He says he
can't find the will, though he knows there was a will and that it
was placed in that safe some time ago. There is no duplicate."
The full purport of this information at once flashed on me, and I
was on the point of blurting out my sympathy, when I saw by the
look which Craig and Tom exchanged that they had already realised
it and understood each other. Without the will the
blood-relatives would inherit all of Lewis Langley's interest in
the old Langley estate. Tom and his sister would be penniless.
It was late, yet we sat for nearly an hour longer, and I don't
think we exchanged a half-dozen sentences in all that time. Craig
seemed absorbed in thought. At length, as the great hall-clock
sounded midnight, we rose as if by common consent.
"Tom," said Craig, and I could feel the sympathy that welled up
in his voice, "Tom, old man, I'll get at the bottom of this
mystery if human intelligence can do it."
"I know you will, Craig," responded Tom, grasping each of us by
the hand. "That's why I so much wanted you fellows to come up
here."
Early in the morning Kennedy aroused me. "Now, Walter, I'm going
to ask you to come down into the living-room with me, and we'll
take a look at it in the daytime."
I hurried into my clothes, and together we quietly went down.
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