in the smoking-room—brought it all back. Anthony Lyveden was the nephew of the man whose will I made, and he was named as the sole legatee.
"In a way it's no affair of mine, and yet I feel concerned. I'll tell you why. That footman was a gentleman born. Moreover, he was down on his luck. He didn't look like a fellow who'd run through money, and I think the old testator was pretty rich. He gave that impression. And for a will made in such circumstances to go astray it would be easy enough—obviously. The devil of it is, except for the name of Lyveden, I can remember nothing else."
The solicitor sipped his port. Then—
"A search at Somerset House," he said slowly, "should give us the maiden surname of Anthony Lyveden's mother. If she had a brother…."
Sir Giles Molehill raised his eyes and sighed.
"And it never occurred to me," he said. "It's high time I went to the
Court of Appeal."
Two days later his lordship received a letter informing him that a search at Somerset House had revealed the fact that a son named Anthony had been born upon the fourteenth of January, 1891, to a Mrs. Katharine Lyveden, formerly Roach.
As he read it, the Judge exclaimed audibly.
The note which he wrote there and then shall speak for itself.