This was a poser. No form of ambiguity known to Fergusson would serve to extricate him from a direct reply. "Ay, Mr. Brett," came his reply at last. "One I can swear to." "That was Mr. Robert Hume-Fraser, who met him in the park, and walked with him there about three to four o'clock in the afternoon. Were there others whom you cannot swear to?" The butler darted a quick glance at the other. "Ye ken, sir," he said, "that the Hume-Frazers are mixed up wi' an auld Scoatch hoose?" "Yes." "Weel, sir, there's things that happen in this world which no man can explain. Five are dead, and five had to die by violent means. Who arranged that?" "Neither you nor I can tell." "That's right, sir. I know that Mr. David or Mr. Robert never lifted a hand against their cousin, yet, unless the Lord blinded my auld een, I saw ane or ither in the avenue when I tried to lift Sir Alan frae the groond." "You said nothing of this at the time?" "Would ye hae me speak o' wraiths to a Suffolk jury, Mr. Brett? I saw no mortal man. 'Twas a ghaist for sure, an' if I had gone into the box to talk of such things they wad hae discredited my evidence about Mr. David. I might hae hanged him instead o' savin' him." "Suppose I tell you that the man you saw was no ghost, but real flesh and blood, a Japanese descendant of the David Hume who fought and killed the first Sir Alan in 1763, what would you say?" "I would say, sir, that it had to be, were it ever so strange." "Have you ever, in gossip about family records, heard anything of the fate of the David Hume I have just mentioned." "Only this, sir. My people have lived on the Highland estate longer than any Hume-Frazer of them a'. My father remembered his grandfather sayin' that a man who was in India wi' Clive met Mr. Hume in Calcutta. There was fightin' agin' the French, an' Mr. Hume would neither strike a blow for King George nor draw a sword for the French, so he sailed away to the East in a Dutch ship, and he was never heard of afterwards." This was a most important confirmation of the theory evolved by the barrister. For the rest, Fergusson's reminiscences were useless. Next morning Brett went to Somerset House to consult the will in which Margaret's father left her £1,000 a year. Her brother died intestate. As he expected, the document was phrased adroitly. It read: "I give and bequeath to Margaret Hume-Frazer, who has elected to desert the home provided for her, the sum of--" etc., etc. The fact that she was, in the eyes of the law, an illegitimate child could not invalidate this bequest. For the rest, he imagined that when her brother died so unexpectedly, no one ever dreamed of inquiring into the well-intentioned fraud perpetrated by Lady Hume-Frazer and her husband. Margaret was unquestionably accepted as the heiress to her brother's property, the estate being unentailed.