ke. "My uncle told me the will would be found in his
desk. And the desk has not been opened since his death."

"Could Mr. Verner himself have changed its place to somewhere else?"
asked the lawyer, speaking with more than usual quickness, and turning
over the papers with great rapidity.

"Not after he told me where the will was. He did not touch the desk
after that. It was but just before his death. So far as I know, he had
not had his desk brought out of the closet for days."

"Yes, he had," said the lawyer. "After he had executed the codicil on
the evening previous to his death, he called for his desk, and put the
parchment into it. It lay on the top of the will--this one. I saw that
much."

"I can testify that the codicil was locked in the desk, and the desk was
then returned to the closet, for I happened to be present," spoke up Dr.
West. "I was one of the witnesses to the codicil, as I had been to the
will. Mr. Verner must have moved it himself to some safer place."

"What place could be safer than the desk in his own bedroom?" cried the
lawyer. "And why move the codicil and not the will?"

"True," assented Dr. West. "But--I don't see--it could not go out of the
desk without being moved out. And who would presume to meddle with it
but himself? Who took possession of his keys when he died?" added the
doctor, looking round at Mrs. Verner.

"I did," said Lionel. "And they have not been out of my possession
since. Nothing whatever has been touched; desk, drawers, every place
belonging to him are as they were left when he died."

Of course the only thing to do was to look for the codicil. Great
interest was excited; and it appeared to be altogether so mysterious an
affair that one and all flocked upstairs to the room; the room where he
had died! whence the coffin had but just been borne. Mrs. Tynn was
summoned; and when she found what was amiss, she grew excited; fearing,
possibly, that the blame might in some way fall upon her. Saving Lionel
himself, she was the only one who had been alone with Mr. Verner; of
course, the only one who could have had an opportunity of tampering with
the desk. And that, only when the patient slept.

"I protest that the desk was never touched, after I returned it to the
closet by my master's desire, when the parchment was put into it!" she
cried. "My master never asked for his desk again, and I never so much as
opened the closet. It was only the afternoon before he died, gentlemen