Mr. Halfpenny's offices in good
time. He came alone; a few minutes after his arrival Peggie Wynne,
nervous and frightened, came, attended by Mr. Tertius and Professor
Cox-Raythwaite. All these people were at once ushered into Mr.
Halfpenny's private room, where polite, if constrained, greetings
passed. At five minutes past ten o'clock Mr. Halfpenny looked at
Barthorpe.

"We're only waiting for Mr. Burchill," he remarked. "I wrote to him
after seeing you, and I received a reply from him in which he promised
to be here at ten this morning. It's now----"

But at that moment the door opened to admit Mr. Frank Burchill, who, all
unconscious of the fact that more than one pair of sharp eyes had
followed him from his flat to Mr. Halfpenny's office, and that their
owners were now in the immediate vicinity, came in full of polite
self-assurance, and executed formal bows while he gracefully apologised
to Mr. Halfpenny for being late.

"It's all right, all right, Mr. Burchill," said the old lawyer, a little
testy under the last-comer's polite phrases, all of which he thought
unnecessary. "Five or ten minutes won't make any great difference. Take
a seat, pray: I think if we all sit around this centre table of mine it
will be more convenient. We can begin at once now, Mr. Barthorpe
Herapath--I have already given strict instructions that we are not to be
disturbed, on any account. My dear--perhaps you will sit here by
me?--Mr. Tertius, you sit next to Miss Wynne--Professor----"

Mr. Halfpenny's dispositions of his guests placed Peggie and her two
companions on one side of a round table; Barthorpe and Burchill at the
other--Mr. Halfpenny himself sat at the head. And as soon as he had
taken his own seat, he looked at Barthorpe.

"This, of course," he began, "is a quite informal meeting. We are here,
as I understand matters, to hear why you, Mr. Barthorpe Herapath, object
to your late uncle's will, and why you intend to dispute it. So I
suppose the next thing to do will be to ask you to state your grounds."

But Barthorpe shook his head with a decisive motion.

"No," he answered. "Not at all! The first thing to do, Mr. Halfpenny, in
my opinion, is to hear what is to be said in favour of the will. The
will itself, I take it, is in your possession. I have seen it--I mean, I
have seen the document which purports to be a will of the late Jacob
Herapath--so I admit its existence. Two persons are named on that
document as witnesses: M