“The somewhat strange conditions of the will.”
Having untangled the enigma to his own satisfaction, Mr. Benton proceeded to sit back and enjoy its solution all by himself.
“Can’t you tell me what they are?” Lucy at last inquired impatiently.
“I can enlighten you, yes. In fact, it is my duty to do so.”
Rising, he went to the desk drawer and made a pretense of fumbling through his papers; but 254 it was easy to see that the document he sought had been carefully placed on the top of the sparse, untidy pile that cluttered the interior of the rickety piece of furniture.
“Perhaps,” he remarked, “there is no real need to burden your mind with legal formalities; nevertheless——”
“Oh, don’t bother to read me the whole will,” broke out Lucy sharply. “Just tell me in plain terms what Aunt Ellen has done.”
It was obvious that Mr. Benton did not at all relish the off-handedness of the request.
He depended not a little on his professional pomposity to bolster up a certain lack of confidence in himself, and stripped of this legal regalia he shriveled to a very ordinary person indeed.
“Your aunt,” he began in quite a different tone, “has left her property to Mr. Martin Howe.”