The strong point of the new scheme was that it involved no risk till the last moment. If it had been found impracticable to substitute the altered will (which Beattie had in his pocket when he went to Claremont Gardens for the second time) for the true one, before the latter was signed, no one could possibly tell that the attempt had been made. The weak point of the plan was the difficulty of effecting the substitution. After long deliberation, Beattie came to the conclusion that the thing was quite practicable. Clearly, Alec Lindsay’s attention must be diverted by some matter of sufficient importance, at the critical moment; and Beattie partly arranged and partly invented an excuse for seeking him at Mr. Lindsay’s house, and making him write an affidavit then and there. Semple, he thought, might insist upon being present while the will was being executed on the score of jealousy of his cousin. He had only to lower the blind, and draw it up again, to make Beattie (who was waiting in a cab at the corner of the street) come upon the scene. Alec, Beattie argued, was certain at least to come downstairs and see him. He would either leave the will upstairs in his uncle’s bedroom, or bring it down with him--probably he would leave it upstairs. Semple was to be in the library when Beattie was shown into it, ready to take the false will from his confederate, and leave the room before Alec entered it. He was then to go upstairs, and try to effect the exchange. If he failed, he failed, and no harm was done. If he found that the will was not there, he was to go back at once to the library, and hand the false will back to Beattie, who was to change one document for the other, while Alec Lindsay was busy with the affidavit. Everything had been provided for; and everything was carried out according to the conspirators’ plans, except that James Semple, instead of fetching the will which Alec had read from his uncle’s room, prevailed upon Laura (who had her own reason for wishing to know its contents) to get it and bring it to him. The girl imagined that she was merely helping her lover to ascertain how his uncle had devised his property. Semple, of course, had changed the true will for the false one, as he pretended to read the former at the drawing-room window. When Laura asked him afterwards what he had learned, he replied: ‘I couldn’t make much of it. I think I shall have a good large sum; but I couldn’t be sure that I understood their lawyer’s jargon.’