His quick fingers searched the silent figure. There was nothing of any value.
Carver straightened himself and stood, fist on hip, surveying the dreadful sight.
“He was standing here when he was shot—he never knew what killed him. As a faked suicide it is inartistic—part from the absence of weapon, the old man was shot in the back.”
If there were any doubts on the subject they were set at rest when the doctor made his brief examination.
“He was shot at the range of about two yards,” he said. “No, Mr. Carver, it is impossible that he should have committed suicide, there is no burning whatever. Besides, the bullet has entered the back, just beneath the left shoulder and of course, death must have been instantaneous. It is impossible that the wound can have been self-inflicted.”
Again came the police photographers, and after they had gone, leaving the vault thick with the mist of exploded magnesium, the two men were left to their search. The first boxes were, for the main part, filled with money. There was very little gold, but a great deal of paper of various nationalities. In one box Carver found five million francs in thousand franc notes, another was packed with English five pound notes, another was full of hundred dollar bills fastened in packets of ten thousand. Only two of these boxes were locked and only one that they looked at that night contained anything in the nature of documents. For the most part they were old leases, receipts painted on thin paper in Chinese characters and which they only knew were receipts because somebody had written a translation on their backs. They were bracketed neatly in folders, on each of which was described in a fine flowing hand, the nature of its contents.
On one thick bundle fastened with rubber bands was an old label: “Trading correspondence, 1899.”
In his search Tab, who was looking through the box, found a folded manuscript which he brought out.
“Here is his will,” he said, and Carver took it from him. It was written in the crabbed boyish hand which Tab had come to know so well and it was very short. After the conventional preamble, it went on:
“I leave my property and effects whatsoever, to my nephew, Rex Percival Lander, the only son of my deceased sister, Mary Catherine Lander, nee Trasmere, and I appoint him sole executor of this my will.”