Great Possessions

by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

The morning sun was full on the windows that opened to the rather dreary garden at the back. She wondered why Mr. Murray had written so urgently, and why Edmund Grosse had not written for several weeks. Up to now they had done all this horrid business between them, and she had only had occasional reports from her cousin. Now she must face the subject with the lawyer himself. She was puzzled to account for the change in the situation.

At the exact moment he had mentioned, Mr. Murray's tall person with its heavy, bent head appeared in the library. As they greeted they were both conscious that it was in this same room, seated at the wide writing-table still in the same place, and still bearing the large photograph of Sir David Bright, where he had first told her of the strange dispositions of her husband's will. He remembered vividly her look then—undaunted and confident—as she had gently but firmly asserted that there must be another will. But had she not also said it would never be found?

But the present occupied the lawyer much more than the past. He was eager and a little triumphant in his story of the progress of the case, and did not notice that the sweet face opposite to him became more and more white as he went on. He told her all he had told Sir Edmund when he first got back from the yacht; he told of the mysterious visit he had received from Dr. Larrone, and how he could prove from the letters of the Florentine detective that Madame Danterre had sent the doctor to England to take a certain small, black box to Miss Dexter.

Then he paused.

"I told Sir Edmund how our Florentine detective, Pietrino, had made friends with one of the nurses, and that she described Madame Danterre ordering the box to be opened and having a seizure—a heart attack—while the letters were spread out on her bed. Nurse Edith said then that she had put them back in a hurry and locked the box, and that it had not been reopened by Madame Danterre. Some weeks later when she was near her end, Madame Danterre had a scene with Dr. Larrone which ended in his consenting to take the box to London as soon as she was dead, but the nurse was sure that the doctor was told nothing as to the contents of the box. That was as much as we knew up to Easter, and while waiting for the arrival of Akers, and Stock, the other private who had witnessed the signature. They got here in Easter week, and I saw them with Sir Edmund, and we both cross-questioned them closely. Akers's evidence is beyond suspicion, and is perfectly supported by that of Stock. He described all that happened at the witnessing of the General's signature most circumstantially, but, of course, he knew nothing of the contents of the paper. But now I have more important evidence than any we have had so far, and the extraordinary thing is that Sir Edmund does not wish to hear it. I cannot understand why!"

Rose remained silent. She was looking fixedly at a paper-knife which she held in her hand.

It suddenly struck the lawyer as a flash of most embarrassing light that possibly there was some complication of a dangerous and tender kind between Sir Edmund and his cousin. He could not dwell on such a notion now—it might be absolute nonsense, but it made him go on hastily:

"I have had a visit from Nurse Edith, and as Pietrino suspected, she knows much more than she would allow to him. I think she was waiting to see if money would be offered for her information, but Pietrino would not fall into the risk of buying evidence. He waited; she was watched until she came to London, and she had not been here twenty-four hours before she came to me. She declares now that, as she was gathering up the papers, she had seen that the long letter Madame Danterre had been reading when she had the attack of faintness was written to some one called Rose. She knew it was that letter which had done the mischief. She slipped it into her pocket when she put the rest away. I believe it was naughty curiosity, but she wishes us to think that she knew the whole scandal about the General's will, and did what she did from a sense of justice. When off duty she took the paper to her room, and when she opened it she found the will inside it. In her excitement she called the housemaid, an Englishwoman with whom she had made friends, and she copied the will while they were together, and the names of Akers and Stock—of whom she could not possibly have heard—are in her copy. I have seen that copy, Lady Rose, and——" He paused and glanced at her for a moment, and then his eyes sought the trees in the garden even as they had done when he had made that other and awful announcement on the day of the memorial service to Sir David. Rose flushed a little, and her breathing came quickly, but she made no sign of impatience.

"Sir David left the whole of his fortune to you subject to an annual payment of a thousand a-year to Madame Danterre during her lifetime."

Complete silence followed. Lady Rose either could not or would not speak. Out of the pale, distinguished slightly worn face the eyes looked at Mr. Murray with no surprise. Had she not always said that she did not believe the iniquitous will Mr. Murray had brought her to be the true one, but had she not also maintained that the true will would never be found? She did not say so to Mr. Murray, but in fact she shrank from making too sure of Nurse Edith's evidence. She had so long forbidden herself to believe in the return of worldly fortune or to wish for it.