Frank Abbott leaned forward and took up the receiver. A voice said, “Is that Deeping 10?”

He said, “Yes.”

The voice said, “To whom am I speaking?”

“Detective Inspector Abbott.”

The voice said, “I am Mr. Maudsley, Mr. Jonathan Field’s solicitor. I have just seen the news of his death in the morning papers. I am speaking from Edinburgh.”

The line was very clear and good. Miss Silver was able to hear every word.

Frank said,

“We have been most anxious to get into touch with you.”

“Yes. I was travelling yesterday. I stopped to see a client on the way up and got in late. I am very much shocked at the news,. Is there any possibility of its having been an accident?”

“None whatever. He was murdered.”

Mr. Maudsley repeated the word he had used before.

“How very shocking! Why, he was with me on Monday and Tuesday.”

“Yes, we have been anxious to get into touch with you about that. I believe he made a new will?”

“Yes-yes, he did-but-”

“Your chief clerk says he took it away with him.”

“Yes, he did.”

“It had been signed and witnessed?”

“Oh, yes-but-”

“That was your last contact with Mr. Field?”

“Well, no, Inspector, it wasn’t.”

“You saw him again after he left your office?”

“No-but he rang me up.”

Frank was aware of Miss Silver looking extremely intelligent.

“He rang you? When?”

Mr. Maudsley, speaking in the call-box of his Edinburgh hotel, was perfectly distinct and audible to them both.

“It was at about half-past-nine on Tuesday evening.”

“You are sure about the time?”

“To within five minutes or so.”

“Had the call any connection with the will which he had signed that morning?”

“Yes-a very serious connection. He gave me to understand that he had destroyed it.”

The intelligence of Miss Silver’s expression became intensified. Frank Abbott said,

“He told you that he had destroyed his latest will?”

“He said he had just been burning it.”

“The will which he had only signed that morning?”

“Mr. Field was in some ways a man of impulse. He had acted on impulse when he made this latest will. I may say that I had protested very strongly against some of its provisions. We were old friends, and he let me have my say. When he rang me up in the evening it was to tell me that he had come round to my way of thinking, and that he had just burned the will in the presence of his niece Georgina Grey. He thanked me for the representations I had made, and said he had become convinced that he was on the brink of committing an injustice. He added that there was no real hurry, but he would come and see me as soon as I got back to discuss the details of a will which would be just to everyone concerned.”

“I take it that the will superseded by the one which Mr. Field burned will now stand.”

“Undoubtedly. Have you come across it?”

“It is in a locked drawer of his writing-table. May I ask when you expect to be back?”

“I am booking a sleeper for tonight. I will come straight down to Field End. I am an executor, and it will be more regular if I take charge of the will.”

Frank Abbott hung up the receiver.

“That was Mr. Maudsley the solicitor. He says Jonathan Field rang him up at about half-past-nine on Tuesday evening and told him he had destroyed the will signed only that morning. Mr. Maudsley had made rather strong representations on the grounds of its being unjust. Jonathan had come to feel that this was the case, and he had just finished burning the will.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“Yes, I was able to hear most of what was said.”

Frank lifted an eyebrow.

“Very convenient for Miss Georgina Grey. Jonathan Field must have rung up as soon as she left him and went back to the drawing-room, and before Stokes came in with the drinks. Now the question is, did she come down later on and shoot him, or have we got to find another suspect?”

Miss Silver’s voice took on a tone of reproof.

“My dear Frank, with the will destroyed, what possible motive could she have had?”

“My dear ma’am, I don’t think one has to look very far for a motive. He had always allowed her to be considered as his heiress. I have no doubt that under the will of two years ago she would have come in for practically everything. When she saw him destroy the will which, as far as one gathers, put Mirrie Field in her place Georgina was back in the position of sole heiress. And she held that position for just so long as Jonathan didn’t make another will. He had acted on impulse once when he cut her out. He had acted on impulse again when he destroyed his new will. For all she knew, he might cut her out again, if not tomorrow, then the next day, or the next, or at any time when she chanced to vex him or he had an access of affection for Mirrie.”

Miss Silver looked at him very directly.

“Do you really believe her capable of such a line of reasoning?”

“Oh, she is quite intelligent.”

“I think you know very well that I was not referring to her intelligence. What I meant was that so unprincipled a line of thought would never occur to her.”

There was a sardonic gleam in his eye as he said,

“Discharged without a stain upon her character? Then we must have our other suspect. Unfortunately, we are handicapped by the fact that though there is some evidence that he may exist, he is for the moment featureless and nameless. In fact we haven’t a clue as to who he may be, or where to look for him.”

Miss Silver fixed him with a bright, expectant look.

“You interest me extremely. Pray go on.”

He leaned forward to lift the heavy album which contained a part of Jonathan Field’s collection of fingerprints and set it down upon the blotting-pad.

“This album was on the table when Jonathan was shot. You may have heard that he had a very extensive collection of fingerprints. Some of them were in this volume. Anthony Hallam brought me down to a dance here last Saturday week. I stayed the night. There were people to dinner before the dance, and Jonathan brought some of us in here and showed off his collection. He told us a tale about being buried under the ruins of a house during the blitz. There was another man there too. He never saw him, but they could just reach each other. Jonathan said this man was nearly off his head with claustrophobia. He talked all the time. He confessed to a couple of murders, described how he had done them-all that sort of thing. Well, it could have happened. Practically anything could have happened in one of those bad raids and Jonathan could have got the chap’s prints by passing him a cigarette-case as he said he did. But I did think it wasn’t the first time he had told the tale, and I thought it had probably got touched up a bit. He said they got him out unconscious next day, and he came round in hospital with a broken leg. And he said there wasn’t any sign of the other man. He had to hurry over all that part of it, because Georgina came along and said that people were arriving for the dance, but he did just open the album half way to give us a sight of the prints. There was an envelope there marking the place.”

As he spoke he parted the leaves, and there the envelope lay. Miss Silver put out her hand for it. He was interested to notice that it took her no time at all to become aware of the very nearly indecipherable pencilling at one end. She turned it to get the best of the light and read what he himself had seen there-“Notes on the blitz story. J.F.” She said,

“It is empty.”

Frank nodded.

“Yes, it’s empty. But it wasn’t-I could swear to that. Twelve days ago when he brought us in here and spun that tale the envelope was there at the place where he opened the album, and it wasn’t empty then. The notes, whatever they may have been, were inside it. He didn’t open the album wide, you know. He only opened it half way, and when he parted the leaves the envelope fell over on the left-hand side. And it didn’t fall in the way that an empty envelope would have fallen. It dropped because there was something inside it. There was something in it then, and there isn’t anything in it now. But of course whatever was there could have been taken out at any time between then and Wednesday morning. It is convenient to suppose that the notes were removed at the time of the murder-that is, during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. But there isn’t any proof that this is what happened, any more than there is any proof that the page with the murderer’s fingerprints on it was torn out at the same time.”