,
that the deed was signed."

"Where did he keep his keys?" asked Mr. Bitterworth.

"In the little table-drawer at his elbow, sir. The first day he took to
his bed, he wanted his keys, and I got them out of his dressing-gown
pocket for him. 'You needn't put them back,' he says to me; 'let them
stop inside this little drawer.' And there they stayed till he died,
when I gave them up to Mr. Lionel."

"You must have allowed somebody to get into the room, Mrs. Tynn," said
Dr. West.

"I never was away from the room above two minutes at a time, sir," was
the woman's reply, "and then either Mr. Lionel or Tynn would be with
him. But, if any of 'em did come in, it's not possible they'd get
picking at the master's desk to take out a paper. What good would the
paper do any of the servants?"

Mrs. Tynn's question was a pertinent one. The servants were neither the
better nor the worse for the codicil; whether it were forthcoming, or
not, it made no difference to them. Sir Rufus Hautley inquired upon this
point, and the lawyer satisfied him.

"The codicil was to this effect alone," he explained. "It changed the
positions of Mr. Lionel and Mr. John Massingbird, the one for the other,
as they had stood in the will. Mr. Lionel came into the inheritance, and
Mr. Frederick Massingbird to five hundred pounds only. Mr. John was
gone--as everybody knows."

"These two, Mr. Lionel and Frederick Massingbird, were the only parties
interested in the codicil, then?"

"The only two. John Massingbird's name was mentioned, but only to revoke
all former bequests to him."

"Then--were John Massingbird alive, he could not now succeed to the
estate!" cried Sir Rufus.

"He could not, Sir Rufus," replied the lawyer. "He would be debarred
from all benefit under Mr. Verner's will. That is, provided we can come
across the codicil. Failing that, he would succeed were he in life, to
Verner's Pride."

"The codicil _must_ be found," cried Mr. Bitterworth, getting heated.
"Don't say, 'if we can come across it,' Matiss."

"Very good, Mr. Bitterworth. I'm sure I should be glad to see it found.
Where else are we to look?"

Where else, indeed! That Mr. Verner could not get out of the room to
hide the codicil was an indisputable fact; and nobody else seemed to
know anything whatever about it. The only one personally interested in
the suppression of the codicil was Frederick Massingbird; and he,
hundreds of miles away, could neither have secured it nor