“They are close friends as far as concerns the Henfrey affair,” declared mademoiselle. “I happen to know that it was Howell who prepared the old man’s will. It is in his handwriting, and his manservant, Cooke, is one of the witnesses.”
“What? You know about that will, Lisette? Tell me everything.”
“Howell himself let it out to me. They were careful that you should not know. At the time I was in London with Franklyn and Benton over the jewels of that ship-owner’s wife, I forget her name—the affair in Carlton House Terrace.”
“Yes. I recollect. A very neat piece of business.”
“Well—Howell told me how he had prepared the will, and how Benton, who was staying with old Mr. Henfrey away in the country, got him to put his signature to it by pretending it to be for the purchase of a house at Eltham, in Kent. The house was, indeed, purchased at Benton’s suggestion, but the signature was to a will which Howell’s man, Cooke, and a friend of his, named Saunders, afterwards witnessed, and which has now been proved—the will by which the young man is compelled to marry Benton’s adopted daughter before he inherits his father’s estates.”
“You actually know this?”
“Howell told me so with his own lips.”
“Then why is young Henfrey being made the victim?” asked The Sparrow shrewdly. “Why, indeed, have you not revealed this to me before?”
“Because I had no proof before that Howell is our enemy. He has now given us away. He has some motive. What is it?”
The bristly-haired little man of twenty names and as many individualities pondered for a moment. It was evident that he was both apprehensive and amazed at the suggestion the pretty young French girl had placed before him.