Part 9 (1/2)

Almost at that moment I heard footsteps in the hall, and knew that the servants had just come home. The big clock in the hall chimed ten.

”There's the women,” I said. ”You'd better tell them, and see they don't make a scene.”

Moira nodded and went down the hall to meet them.

There is little more to relate of this phase of my story. Naturally there was an inquest, and just as naturally was a verdict returned of ”death at the hands of a person or persons unknown,” or words to that effect. The situation, in fine, was that Bryce was dead and buried, and the police admitted that they held no clue to the ident.i.ty of the murderer. Motive there was none as far as they could see, and the whole affair looked like one of these senseless crimes that from time to time startle the city folk from their easy-going equanimity. The matter was not even a nine-days' wonder, for other things occupied the attention of the press, and a stickful was the most it ever got in any paper.

I stayed on in the house at Moira's request and attended to several matters that were rather outside her province. The old man turned out not to be as rich as we had thought, though he had money enough in truth. The bulk of this went to Moira, with the curious proviso that she could not invest it in any way without first submitting the proposal to me and receiving my sanction. The will was of recent date, as a matter of fact it had been drawn up within a few days of Moira's arrival. There was a sum left to me, too, enough to make me independent for a good many years to come.

Moira's mother arrived the day after the tragedy, and showed no very evident intention of returning home. She was very nice to me, but then there was no reason why she should have been anything else. Any strain that there had been, and was still for that matter, was between her daughter and myself, and, like a wise mother, she forebore from interfering in what did not immediately concern her.

For my own sake, if for no other reason, I hurried along the winding-up of Bryce's affairs. I saw, or fancied I saw, that the sooner I left the house the better would Moira be pleased. For when all was said and done there could be no denying that things were far from satisfactory.

Neither of us made any further reference to my bare-faced lying on that ill-starred night, but the more I thought of it the more equivocal did the present situation seem. I for one was doubly glad when at last we finished with the lawyers, and things--blessed, indefinite word--seemed like to settle down again.

My time of departure was no further off than twenty-four hours away when the incident occurred that led to a hurried readjustment of my plans and that brought us, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to the Valley--for so I still persist in calling it, as if there were not another valley in the world--and the treasure that lay there and helped us to unravel the tangled threads of Bryce's past life.

I had my bag already packed, and had announced that I was going the next evening, when Moira stayed me with a word.

”I've been meaning to talk to you for a long time,” she said, ”but somehow I could never seem to summon up enough courage. It's about Uncle and ... well, you know as well as I do, that there was some mystery about him.”

”Go on,” I said.

”Well, he told me once that if ever anything happened to him we would find doc.u.ments in his room that would help us to take up the work where he left off. He repeated that the very night he died. Don't you see what that means?”

”It means that they are still there,” I said soberly.

CHAPTER VII.

INTRODUCING MR. ALBERT c.u.mSHAW.

”That's the peculiar part of it, Jim. They should still be in the room, because they couldn't possibly have been taken away. Yet I've hunted high and low and I can't find them.”

”And, now you find you're in difficulties, you call me in,” I hinted.

”Jim, I wish you wouldn't talk that way. There's no call for us to be continually bickering. If we can't be anything else, at least we can be friends, can't we?”

”I suppose it's worth trying. But what have the papers to do with me?”

”They affect you as well as me, Jim. Uncle wished the two of us to carry on his work.”

”How pleasant!” I murmured. ”And suppose I refuse?”

”Well,” she said, with just the least gesture of helplessness, ”I'll have to do whatever I can myself. But it was Uncle's wish that we divide the proceeds.”

”The proceeds of what?”

”That's more than I can say, Jim. We've got to find the papers first.”