"Following the men into the corridor, by the Squire's orders I made each of them a present of a crown piece. That done, I at once went back to the room. Mr. Tew was standing by the table with the folded will in his hand. 'Seal it up,' said my master to me. Mr. Tew having handed to it to me, I at once proceeded to enclose it in the sheet of parchment, out of which it was taken by Mr. Piljoy a little while since, sealing the packet in two places with my master's own seal. Then I held him up again, and with a trembling hand he wrote on the envelope, 'Ambrose Cortelyon--His Will.' That done, the packet was given into the custody of Mr. Tew, and the business was at an end."
"Not quite, Andry, not quite--at least as far as we are concerned. You are forgetting the duplicate will. What became of that?"
"Mr. Tew had not been five minutes gone before my master drew the other will from under his pillow, and, giving it to me, said, 'Burn it now--at once.' There was a fire in the room, and, taking the will, I thrust it between the bars. Mr. Cortelyon never took his eyes off the grate till it was burnt to ashes."
"You have no reason whatever for supposing that the unsigned will was substituted for the signed one during the time you were out of the room?"
"No, sir--how should I? Mr. Tew never left the room, and when I went back it was from his hands I received the will in order to seal it up."
Apparently Mr. Piljoy had no more questions to put. After a glance round at the perplexed faces of his audience, he said: "Notwithstanding the very clear and straightforward statement with which Andry Luce has just favored us, the mystery of the unsigned will remains exactly where it was before. We seem no nearer a solution of it than we were at first, and I confess myself wholly at a loss to advise as to what step, if any, it behoves us to take next. Never in the whole of my experience have I been confronted with a state of affairs so puzzling and inexplicable."
"Never heard tell of owt like it, dang me if I have!" exclaimed Sir James, who had a habit of lapsing into the vernacular now and again.
"Licks cock-fighting all to bits, that it does," muttered Mr. Staniforth.
The Vicar and Mr. Delafosse spoke together in low tones.
So far Mrs. Bullivant had maintained an unbroken silence. Though more than once greatly tempted to do so, she had put a strong restraint upon herself, and had sat there with compressed lips listening to all that was said, passing through the whole gamut of feeling from hope to despair, and finally struck to the earth, almost, as it seemed, beyond recovery, by Mr. Piljoy's last words. There had been revealed to her a golden vision far exceeding her utmost dreams, but between her and it some malignant fiend had dug a shadowy gulf which he defied her to overpass. She had been vouchsafed a glimpse of Paradise, only to have the gates of pearl slammed in her face. It was maddening. Her very soul was aflame with impotent rage. She was tortured almost beyond endurance by the knowledge of all she had lost; of all that had slipped through her fingers, as at the bidding of a necromancer, before she had a chance of grasping it; of all that ought to have been hers, but was not!