"I think I may say, nearly concerns you. A paragraph in this copy of the Cape Town Mercury, which, by the way, is three weeks old."
A rubbed and shabby newspaper, folded small, came out of the baggy breast-pocket of the khâki jacket. Saxham received it with visible annoyance.
"Some belated notice of one of my books." The scowl with which he surveyed the paper testified to a strong desire to pitch it to the winds.
"Not a bit of it. It's an advertisement inserted by a London firm of solicitors—Donkin, Donkin, and Judd, Lincoln's Inn. Possibly you are acquainted with Donkin, if not with Judd?"
"They are the solicitors for the trustees of my mother's property, sir. I heard from them three years ago, when I was at Diamond Town. They returned my last letter to her, and told me of her death."
"They state in the usual formula that it will be to your advantage to communicate with them. May I, as a friend, urge on you the necessity of doing so?"
Saxham's grim mouth shut close. His eyes brooded sullenly.
"I will think it over, sir."
"You haven't much time. A despatch-runner from Koodoosvaal got through the enemy's lines last night with some letters and this paper. No, no word of the Relief. His verbal news was practically nil. He goes out at midnight with some cipher messages. And, if you will let me have your reply to the advertisement with the returned paper by eleven at latest, I will see that it is sent." The rather peremptory tone softened—became persuasive; "You must build up the great hall again, Saxham, and building can't be done without money. And—it occurs to me that this may be some question of a legacy."
"My father was not a wealthy man," Saxham said. "He gave me a costly education, and later advanced four thousand pounds for the purchase of a West End practice, upon the understanding that I was to expect no more from him, and that the bulk of his property, with the exception of a sum left as provision for my mother, should be strictly entailed upon my brother and his heirs, if he should marry. The arrangement was most just, as I was then in receipt of a considerable income from my profession, and my father died before my circumstances altered for the worse. Independently of the provision he made for her, my mother possessed a small jointure, a freehold estate in South Wales, bringing in, when the house is let, about a hundred and fifty pounds a year. That was to have been left to me as the younger son. But her trustees informed me, through these solicitors, that she had changed her mind, as she had a perfect right to do, and bequeathed everything she possessed to my brother's son, a child who"—Saxham's voice was deadly cold—"may be about four years old."