“Hardly enough to invite murder—still, one never knows. Now, Mr. Menticle, I am going to ask you a straight question. Do you believe that any of these legatees, residuary or otherwise, had any inducement to bring about the premature death of the testator?” Mr. Menticle rose abruptly from his chair and, walking over to the window, pulled aside the curtain and looked out on to the November night. Coming back into the room, he stood in front of the fire, with one foot on the fender, seeming to seek for inspiration from the blazing logs. “That is a very direct question,” he temporized. “It is,” said the detective, “and I want your answer, please, Mr. Menticle.” The expression of Poole’s face would have told anyone who knew him that, having got his grip, nothing now would cause him to relax it. At last the lawyer straightened his shoulders and, turning his back to the fire, looked down at his interlocutor. “I think I must tell you,” he said, “that a week or so before his death, Sir Garth instructed me to draw up a new will. I was to have brought it to him to sign the morning after he actually died.” “There were important alterations?” Poole’s voice was tense. “There was one. Ryland Fratten was cut out of the will as a residuary legatee.” CHAPTER VIII Ryland Fratten Poole sat for a while in silence, allowing this significant piece of information to sink into his mind. “That means, then,” he said at last, “that if Sir Garth had died on the evening of the 25th of October instead of the 24th, Miss Inez Fratten would have inherited the whole of the residuary estate of her father—nearly half a million pounds—and her brother would have had nothing?” “Not nothing. He was to have received an annuity of £300; Sir Garth did not want him to be quite destitute—he doubted Ryland’s ability to earn a living for himself, and to a certain extent he blamed himself for bringing the boy up in the expectation of idle riches.” “Still, it meant £300 a year instead of £10,000?” “Exactly.” “That,” thought Poole to himself, “may be considered to be a motive for murder.” Aloud, he said: “Did Mr. Ryland Fratten know of this new will?” “That I cannot say for certain,” replied the lawyer. “I gathered that Sir Garth had made use of some expression—something about ‘cutting off’ or ‘disinheriting,’ perhaps—that might have given Mr. Ryland an idea of what was in the wind.” “But did he know that the new will was to have been signed on the day you say it was—25th October?” “That again I don’t know—I should doubt it.” Evidently that was a point that must be looked into; Poole made a mental note of it and turned to another line of approach. “And the cause of the change, sir?”