“Rest his soul!”
“Forgive me if I stop short of that pious hope.” Alain hesitated, let his venom get the better of him, and spat out on his uncle’s memory an obscene curse which only betrayed the essential weakness of the man. Recovering himself, he went on: “I need not recall to you a certain scene (I confess too theatrical for my taste), arranged by the lawyer at his bedside; nor need I help you to an inkling of the contents of his last will. But possibly it may have slipped your memory that I gave Romaine fair warning. I promised him that I would raise the question of undue influence, and that I had my witnesses ready. I have added to them since; but I own to you that my case will be the stronger when you have obligingly signed the paper which I have the honour to submit to you.” And he tossed it, unopened, across the table.
I picked it up and unfolded it:—“I, the Viscount Anne de Kéroual de Saint-Yves, formerly serving under the name of Champdivers in the Buonapartist army, and later under that name a prisoner of war in the Castle of Edinburgh, hereby state that I had neither knowledge of my uncle the Count de Kéroual de Saint-Yves, nor expectations from him, nor was owned by him, until sought out by Mr. Daniel Romaine, in the Castle of Edinburgh, by him supplied with money to expedite my escape, and by him clandestinely smuggled at nightfall into Amersham Place; Further, that until that evening I had never set eyes on my uncle, nor have set eyes on him since; that he was bedridden when I saw him, and apparently in the last stage of senile decay. And I have reason to believe that Mr. Romaine did not fully inform him of the circumstances of my escape, and particularly of my concern in the death of a fellow-prisoner named Goguelat, formerly a maréchal des logis in the 22nd Regiment of the Line....”
Of the contents of this precious document let a sample suffice. From end to end it was a tissue of distorted statements implicated with dishonouring suggestions. I read it through, and let it drop on the table.
“I beg your pardon,” said I, “but what do you wish me to do with it?”
“Sign it,” said he.
I laughed. “Once more I beg your pardon, but though you have apparently dressed for it, this is not comic opera.”
“Nevertheless you will sign.”
“O, you weary me.” I seated myself, and flung a leg over the arm of my chair. “Shall we come to the alternative For I assume you have one.”
“The alternative, to be sure,” he answered cheerfully. “I have a companion below, one Clausel, and at the ‘Tête d’Or,’ a little way up the street, an escort of police.”