“My lord,” said Mr. Daunt, “may I recall Mr. Malone?”
“For what, Mr. Daunt?”
“That he may describe the appearance of the lady whom he saw——”
“My lord! my lord!” interrupted Agnes Marvel, “if ye promise not to hang me I’ll tell the truth. ’Twas I signed the will—’twas I signed it, and there’s the man that tempted me,” and she pointed to where Mr. George Ralph Jephson had been seated, but in the excitement he had succeeded in escaping.
There is no need to pursue the narrative further. Suffice it to say that the false will was set aside, and luckily, one made some years previous, and which was in the custody of a solicitor in England, was forthcoming. By this all the property of the late Miss Glasson was bequeathed in trust to Ralph Jephson and his children in equal portions should he predecease testatrix. The whole, therefore, fell to Miss Blanche Jephson.
But it may be interesting to state that Mr. Daunt was as much surprised at the denouement as anyone else. He had intended to put only a few questions to Mr. Devaney’s clerk as a matter of form, but the statement of the latter that the testatrix had said she had never written a line in her life aroused his curiosity, and when the clerk described the finger of testatrix a light suddenly flashed on his mind that made his way clear. With the acuteness and habit which come from long practice, he had taken note of the witness, Agnes Marvel, as she came to the stand to take the oath. She had, of course, to remove the glove from her right hand before taking the book in it, and he saw the disfigurement of the forefinger. Seeing that he had no case otherwise, he determined to hazard everything on the chance that Agnes Marvel had signed the will and not Miss Glasson.