The Superintendent moved across the room to his side, and together they went through the contents of the safe. There was nothing in it relevant to the case, only share-certificates, a bank-book, and some private papers. Giles put them back, when the Superintendent had finished with them, and shut the doer again.
“We'll try the desk,” he said, going over to it, and sitting down in the swivel-chair.
“Did you bring the Will?” asked Hannasyde.
Giles drew it from his inner pocket, and handed it over. The Superintendent sat down on the other side of the desk, and spread open the crackling sheets, while Giles sought amongst the keys on the ring for one which fitted the drawers of the desk.
The Superintendent read the Will, and at the end laid it carefully down, and said in his measured voice: “I see that the residuary legatees are Kenneth and Antonia Vereker, who share equally all that is left of Arnold Vereker's fortune when the minor legacies have been paid.”
“Yes,” agreed Giles, glancing through a paper he had taken from one of the drawers. “That is so.”
“Both of them, then, benefit very considerably by Arnold Vereker's death?”
“I can't tell you, off hand, how much Arnold's private fortune amounted to. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty thousand pounds.”
The Superintendent looked at him. “What about his holding in the mine?”
“That,” said Giles, laying a sheaf of papers on one of the heaps he had made on the desk, “in default of male issue by Arnold, goes to Kenneth, under the terms of his father's Will. I thought you'd want to see that, so I brought a copy.”