"With your permission, Miss Harmer, I will at once proceed to read the will of my late client, Mr. Herbert Harmer. Will you be good enough to hand it to me?"
"I have not any will of my brother in my possession," Miss Harmer answered, coldly.
"Not in your possession, madam? But you are doubtless aware where your late brother was in the habit of keeping his important documents?"
"I have looked, Mr. Petersfield, among his papers, but I have found no will among them."
There was a pause of blank astonishment.
"How is it, Mr. Petersfield," Dr. Ashleigh said, gravely, "that you have not Mr. Harmer's will in your custody?"
"It was in our hands, doctor, until about two months ago, when Mr. Harmer wrote to me, saying that he was desirous of making some slight alterations in it, and requesting me to forward it. I did so, in charge of one of my clerks. On the day he came down here, some friend of Mr. Harmer's died—I understood it was Mrs. Ashleigh—and he told my clerk that he did not feel equal to attend to business, but that if he would leave the document with him, he would look it over, and write to me to send down again in a short time to make the alterations he required. I did not hear any further from him, and therefore supposed that he had either changed his mind in reference to the alteration, or had forgotten the matter altogether. I remember, when my clerk came back, he told me that he had ventured to suggest that so valuable a document ought to be kept in a safe place, and that Mr. Harmer had smiled, and answered, 'You need not be afraid on that score. I have a place to put it in where all the burglars in the world could not get at it."
There was again a blank silence, and then the solicitor went on—
"In any case, madam, I think it but right that we should search Mr. Harmer's library thoroughly."
"Certainly, Mr. Petersfield; you are quite at liberty to search where you like. Father Eustace, will you do me the kindness to accompany these gentlemen."