The stiff paper crackled noisily as he unfolded the document in his hand.
“I will formally read the will and afterwards explain it to such of you as need the explanation,” Spedding resumed.
The girl listened as the lawyer began to read. Confused by the legal terminology, the endless repetitions, and the chaotic verbiage of the instrument, she yet realized as the reading went on that this last will and testament of old Reale was something extraordinary. There was mention of houses and estates, freeholds and bonds ... “... and all the residue of any property whatsoever and wheresoever absolutely” that went to somebody. To whom she could not gather. Once she thought it was to herself, “to Francis Corydon Kent, Esquire, or the heirs of his body;” once it sounded as though this huge fortune was to be inherited by “James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet of the United Kingdom.” She wondered if this was Jimmy, and remembered in a vague way that she had heard that the ninth baronet of that name was a person of questionable character. Then again it seemed as if the legatee was to be “Patrick George Connor.” There was a doggerel verse in the will that the lawyer gabbled through, and something about the great safe, then the lawyer came to an end. In the conventional declaration of the witnesses lay a sting that sent a dull red flush to Connor’s cheek and again provoked Jimmy’s grim smile.
The lawyer read:—
“Signed by the above James Ryan Reale as his last will and testament (the word ‘thief’ after ‘James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet of the United Kingdom,’ and the word ‘thief’ after ‘Patrick George Connor,’ in the twentieth and twenty-third lines from the top hereof, having been deleted), in the presence of us....”
The lawyer folded the will perversely and put it in his pocket. Then he took four slips of paper from an envelope.
“It is quite clear to you gentlemen.” He did not wait for the men’s reply, but went on addressing the bewildered girl.
“To you, Miss Kent, I am afraid the will is not so clear. I will explain it in a few words. My late client was the owner of a gambling establishment. Thus he amassed a huge fortune, which he has left to form, if I may so put it, a large prize fund. The competitors are yourselves. Frankly, it is a competition between the dupes, or the heirs of the dupes, who were ruined by my late client, and the men who helped in the fleecing.”
The lawyer spoke dispassionately, as though expounding some hypothesis, but there was that in his tone which made Connor wince.
“Your father, my dear young lady, was one of these dupes many years ago—you must have been at school at the time. He became suddenly a poor man.”