The countess pressed Szilard's hand and made a sign to him to remain.
"I have just arrived from Pest," said Szilard.
"Really! Well?"
"I have found out everything, or rather, I should say, a good deal."
"Do pray tell me at once. All the people are dancing, they will take no notice of us."
"Ever since old Lapussa's death," began Szilard, "for he died soon after he had altered his will, all the members of his family have been at bitter variance. Madame Langai, the old man's widowed daughter, disputes the validity of the last will—whereby Mr. John Lapussa becomes heir to the exclusion of everybody else, and has instituted legal proceedings to upset it. Madame Langai seeks to prove that old Lapussa was non compos mentis when he disinherited the other members of his family, and she also maintains, that the old fellow had no reason whatever for hating his grandchildren and reducing them to beggary as he has done. On the other hand, Mr. John maintains that his dear father had excellent reasons for detesting his grandchildren because the Baroness Hátszegi has never written a letter to her grandfather since her marriage and both she and her husband have expressed themselves, at home, in the most disrespectful terms imaginable concerning the old gentleman, even giving it to be understood that they would be very glad if they had not to wait too long for the curtain to fall on the fifth act of his life's drama. He calls as his witness one Margari, who was formerly old Lapussa's reader before the girl was married, and since then has been compelled to act as secretary to Hátszegi, or rather as a spy upon him. This fellow, who is now the mere tool of Mr. John, is quite prepared to retail all sorts of horrors about the Hátszegis. As to the other grandchild, the boy Koloman I mean, his uncle has saddled him with a terrible charge. He has produced a bill for 40,000 florins which he accuses the lad of forging in the name of his sister, the Baroness Hátszegi."
"Ah!" exclaimed the countess in an incredulous voice.
"The thing is ridiculously incredible, I know, yet there the bill is; I have seen it, for it has been sequestered by the Court. It is obviously in the youth's handwriting as also is the very bad imitation of his sister's signature. In connection therewith is the fact of the youth's sudden disappearance (and every attempt to trace his whereabouts has failed), for, on the very day when the subject of the bill was first broached, he vanished from his college, and apparently he had been preparing for flight some time before."
"But what could have induced a mere child to do such a thing, he is scarcely thirteen years old?"
"He was always somewhat flighty by nature, though that, of course, is not sufficient to explain how he came to forge his sister's name on a draft for 40,000 florins."