Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as she beheld the
familiar interior of the safe which a few days earlier she had so
successfully rifled. "Is it possible," she thought, "that I really took
bank-notes out of that safe, and that they are at this very moment in my
bedroom between the leaves of 'Pictures of Palestine'?"

Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried row of documents which,
their edges towards the front, filled the steel shelf above the drawers.
Audrey had never experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
alone had interested the base creature. No documents would have helped her
to freedom. But now she thought apprehensively: "My fate may be among those
documents." She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
something silly in his will.

"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.