person with whom I have some passing acquaintance, and if anything, it is a motherly figure who holds out forgiving, welcoming arms. I do, however, dread the thought that my work, my life, will die with me. If I return to Palestine, I intend to work out more fully the details of how my estate, minor as it may be, might best be put to support the archaeological effort there. This letter is merely insurance. I have no time to have a proper will drawn up, so I have written and signed a holograph will, witnessed by two of my fellow guests in this hotel. It clearly states my wishes and intentions regarding the disbursement of my estate. You will please take it to the appropriate authorities, whom, no doubt, you know better than I.
As I said, I have no evidence whatsoever that anyone seeks my death, other than this persistent, irrational hunch. It may be that I will succumb to illness or an accident. It is also quite possible that I may survive England to return home, have my solicitor in Jerusalem draw up a new and complete will, and write to tell you of the box's hidden opening, feeling foolish when I do so. In any case, I will not accuse anyone from beyond the grave, as it were, and even the enclosed will can hardly be used to indict a person who otherwise appears blameless. If it points a surreptitious finger, so be it.
You will no doubt ask yourself why, if I intend to change my will, I do not do so openly. I have asked myself the same question, and although there are several valid reasons for it, they boil down to two: First, I need to witness the state of my family's affairs before I can make any final decisions; second, I am quite honestly torn between the absurdity of my premonitions and the urge to action. This is a compromise, and puts it into the hands of God. That I say this would certainly amaze some of my acquaintances, but I think that you, Miss Russell, will understand when I say that faith in a divine force and the ability to think intellectually are not necessarily incompatible. I am tired, I am uncertain, and therefore I will arrange this all so that God can make the final decision.
I should dearly love to see your reaction to that, and I admit to a sense of frustration and regret when I realise that I will not witness the machinations by which this letter again sees the light of day. However, the pleasures of imagination will fill the spare moments of my next days.
Thank you, Miss Russell, Mr Holmes, for your faithfulness to me, a near stranger. The box and the manuscript are not to be regarded as payment, for I would have given them to you in any case, and I know that payment would be neither required nor accepted. I hope that Mary's graceful hand brings you as much pleasure as it has me.
Yours in friendship,
Dorothy Ruskin'
The will began: 'I, Dorothy Elizabeth Ruskin, being of sound mind and body,' then went on to state simply that the entirety of her estate was to go to support the archaeological effort in Palestine, with specific names and locations given.
* * *
When a copy of the will was shown to Erica Rogers, she said nothing, but that night she suffered a massive seizure and spent the remaining months of her life in a nursing home, next to her mother. When agents from Scotland Yard went to arrest the grandson and his accomplice, Jason Rogers escaped. His body was found the following day by two hikers, in the wreckage of a very expensive car that did not belong to him. The problem of Erica Rogers's apparent alibi was solved during the subsequent interview with Jason's wife, when she confessed tearfully that she had taken Erica's place in the home for the two nights Mrs Rogers was away, caring for old Mrs Ruskin and turning the lights on and off at the appropriate times. She, however, was not charged with participation in the actual murder, as it became obvious that she had been accustomed to do just as her husband ordered.
The other partner in the killing, whose name was Thomas Rand, never confessed his part in the murder, but he was eventually brought to trial, convicted, and hanged.
Lestrade came down from London himself to tell us about Rand's arrest, wishing, I think, to remove the aftertaste of failure from his mouth in front of the headmaster. He came for tea, looking more dishevelled than ever and yet oddly more competent for it, and he recited each detail of the evidence against Rand, up to and including the man's possession of my camera, my odds and ends of manuscripts, and Mrs Hudson's jewellery.
'Only one thing I can't figure,' he said finally. Holmes shot me a sardonic glance.
'Glad you've left me with something to explain, Lestrade,' he growled, which remark alone put half an inch on Lestrade's stature.
'It's Mrs Ho— Miss Russell's papers. If they weren't looking for the manuscript, the pie— what'd'ya call it?'
'Papyrus,' I said.
'Right. If they weren't looking for that, why cart about all the things written in a foreign alphabet and steal half of them? You can't imagine Jason Rogers or his friend would know Greek, or know about the value of that letter, and I wouldn't have thought it was the old lady's style, either.'
'Ah,' said Holmes, 'but there you would be wrong. What Erica Rogers was looking for was very much in her, as you say, 'style.' The day Miss Ruskin was here, she happened to mention that in their childhood she and her sister— the daughters of a minister, remember— used to play a game of hiding coded messages in a place they called 'Apocalypse,' because the top came off. The verb
'Yes, though we used Hebrew, which was a bit trickier.'
'Remember, too, that Erica Rogers was an enthusiast of Watson's thrilling nonsense. When she heard that her sister was coming to see me, her suspicions must have positively erupted. It was indeed very much in her 'style' to believe that her sister would write an encoded will, or a will written in one of the several foreign languages she spoke, and then lodge it with the Great Detective for safekeeping.'
'But that's absurd— beg pardon, Mr Holmes.'
'Elaborate and ridiculous and utterly unlike something Dorothy Ruskin might do,' he agreed. 'But very much in Erica Ruskin's style. A woman who would arrange an elaborate murder involving a beggar disguise and an automobile, who would anticipate the possibility that the death might not be accepted as a road accident and move to cloud any investigation by arranging to make it appear that she had remained at home, and then even think to plant a letter to her sister implicating an imaginary but plausible group of Arabs named Mud— a woman with a mind like that would not hesitate to believe that her sister could write a will in Serbo-Croatian and lodge it on the top of Nelson's Column. Real penny-dreadful stuff, and not, I think, completely sane. Scotland Yard is going to have to look into the influence art has on true crime one of these days, Lestrade, mark my words.'
Lestrade wavered, decided to take the remark as a joke, and laughed politely.
'Inspector,' I asked, 'have you an idea of the value of the Ruskin estate yet?'
He told us, and Holmes and I glanced at each other.
'Yes,' said Lestrade, 'more than you'd have thought, and taken as a whole, an amount worth fighting for. When Dorothy Ruskin came back here from Palestine, she must have told her sister, either directly or by something she said, that she had decided to make a new will and put the money into her archaeological projects. Erica Rogers might have put up with seeing the third part of their father's money that had already been divided up poured into a lot of holes in the ground, but she drew the line at having half of old Mrs Ruskin's money follow it. If the old lady died first, Dorothy Ruskin would inherit her share and it would be gone. Therefore Dorothy Ruskin had to die before their mother. I imagine Mrs Rogers said something to that effect to her grandson Jason, and he then brought in a friend who was experienced at this sort of thing. And,' he added thoughtfully, 'they then decided to retrieve the money Dorothy Ruskin already had, by finding and destroying the new will. If they'd been satisfied with just the old lady's money, we'd never have got on to them.'
'Greed feeds on itself,' commented Holmes.
'I'm not sure, though, why the three of them thought the will was here.'
'Miss Ruskin probably hinted that it would be,' I said. 'According to her hidden letter, that is what she planned to do to us, bring us the box and drop hints that it had a secret. I expect she did the same thing to her sister, trailing her garment to tempt her and point her at Sussex. Had Erica Rogers been honest, she'd have ignored it completely.'
'Miss Ruskin laid a trap.'
'You could say that. A trap that could only be sprung by the presence of criminal intent.'
'Not very nice of her, neglecting to mention your part in the arrangements.'
