Beattie, who knew the clerk’s habits perfectly well, was, in fact, waiting for him. As soon as MacGowan entered the tavern, Beattie, with a smile on his thin lips, returned to the office. Everything had happened exactly as he had foreseen that it would happen. In the course of the afternoon Alec Lindsay made his appearance in the managing clerk’s room, and asked him if he would attend at his uncle’s on the following morning, to superintend the signing of the will. ‘Indeed I can’t. I have to be in the Vice-Chancellor’s room by ten, and I shall probably be out all the morning. Why don’t you do it yourself?’ ‘Because my name is mentioned in the will.’ ‘What does that matter? You needn’t witness it. Get two of the servants to do that.’ ‘But I have never done anything of the kind before.’ ‘Why, a child might do it. Ask Mr. Hatchett to go, if you like, but don’t bother me any more, there’s a good fellow. I’m terribly busy.’ Alec knew that Mr. Hatchett would never dream of attending personally at so simple a matter as the execution of a will, so he made up his mind to go himself. About five o’clock that afternoon Mr. Beattie went into the outer office, and inquired for MacGowan. Of course he was not there--had not been seen for the last three hours. Beattie struck his fist angrily on the desk before him, and went straight to Mr. Hatchett’s room. Graves (who had just returned from St. Albans) looked at Hill and grinned. ‘’E’ll ’ave it this time, to a dead certainty,’ said Mr. Hill. ‘Right you are, Mr. ’Ill,’ said Mr. Graves. ‘I’m afraid we can’t afford to keep that fellow MacGowan any longer,’ said Beattie to Mr. Hatchett. ‘He has not been here since three o’clock--drinking, I suppose. It is the same thing every pay-day, and on other occasions too--whenever he has money, in fact.’ ‘Dismiss him, then, and advertise for another clerk,’ said the solicitor, hardly troubling himself to look up from the paper he was reading. ‘I think in that case you had better write the note, Mr. Hatchett. He will understand then that the decision is your own.’ Mr. Hatchett wrote a dozen words on a sheet of paper, and handed it to his subordinate. ‘Get it copied in the letter-book, and send it to his lodgings,’ he said, turning back to his work. Mr. David MacGowan was troubled by no fears of the fate which had been prepared for him. About eight o’clock that evening he was sitting in the smoking-room of ‘The Alexandra,’ with a glass of punch before him, applauding, in a loud, half-tipsy tone, a song which had just been finished. Care he had cast to the winds. He was not quite drunk, though he was far from sober; and, after his besotted fashion, he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Suddenly his face grew pale, and his tongue refused to speak the words on his lips, for there, calmly surveying the company from the doorway, stood--Mr. William Beattie.