Edward Farris was human; and it is to be supposed that he cannot have seconded with a very good grace the overtures made towards Derek by his great-aunt. Yet it does honour to his altruism, or perhaps to his prudence, that the old lady did not learn from him any fact which was injurious to Derek’s reputation except the fact, too notorious to be concealed, that Derek and Nigel were scarcely on speaking terms. It was, as we have seen, one of the latest wishes she expressed that the uncongenial pair should find more in common; it was chiefly as the result of this wish that the canoe expedition was undertaken; and we may regard it as certain that Derek had not neglected to inform her of his compliance. When Derek disappeared, his great-aunt had already been overtaken by her last illness; the doctor would not hear of the grim news finding its way into her sickroom, and the papers were carefully kept from her. She died, then, in full knowledge that John Burtell’s grandsons had effected a reconciliation, in ignorance of the tragic sequel which the reconciliation produced.
It was in this stage of half-enlightenment that she drew up her last will and testament. For the adopted son, whose prospects she had made and marred, she secured a decent provision. The whole of her remaining property, she declared—it meant nearly a hundred thousand—was to pass absolutely to her elder grandnephew, the son of her beloved nephew John. The lawyer’s diplomacy was taxed to the uttermost. He knew, as he sat by her bedside, that half England was hallooing after Derek as a fugitive, the other half pronouncing obituaries on him as a corpse. He knew that any reference to the fact might precipitate his client’s death. Yet the will, as she had outlined it to him, would mean, in all probability, that she would die intestate. The lawyer hummed and hawed; he excelled himself in the iteration of those complicated rigmaroles by which the laity are hoodwinked. It would never do, he said, to leave the will like that; it would be a severe breach of legal custom if no residuary legatee were named. Perhaps Mr. Nigel Burtell might be mentioned? To his surprise, Mrs. Coolman was adamant. A few months before, her family fondness had inspired her to buy a book of poems which Nigel had produced, in the hope of paying his Oxford bills with the proceeds. Mens hominum praesaga parum! The book reached Aunt Alma’s breakfast-table; Aunt Alma read it. Neither the sentiments it expressed nor its manner of expressing them were adapted to the taste of the seventies. With a certain tightening of the lips, the dying Victorian consented to name Edward Farris her heir, as Derek’s alternative.
The firm of solicitors which drew up the will was the firm which also represented Derek’s own interests. Leyland had consulted them long and earnestly as to the financial situation; they knew, therefore, that Leyland was in charge of the police investigations. Throwing etiquette to the winds, they wrote an “Urgent” letter to Leyland at his Oxford address, detailing the circumstances in full and asking what action the police would like to see taken—were the provisions of the will to be made public? This letter was immediately carried over to Eaton Bridge by a man on a motor-bicycle, and Leyland was still closeted with the Bredons when he took it and opened it.
“We must talk to Mr. Quirk about that,” was Bredon’s rather unexpected comment, when the situation was outlined to him.
“Mr. Quirk? What’s he got to do with it?”
“Well, you see, it goes to support his theory. He was insisting, only yesterday, that we had no evidence to incriminate Nigel Burtell; in his view, both cousins were being pursued by a man, or a gang of men, who stood to gain by Derek’s death. I pointed out that, as far as I could see, Nigel was the only person who stood to gain by Derek’s death; it left him heir to the fifty thousand. But this new development alters the whole look of the thing—assuming, of course, that the old lady’s intentions were known. There was a much bigger sum, twice the amount, to which Derek was heir, in which Nigel is not interested.”
“You mean that if Derek Burtell is alive—or rather, if he was alive on Saturday, the hundred thousand is his, and Nigel is the heir to it? Whereas if Derek Burtell died before last Saturday, the whole thing goes to Farris, and Nigel has no more claim on it than you or I have?”
“That’s the situation, I take it. This will, mark you, was only signed last Wednesday. But assuming that Nigel knew, or had a good guess, how his great-aunt was going to cut up, he had less reason than anybody in the world to murder his cousin. There I’m with Quirk entirely.
