“Then there is nothing to be got by contesting the will?” I asked.

He shook his head soberly.

“I fear not at present,” said he, “nor can I with honesty hold out any hope to you, Richard.  Your uncle, by reason of his wealth, is a man of undue influence with the powers of the colony.  Even if he were not so, I doubt greatly whether we should be the gainers.  The will is undoubtedly genuine.  Mr. Carvel thought you dead, and we cannot prove undue influence by Grafton unless we also prove that it was he who caused your abduction.  Do you think you can prove that?”

“There is one witness,” I exclaimed, “who overheard my uncle and Mr. Allen talking of South River and Griggs, the master of the slaver, in the stables at Carvel Hall.”

“And who is that?” demanded Mr. Swain, with more excitement than I believed him capable of.

“Old Harvey.”

Your grandfather’s coachman?  Alas, he died the day after Mr. Carvel, and was buried the same afternoon.  Have you spoken of this?”

“Not to a soul,” said I.

“Then I would not.  You will have to be very careful and say nothing, Richard.  Let me hear what other reasons you have for believing that your uncle tried to do away with you.”

I told him, lucidly as possible, everything I have related in these pages, and the admission of Griggs.  He listened intently, shaking his head now and then, but not a word out of him.

“No,” he said at length, “nothing is there which will be admitted, but enough to damn him if you yourself might be a witness.  I will give you the law, briefly:  descendible estates among us are of two kinds, estates in fee simple and estates in fee tail.  Had your grandfather died without a will, his estate, which we suppose to be in fee simple, would have descended to you as the son of his eldest son, according to the fourth of the canons of descent in Blackstone.  But with us fee simple estates are devisable, and Mr. Carvel was wholly within his right in cutting off the line of his eldest son.  Do you follow me?”

I nodded.

“There is one chance,” he continued, “and that is a very slim one.  I said that Mr. Carvel’s estate was supposed to be in fee simple.  Estates tail are not devisable.  Our system of registration is far from infallible, and sometimes an old family settlement turns up to prove that a property which has been willed out of the direct line, as in fee simple, is in reality entailed.  Is there a possibility of any such document?”

I replied that I did not know.  My grandfather had never brought up the subject.

“We must bend our efforts in that direction,” said the barrister.  “I shall have my clerks make a systematic search.”

He ceased talking, and sat sipping his sangaree in the abstracted manner common to him.  I took the opportunity to ask about his family, thinking about what Dolly had said of Patty’s illness.