The cause of death was only too apparent, but the principles of the law
are hidebound, and it was necessary that a post-mortem should be made,
in order that the coroner's jury should arrive at their verdict.
Later Raife, assisted the family solicitor to gather out the contents of
the safe and make them into bundles, which they sealed up carefully and
counted.
"Of course," Kellaway said, "I am not aware of the contents of your
lamented father's will, and I frankly confess I was rather disappointed
at not being asked to make it."
"I think it was made by some solicitors in Edinburgh," was Raife's
reply. "Gordon and Gordon, I believe, is the name of the firm. It is
deposited at Barclay's Bank in London."
"The executors will, no doubt, know. You have wired to them, you say?"
Then, after a pause, Kellaway added: "The fact that Sir Henry engaged a
strange solicitor to draw up his will would rather lead to the
assumption that he had something to hide from me, wouldn't it?"
"By jove, yes," was the young man's response. "I had never thought of
that! He wished to preserve his secret until his death. I wonder if
the will reveals anything?"
"Perhaps--who knows?"
Raife remained silent. He was still carefully removing the papers from
the steel inner drawer of the safe--a drawer which had been overlooked
when he had made his investigation. The papers were mostly memoranda
regarding financial transactions, sales and purchases of land, and other
matters. Among them were a number of old letters, mostly signed by
George Mountjoy, who had been member for South Gloucestershire, and his
father's particular crony. He had died a year ago, and Sir Henry had
keenly felt the loss of his life-long friend.
They had been as brothers, and old Mr Mountjoy was frequently a guest
at Aldborough for months at a stretch, and treated quite as one of the
family.
Letter after letter he turned over aimlessly, reading scraps here and
there. They were strange letters, which showed a great bond of
friendship existing between the two men. In some, Mountjoy asked Sir
Henry's advice regarding his most intimate and private affairs, and in
others he gave the baronet his aid, and made suggestions regarding his
line of action in many matters.
One struck him as very strange. Dated from the Hotel Angst, in
Bordighera, over three years ago, it contained the following passage:
"As you have asked my advice upon the most secret page of our history,
my dear Henry, I am most decidedly and emphatically of opinion that it
will be best to allow them to remain in entire ignorance. He should,
however, be diplomatically warned lest the pitfall you fear be placed
in his path--as no doubt it will be sooner or later.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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