as joint executors, and that was all.

Mr. Brimsdown would not have occupied such a distinguished place in the
legal profession if he had not been a firm believer in the sacred English
tradition that a man has the right to dispose of his own property as he
thinks fit. Moreover, his legal mind realized the folly of speculating
over the reasons which had prompted this hurried will when the man who had
made it was beyond the reach of argument, reproof, or cross-examination.

But the lack of all mention of the title was a different matter, calling
for investigation. It was remarkable that a man like Robert Turold should
have gone to the grave without binding his heir to prosecute the claim for
the Turrald title. To that end Robert Turold had devoted his life, and to
the upkeep of the title he had proposed to devote his fortune. The absence
of this precaution puzzled Mr. Brimsdown considerably at first, but as he
pondered over the matter he began to see the reason. Robert Turold was so
close to the summit of his ambition that he had not thought it necessary
to take precautions. He was a strong man, and strong men rarely think of
death. Once the title was his, it descended as a matter of course to his
brother, and then to his brother's son--provided, of course, that the
proofs of his daughter's illegitimacy were in existence.

That conclusion carried another in its wake. If Robert Turold had not
safeguarded his dearest ambition because he hoped to carry it out himself,
it followed as a matter of course that he did not take his own life. Mr.
Brimsdown had never accepted that theory, but it was strange to have it so
conclusively proved, as it were, by the inference of an omission. That
brought the lawyer back to the position that some foreboding or warning of
his murder had caused Robert Turold to summon him to Cornwall by letter.
The next step of his investigations led Mr. Brimsdown to the dead man's
study, where that frantic appeal had been penned.

He engaged a vehicle at the hotel and drove over to Flint House in the
afternoon. The impression of that visit remained. Flint House, rising from
the basalt summit of the headland like a granite vault, its windows coldly
glistening down on the frothy green gloom of the Atlantic far beneath, the
country trap and lean black horse at the flapping gate, the undertaker's
man (dissolute parasite of austere Death) slinking out of the house, and
Thalassa waiting at the open door for him