“This resembles a testament,” said Mr. Cowl, smiling to himself, and pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and endorsed.  “Yes.  Dated last year.”

He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the interior of it; he placed the letter on the small occasional table next to the desk, and offered the will to Audrey with precisely the same gesture as he had offered the key.

Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.

“Will you read it, Miss Ingate?” she muttered.

“I can’t!  I can’t!” answered Miss Ingate in excitement.  “I’m sure I can’t.  I never could read wills.  They’re so funny, somehow.  And I haven’t got my spectacles.”  She flushed slightly.

“May I venture to tell you what it contains?” Mr. Cowl suggested.  “There can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public property and can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee of one shilling.”

He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning over a page and turning back, for an extraordinarily long time.

Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated impatience:  “He knows now, and I don’t know.  He knows now, and I don’t know.  He knows now, and I don’t know.”

At length Mr. Cowl spoke: 

“It is a perfectly simple will.  The testator leaves the whole of his property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards to you, Miss Moze.  There are only two legacies.  Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener.  And the testator’s shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the National Reformation Society.  I may say that the testator had expressed to me his intention of leaving these shares to the Society.  We should have preferred money, free of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason for everything he did.  I must now bid you good-bye, ladies,” he went on strangely, with no pause.  “Miss Moze, will you convey my sympathetic respects to your mother and my thanks for her most kind hospitality?  My grateful sympathies to yourself.  Good-bye, Miss Ingate....  Er, Miss Ingate, why do you look at me in that peculiar way?”

“Well, Mr. Cowl, you’re a very peculiar man.  May I ask whether you were born in this part of the country?”

“At Clacton, Miss Ingate,” answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.

“I knew it,” said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her lips went sardonically down.

“Please don’t trouble to come downstairs,” said Mr. Cowl.  “My bag is packed.  I have tipped the parlourmaid, and there is just time to catch the train.”

He departed, leaving the two women speechless.

After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly: 

“He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to these parts.”

“How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss Pannell’s?” cried Audrey.  “I never told him.”

“He must have been eavesdropping!” cried Miss Ingate.  “He never found the key in your frock.  He must have found it here somewhere; I feel sure it must have dropped by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe before and read the will before.  I could tell from the way he looked.”