Pulvis
Cinis
et
Nihil.
It was when the workmen had been dismissed, and the lawyer was at the door bidding adieu to the priest whose strange duty had been performed, that Angel crossed to where Jimmy sat.
He caught Jimmy’s grim smile, and raised his eyes to where all that was mortal of Reale had been placed.
“The Latin?” asked Angel.
“Surprising, isn’t it?” said the other quietly. “Reale had seen things, you know. A man who travels picks up information.” He nodded toward the epitaph. “He got that idea at Toledo, in the cathedral there. Do you know it? A slab of brass over a dead king-maker, Portocarrero, ‘Hic jacet pulvis cinis et nihil.’ I translated it for him; the conceit pleased him. Sitting here, watching his strange funeral, I wondered if ‘pulvis cinis et nihil’ would come into it.”
And now Spedding came creaking back. The workmen had disappeared, the outer door was closed, and the commissionaire had retired to his room leading from the vestibule. In Spedding’s hand was a bundle of papers. He took his place with his back to the granite pedestal and lost no time in preliminaries.
“I have here the will of the late James Ryan Reale,” he began. “The contents of this will are known to every person here except Miss Kent.” He had a dry humor of his own, this lawyer, as his next words proved. “A week ago a very clever burglary was committed in my office: the safe was opened, a private dispatch box forced, and my papers ransacked. I must do my visitor justice”—he bowed slightly, first in the direction of Connor, then toward Jimmy—“and say that nothing was taken and practically nothing disturbed. There was plenty of evidence that the object of the burglary was to secure a sight of this will.”
Jimmy was unperturbed at the scarcely-veiled charge, and if he moved it was only with the object of taking up an easier position in the chair. Not even the shocked eyes of the girl that looked appealingly toward him caused him any apparent uneasiness.
“Go on,” he said, as the lawyer paused as though waiting for an admission. He was quietly amused. He knew very well now who this considerate burglar was.
“By copying this will the burglar or burglars obtained an unfair advantage over the other legatee or legatees.”