On the Saturday before the interview recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Coolman, sister of the late Sir John Burtell, died quietly in her sleep.

I am sorry that so many characters in this story should appear only to disappear; but in this case, at least, no mystery hung over the circumstances. Mrs. Coolman was seventy-two years of age; she had been, for some time, in failing health; she died, unquestionably, of heart failure, and the medical certificate was signed accordingly. Her acquaintance with her great-nephews had been, as I have already indicated, of the slightest. Her atmosphere, her world, were not theirs; she had grown up, she had been wooed and won, in the great days of English respectability; her marriage with a Lancashire manufacturer had precipitated that respectability in an acute form; and if her brother, Sir John, irritated his grandsons by his fin de siècle point of view, it must be supposed that the sister’s attitude towards life would have been even less congenial. Derek and Nigel, therefore, never visited her after they reached the age of protest; and it might easily have been anticipated that they would pass out of her life altogether, in view of the company they kept and the uniform dissoluteness of their character.

Moreover, though a widow and childless, Mrs. Coolman was a mother by adoption. Her young protégé, Edward Farris, had been orphaned in infancy; it was she who had given him a home and provided for his education; she who had secured him an excellent commercial post; she who, soon afterwards, had insisted upon his resigning that post in order to live at Brimley House as her secretary and dance attendance upon her declining years. It was assumed as a matter of course by her friends, and perhaps by Farris himself, that her adopted son would also be her adopted heir. But old age brings with it, often enough, a return to earlier loyalties and a fond memory of younger days. She had been singularly attached to her only brother; that attachment extended itself to his sons, particularly to his elder son, John; and, when all these ties were lost to her, something of that earlier affection seemed to reincarnate itself in a wistful solicitude about the career of her grandnephew Derek, whose picture survived in her heart painted in all the false colours of nursery innocence. She made inquiries about him, and those inquiries were answered, by his tutors and friends, with that charitable evasiveness which was to be expected. You do not shock the refined ears of a lady who dates from the Crimea by describing too faithfully the habits of a young ne’er-do-weel. Derek was being rather wild⁠—so much she gathered; the euphemism awoke in her a touch of maternal pity, and she loved the imaginary Derek all the more for being in need of “something to steady him.”

Edward Farris was human; and it is to be supposed that he cannot have seconded with a very good grace the overtures made towards Derek by his great-aunt. Yet it does honour to his altruism, or perhaps to his prudence, that the old lady did not learn from him any fact which was injurious to Derek’s reputation except the fact, too notorious to be concealed, that Derek and Nigel were scarcely on speaking terms. It was, as we have seen, one of the latest wishes she expressed that the uncongenial pair should find more in common; it was chiefly as the result of this wish that the canoe expedition was undertaken; and we may regard it as certain that Derek had not neglected to inform her of his compliance. When Derek disappeared, his great-aunt had already been overtaken by her last illness; the doctor would not hear of the grim news finding its way into her sickroom, and the papers were carefully kept from her. She died, then, in full knowledge that John Burtell’s grandsons had effected a reconciliation, in ignorance of the tragic sequel which the reconciliation produced.

It was in this stage of half-enlightenment that she drew up her last will and testament. For the adopted son, whose prospects she had made and marred, she secured a decent provision. The whole of her remaining property, she declared⁠—it meant nearly a hundred thousand⁠—was to pass absolutely to her elder grandnephew, the son of her beloved nephew John. The lawyer’s diplomacy was taxed to the uttermost. He knew, as he sat by her bedside, that half England was hallooing after Derek as a fugitive, the other half pronouncing obituaries on him as a corpse. He knew that any reference to the fact might precipitate his client’s death. Yet the will, as she had outlined it to him, would mean, in all probability, that she would die intestate. The lawyer hummed and hawed; he excelled himself in the iteration of those complicated rigmaroles by which the laity are hoodwinked. It would never do, he said, to leave the will like that; it would be a severe breach of legal custom if no residuary legatee were named. Perhaps Mr. Nigel Burtell might be mentioned? To his surprise, Mrs. Coolman was adamant. A few months before, her family fondness had inspired her to buy a book of poems which Nigel had produced, in the hope of paying his Oxford bills with the proceeds. Mens hominum praesaga parum! The book reached Aunt Alma’s breakfast-table; Aunt Alma read it. Neither the sentiments it expressed nor its manner of expressing them were adapted to the taste of the seventies. With a certain tightening of the lips, the dying Victorian consented to name Edward Farris her heir, as Derek’s alternative.

The firm of solicitors which drew up the will was the firm which also represented Derek’s own interests. Leyland had consulted them long and earnestly as to the financial situation; they knew, therefore, that Leyland was in charge of the police investigations. Throwing etiquette to the winds, they wrote an “Urgent” letter to Leyland at his Oxford address, detailing the circumstances in full and asking what action the police would like to see taken⁠—were the provisions of the will to be made public? This letter was immediately carried over to Eaton Bridge by a man on a motor-bicycle, and Leyland was still closeted with the Bredons when he took it and opened it.

“We must talk to Mr. Quirk about that,” was Bredon’s rather unexpected comment, when the situation was outlined to him.

“Mr. Quirk? What’s he got to do with it?”

“Well, you see, it goes to support his theory. He was insisting, only yesterday, that we had no evidence to incriminate Nigel Burtell; in his view, both cousins were being pursued by a man, or a gang of men, who stood to gain by Derek’s death. I pointed out that, as far as I could see, Nigel was the only person who stood to gain by Derek’s death; it left him heir to the fifty thousand. But this new development alters the whole look of the thing⁠—assuming, of course, that the old lady’s intentions were known. There was a much bigger sum, twice the amount, to which Derek was heir, in which Nigel is not interested.”

“You mean that if Derek Burtell is alive⁠—or rather, if he was alive on Saturday, the hundred thousand is his, and Nigel is the heir to it? Whereas if Derek Burtell died before last Saturday, the whole thing goes to Farris, and Nigel has no more claim on it than you or I have?”

“That’s the situation, I take it. This will, mark you, was only signed last Wednesday. But assuming that Nigel knew, or had a good guess, how his great-aunt was going to cut up, he had less reason than anybody in the world to murder his cousin. There I’m with Quirk entirely. Only⁠—did Nigel know?”

“Meanwhile, Leyland, there’s another man for you to watch. If there was a man who had a motive for murdering Derek Burtell, last week and not later, his name was Edward Farris.”

Here the door opened, and Mr. Quirk himself looked round it. He was about to withdraw, seeing that a conclave was in process, but Angela quickly recalled him. “Cuckoo, Mr. Quirk!” she said frivolously. “You can come in now. There’s been another triumph for Transatlantic methods.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Quirk, unruffled. “I should be particularly glad to think that any little ratiocinations of mine had contributed to the solution of a Class One mystery. But I’ll remember my bargain, Mr. Leyland; I won’t ask you for anything more than pointers, if you can help me to keep on the straight track.”

“Why, Mr. Quirk,” answered Leyland, “I don’t think there’s any need to keep you in the dark about our latest piece of information; it will be common property soon. Bredon, I gather, didn’t care for your interpretation of the story yesterday, because you hadn’t allowed for Nigel Burtell being either the murderer or the murderer’s accomplice. He thought, then, that nobody except Nigel had any motive for getting rid of Derek. It proves now that a will was drawn up in Derek Burtell’s favour last Wednesday, which makes him a rich man, if he’s alive.”

“And if he’s dead?” asked the American, polishing his glasses.

“If he’s dead, the person who stands to gain is not his cousin, but a stranger to him⁠—a man called Farris, who was very much in the testator’s confidence. An old great-aunt of the two cousins it was. This Farris, you can see for yourself, had abundant motive for disposing of Derek Burtell if he could.”

“Then this Nigel wouldn’t be concerned anyway in the new will?”

“Only if his cousin was still alive at the time when the old lady died, last Saturday. Then he might be.”

“It’s not an uncommon thing in the Statess,” said Mr. Quirk meditatively, “for crimes of violence to be attempted in connection with large legacies of money. In our country, it’s considered to be one of the leading incentives. But, see here, did young Burtell know that this legacy was coming to him? Because if he didn’t know that, it’s not likely he knew that there were murderers on his trail. And if he didn’t know there were murderers on his trail, why, it’s not just easy to account for his very peculiar movements at Millington Bridge.”

“And there’s this, too,” suggested Bredon. “If he knew it was his money they were after, and if they could only touch the money by murdering him before Aunt Alma died, why didn’t he take better precautions⁠—put himself under police protection, for example? To go off on a canoe tour with only one companion, and that companion unfriendly, was surely asking for trouble.”

“I can’t say that I go all the way with you there,” replied Mr. Quirk. “Some people, if they hear that gunmen are out after them, seem to take a regular pride in trying to dodge the pursuit by their own cleverness⁠—it’s a kind of sporting instinct, I reckon. And, mind you, a river trip isn’t such a bad way of leaving your pursuers behind, unless they’re prepared to shoot. They can’t follow you in a boat without hiring a boat, and making themselves conspicuous that way. They can’t follow you along the bank without giving you the chance to get away by landing on the wrong bank. No, I see more difficulty myself in finding out just how Derek Burtell caught on that his life was worth taking. If this will was only drawn up last Wednesday, it doesn’t seem as if auntie had been very clear in her own mind about her testamentary dispositions. And yet it was before she made up her mind that the murder seems to have happened.”

“That’s true, you know, Bredon,” said Leyland. “Put yourself in this young Farris’ place, even supposing that he’s a practised criminal⁠—is he going to risk committing a murder when it may prove, after all, quite unnecessary?”

“It was now or never,” objected Bredon. “She was in bad health; if her health got worse, it would scarcely be decent for Farris to leave her, and if once she died, no amount of murder would secure the dibs.”

“That would have to mean,” said Leyland, “that Farris both knew Derek Burtell was the heir, and knew that he himself was the runner-up. Could he be sure of that? Could he be sure, for example, that Nigel Burtell wouldn’t be the next candidate?”

“You seem resolved to acquit Nigel now,” replied Bredon. “But it still seems to me a possible theory, in spite of Mr. Quirk’s suggestion, that Nigel was in it all.”

“What’s that?” asked Mr. Quirk sharply. “Wasn’t it Nigel who consented to impersonate Derek Burtell at Millington Bridge, the way he’d get a lead on his pursuers?”

“Yes,” returned Bredon dryly, “but did that do Nigel any harm, if at the same time he let Farris know that it was only bluff? Isn’t it possible that it was a put-up job from the start between Farris and Nigel Burtell⁠—that Nigel was really leading his cousin on into danger, while he pretended to be shielding him? That he and Farris agreed to go shares, Nigel getting his fifty thousand in any case from the original legacy, and either he or Farris collecting Aunt Alma’s?”

“Well,” observed Mr. Quirk, “you still haven’t found your Nigel. It seems to me a very pertinent fact that it was on Saturday Mrs. Coolman died, and it was on Thursday Nigel Burtell disappeared. Say, doesn’t that look like foul play? As if Farris had been determined to take no risks, and had put both cousins out of the way before the old lady’s will took effect?”

“It’s a nice point,” said Angela. “Meanwhile, I’m getting horribly hungry for luncheon.”