They said good-night, and Percival went off to dream that a cab-horse of mammoth size was threatening to eat Miss Milbrey unless he drove it to Spokane Falls and bought two million millinery shops.
When he was jolted to consciousness they were in the switching yard at Butte, and the car was being coupled to the rear of the train made up for Montana City. He took advantage of the stop to shave. By the time he was dressed they were under way again, steaming out past the big smelters that palled the sky with heavy black smoke.
At the breakfast-table he found Uncle Peter and Coplen.
"I'm inclined," said the lawyer, as Percival peeled a peach, "to agree with your grandfather. This woman—if I may use the term—is one of the nerviest leg-pullers you're ever likely to strike."
"Lord! I should hope so," said Percival, with hearty emphasis.
"She studied your father and she knew him better than any of us, I judge. She certainly knew he was liable to go at any time, in exactly the way he did go. Why, she even had a doctor down from 'Frisco to Monterey when they were there about a year ago—introduced him as an old friend and had him stay around three days—just to give her a private professional opinion on his chances. As to this will, the signature is undoubtedly genuine, but my judgment is she procured it in some way on a blank sheet of paper and had the will written above on sheets like it. As it conforms to the real will word for word, excepting the bequests to her, she must have had access to that before having this one written. Of course that helps to make it look as if the testator had changed his mind only as to the one legatee—makes it look plausible and genuine. The witnesses were of course parties to the fraud, but I seriously question our ability to prove there was fraud. We think they procured a copy of the will we kept in our safe at Butte through the clerk that Tafe fired awhile back because of his drinking habits and because he was generally suspicious of him. Of course that's only surmise."
"But can't we fight it?" demanded Percival, hungrily attacking the crisp, brown little trout.
"Well, if we allowed it to come to a contest, we might expose the whole thing, and then again we might not. I tell you she's clever. She's shown it at every step. Now then, if you do fight," and the lawyer bristled, as if his fighting spirit were not too far under the control of his experience-born caution, "why, you have litigation that's bound to last for years, and it would be pretty expensive. I admit the case is tempting to a lawyer, but in the end you don't know what you'll get, especially with this woman. Why, do you know she's already, we've found, made up to two different judges that might be interested in any litigation she'd have, and she's cultivating others. The role of Joseph," he continued, "has never, to the best of my belief, been gracefully played in the world's history, and you may have noticed that the members of the Montana judiciary seem to be particularly awkward in their essays at it. In the end, then, you'll be out a lot of money even if you win. On the other hand, you have a chance to settle it for good and all, getting back everything—excepting the will, which, of course, we couldn't touch or even concede the existence of, but which would, if such an instrument were extant, be destroyed in the presence of a witness whose integrity I could rely upon—well—as upon my own. The letters which she has, and which I have seen, are also such as would tend to substantiate her claims and make the large bequests to her seem plausible—and they're also such letters as—I should infer—the family would rather wish not to be made public, as they would be if it came to trial."
"Jest what I told him," remarked Uncle Peter.
"What she'll hold out for I don't know, but I'd suggest this, that I meet her attorney and put the case exactly as I've found it out as to the will, letting them suspect, perhaps, that we have admissions of some sort from Hornby, the clerk, that might damage them. Then I can put it that, while we have no doubt of our ability to dispose of the will, we do wish to avoid the scandal that would ensue upon a publication of the letters they hold and the exposure of her relations with the testator, and that upon this purely sentimental ground we are willing to be bled to a reasonable extent. The One Girl is a valuable mine, but my opinion is she'll be glad to get two million if we seem reluctant to pay that much."