第15章 The Scientific Cracksman(7)

"John Fletcher was wakeful that night.Somehow or other he heard you at work.He entered the library and, by the light streaming from his bedroom, he saw who it was.In anger he must have addressed you, and his passion got the better of his age--he fell suddenly on the floor with a stroke of apoplexy.As you bent over him he died.But why did you ever attempt so foolish an undertaking? Didn't you know that other people knew of the will and its terms, that you were sure to be traced out in the end, if not by friends, by foes? How did you suppose you could profit by destroying the will, of which others knew the provisions?"Any other woman than Helen Bond would have been hysterical long before Kennedy had finished pressing home remorselessly one fact after another of her story.But, with her, the relief now after the tension of many hours of concealment seemed to nerve her to go to the end and tell the truth.

What was it? Had she some secret lover for whom she had dared all to secure the family fortune? Or was she shielding someone dearer to her than her own reputation? Why had Kennedy made Fletcher withdraw?

Her eyes dropped and her breast rose and fell with suppressed emotion.Yet I was hardly prepared for her reply when at last she slowly raised her head and looked us calmly in the face.

"I did it because I loved Jack."

Neither of us spoke.I, at least, had fallen completely under the spell of this masterful woman.Right or wrong, I could not restrain a feeling of admiration and amazement.

"Yes," she said as her voice thrilled with emotion, "strange as it may sound to you, it was not love of self that made me do it.

I was, I am madly in love with Jack.No other man has ever inspired such respect and love as he has.His work in the university I have fairly gloated over.And yet--and yet, Dr.

Kennedy, can you not see that I am different from Jack? What would I do with the income of the wife of even the dean of the new school? The annuity provided for me in that will is paltry.Ineed millions.From the tiniest baby I have been reared that way.

I have always expected this fortune.I have been given everything I wanted.But it is different when one is married--you must have your own money.I need a fortune, for then I could have the town house, the country house, the yacht, the motors, the clothes, the servants that I need--they are as much a part of my life as your profession is of yours.I must have them.

"And now it was all to slip from my hands.True, it was to go in such a way by this last will as to make Jack happy in his new school.I could have let that go, if that was all.There are other fortunes that have been laid at my feet.But I wanted Jack, and I knew Jack wanted me.Dear boy, he never could realise how utterly unhappy intellectual poverty would have made me and how my unhappiness would have reacted on him in the end.In reality this great and beneficent philanthropy was finally to blight both our love and our lives.

"What was I to do? Stand by and see my life and my love ruined or refuse Jack for the fortune of a man I did not love? Helen Bond is not that kind of a woman, I said to myself.I consulted the greatest lawyer I knew.I put a hypothetical case to him, and asked his opinion in such a way as to make him believe he was advising me how to make an unbreakable will.He told me of provisions and clauses to avoid, particularly in making benefactions.That was what I wanted to know.I would put one of those clauses in my uncle's will.I practised uncle's writing till I was as good a forger of that clause as anyone could have become.I had picked out the very words in his own handwriting to practise from.

Then I went to Paris and, as you have guessed, learned how to get things out of a safe like that of uncle's.Before God, all Iplanned to do was to get that will, change it, replace it, and trust that uncle would never notice the change.Then when he was gone, I would have contested the will.I would have got my full share either by court proceedings or by settlement out of court.

You see, I had planned it all out.The school would have been founded--I, we would have founded it.What difference, I said, did thirty millions or fifty millions make to an impersonal school, a school not yet even in existence? The twenty million dollars or so difference, or even half of it, meant life and love to me.

"I had planned to steal the cash in the safe, anything to divert attention from the will and make it look like a plain robbery.Iwould have done the altering of the will that night and have returned it to the safe before morning.But it was not to be.Ihad almost opened the safe when my uncle entered the room.His anger completely unnerved me, and from the moment I saw him on the floor to this I haven't had a sane thought.I forgot to take the cash, I forgot everything but that will.My only thought was that I must get it and destroy it.I doubt if I could have altered it with my nerves so upset.There, now you have my whole story.I am at your mercy.""No," said Kennedy, "believe me, there is a mental statute of limitations that as far as Jameson and myself are concerned has already erased this affair.Walter, will you find Fletcher?"I found the professor pacing up and down the gravel walk impatiently.

"Fletcher," said Kennedy, "a night's rest is all Miss Bond really needs.It is simply a case of overwrought nerves, and it will pass off of itself.Still, I would advise a change of scene as soon as possible.Good afternoon, Miss Bond, and my best wishes for your health.""Good afternoon, Dr.Kennedy.Good afternoon, Dr.Jameson."I for one was glad to make my escape.

A half-hour later, Kennedy, with well-simulated excitement, was racing me in the car up to the Greenes' again.We literally burst unannounced into the tete-a-tete on the porch.

"Fletcher, Fletcher," cried Kennedy, "look what Walter and I have just discovered in a tin strong-box poked off in the back of your uncle's desk!"Fletcher seized the will and by the dim light that shone through from the hall read it hastily."Thank God," he cried; "the school is provided for as I thought.""Isn't it glorious!" murmured Helen.

True to my instinct I muttered, "Another good newspaper yarn killed."