in favor of Dorothy, in case she should be married?"

Durgin studied his distant ducks for a moment.

"No, I don't think that was the last. I'm sure that will wasn't the
last."

Garrison stared at him fixedly.

"You're sure it wasn't the last?" he echoed. "What do you mean?"

"Uncle John sent a letter and said he'd made a brand-new will,"
answered Durgin in his steady way of certainty. "I burned up the
letter only yesterday, clearing up my papers."

"You don't mean quite recently?" insisted Garrison.

"Since Dorothy got married," answered Durgin, at a loss to understand
Garrison's interest. "Why?"

"This could make all the difference in the world to the case," Garrison
told him. "Did he say what he'd done with this new document?"

"Just that he'd made a new will."

"Who helped him? Who was the lawyer? Who were the witnesses?"

"He didn't say."

Garrison felt everything disarranged. And Durgin's ignorance was
baffling. He went at him aggressively.

"Where was your uncle when he wrote the letter?"

"He was up to Albany."

Albany! There were thousands of lawyers and tens of thousands of men
who would do as witnesses in Albany!

"But," insisted Garrison, "perhaps he told you where it was deposited
or who had drawn it up, or you may know his lawyer in Albany.

"No. He just mentioned it, that's all," said Durgin. "The letter was
most about ducks."

"This is too bad," Garrison declared. "Have you any idea in the world
where the will may be?"

"No, I haven't."

"You found nothing of it, or anything to give you a hint, when you
claimed the body for burial, and examined his possessions in Hickwood?"

"No."

"Where was Dorothy then?"

"I don't know. She's always looked after Foster more than me, he being
the weak one and most in need."

Desperate for more information. Garrison probed in every conceivable
direction, but elicited nothing further of importance, save that an
old-time friend of Hardy's, one Israel Snow, a resident of Rockdale,
might perhaps be enabled to assist him.

Taking leave of Durgin, who offered his hand and expressed a deep-lying
hope that something could be done to clear all suspicion from his
brother, Garrison returned to Rockdale.

The news of a will made recently, a will concerning which Dorothy knew
nothing,--this was so utterly disconcerting that it quite overshadowed,
for a time, the equally important factor in the case supplied by
Durgin's tale concernin