Akers stopped, and looked across his glasses at Sir Edmund.

“I don’t know if you will remember Sir David’s servant, Sir Edmund; he was killed in the same battle as Sir David was, poor fellow.  A big man with red hair—­a Scotchman—­you’d have known that as soon as he opened his mouth.  He’d have chosen my boy from having known him here, in all probability.”

“Yes, yes,” said Grosse impatiently; “but how do you know that what he witnessed was a will?”

“Well, of course, I don’t know, Sir Edmund, and of course the boy didn’t know what was in the paper he witnessed; but the missus will have it that that paper was a will, and there’ll be no getting it out of her head that the right will has been lost.  I was wondering about it when I see you come into the yard, and I thought I’d just let you see the lad’s letter.  It could do no harm, and it might do good.”

Edmund had been absolutely silent during this narrative, with his eyes fixed on the stud-groom’s face.

“And where is Thomas now?” he asked, in a low voice.

“He’s in North India somewhere, Sir Edmund, but that is his poor mother’s trouble; we’ve not had a line from him these three months.”

“Oh, I’ll find him for you,” said Edmund, and he was just going to ask what regiment Thomas was in when they were disturbed by the appearance of Billy emerging from the hunters’ stable, and Edmund Grosse felt an unwarrantable contempt for a young man who dawdles away half the morning in the stable.

“Should I find you at six o’clock this evening?” he asked, in a low voice, of the stud-groom; and having been satisfied on that point, he strolled off and left Billy to talk of the horses.

Edmund Grosse felt for the moment as if the missing will were in his grasp, and he was quite sure now that he had never doubted its existence.  What he had just heard was the very first thing approaching to evidence in favour of his own theory, which he had hitherto built up entirely on guess-work.  Of course, the paper might have been some ordinary deed, some bit of business the General had forgotten to transact before starting.  But, if so, he felt sure that it must have been business unknown to the brothers Murray, as they had discussed with Grosse every detail of Sir Edmund’s affairs.  One thing was certain:  it would be quite as difficult after this to drive out of Edmund Grosse’s head the belief that this paper was a will as it would be to drive it out of the head of Mrs. Akers.

Edmund was in excellent spirits at luncheon.  In the afternoon he drove with Lady Groombridge and Rose and Molly to see a famous garden some eight miles off, the owners of which were away in the South.  The original house to which the gardens belonged had been replaced by a modern one in Italian style at the beginning of the nineteenth century.  It was not interesting, and Lady Groombridge gave a sniff of contempt as she turned her back on it and her attention, and that of her friends, to the far more striking green walls beyond the wide terraced walk on the south side of the building.