Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/218

THE IVORY TOWER "Asked them of Mr. Crick, you mean?"

"Well, yes—if you've nobody else, and as you appear not to have been able to have cared to look at the will yourself."

Something like a light of hope, at this, kindled in Gray's face. "Would you care to look at it, Vinty?"

The inquiry gave Horton pause. "Look at it now, you mean?"

"Well—whenever you like. I think," said Gray, "it must be in the house."

"You're not sure even of that?" his companion wailed.

"Oh I know there are two"—our young man had coloured. "I don't mean different ones, but copies of the same," he explained; "one of which Mr. Crick must have."

"And the other of which"—Horton pieced it together—"is the one you offer to show me?"

"Unless, unless!" and Gray, casting about, bethought himself. "Unless that one!" With his eyes on his friend's he still shamelessly wondered.

"Unless that one has happened to get lost," Horton tenderly suggested, "so that you can't after all produce it?"

"No, but it may be upstairs, upstairs" Gray continued to turn this over. "I think it is," he then recognised, "where I had perhaps better not just now disturb it." 204