There--on the table--was the jewel--the little Venus with fluttering
enamel drapery, standing tiptoe within her hoop of diamonds, which he had
seen Melrose take up and handle during their dispute. Why was it there?
Faversham had no idea.
And there on the writing-desk lay a large sheet of paper with a single
line written upon it in Melrose's big and sprawling handwriting. That was
new. It had not been there, when Faversham last stood beside the table.
The pen was thrown down upon it, and a cigar lay in the ashtray, as
though the writer had been disturbed either by a sudden sound, or by the
irruption of some thought which had led him into the gallery to call
Dixon.
Faversham stooped to look at it:
"I hereby revoke all the provisions of the will executed by me on ..."
No more. The paper was worthless. The will would stand. Faversham stood
motionless, the silence booming in his ears.
"A fool would put that in his pocket," he said to himself,
contemptuously. Then conscious of a new swarm of ideas assailing him,
of new dangers, and a new wariness, he returned to the gallery, pacing
it till the police appeared. They came in force, within the hour,
accompanied by Undershaw.
* * * * *
The old chiming clock set in the garden-front of Duddon had not long
struck ten. Cyril Boden had just gone to bed. Victoria sat with her feet
on the fender in Tatham's study still discussing with him Felicia's
astonishing performance of the afternoon.
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