She rose, and left the room.  After a momentary doubt, I decided on executing the new commission.  The more private inquiries I conduct for my fair relative the harder she will find it to get rid of hers truly, Horatio Wragge.

There is nothing to prevent my starting for Brighton to-morrow.  So to-morrow I go.  If Mr. Noel Vanstone succeeds to his father’s property, he is the only human being possessed of pecuniary blessings who fails to inspire me with a feeling of unmitigated envy.

IX.

Chronicle for June.

9th.—­I returned yesterday with my information.  Here it is, privately noted down for convenience of future reference: 

Mr. Noel Vanstone has left Brighton, and has removed, for the purpose of transacting business in London, to one of his late father’s empty houses in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth.  This singularly mean selection of a place of residence on the part of a gentleman of fortune looks as if Mr. N. V. and his money were not easily parted.

Mr. Noel Vanstone has stepped into his father’s shoes under the following circumstances:  Mr. Michael Vanstone appears to have died, curiously enough, as Mr. Andrew Vanstone died—­intestate.  With this difference, however, in the two cases, that the younger brother left an informal will, and the elder brother left no will at all.  The hardest men have their weaknesses; and Mr. Michael Vanstone’s weakness seems to have been an insurmountable horror of contemplating the event of his own death.  His son, his housekeeper, and his lawyer, had all three tried over and over again to get him to make a will; and had never shaken his obstinate resolution to put off performing the only business duty he was ever known to neglect.  Two doctors attended him in his last illness; warned him that he was too old a man to hope to get over it; and warned him in vain.  He announced his own positive determination not to die.  His last words in this world (as I succeeded in discovering from the nurse who assisted Mrs. Lecount) were:  “I’m getting better every minute; send for the fly directly and take me out for a drive.”  The same night Death proved to be the more obstinate of the two; and left his son (and only child) to take the property in due course of law.  Nobody doubts that the result would have been the same if a will had been made.  The father and son had every confidence in each other, and were known to have always lived together on the most friendly terms.

Mrs. Lecount remains with Mr. Noel Vanstone, in the same housekeeping capacity which she filled with his father, and has accompanied him to the new residence in Vauxhall Walk.  She is acknowledged on all hands to have been a sufferer by the turn events have taken.  If Mr. Michael Vanstone had made his will, there is no doubt she would have received a handsome legacy.  She is now left dependent on Mr. Noel Vanstone’s sense of gratitude; and she is not at all likely, I should imagine, to let that sense fall asleep for want of a little timely jogging.  Whether my fair relative’s future intentions in this quarter point toward Mischief or Money, is more than I can yet say.  In either case, I venture to predict that she will find an awkward obstacle in Mrs. Lecount.