me the last change, and her torpid calm turned into
violent excitement. While she thought herself alone with Dr. Larrone she
implored him to take the box to England the moment she died, and put it
into her daughter's hands. 'No one knows it matters,' she said more than
once. But when she found that he did not wish to go, and said it was
impossible for him to go at once, her entreaties were terrible. 'She had
always had her own way, and she had it to the end,' was the nurse's
comment.

"Dr Larrone, coming out of the room, realised that the nurse must have
known what passed, and told her he was glad she was there. He put a box
on a table with a little bang of impatience.

"'It's delirium, delusion, madness!' he said, 'but I've given my word. I
never hated a job more; she wouldn't have the morphia till I had taken
my oath I would go as soon as she was dead.'"

Grosse was absorbed by the pictures feebly conveyed through the nurse's
words, through the detective's letters, through the English lawyer's
translation and summary. He could supply what was missing. He had seen
Madame Danterre. He could so well imagine the frightful force of the
woman, a tyrant to the very last moment. He could guess, too, at the
reaction of those about her when once she was dead, and they were quite
out of her reach. There is always a reaction when feebler personalities
have to fill the space left by a tyrant. He could realise the buzz of
gossip, and the sense of courage with which servants and tradesmen would
make wild, impossible stories of her wicked life. He came back from
these thoughts with a certain shock when he found Murray saying:

"I can't say there is anything approaching to proof. But supposing, just
for the sake of supposing, that you were right in your wild guess as to
the will, then we should next go on to suppose that the real will was in
the box conveyed by Dr. Larrone to Miss Dexter."

Edmund's face was very dark, but he did not speak for some moments.

"No," he said, "she is incapable of such a crime. She would have given
it up at once."

"At once?" Murray said. "Miss Dexter was too ill to do anything at once.
She was down with influenza, of which she very nearly died, but she
pulled through, and then went away for a month. She only got back to
London two weeks ago. Her affairs are in the hands of a very respectable
firm. We know them, and they began this business with her a very short
time before she came up. Now Sir Edm