"You mean the paper that you left on my Aunt Selina's bed, sir? I put it in the cabinet; she directed me to do so." "In the cabinet?" repeated Mr. Edwin Barley to me. "Yes, sir. Just inside as you open it." "Will you go with me to search for it?" said Mr. Edwin Barley to the lawyer. "And you can go into Miss Delves's parlour, Anne; little girls are better out of these affairs." "Pardon me," dissented Mr. Gregg. "Miss Hereford, as the only interested party, had better remain. And if she can show us where the will is, it will save time." Mr. Edwin Barley looked as if he meant to object, but did not. "The child's nerves have been unhinged," he said to the lawyer as they went upstairs, I and Mr. Barley following. The key of the cabinet lay in the corner of the drawer where I had placed it. Mr. Edwin Barley took it from me and opened the cabinet. But no will was to be seen. "I did not think of looking here," he observed; "my wife never used the cabinet to my knowledge. There is no will here." There was no will anywhere, apparently. Drawers were opened; her desk, standing now on the drawers, was searched; all without effect. "It is very extraordinary," said Mr. Gregg to him. "I can only come to one conclusion—that my wife must have destroyed it herself. It is true the keys were lying about for several hours subsequent to her death, at anybody's command; but who would steal a will?" "I do not suppose Mrs. Edwin Barley would destroy it," dissented Mr. Gregg. "Nothing can be more improbable. She expressed her happiness at having been able to make a will; her great satisfaction. Who left the keys about, sir?" "The blame of that lies with Charlotte Delves. It escaped her memory to secure them, she tells me: and in the confusion of the sudden blow, it is not to be wondered at. But, and if the keys were left about? I have honest people in my house, Mr. Gregg." "Who benefited by the will?" asked Mr. Barley of the Oaks, he having helped in the search, and was now looking on with a face of puzzled concern. "Who comes into the money, Gregg?" "Ay, who?" put in Mr. Edwin Barley. "This little girl, Anne Ursula Hereford. Mrs. Edwin Barley bequeathed to her the whole of her money, and also her trinkets, except the trinkets that had been your own gift to her, Mr. Edwin Barley." And he proceeded to detail the provisions of the short will. "In fact, she left to Miss Hereford everything of value she had to leave; money, clothes, trinkets. It is most strange where the will can be." "It is more than strange," observed Mr. Edwin Barley. "Why did she wish to make the will in secret?" "I have told you, sir, that she did not say why." "But can you not form an idea why?" "It occurred to me that she thought you might not like her leaving all she had away from you, and might have feared you would interfere." "No," he quietly said, "I should not have done that. Every wish that she confided to me should have been scrupulously carried out."