"Is it a will?--a valid one, I mean?"
"Looking at it on the surface, I should say certainly--if the witnesses can be produced to prove the signatures. Indeed, given certain circumstances, even that should not be necessary. The man expresses his wishes; their meaning is perfectly plain; he gives reasons for them. No testator need do more than that. What may seem the eccentric devising of his property is, in his position, easily accounted for, and is certainly consistent with entire sanity. Thousands of more eccentric documents have been held to be good in law. I have little doubt--if the testator's signature can be proved--that the will is as sound as if it had been drawn up by a bench of judges."
Madge drew a long breath. Jack was jocular, or meant to be. "Think of that, now!"
"But I don't see," said Ella, "that we're any forwarder now, or that we're any nearer to Madge's mysterious hoard. The will--if it is a will--says that the fortune is hidden in the house, but it doesn't give the faintest notion where. We might pull the whole place to pieces and then not find it."
"Suppose the whole affair is a practical joke?"
Mr. Graham commented on Jack's insinuation.
"I have been turning something over in my mind, and I think, Martyn, that I can bring certain facts to bear upon your supposition which will go far to show that it is unlikely that there is much in the nature of a practical joke about the matter. I want to call attention to Miss Brodie's copy of the paper which the burglar left behind last night--to the second line. Now observe." He crossed the room. "The paper says 'Right'--I have the door-post on my right, close to my right arm. The paper says 'straight across'--I walk straight across the room. Miss Brodie, have you a tape measure?"
Madge produced one which she ferreted out of a work-basket which was on a chair in a corner.
"The paper says 'three '--I measure three feet from where I am standing, along the wainscot--you see? It says 'four'--I measure four feet from the floor. As you perceive, that measurement brings us exactly to the panel behind which the will was hidden. The paper says 'up.' As Miss Brodie showed, there can be no doubt whatever that the panel was meant to move up. Owing to the efflux of time and to disuse, it had become jammed. Does not all this suggest that we have here an explanation of part of what was written on the burglar's paper?"
"It does, by George! Graham," cried Jack, "I always did know you had a knack of clarifying muddles. Your mental processes are as effective, in their way, as a handful of isinglass dropped into a cask of muddy beer. Ladies, I give you my word they are."