"What reason?"
"That, the murderer knows best."
It was impossible for Penlyn to disguise from himself the fact that this young man had formed the opinion in his mind that he was the murderer. His manner, his utter tone of contempt when speaking to him, were all enough to show in what light he stood in Stuart's eyes.
"I understand you," he said quietly.
Stuart took no notice of the remark, but he turned to Mr. Fordyce and said: "Did it not seem strange to you that Lord Penlyn should have been made the heir, when you drew the will?"
"I did not draw it," Mr. Fordyce said, "or I should in all probability have made some inquiries--though, as a matter of fact, it was no business of mine to whom he left his money. As I see there is one Spanish name as a witness, it was probably drawn by an English lawyer in Honduras, and executed there."
"Since it appears that I am his heir," Lord Penlyn said, "I should wish to see the will. Have you it with you?"
"Yes," Mr. Fordyce said, producing the will from his bundle of papers, and handing it to him, "it is here."
The young man took it from the lawyer, and spreading it out before him, read it carefully. The perusal did not take long, for it was of the shortest possible description, simply stating that the whole of everything he possessed was given and bequeathed by him to "Gervase, Courteney, St. John, Occleve, Viscount Penlyn, in the Peerage of Great Britain, of Occleve House, London, and Occleve Chase, Westshire." With the exception that the bequest was enveloped in the usual phraseology of lawyers, it might have been drawn up by his brother's own hand, so clear and simple was it. And it was perfectly regular, both in the signature of the testator and the witnesses.
The two men watched him as he bent over the will and read it, the lawyer looking at him from under his thick, bushy eyebrows, and Mr. Stuart with a fixed glance that he never took off his face; and as they so watched him they noticed that his eyes were filled with tears he could not repress. He passed his hand across them once to wipe the tears away, but they came again; and, when he folded up the document and gave it back to Mr. Fordyce, they were welling over from his eyelids.