"Why did he keep them in your home instead of in the village hall?"
Pamela Russell's dark eyes flashed as she searched the courtroom, looking, Auguste suspected, for Raoul.
"Raoul de Marion, who never let my husband forget that he owed his job to him, ordered Burke to destroy both papers."
"That's a lie!" came Raoul's shout from the back of the hall.
Justus Bennett looked toward Raoul and said, "Colonel de Marion, please. What this woman is saying might even help our case."
"All right," Raoul called. "But you watch what you're doing."
"Now, Mrs. Russell—" Ford began again.
"Burke knew that what he told him to do was wrong. So, instead of destroying the adoption certificate and the will, he brought them home and kept them in his strongbox in our cellar. When the Indians burned our house, the papers survived." She paused, gazing over Ford's head. "The papers survived."
"Do you have them now, Mrs. Russell?"
She unbuckled the strap that closed the leather bag in her lap and drew out two folded pieces of paper. She handed them to Ford, who unfolded them with a flourish and turned to the judge.