"Thanks to you!" she retorted.
He laughed "All your own fault, my dear. Well, when the two of them had gone I had a look in the tallboy myself and found the torn half of a will. Part of Jasper Fountain signature was on it, and most of the signatures of the two main witnesses. The names of the legatees were upon the other half, but the thing seemed fairly obvious in spite of that."
"In due course Shirley came back to the tallboy. Finding the will gone she leaped to the conclusion that Collins had been before her. Right?"
"Of course," she said. "What else could I think?"
"I'll tell you later," he said. "Collins, who came a few minutes later to secure the missing half, naturally ;assumed that Shirley had outwitted him. An engaging st;ite of mind on both sides."
Shirley interrupted. "Yes, I've no doubt, but why couldn't you have told me you had it?"
"My good child, once I had that torn paper in my possession there was very little you could tell me that I didn't already know. It was, in fact, infinitely better that neither you nor Collins should know who really had the will. Your combined antics were far more helpful to me than your confidence would have been. There was another reason too, which concerns you and me alone. To continue: On the following day I sustained a visit from Colonel Watson and agreed to take on the case. I now held most of the strings of it. I knew that there was a later will in existence which at least two people were painfully anxious to get hold of. Your anxiety, Shirley, led me to suppose that it was in your favour; Collins' anxiety confirmed my previous suspicion that he was blackmailing Fountain with it. It seemed probable that he held the missing half. The first thing to be proved was your identity, and the main problem was how to get hold of the rest of the will, which obviously existed. It was no case for the police, who wouldn't have acted on an entirely valueless half. I went up to London. I instructed my man Peterson to apply for the vacant post of butler at the manor and provided him with a faked reference, which reminds me that you gave him a bad moment over that, Sergeant."
"Ah!" said thec sergeant deeply.
"Quite. I thought it possible that he might manage to get hold of a clue to the will's hiding-place, but my chief object in putting him at the manor was to have someone watching Fountain's movements. It seemed to me that it could only be a matter of time before Fountain discovered who was living at Ivy Cottage, and when he knew that, anything might happen. On this same visit to town I visited the Times office to look through the back numbers for a notice of your father's death, Shirley. That represents the only occasion in my memory when you've let me down, Aunt Marion. Your recollection of dates is lamentable. He died five years ago, not three."
"Tiresome for you, dear boy," agreed Lady Matthews.