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thrown away. There was therefore no means of destroying a thick document
such as a will. The moment I heard of a fire being lighted in Mrs.
Inglethorp's room, I leaped to the conclusion that it was to destroy some
important document--possibly a will. So the discovery of the charred
fragment in the grate was no surprise to me. I did not, of course, know at
the time that the will in question had only been made this afternoon, and I
will admit that, when I learnt that fact, I fell into a grievous error. I came to
the conclusion that Mrs. Inglethorp's determination to destroy her will arose
as a direct consequence of the quarrel she had that afternoon, and that
therefore the quarrel took place after, and not before the making of the will.
"Here, as we know, I was wrong, and I was forced to abandon that idea. I
faced the problem from a new standpoint. Now, at 4 o'clock, Dorcas
overheard her mistress saying angrily: 'You need not think that any fear of
publicity, or scandal between husband and wife will deter me." I
conjectured, and conjectured rightly, that these words were addressed, not
to her husband, but to Mr. John Cavendish. At 5 o'clock, an hour later, she
uses almost the same words, but the standpoint is different. She admits to
Dorcas, 'I don't know what to do; scandal between husband and wife is a
dreadful thing.' At 4 o'clock she has been angry, but completely mistress of
herself. At 5 o'clock she is in violent distress, and speaks of having had a
great shock.
"Looking at the matter psychologically, I drew one deduction which I was
convinced was correct. The second 'scandal' she spoke of was not the same
as the first--and it concerned herself!
"
Let us reconstruct. At 4 o'clock, Mrs. Inglethorp quarrels with her son, and
threatens to denounce him to his wife--who, by the way, overheard the
greater part of the conversation. At 4.30, Mrs. Inglethorp, in consequence of
a conversation on the validity of wills, makes a will in favour of her
husband, which the two gardeners witness. At 5 o'clock, Dorcas finds her
mistress in a state of considerable agitation, with a slip of paper--'a letter,'
Dorcas thinks--in her hand, and it is then that she orders the fire in her
room to be lighted. Presumably, then, between 4.30 and 5 o'clock,
something has occurred to occasion a complete revolution of feeling, since
she is now as anxious to destroy the will, as she was before to make it. What
was that something?
"As far as we know, she was quite alone during that half-hour. Nobody
entered or left that boudoir. What then occasioned this sudden change of
sentiment?
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