Mrs Landell made a derisive sound. ‘Have you really? And grounds for thinking it is in this house, too? Well, I can tell you that it isn’t. I have been through every single paper in the place, I have looked carefully everywhere, and there is no such thing.’
‘There was nothing locked up then?’ Selby suggested.
‘Of course not,’ Mrs Landell snapped. ‘My husband had no secrets from me.’
Selby coughed. ‘It may be so. All the same, Mrs Landell, I shall have to satisfy myself on the point. The law is very strict about matters of this kind, and I must make a search on my own account.’
‘And suppose I say I will not allow it? This is all my property now, and I am not obliged to let anyone come rummaging about for something that isn’t there.’
Again Selby coughed. ‘That is not exactly the position, Mrs Landell. When a person dies, having made a will appointing an executor, his property vests at once in that executor, and it remains entirely in his control until the estate has been distributed as the will directs. The will on which you are relying, and which is the only one at present positively known to exist, appointed my partner and myself executors. We must act in that capacity, unless and until a later will comes to light. I hope that is quite clear.’
This information appeared, as Selby put it later, to take the wind completely out of Mrs Landell’s sails. She sat in frowning silence, mastering her feelings, for a few moments, then rose to her feet.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘If what you tell me is correct, it seems you can do as you like, and I cannot prevent you wasting your time. Where will you begin your search?’
‘I think,’ Selby said, ‘the best place to make a start would be the room where he spent most of his time when by himself. There is such a room, I suppose?’
She went to the door. ‘I will show you the study,’ she said, not looking at either of them. ‘Your friend had better come too, as you say you want him to assist you.’
She led the way across the hall to another room, with a French window opening on the lawn behind the house. Before this stood a large writing-table old-fashioned and solid like the rest of the furniture, which included three bookcases of bird’s-eye maple. Not wasting time, Selby and Trent went each to one of the bookcases, while Mrs Landell looked on implacably from the doorway.
‘Annales Thucydidei et Xenophontei,’ read Selby in an undertone, glancing up and down the shelves. ‘Miscellanea Critica, by Cobbett—give me the Rural Rides, for choice. I say, Phil, I seem to have come to the wrong shop. Palæographia Græca, by Montfaucon—I had an idea that was a place where they used to break chaps on the wheel in Paris. Greek plays—rows and rows of them. How are you getting on?’
‘I am on the trail, I believe,’ Trent answered. ‘This is all English poetry—but not arranged in any order. Aha! What do I see?’ He pulled out a thin red volume. ‘One of the best-looking books that was ever printed and bound.’ He was turning the pages rapidly. ‘Here we are—the Ocean Chart. But no longer “a perfect and absolute blank”.’
He handed the book to Selby, who scanned attentively the page at which it was opened. ‘Beautiful writing, isn’t it?’ he remarked. ‘Not much larger than smallish print, and quite as legible. Hm! Hm!’ He frowned over the minute script, nodding approval from time to time; then looked up. ‘Yes, this is all right. Everything clear, and the attestation clause quite in order—that’s what gets ’em, very often.’
Mrs Landell, whose existence Selby appeared to have forgotten for the moment, now spoke in a strangled voice. ‘Do you mean to tell me that there is a will written in that book?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ the lawyer said with studied politeness. ‘Yes, Mrs Landell, this is the will for which I was looking. It is very brief, but quite clearly expressed, and properly executed and witnessed. The witnesses are Mabel Catherine Wheeler and Ida Florence Kirkby, both domestic servants, resident in this house.’
‘They dared to do that behind my back!’ Mrs Landell raged. ‘It’s a conspiracy!’
Selby shook his head. ‘There is no question here of an agreement to carry out some hurtful purpose,’ he said. ‘The witnesses appear to have signed their names at the request of their employer, and they were under no obligation to mention the matter to any other person. Possibly he requested them not to do so; it makes no difference. As for the provisions of the will, it begins by bequeathing the sum of ten thousand pounds, free of legacy duty, to yourself—’
‘What!’ screamed Mrs Landell.
‘Ten thousand pounds, free of legacy duty,’ Selby repeated calmly. ‘It gives fifty pounds each to my partner and myself, in consideration of our acting as executors—that, you may remember, was provided by the previous will. And all the rest of the testator’s property goes to his nephew, Robert Spencer Landell, of 27 Longland Road, Blackheath, in the county of Kent.’
The last vestige of self-control departed from Mrs Landell as the words were spoken. Choking with fury and trembling violently, she snatched the book from Selby’s hand, ripped out the inscribed page, and tore it across again and again. ‘Now what are you going to do?’ she gasped.
‘The question is, what are you going to do,’ Selby returned with perfect coolness. ‘If you destroy that will beyond repair, you commit a felony which is punishable by penal servitude. Besides that, the will could still be proved; I am acquainted with its contents, and can swear to them. The witnesses can swear that it was executed. Mr Trent and I can swear to what has just taken place. If you will take my advice, Mrs Landell, you will give me back those bits of paper. If they can be pieced together into a legible document, the Court will not refuse to recognize it, and I may be able to save you from being prosecuted—I shall do my best. And there is another thing. As matters stand now, I must ask you to consider your arrangements for the future. There is no hurry, naturally; I shall not press you in any way; but you realize that while you continue living here you do so on sufferance, and that the place must be taken over by Mr Robert Landell in due course.’
Mrs Landell was sobered at last. Very pale, and staring fixedly at Selby, she flung the pieces of the will on the writing-table and walked rapidly from the room.
‘I had no idea you could be such a brute, Arthur,’ Trent remarked as he drove the car Londonwards through the Berkshire levels.
Selby said nothing.
‘The accused made no reply,’ Trent observed. ‘Perhaps you didn’t notice that you were being brutal, with those icy little legal lectures of yours, and your drawing out the agony in that study until you had her almost at screaming-point even before the blow fell.’
Selby glanced at him. ‘Yes, I noticed all that. I don’t think I am a vindictive man, Phil, but she made me see red. In spite of what she said, it’s clear to me that she suspected he might have made another will at some time. She looked for it high and low. If she had found it she would undoubtedly have suppressed it. And her husband had no secrets from her! And whenever Snow was there she was always present! Can you imagine what it was like being dominated and bullied by a harpy like that?’
‘Ghastly,’ Trent agreed. ‘But look here, Arthur; if he could get the two maids to witness the will, and keep quiet about it, why couldn’t he have made it on an ordinary sheet of paper and enclosed it in a letter to your firm, and got either Mabel Catherine or Ida Florence to post it secretly?’
Selby shook his head. ‘I thought of that. Probably he didn’t dare take the risk of the girl being caught with the letter by her mistress. If that had happened, the fat would have been in the fire. Besides, we should have acknowledged the letter, and she would have opened our reply and read it. Reading all his correspondence would have been part of the treatment, you may be sure. No, Phil; I liked old Landell, and I meant to hurt. Sorry; but there it is.’
‘I wasn’t objecting to your being brutal,’ Trent said. ‘I felt just like you, and you had my unstinted moral support all the time. I particularly liked that passage when you reminded her that she could
be slung out on her ear whenever you chose.’
‘She’s devilish lucky, really,’ Selby said. ‘She can live fairly comfortably on the income from her legacy if she likes. And she can marry again, God help us all! Landell got back on her in the end; but he did it like a gentleman.’
‘So did you,’ Trent said. ‘A very nice little job of torturing, I should call it.’
Selby’s smile was bitter. ‘It only lasted minutes,’ he said. ‘Not years.’
THE END
Footnote
INTRODUCTION
fn1 A thirteenth story, ‘The Ministering Angel’, appeared in The Strand magazine in November 1938 and remained orphaned from Trent Intervenes until this 2017 edition. Ed.
THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT’S LAST CASE
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT INTERVENES
E. C. BENTLEY & H. WARNER ALLEN • TRENT’S OWN CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE WYCHFORD POISONING CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE SILK STOCKING MURDERS
BERNARD CAPES • THE MYSTERY OF THE SKELETON KEY
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE BIG FOUR
HUGH CONWAY • CALLED BACK
HUGH CONWAY • DARK DAYS
EDMUND CRISPIN • THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE CASK
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE PONSON CASE
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE GROOTE PARK MURDERS
J. JEFFERSON FARJEON • THE HOUSE OPPOSITE
RUDOLPH FISHER • THE CONJURE-MAN DIES
FRANK FROËST • THE GRELL MYSTERY
FRANK FROËST & GEORGE DILNOT • THE CRIME CLUB
EMILE GABORIAU • THE BLACKMAILERS
ANNA K. GREEN • THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
VERNON LODER • THE MYSTERY AT STOWE
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE RASP
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE NOOSE
PHILIP MACDONALD • MURDER GONE MAD
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE MAZE
NGAIO MARSH • THE NURSING HOME MURDER
R. A. V. MORRIS • THE LYTTLETON CASE
ARTHUR B. REEVE • THE ADVENTURESS
FRANK RICHARDSON • THE MAYFAIR MYSTERY
R. L. STEVENSON • DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE
EDGAR WALLACE • THE TERROR
ISRAEL ZANGWILL • THE PERFECT CRIME
FURTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION
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Trent Intervenes Page 25
