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detective softly.
    CHAPTER III

    B ut Doctor Wortley did not permit the insinuation in the detective’s tone to go unchallenged.
    â€œGood heavens, Rankin,” he exclaimed, “you can’t believe that Fred Adams would take his uncle’s life for such a reason as that!”
    â€œI don’t believe anything,” the other returned impatiently. “Right now it isn’t a question of who did it or why, but how it was done. We don’t even know that. But to put it in plain words, I am convinced that one of the four members of that foursome is responsible for the Colonel’s death. It’s the only possible solution.”
    As he spoke the sound of wheels was heard on the driveway outside. It was the conveyance that had been sent for to Brockton to carry the body of the Colonel to Greenlawn. Doctor Wortley went out to superintend the removal to the room that had been prepared upstairs, while Rankin went in search of Fraser Mawson.
    He found the lawyer in a small room at the further end of the lower hall. This room was the place that Colonel Phillips had set aside for the transaction of business; it contained a desk and a safe and files filled with letters and documents of various kinds, all kept neatly and methodically after the Colonel’s custom. As Rankin entered Mawson was in the act of taking a large book from a shelf in the safe, the door of which stood open.
    â€œYou seem to be acting on a thought that has occurred to me also,” observed the detective, stopping beside the desk.
    The lawyer looked up at him inquiringly.
    â€œI was just looking to see if there is anything out of the way,” he explained. “You know, I came down here from the city once a week to confer with Carson on his affairs. We were to have attended to it tonight; that was our custom.”
    Rankin, nodding, found a chair, while the lawyer placed the book on the desk beside another that was lying there open. The fact of his having been entrusted with the combination of the safe, containing private documents of every description, was evidence of the complete confidence in which the dead man had held his attorney and lifelong friend.
    â€œHe kept everything here, I suppose,” observed Rankin presently.
    The other nodded. “Everything. Except, of course, what was needed for any specific purpose, temporarily, in New York. Such were kept in my office.”
    Silence, while the lawyer compared entries in one of the open books before him with those in the other, occasionally writing something in the latter. From the other end of the hall, through the open door, came the sound of many slow and heavy footsteps, those of the men who were carrying into Greenlawn the body of its dead master. Rankin, craning his neck a little, could see their straining forms framed in the outer doorway, with Doctor Wortley in front directing them.
    â€œOne thing I’d like to ask, Mawson,” resumed the detective after a moment. “Had the Colonel indicated an intention lately of making any change in his will?”
    The question appeared to surprise the lawyer a little.
    â€œNone whatever,” was the reply. “Why, do you know of any reason?”
    â€œNothing in particular,” Rankin returned, “except that Doctor Wortley tells me that he had been having a difference of opinion with Fred concerning a certain young lady named Morton, I believe.”
    â€œOh.” The lawyer looked up from his writing. “Yes, there has been something said about it. Carson was much put out, and Fred was—well—obstinate. There were some pretty warm words, I believe—you know, Carson had a temper—but I don’t think he ever seriously contemplated changing his will.”
    â€œBut Fred might have thought so.”
    The lawyer frowned. “Of course. He might think anything. But it seems to me a pretty weak thread to hold a suspicion like that against a boy like Fred.” A