The sergeant coughed and shot him a reproachful look. "I'm no hand at talking, sir," he said. "And I wouldn't wonder but what there's a point here and there didn't happen to come my way."
"Frank shall tell us about it," stated Lady Matthews. "Someone give Mr. Corkran something to drink. The sergeant too. Or mayn't you?"
The sergeant thought that he might stretch a point seeing as how he was, strictly speaking, off duty, and had been since six o'clock.
Amberley leaned his shoulders against the mantal piece and glanced down at Shirley, seated on the sofa beside Lady Matthews. "I don't think I can tell you the whole story' he said. "There are one or two things it wouldn't do for the sergeant to hear about. Or my uncle, for that matter!"
"My dear Frank, pray don't be absurd!" said Sir Humphrey testily. "Why should we not hear the whole story? It is bound to come out!"
"Not unless I choose," replied Amberley. "To make it clear to you I should have to divulge certain illegal proceedings which might conceivably induce the sergeant to make two more arrests."
The sergeant smiled. "You will have your joke, sir. I don't know what you done, though I always did say and always will, that you'd make a holy terror of a criminal."
"H'm!" said Mr. Amberley.
The sergeant, who by this time would have compounded a felony sooner than be left in the dark, reminded him that he was off duty. "Anything you say to me now won't go no farther, sir," he assured him.
"Very well," said Amberley. He puffed for a moment at his pipe. "To go back to the start." He drew the crumpled will from his pocket and read the date - "which was on llth January, two and a half years ago, when Jasper Fountain made a new will. This is it. It was drawn up by himself on a sheet of foolscap and witnessed by his butler, Dawson, and his valet, Collins, in favour of his grandson Mark, or failing him, of his granddaughter Shirley. From which I infer that he had only just learned of their existence. Or he may have had a change of heart. It's quite immaterial , he left the bulk of his property to Mark Fountain and the sum of ten thousand pounds to his nephew Basil, who, under the previous will, inherited the entire estate. I find that he died five days later, which would account for the fact that no lawyer drew up this document. Jasper Fountain obviously feared he was very near death. What was done with the will I don't know, but that the two witnesses obtained possession of it at Fountain's demise is positive. Whether they tore it in half then or later, again I don't know. At some time or other this was done, the valet keeping one half and the butler having the other. Basil Fountain inherited the estate under the terms of the old will, and these two blackguards instituted a form of blackmail, holding the later will over his head." He paused and again looked down at Shirley. "You shall tell us why Dawson approached you," he said.