Page:The Makropoulos Secret (1925).pdf/38

THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET age, take over the full ownership of the aforesaid property, item of fact pro secundo. The aforesaid minor received from the owner during the lifetime of the deceased the income and reports from the aforesaid property with the title of owner and possessor of the property of Loukov. Of which proof is given by possession.

Well, that seems to order, doesn’t it?

[Again warming to his subject]

Wait. Against that, Baron Emmerich Prus protested that the donation of the aforesaid property was not recorded in the land record, that the deceased did not leave behind any written will, but, that in eighteen twenty-seven, at his country estate, made an oral “last will ” for the benefit of another person.

It isn’t possible. What other person?

There’s the hitch, Madam. Wait, I’ll read the whole thing. [He climbs up the ladder by the pigeonhole file] It is very amusing, you’ll see. Here it is. [He takes out the Gregor papers, sits down on the bottom step and quickly fingers them] B-z-z-z. Here, “The record of