He bent his efforts to infusing at least a semblance of harmony into the company, but it was not a very successful attempt. Sylvia seconded him to the best of her ability; but Arthur still maintained his suspicious attitude; and Ardsley seemed disinclined to emerge from his state of unfriendly neutrality. It was a relief to them all when the door of the museum opened and Ernest Shandon ushered in the Chief Constable. Stenness followed close on their heels. “This is Sir Clinton Driffield, Miss Hawkhurst,” Wendover hastened to say, when he remembered that they had not met in the afternoon. Sir Clinton bowed to the girl and then, with a word of apology, he turned to Wendover. “Got the stuff?” he demanded; and his face cleared when Wendover held up the little earthenware pot. A glance at Ardsley confirmed that it was the right thing; and Sir Clinton seemed to pay no further attention to it at the moment. “I’m afraid I disturbed your uncle, Miss Hawkhurst. He was busy in the study, and I was rather loath to interrupt him; but he very kindly came out at once.” Ernest, in the background, fumbled for a moment with his eyeglasses. “I was very busy,” he admitted. “But of course I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t stop. In fact, I was just turning over papers and going through the safe with Stenness. It wasn’t really important, or at least not so important that it couldn’t be put aside for a time, and Sir Clinton said he wasn’t going to stay more than a few minutes. So I just left things, of course. I’d just been looking over Roger’s will. We happened to come across it on the top of a pile of things in the safe. I couldn’t understand it—to tell you the truth. These lawyers are terrible fellows for putting in long words—like ‘hereinafter’ and ‘heritable’ and ‘moveable’ and ‘accretion,’ and so on. And all about ‘survivor or survivors’ and ‘beneficiaries’ and a lot of complicated things besides. If it hadn’t been for Stenness I don’t think I could have made out what it was all about.” He blinked helplessly at the group, and then continued with a tinge of pride in his tone. “Roger made me one of his trustees. Neville was another of them. And there’s a third, the head of his firm of lawyers, I think, or at any rate, a lawyer.” Then, in a rather discouraged voice: “I suppose that’ll mean a lot of bother—signing papers and all that sort of thing.” Sir Clinton waited patiently for the end of Ernest’s speech; and then he came to the point at once. “If you’re an executor that simplifies matters, Mr. Shandon. I want to take away this article here”—he indicated the pot in Wendover’s hand—“but only for a day or two, probably. You’ll get it back again in due course. It’s only a loan, you understand.” Ernest evidently felt the dignity of his new position. He put out his hand for the pot, examined it carefully through his glasses, then handed it over to Sir Clinton, though with a certain reluctance.