who
plays for thousands. So he must have offered to arrange matters for Lord
Southminster if Southminster would consent to make good that sum and a
great deal more to him. That odious little cad told me himself on the
_Jumna_ they were engaged in pulling off "a big _coup_" between them. He
thought then I would marry him, and that he would so secure my
connivance in his plans; but who would marry such a piece of moist clay?
Besides, I could never have taken anyone but Harold.' Then another clue
came home to me. 'Mr. Hayes,' I cried, jumping at it, 'Higginson, who
forged this will, never saw the real document itself at all; he saw only
the draft: for Mr. Ashurst altered one word _viva voce_ in the original
at the last moment, and I made a pencil note of it on my cuff at the
time: and see, it isn't here, though I inserted it in the final clean
copy of the will--the word 'especially.' It grows upon me more and more
each minute that the real instrument is hidden somewhere in Mr.
Ashurst's house--Harold's house--our house; and that _because_ it is
there Lord Southminster is so indecently anxious to oust his aunt and
take instant possession.'

'In that case,' Mr. Hayes remarked, 'we had better go back to Lady
Georgina without one minute's delay, and, while she still holds the
house, institute a thorough search for it.'

No sooner said than done. We jumped again into our cab and started. As
we drove back, Mr. Hayes asked me where I thought we were most likely to
find it.

'In a secret drawer in Mr. Ashurst's desk,' I answered, by a flash of
instinct, without a second's hesitation.

'How do you know there's a secret drawer?'

'I don't know it. I infer it from my general knowledge of Mr. Ashurst's
character. He loved secret drawers, ciphers, cryptograms,
mystery-mongering.'

'But it was in that desk that your husband found the forged document,'
the lawyer objected.

Once more I had a flash of inspiration or intuition. 'Because White, Mr.
Ashurst's valet, had it in readiness in his possession,' I answered,
'and hid it there, in the most obvious and unconcealed place he could
find, as soon as the breath was out of his master's body. I remember now
Lord Southminster gave himself away to some extent in that matter. The
hateful little creature isn't really clever enough, for all his
cunning,--and with Higginson to back him,--to mix himself up in such
tricks as forgery. He told me at Aden he had had a telegram from
"Marmy's