”‘Henry the Eighth was a knave to his queens, He’d, one short of seven—and nine or ten scenes!’
“And let him well and truly preserve the secret from every man, just as I have done.”
That was all. A strange clause surely! Burton Blair had, after all, actually bequeathed his secret to me, the secret that had brought him his colossal wealth! Yet it was already lost—probably stolen by his enemies.
“That’s a curious doggerel,” the solicitor smiled. “But poor Blair possessed but little literary culture, I fear. He knew more about the sea than poetry. Yet, after all, it seems a tantalising situation that you should be left the secret of the source of my client’s enormous fortune, and that it should be stolen from you in this manner.”
“We had, I think, better consult the police, and explain our suspicions,” I said, in bitter chagrin that the chamois sachet should have fallen into other hands.
“I entirely agree with you, Mr Greenwood. We will go together to Scotland Yard and get them to institute inquiries. If Mr Blair was actually murdered, then his assassination was accomplished in a most secret and remarkable manner, to say the least. But there is one further clause in the will which is somewhat disturbing, and that is with regard to his daughter Mabel. The testator has appointed some person of whom I have never heard—a man called Paolo Melandrini, an Italian, apparently living in Florence, to be her secretary and the manager of her affairs.”
“What!” I cried, amazed. “An Italian to be her secretary! Who is he?”
“A person with whom I am not acquainted; whose name, indeed, has never been mentioned to me by my client. He merely dictated it to me when I drafted the will.”
“But the thing’s absurd!” I exclaimed. “Surely you can’t let an unknown foreigner, who may be an adventurer for all we know, have control of all her money?”
“I fear there’s no help for it,” replied Leighton, gravely. “It is written here, and we shall be compelled to give notice to this man, whoever he is, of his appointment at a salary of five thousand pounds a year.”