“They haven’t changed an iota from the moment they were made. This cold snap has kept everything frozen solid. Look at the frost still on the panes, the icicles still on the window sashes, the ice coating still on all the trees and branches. In fact it has grown steadily colder since night before last, and until it begins to thaw we have these footprints as intact evidence. I will have them photographed.” “They are small,” Morton agreed after further examination. “And as you say, too close together for an ordinary sized man. It looks like the Jap.” “Beginning to wake up, are you? You’ve sure been asleep at the switch, Morton.” “Nothing of the sort, Mr. Cray. But I ought to have help. I’ve had all I could tackle, making the necessary first inquiries, and getting the facts straightened out.” “That business could have waited better than these other things. Now, there’s Crimmins, the lawyer arriving. Let’s interview him. But not in the study. Keep that clear.” They met Crimmins in the hall, and took him to the living room. The matter of the will was immediately taken up, and Mrs. Bates was asked to tell which desk drawer it was in. Accompanied by the lawyer and the secretary, Mrs. Bates indicated the drawer, and Lockwood opened it with his key. There were a few papers in it but no will. Nor could further search disclose any such document. “Who took it?” said Mrs. Bates, blankly. But no one could answer her. The others came thronging in, Cray’s urgent requests to keep out of the study being entirely ignored. “I knew it,” declared Mrs. Peyton, triumphantly. “Now, I guess you won’t be so cocky, Emily Bates—you or your ‘authority!’” Mrs. Bates looked at her. “I am the heir,” she said haughtily. “I assert that—but I cannot prove it until the will is found. It isn’t in your possession, Mr. Crimmins?” “No; Doctor Waring preferred to keep it himself. I cannot understand its disappearance.” “A lot of paper has been burned in this fireplace,” said Helen Peyton who was poking the ashes around. Morton hastened to look, for it seemed to him as if everybody was stealing his thunder. “Nothing that can be identified,” he said, carelessly. “No?” demurred Cray. “At any rate, it looks as if some legal papers were destroyed. This bit of ash is quite evidently the remainder of several sheets folded together.” But no definite knowledge could be gained outside the fact that much paper had been burned there. As no fire had been made since the discovery of the tragedy, it stood to reason the papers were burned by Doctor Waring himself or by his midnight intruder, if there were such a one. “Well,” Cray demanded of the lawyer, “if no will can be found, then who inherits the property of Doctor Waring? And is it considerable?”