Beatrice took it with a laugh, and for the next three-quarters of an
hour her fair brow was puckered up in a way quaint to see. At last she
finished and shut the brief up. "Let me look at the photographs," she
said.
Geoffrey handed them to her. She very carefully examined first one and
then the other, and as she did so a light of intelligence broke out upon
her face.
"Well, Portia, have you got it?" he asked.
"I have got something," she answered. "I do not know if it is right.
Don't you see, the old man was superstitious; they frightened him first
of all by a ghostly voice or some such thing into signing the will, and
then to death after he had signed it. The lawyer's clerk prepared the
will--he would know how to do it. Then he was smuggled into the room
under the bed, or somewhere, dressed up as a ghost perhaps. The sending
for the son by the niece was a blind. The thing that was seen running
away was a boy--those footprints were made by a boy. I have seen so many
thousands on the sands here that I could swear to it. He was attracted
to the house from the road, which was quite near, by catching sight
of something unusual through the blind; the brief says there were no
curtains or shutters.
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