Page:Lady Molly of Scotland Yard.pdf/201

A CASTLE IN BRITTANY that her will was hidden in the clock, I—at my next interview with her—begged her to modify this idea, to send her will to her solicitor, but to leave the Terhovens under the impression that it was still lying in its strange hiding place. At first she refused to listen to me or to discuss the subject, but I am happy to say that I finally succeeded in persuading her, with what result you already know."

"But poor Monsieur le Curé!" I ejaculated.

Her bright eyes gleamed with merriment.

"Oh! that was a final little hoax. He himself, poor dear, was afraid lest he might blurt out the whole thing. His illness was partly a sham, and he is quite all right again now, but the doctor at the Brest hospital is a great friend of his, and is keeping him there until all this business has blown over."

"I was the only one who was kept in the dark," I concluded ruefully.

"Yes, Mary, dear," said my dear lady, gently; "it was a promise, remember. But I never thought that we should get so much excitement outside our own professional work."

It certainly had been a non-professional experience; but here, too, as in the detection of crime, her keen intuition had proved more than a match for an unscrupulous blackguard, and certainly on the 20th day of September last I lived through the most exciting ten minutes of my life. 167