oncocted the disputed
will between us; that we had passed it on to our fellow-conspirator,
Harold; and that Harold had forged his uncle's signature to it, and had
appended those of the two supposed witnesses. But who, now, were these
witnesses? One, Franz Markheim, was dead or missing; dead men tell no
tales: the other was obviously suggested by Higginson. It was his own
sister. Perhaps he forged her name to the document. Doubtless he thought
that family feeling would induce her, when it came to the pinch, to
accept and endorse her brother's lie; nay, he might even have been
foolish enough to suppose that this cock-and-bull will would not be
disputed. If so, he and his master had reckoned without Lord
Southminster, a gentleman who concealed beneath the careless exterior of
a man of fashion the solid intelligence of a man of affairs, and the
hard head of a man not to be lightly cheated in matters of business.

The alleged will had thus not a leg to stand upon. It was 'typewritten'
(save the mark!) 'from dictation' at Florence, by whom? By the lady who
had most to gain from its success--the lady who was to be transformed
from a shady adventuress, tossed about between Irish doctors and Hindu
Maharajahs, into the lawful wife of a wealthy diplomatist of noble
family, on one condition only--if this pretended will could be
satisfactorily established. The signatures were forgeries, as shown by
the expert evidence, and also by the oath of the one surviving witness.

The will left all the estate--practically--to Mr. Harold Tillington, and
five hundred pounds to whom?--why, to the accomplice Higginson. The
minor bequests the Q.C. regarded as ingenious inventions, pure play of
fancy, 'intended to give artistic verisimilitude,' as Pooh-Bah says in
the opera, 'to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.' The fads,
it was true, were known fads of Mr. Ashurst's: but what sort of fads?
Bimetallism? Anglo-Israel? No, braces and shoe-horns--clearly the kind
that would best be known to a courier like Higginson, the sole begetter,
he believed, of this nefarious conspiracy.

The cross-eyed Q.C., lifting his fat right hand in solemn adjuration,
called upon the jury confidently to set aside this ridiculous
fabrication, and declare for a will of undoubted genuineness, a will
drawn up in London by a firm of eminent solicitors, and preserved ever
since by the testator's bankers. It would then be for his lordship to
decide whether in the pu