“Don’t,” he said thickly. “To pull that out will finish me. Leave it, and I have a few moments more!”
“That is true,” said Fleming Stone. “Someone telephone for a doctor, but do not disturb the weapon. Mr. Willard, if you have anything to say, say it quickly.”
“I will,” said Tom, quickly; “Fessenden, you are a lawyer, will you draw up my will?”
Without a word, Rob caught up paper and pen, and prepared to take the last words of the dying man.
Though not entirely in legal phrasing, the will was completed, and after a general bequest to Fessenden himself, and directing that all bills should be paid, and other minor matters of the sort, Tom Willard left the bulk of his fortune to Schuyler Carleton.
“That,” he said, with almost his last breath, “is only a deed of justice, in the name of Madeleine and myself.”
Before the arrival of Doctor Hills, Tom Willard was dead. Self-confessed, self-convicted, self-punished; but his crime was discovered by Fleming Stone, and proved by means of a tiny clue.
Colophon
The Clue
was published in by
Carolyn Wells.
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The Clue,
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