ery,
and was shot dead. The few lines he wrote are of course of no validity.
The will holds, and Faversham is the heir--to everything. You see"--he
paused again--"some awkward suggestions might be made."

"But," cried Tatham, "you say Dixon saw the man? And the muddy
footmarks--in the house--and on the terrace!"

* * * * *

"Don't mistake me, for heaven's sake," said Undershaw, quickly. "It is
impossible that Faversham should have fired the shot! But in the present
state of public opinion you will easily imagine what else may be said.
There is a whole tribe of Melrose's hangers-on who hate Faversham like
poison; who have been plotting to pull him down, and will be furious to
find him after all in secure possession of the estate and the money. I
feel tolerably certain they will put up some charge or other."

"What--of procuring the thing?"

Undershaw nodded.

Tatham considered a moment. Then he rang, and when Hurst appeared, all
white and disorganized under the stress of the news just communicated to
him by Undershaw's chauffeur, he ordered his horse for eight o'clock in
the morning. Victoria looked at him puzzled; then it seemed she
understood.

But every other thought was soon swallowed up in the remembrance of the
widow and daughter.

"Not to-night--not to-night," pleaded Undershaw who had seen Netta
Melrose professionally, only that morning. "I dread the mere shock for
Mrs. Melrose. Let them have their sleep! I will be over early to-morrow."

XXI

By the first dawn of the new day Tatham was in the saddle. Just as he was
starting from the house, there arrived a messenger, and a letter was
put into his hand. It was from Undershaw, who, on leaving Duddon the
night before, had motored back to the Tower, and taken Faversham in
charge. The act bore testimony to the little doctor's buffeted but still
surviving regard for this man, whom he had pulled from the jaws of death.
He reported in his morning letter that he had passed some of the night in
conversation with Faversham, and wished immediately to pass on certain
facts learnt from it, first of all to Tatham, and then to any friend of
Faversham's they might concern.

He told, accordingly, the full story of the gems, leading up to the
quarrel between the two men, as Faversham had told it to him.

"Faversham," he wrote, "left the old man, convinced that all was at an
end as to the will and the inheritance. And now he is a