But Mrs. Mallathorpe seemed to find some difficulty in speaking, and
when she at last got out a word her voice sounded hoarse.

"Impossible!"

"It's a fact!" said Pratt. "Nothing was ever more a fact as you'll see.
But let me finish my story. The old man told me how he'd found the
will--only half an hour before--and he asked me to ring up Eldrick, so
that we might all read it together. I went to the telephone--when I came
back, Bartle was dead--just dead. And--I took the will out of his
pocket."

Mrs. Mallathorpe made an involuntary gesture with her right hand. And
Pratt smiled, craftily, and shook his head.

"Much too valuable to carry about, Mrs. Mallathorpe," he said. "I've got
it--all safe--under lock and key. But as I've said--nobody knows of it
but myself. Not a living soul. No one has any idea! No one can have any
idea. I was a bit alarmed when I heard that young Collingwood had been
to you, for I thought that the old man, though he didn't tell me of any
such thing, might have dropped you a line saying what he'd found. But as
he didn't--well, not one living soul knows that the will's in
existence, except me--and you!"

Mrs. Mallathorpe was regaining her self-possession. She had had a great
shock, but the worst of it was over. Already she knew, from Pratt's
manner, insidious and suggesting, that the will was of a nature that
would dispossess her and hers of this recently acquired wealth--the
clerk had made that evident by look and tone. So--there was nothing but
to face things.