“ ‘I was clearing away my breakfast things,’ said John, ‘when I heard the master’s voice in the study close by. Oh my, he was that angry! I could hear the words “disgrace,” and “villain,” and “liar,” and “ballet-dancer,” and one or two other ugly words as applied to some female lady, which I would not like to repeat. At first I did not take much notice, as I was quite used to hearing my poor dear master having words with Mr. Percival. So I went downstairs carrying my breakfast things; but I had just started cleaning my silver when the study bell goes ringing violently, and I hear Mr. Percival’s voice shouting in the hall: “John! quick! Send for Dr. Mulligan at once. Your master is not well! Send one of the men, and you come up and help me to get Mr. Brooks to bed.”
“ ‘I sent one of the grooms for the doctor,’ continued John, who seemed still affected at the recollection of his poor master, to whom he had evidently been very much attached, ‘and I went up to see Mr. Brooks. I found him lying on the study floor, his head supported in Mr. Percival’s arms. “My father has fallen in a faint,” said the young master; “help me to get him up to his room before Dr. Mulligan comes.”
“ ‘Mr. Percival looked very white and upset, which was only natural; and when we had got my poor master to bed, I asked if I should not go and break the news to Mr. Murray, who had gone to business an hour ago. However, before Mr. Percival had time to give me an order the doctor came. I thought I had seen death plainly writ in my master’s face, and when I showed the doctor out an hour later, and he told me that he would be back directly, I knew that the end was near.
“ ‘Mr. Brooks rang for me a minute or two later. He told me to send at once for Mr. Wethered, or else for Mr. Hibbert, if Mr. Wethered could not come. “I haven’t many hours to live, John,” he says to me—“my heart is broke, the doctor says my heart is broke. A man shouldn’t marry and have children, John, for they will sooner or later break his heart.” I was so upset I couldn’t speak; but I sent round at once for Mr. Wethered, who came himself just about three o’clock that afternoon.
“ ‘After he had been with my master about an hour I was called in, and Mr. Wethered said to me that Mr. Brooks wished me and one other of us servants to witness that he had signed a paper which was on a table by his bedside. I called Pat Mooney, the head footman, and before us both Mr. Brooks put his name at the bottom of that paper. Then Mr. Wethered give me the pen and told me to write my name as a witness, and that Pat Mooney was to do the same. After that we were both told that we could go.’
“The old butler went on to explain that he was present in his late master’s room on the following day when the undertakers, who had come to lay the dead man out, found a paper underneath his pillow. John O’Neill, who recognized the paper as the one to which he had appended his signature the day before, took it to Mr. Percival, and gave it into his hands.
“In answer to Mr. Walter Hibbert, John asserted positively that he took the paper from the undertaker’s hand and went straight with it to Mr. Percival’s room.
“ ‘He was alone,’ said John; ‘I gave him the paper. He just glanced at it, and I thought he looked rather astonished, but he said nothing, and I at once left the room.’
“ ‘When you say that you recognized the paper as the one which you had seen your master sign the day before, how did you actually recognize that it was the same paper?’ asked Mr. Hibbert amidst breathless interest on the part of the spectators. I narrowly observed the witness’s face.
“ ‘It looked exactly the same paper to me, sir,’ replied John, somewhat vaguely.
“ ‘Did you look at the contents, then?’
“ ‘No, sir; certainly not.’
“ ‘Had you done so the day before?’
“ ‘No, sir, only at my master’s signature.’
“ ‘Then you only thought by the outside look of the paper that it was the same?’
“ ‘It looked the same thing, sir,’ persisted John obstinately.
“You see,” continued the man in the corner, leaning eagerly forward across the narrow marble table, “the contention of Murray Brooks’ adviser was that Mr. Brooks, having made a will and hidden it—for some reason or other under his pillow—that will had fallen, through the means related by John O’Neill, into the hands of Mr. Percival Brooks, who had destroyed it and substituted a forged one in its place, which adjudged the whole of Mr. Brooks’ millions to himself. It was a terrible and very daring accusation directed against a gentleman who, in spite of his many wild oats sowed in early youth, was a prominent and important figure in Irish high life.
“All those present were aghast at what they heard, and the whispered comments I could hear around me showed me that public opinion, at least, did not uphold Mr. Murray Brooks’ daring accusation against his brother.
“But John O’Neill had not finished his evidence, and Mr. Walter Hibbert had a bit of sensation still up his sleeve. He had, namely, produced a paper, the will proved by Mr. Percival Brooks, and had asked John O’Neill if once again he recognized the paper.
“ ‘Certainly, sir,’ said John unhesitatingly, ‘that is the one the undertaker found under my
