The Essential Edgar Wallace Collection. Edgar Wallace

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      He lifted a pair of field glasses which he had put on the table, and surveyed the road from the sea. "Mrs. Meredith, I want you to do something and tell Jean Briggerland when you have done it."

      "What is that?" she asked.

      "I want you to make a will. I don't care where you leave your property, so long as it is not to somebody you love."

      She shivered.

      "I don't like making wills. It's so gruesome."

      "It will be more gruesome for you if you don't," he said significantly. "The Briggerlands are your heirs at law."

      She looked at him quickly.

      "So that is what you are aiming at? You think that all these plots are designed to put me out of the way so that they can enjoy my money?"

      He nodded, and she looked at him wonderingly.

      "If you weren't a hard-headed lawyer, I should think you were a writer of romantic fiction," she said. "But if it will please you I will make a will. I haven't the slightest idea who I could leave the money to. I've got rather a lot of money, haven't I?"

      "You have exactly 160,000 in hard cash. I want to talk to you about that," said Jack. "It is lying at your bankers in your current account. It represents property which has been sold or was in process of being sold when you inherited the money, and anybody who can get your signature and can satisfy the bankers that they are bona fide payees, can draw every cent you have of ready money. I might say in passing that we are prepared for that contingency, and any large cheque will be referred to me or to my partner."

      He raised his field glasses for a second time and looked steadily down along the hill road up which they had come.

      "Are you expecting anybody?" she asked.

      "I'm expecting Jean," he said grimly.

      "But we left her----"

      "The fact that we left her talking to the police doesn't mean that she will not be coming up here, to watch us. Jean doesn't like me, you know, and she will be scared to death of this _tte--tte_."

      The conversation had been arrested by the arrival of the soup and now there was a further interruption whilst the table was being cleared. When the _matre d'htel_ had gone the girl asked:

      "What am I to do with the money? Reinvest it?"

      "Exactly," said Jack, "but the most important thing is to make your will."

      He looked along the deserted veranda. They were the only guests present who had come early. From the veranda two curtained doors led into the _salon_ of the hotel and it struck him that one of these had not been ajar when he looked at it before, and it was the door opposite to the table where they were sitting.

      He noted this idly without attaching any great importance to the fact.

      "Suppose somebody were to present a cheque to the bank in my name?" she asked. "What would happen?"

      "If it were for a large sum? The manager would call us up and one of us would probably go round to your bank. It is only a block from our office. If Rennett or I said it was all right the cheque would be honoured. You may be sure that I should make very drastic inquiries as to the origin of the signature."

      And then she saw him stiffen and his eyes go to the door. He waited a second, then rising noiselessly, crossed the wooden floor of the veranda quickly and pushed open the door, to find himself face to face with the smiling Jean Briggerland.

      Chapter XXVIII

      "However did you get here?" asked Lydia in surprise.

      "I went into Nice," said the girl carelessly. "The detectives were going there and I gave them a lift."

      "I see," said Jack, "so you came into Turbie by the back road? I wondered why I hadn't seen your car."

      "You expected me, did you?" she smiled, as she sat down at the table and selected a peach from its cotton-wool bed. "I only arrived a second ago, in fact I was opening the door when you almost knocked my head off. What a violent man you are, Jack! I shall have to put you into my story."

      Glover had recovered his self-possession by now.

      "So you are adding to your other crimes by turning novelist, are you?" he said good-humouredly. "What is the book, Miss Briggerland?"

      "It is going to be called 'Suspected,'" she said coolly. "And it will be the Story of a Hurt Soul."

      "Oh, I see, a humorous story," said Jack, wilfully dense. "I didn't know you were going to write a biography."

      "But do tell me about this, it is very thrilling, Jean," said Lydia, "and it is the first I've heard of it."

      Jean was skinning the peach and was smiling as at an amusing thought.

      "I've been two years making up my mind to write it," she said, "and I'm going to dedicate it to Jack. I started work on it three or four days ago. Look at my wrist!" She held out her beautiful hand for the girl's inspection.

      "It is a very pretty wrist," laughed Lydia, "but why did you want me to see it?"

      "If you had a professional eye," said the girl, resuming her occupation, "you would have noticed the swelling, the result of writers' cramp."

      "The yarn about your elderly admirer ought to provide a good chapter," said Jack, "and isn't there a phrase 'A Chapter of Accidents'--_that_ ought to go in?"

      She did not raise her eyes.

      "Don't discourage me," she said a little sadly. "I have to make money somehow."

      How much had she heard? Jack was wondering all the time, and he groaned inwardly when he saw how little effect his warning had upon the girl he was striving to protect. Women are natural actresses, but Lydia was not acting now. She was genuinely fond of Jean and he could see that she had accepted his warnings as the ravings of a diseased imagination. He confirmed this view when after a morning of sight-seeing and the exploration of the spot where, two thousand years before, the Emperor Augustine had erected his lofty "trophy," they returned to the villa. There are some omissions which are marked, and when Lydia allowed him to depart without pressing him to stay to dinner he realised that he had lost the trick.

      "When are you going back to London?" she asked.

      "To-morrow morning," said Jack. "I don't think I shall come here again before I go."

      She did not reply immediately. She was a little penitent at her lack of hospitality, but Jack had annoyed her and the more convincing he had become, the greater had been the irritation he had caused. One question he had to ask but he hesitated.

      "About that will----" he began, but her look of weariness stopped him.

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