"Now, not so very long after that--I mean, after the child was brought to Portman Square--another person came to the house as a permanent resident. His name was given to the servants as Mr. Tertius. The conditions of his residence were somewhat peculiar. He had rooms of his own; he did as he liked. Sometimes he joined Jacob Herapath at meals; sometimes he did not. There was an air of mystery about him. What was it? I will tell you in a word--the mystery or its secret, was this--the man Tertius, who sits there now, was in reality the girl's father! He was Arthur John Wynne, the ex-convict--the clever forger!" CHAPTER XXIV COLD STEEL The two men who formed what one may call the alien and impartial audience at that table were mutually and similarly impressed by a certain feature of Barthorpe Herapath's speech--its exceeding malevolence. As he went on from sentence to sentence, his eyes continually turned to Mr. Tertius, who sat, composed and impassive, listening, and in them was a gleam which could not be mistaken--the gleam of bitter, personal dislike. Mr. Halfpenny and Professor Cox-Raythwaite both saw that look and drew their own conclusions, and when Barthorpe spat out his last words, the man of science turned to the man of law and muttered a sharp sentence in Latin which no one else caught. And Mr. Halfpenny nodded and muttered a word or two back before he turned to Barthorpe. "Even supposing--mind, I only say supposing--even supposing you are correct in all you say--and I don't know that you are," he said, "what you have put before us does nothing to prove that the will which we have just inspected is not what we believe it to be--we, at any rate--the valid will of Jacob Herapath. You know as well as I do that you'd have to give stronger grounds than that before a judge and jury." "I'll give you my grounds," answered Barthorpe eagerly. He bent over the table in his eagerness, and the old lawyer suddenly realized that Barthorpe genuinely believed himself to be in the right. "I'll give you my grounds without reserve. Consider them--I'll check them off, point by point--you can follow them: "First. It was well known--to me, at any rate, that my uncle Jacob Herapath, had never made a will. "Second. Is it not probable that if he wanted to make a will he would have employed me, who had acted as his solicitor for fifteen years? "Third. I had a conversation with him about making a will just under a year ago, and he then said he'd have it done, and he mentioned that he should divide his estate equally between me and my cousin there. "Fourth. Mr. Burchill here absolutely denies all knowledge of this alleged will. "Fifth. My uncle's handwriting, as you all know, was exceedingly plain and very easy to imitate. Burchill's handwriting is similarly plain--of the copperplate sort--and just as easy to imitate.