The Towers, exteriorly, was a barrack of a place, deriving its name from two square excrescences at either end of its long facade. Within it was a treasure house. Furniture, pictures, china, silver, books, all were good. The taste displayed was cosmopolitan, even bizarre. Not in a single room was there any attempt at uniformity, nor any fixed plan of decoration. Jacobean furniture, Georgian, examples of Sheraton, Heppelwhite, and other English worthies in the art, rubbed shoulders with the work of the master makers of Italy and France, and were crowded together with marvelous specimens from the East, from India and Japan. The paintings were of many schools; the china, as a private collection, would be hard to beat; much of the silver was unique, and rare books shared shelf room with the modern productions of the printers' and binders' arts. "An eccentric, Wigan," said Quarles, glancing rapidly around him. "Zena was right in emphasizing that fact. We must bear it in mind." Before leaving town I had taken the precaution of seeing Messrs. Lacey, the solicitors, and in consequence Edward Oglethorpe was prepared for our visit and welcomed it. His appearance went to confirm the reports we had heard of him. He was an upstanding, straightforward young Englishman of the best type, one with whom it seemed impossible to associate any kind of meanness. The professor came to the point at once. "May I take it, Mr. Oglethorpe, you have no reason to suspect that Frisby Morton has had anything to do with the disappearance of this will?" "The idea never suggested itself to me until he accused me of making such a statement, then----" "Quite naturally a doubt was raised in your mind," said Quarles. "Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Frisby had treated his nephew badly?" "No; I knew he did not care for him, but I also knew he had given him ten thousand pounds. Only since his death have I known of the letter he sent with that check. I was, therefore, not aware that he intended to leave him out of his will." "You feel confident there was a will?" "Mr. Frisby told me I was his heir, and I took it for granted there was a will. I never saw, I do not think he actually told me he had made it. As it is, of course, I naturally have doubts whether it ever was made." Quarles nodded. "I cannot explain what my adopted father was to me," Oglethorpe went on, "nor how keenly I feel his death. The question of his wealth never troubled me. I was too happy and contented with him to give a thought to what my future would be without him. You can understand how hateful this business, this quarreling about his money, is to me."