But Godfrey shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“I understand and I sympathize with you, Mrs. Somers.
But that will was made by Mr. Somers, properly drawn by a man above reproach and signed and witnessed by two persons in Mr. Waite’s presence before a notary.
He has already sworn to that before the Grand Jury.
He will so testify at the trial.”
“Then why did Sarah hide the records of the two days when the will was drawn?”
“She did that?”
“She did.
What was on those records, Mr. Lowell?
Did she show that some pressure was brought to bear on Howard, or that he had been drugged?”
“Doctor Simonds says he was not drugged.”
“What does he know?
He wasn’t there, was he?”
“Barring evidence to the contrary we shall have to take his word.
He was there that night, and Mr. Somers was normal then.”
Before we left he referred again to Katherine’s statement about Mr. Waite.
“I know that you have had a great burden to bear, Mrs. Somers, and that naturally it is difficult for you to accept certain things.
But some facts we must accept.
During that illness all unpleasant feeling between Walter Somers and his father had been wiped out.
In his conversation with Mr. Waite, Mr. Somers mentioned this.
He was feeble, but quite clear as to his wishes.
He felt that perhaps an injustice had been done to his son, and he wished to rectify it.
That is why the will was drawn as it stands, and—as it will stand before any court, Mrs. Somers.”
“Have you examined the signature?”
“I have, at Mr. Waite’s own request.
We have even had an expert on it.
A forged signature under the microscope shows halts and jerks; the hand works slowly, and there are tremors.”
“And this shows none of these?”
“Mr. Somers was not allowed to sit up.
It shows the weakness of a sick man, writing in a constrained position.
That’s all.”
She sat there, smoothing her gloves after that habit of hers, and her face looked drawn in the glare from the wide-open windows.
Her anger was gone, and something disquieting had taken its place.
“Then this secret fund is beyond question?”
“Beyond question.”
She said nothing more until we had got into the car.
Then she spoke, looking ahead of her and with her face a white mask.
“So she is living, after all!”
“Who is living, Katherine?”
“Margaret.”
Just how long she had been brooding over that possibility I do not know, but I think it explains much that had almost alienated me at the time; her refusal to accept the will, her frozen attitude even to Judy, the hours she spent locked away in her room, inaccessible even to her maid.
“I don’t believe it, Katherine.”
“I do,” she said with stiff lips.
“It would be like her, wouldn’t it?
To hide away for all these years, and then when she knows Howard is ill and dying, to let him know.
She told Walter, and Walter told him.”
Nothing I could say could shake that conviction.
And here again we had grazed the cheek of truth, touched it and gone on.
For Margaret was not living, as we were to learn at the end.