“I have been Mr. West’s attorney for a number of years. I received word of his death this morning.”
“Poor young man! I always liked him so much!” Mrs. Pope assumed an expression of deep solicitude. “He was very well off, was he not, Mr. Brennan?”
“Very,” answered Brennan shortly, then turned to Donald. “You knew Mr. West very well, I take it?”
“Intimately. We had been bosom friends for years. He was in my class at college. I loved him like a brother. He had a heart of gold, Mr. Brennan. Of all the men I know, he was the squarest and best friend. You cannot realize what his death means to us. Edith, isn’t it sad?”
Edith began to cry. “I—I can’t realize it,” she sobbed; “it seems so terrible.”
Brennan drew a thin, folded document from his pocket, and regarded it critically through his eyeglasses. “He must have thought a great deal of you—and Mrs. Rogers,” he observed, glancing at Donald.
“I am quite sure he did, Mr. Brennan, but why—?”
Brennan interrupted him with a wave of his hand. “I will explain,” he said. “Before Mr. West died, he made a will. It was drawn up by an attorney in Denver who, acting on Mr. West’s instructions, at once communicated with me. I am the executor of the estate.”
“But, Mr. Brennan, how does the matter concern us?” Donald was becoming a trifle impatient under the continued strain of Mr. Brennan’s significant manner.
“The best way to answer that, Mr. Rogers,” said Brennan, adjusting his eyeglasses, and unfolding the document he held in his hand, “is to read the will.”