"Well, then, we will say sufficiently wide-awake to persuade her husband into engaging a fresh lawyer to draw up the all-important document."
"But why on earth should she be at the trouble of doing that?"
"Knowing, as she probably does, that I have been Sir Everard's confidential adviser ever since he succeeded to the property, that his previous wills--he has made some half-dozen in all at different times--have been drawn up by me, and also, perhaps, being aware that you and I have been brought into frequent contact, she may have deemed it advisable for various reasons that the new will should be entrusted to a stranger, more especially should her husband have been induced, as seems by no means unlikely, to constitute her his sole legatee, to the exclusion of every one else who might be supposed to have some claim to be remembered by him."
"By Jove! I shouldn't wonder if you are right."
"At present we are only dealing with suppositions. It is quite possible that I may have a letter by the next post asking me to wait upon Sir Everard to-morrow morning."
"By the way," said Burgo, "may I ask whether you know anything about my dear aunt's antecedents?"
"I know nothing whatever about them, except that she is said to have been the widow of a certain Colonel Innes."
"Then I am in the position of being able to tell you a little more than that about her." Whereupon he proceeded to recount to Mr. Garden the information which had been retailed to him by Captain Cusden at the club. "Of course it's as plain as a pikestaff that the woman is nothing more than an adventuress," he finished up by saying.
The old lawyer protruded his under lip. "Is not that rather a sweeping assertion to make on no better authority than the gossip of a club acquaintance?"
"Does not what I have told you to-day with regard to myself go far to prove it? Do you suppose the dear old boy would have coldshouldered me as he has done had it not been for her? No, you know better than that. She's thirty years younger than he, and a remarkably handsome woman (there's no denying that); for what else, then, can she have married him save for his money and his position?"