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Evelyn. Susie didn’t keep her temper when she was my secretary; I can tell you; and I told Sally frankly that I shouldn’t leave her anything if I thought she would spend it all on Bill Deedes.”
    Gamadge, remembering Bill Deedes’s sweetness and fatal charm, groaned faintly. He murmured: “Poor Sally.”
    â€œWhen she promised to divorce him, I put her down for twenty-five thousand, as I said. She doesn’t know how much she’s getting, though. And she doesn’t know that when she finally did divorce Bill, I made up my mind to leave her fifty thousand.”
    â€œGood.”
    â€œSo on Thursday, when I made my new will, I gave her fifty thousand, and I gave Susie fifty thousand. And,” said Mrs. Mason, looking at him defiantly, “I gave Tim fifty thousand, and I made Evelyn Wing my residuary legatee.”
    Gamadge sat back and stared at her. Then he said with restraint: “Let me get this straight. The legacies to the servants, the church, and the Home, stand; Miss Burt, Sally Deedes, and your husband receive fifty thousand apiece; and your secretary gets—how much exactly?”
    â€œIt comes to about a hundred and ten thousand, I think, it and Underhill, and my personal belongings. Jewellery and stuff.”
    â€œHow much does the jewellery and stuff add up to?” Gamadge glanced around the delicately furnished room.
    â€œMy furs and silver and glass and china, and the furniture and things, and my poor little brooches and bracelets and rings are appraised at fifty thousand.”
    â€œLow estimate, I think. Why Underhill to Miss Wing? Why not to Sylvanus?”
    â€œHe can buy it from Evelyn, if he wants it. He’ll be rich enough to buy anything, when I die; don’t forget that!”
    â€œI’m not forgetting. Mason will fight, Florence.”
    â€œThey say it’s very hard to break a will.” She added, rather pleadingly: “He never came back from Palm Beach when I had flu last winter; we came up here for Christmas, Syl and I, and had a party. And I couldn’t get a nurse for two nights, and Evelyn sat up with me. It was so small of Tim to try to get rid of Evelyn!”
    â€œSome people might not wonder at his trying to get rid of her. So you think he was the one that cooked up that business with the quotations.”
    â€œOh, Henry, I wish I didn’t think so!”
    â€œWell, my poor, dear girl, I’m awfully sorry.”
    â€œOf course if you find out he didn’t, I’ll make another will.”
    Gamadge smiled. “This one is just to shake at Mason if I don’t clear him?”
    â€œHe doesn’t know anything about it yet, but he knows I don’t believe Evelyn put the things in my book.”
    â€œAnd you telephoned Bob Macloud, and dictated this will to him on Thursday, and he cut up rough?”
    â€œHe was perfectly wild. Of course he doesn’t know my reasons; he doesn’t know about the things in the book, or what Evelyn means to me.”
    â€œOr that Mason didn’t come back from Palm Beach when you had flu.”
    â€œOr—or anything,” said Mrs. Mason, turning her head away. She looked at Gamadge again to add sharply: “It’s all none of Bob’s business. His business was to follow my instructions.”
    Gamadge rose, folded the few pages of Chapter Nine lengthwise, and put them in his pocket. He said: “I’ll see all these people. I’ll hold a conference after lunch from which you will be rigorously excluded. Then I’ll report to you. I suppose you don’t know whether the authors quoted in your script are available here—in the library?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œAnd nobody, not even Syl, admits knowing that the extracts are quotations?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd Sally blames the spirits.”
    â€œShe says a mischievous spirit sometimes gets through. She says it’s a slight risk we