Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- Fiction
"Can you manage," he said, "to send Miss Garth out for a walk this
morning--with somebody?"
"I can send her out for a ride with the groom--unless she thinks it
wouldn't be the thing to go riding so soon after her bereavement."
"Never mind, that will do. Send her at once, and see that she goes. Call
it doctor's orders; say she must go for her health's sake--anything."
Mr. Crellan departed, used his influence, and in half an hour Miss Garth
had gone.
"I was up pretty early this morning," Hewitt remarked on Mr. Crellan's
return to the study, "and, among other things, I sent a telegram to
London. Unless my eyes deceive me, a boy with a peaked cap--a telegraph
boy, in fact--is coming up the drive this moment. Yes, he is. It is
probably my answer."
In a few minutes a telegram was brought in. Hewitt read it and then
asked,--
"Your friend Mr. Mellis, I understand, was going straight to town
yesterday morning?"
"Yes."
"Read that, then."
Mr. Crellan took the telegram and read:
"_Mellis did not sleep at chambers last night. Been out of town for some
days past. Kerrett._"
Mr. Crellan looked up.
"Who's Kerrett?" he asked.
"Lad in my office; sharp fellow. You see, Mellis didn't go to town after
all. As a matter of fact, I believe he was nearer this place than we
thought. You said he had a disagreement with his uncle because of
scientific practices which the old gentleman considered 'dangerous and
unprofessional,' I think?"
"Yes, that was the case."
"Ah, then the key to all the mystery of the will is in this room."
"Where?"
"There." Hewitt pointed to the book-cases. "Read Bernheim's _Suggestive
Therapeutics_, and one or two books of Heidenhain's and Björnström's and
you'll see the thing more clearly than you can without them; but that
would be rather a long sort of job, so----but why, who's this? Somebody
coming up the drive in a fly, isn't it?"
"Yes," Mr. Crellan replied, looking out of the window. Presently he
added, "It's Cranley Mellis."
"Ah," said Hewitt, "he won't trouble us for a little. I'll bet you a
penny cake he goes first by himself to the small staircase and tries
that secret recess. If you get a little way along the passage you will
be able to see him; but that will scarcely matter--I can see you don't
guess now what I am driving at."
"I don't in the least."
"I told you the names of the books in which you could read the matter
up; but that would be too long for the present purpose. The thing is
fairly well summarised, I see, in that encyclopædia there in the corner.
I have put a marker in volume seven. Do you mind opening it at that
place and seeing for yourself?"
Mr. Crellan, doubtful and bewildered, reached the volume. It opened
readily, and in the place where it opened lay a blue foolscap envelope.
The old gentleman took the envelope, drew from it a white paper, stared
first at the paper, then at Hewitt, then at the paper again, let the
volume slide from his lap, and gasped,--
"Why--why--it's the will!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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