“Shortly afterwards,” went on the lawyer, “Mr. Cohen, or rather Sir Jonas Cohen, succeeded to the estate on the death of his father. Two years ago he died leaving all his property, real and personal, to his only child, a daughter named Jane, with reversion to his widow in fee simple. Within a month of his death the child Jane died also, and nine months later her mother, Lady Cohen, nee Jane Beach, followed her to the grave.”
“Yes,” said Leonard in a dull voice, and hiding his face in his hand; “go on, sir.”
“Lady Cohen made a somewhat peculiar will. Under the terms of that will she bequeaths the mansion house and estates of Outram, together with most of her personal property, amounting in all to something over a hundred thousand pounds, to her old friend Leonard Outram and the heirs of his body, with reversion to her brother. This will has not been disputed; therefore, if you are Leonard Outram, I may congratulate you upon being once more the owner of your ancestral estate and a considerable fortune in cash.”
For a while Leonard was too agitated to speak.
“I will prove to you,” he said at last, “that I am this person, that is, I will prove it prima facie; afterwards you can satisfy yourself of the truth of my statements by the usual methods.” And he proceeded to adduce a variety of evidence as to his identity which need not be set out here. The lawyer listened in silence, taking a note from time to time.
“I think,” he said when Leonard had finished, “that, subject to those inquiries of which you yourself have pointed out the necessity in so grave a matter, I may accept it as proved that you are none other than Mr. Leonard Outram, or rather,” he added, correcting himself, “if, as I understand, your elder brother Thomas is dead, than Sir Leonard Outram. Indeed you have so entirely convinced me that this is the case, that I have no hesitation in placing in your hands a letter addressed to you by the late Lady Cohen, and deposited with me together with the executed will; though, when you have read it, I shall request you to leave that letter with me for the present.
“By the way, it may interest you to learn,” Mr. Turner added, as he went to a safe built into the wall and unlocked its iron door, “that we have been hunting for you for a year or more. We even sent a man to South Africa, and he tracked you to a spot in some mountains somewhere north of Delagoa Bay, where it was reported that you, with your brother Thomas and two friends, were digging for gold. He reached the spot on the night of the ninth of May last year.”
“The very day that I left it,” broke in Leonard.
“And found the site of your camp and three graves. At first our representative thought that you were all dead, but afterwards he fell in with a native who appears to have deserted from your service, and who told him that one of the brothers was dying when he left the camp, but one was still in good health, though he did not know where he had gone.”
“My brother Thomas died on the first of May—this day year,” said Leonard.