" He fancied that just before the attack occurred he
had added: "You will have to see about it," or words to that effect.
We both felt convinced that Gowan had been too good a man of business
to make such a remark unless he had made his bequest legally secure.
The obvious thing to do was to cable at once to the lawyer to delay
action until the new will should turn up. This we did; a letter
followed, detailing circumstances.
Our next communication was from the Glasgow lawyer, who requested Val's
presence there to consult about matters, as my brother was the only
person to whom Gowan had spoken on the subject of a second will. I was
too much interested in the mystery to let Val go alone, and he was
delighted to have my company, so once more we set off for the distant
city.
Dalziel, the lawyer in question, received us in his private office on
the morning after our arrival. He was a small gray man, with keen
black eyes that twinkled behind his gold-rimmed spectacles now and
again when an ordinary man would have smiled. His statement of affairs
was indeed not reassuring. Every scrap of paper left behind by Gowan
had been carefully examined by one of his responsible clerks, but
nothing in the shape of a will had been discovered. Had there been no
previous will, Christian Logan's boy might have claimed the estate as
next of kin; but that was now not possible. To bring the matter before
the law courts was equally futile; the law took cognizance of a man's
wishes expressed in writing, and no evidence of a verbal declaration on
his part would suffice to set aside a written document.
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