“It must have been quite lately,” said Mrs. Agar, leaning forward and trying visibly to read the diary.
Mr. Rigg turned back a few pages, as if to go over the ground a second time.
“Let me see!” he said leisurely. “What was the precise date of the—er—sad event?”
“Last Tuesday, the fourteenth.”
“To be sure,” reflected Mr. Rigg, fixing his eyes sadly on an engraving of London Bridge in the seventeenth century—a spot specially reserved for the sadder moments of probate and other testamentary work. “Very sad, very sad.”
Then he rose with the mental brushing-away of unshed tears of a man who has never yet had time in life for idle lamentation. He turned towards the tin box, jingling his keys in a most practical and business-like way.
“And I presume,” he said, “that you have come to consult me about the late Captain Agar's will?”
“Was there a will?” asked Mrs. Agar, with audible alarm. She had not studied “Every Man his own Lawyer” quite in vain, although most of the legal technicalities had conveyed nothing whatever to her mind. She did not notice that her question regarding Mr. Glynde had never been answered.
Mr. Rigg turned upon her beaming.
“I have no will,” he answered. “I thought that perhaps you were aware of the existence of one.”