“Eh, man, why not?” Then light seemed to break on the Scotsman. “Ah, I see I hadn't made myself clear. The trouble is, she wants it done immediately. You know how securities change. All of hers are good enough. Some very sound, some industrials. For instance, she put quite a large sum into some shares a few years ago which stood at twice what they stand at to-day. We approved after a fashion, provided she was willing to discount market fluctuations. But now she wants to fling some thousands of shares suddenly on the market—it's madness. The same way with some mortgages we arranged for her, you can't change that class of security into cash at a moment's notice. Yet that's what she wants. Of course, we won't do it. In her own interests we can't. I didn't tell her that naturally, but she'll find that it takes more time than she thinks to put a fortune as large as her half is into an annuity.” “I wonder why the hurry?” Pointer was deeply interested. “I can't make it out.” Mr. Russell's curiosity was evidently at work. “Mrs. Erskine has hitherto been such a good business woman. I'm the last to deny that she has made most advantageous purchases at times, but now to be willing to throw away at least one quarter of her fortune, if not a half, just for some mad whim of speed—it's beyond me. And an annuity, too! They're none so safe these days. Why not Government gilt-edged stocks? That's what I've been recommending to her, but no! It's to be an annuity and damn the cost. Man, I'm fairly tired out with yesterday's argy-bargy.” Pointer turned the whim of Mrs. Erskine over and over in his mind while the inquest progressed next day, and finally laid the matter on one side, “to come up if called upon to do so” at some future time when it might fit some fresh fact. The inquest caused a great stir among the papers, as any whisper of a murder always does, and in the facts as laid before the public—in a strictly limited dose—there was enough and to spare of the strange. Mr. Beale was not mentioned, neither was Mrs. Erskine, nor were the cables from Canada read, but a detailed account of the finding of the body by the police in the wardrobe, and of its belated identification, caused the evening papers to do a roaring trade, while the inquest itself was adjourned for another fortnight so as to “allow of the authorities in Canada being communicated with.” Chapter VI