Shadows of Ecstasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

won’t or can’t bestir himself, mere talk won’t help him. Thank you, Mr. Considine.”
    â€œGood heavens!” Sir Bernard said to Roger in a smothered voice, ‘mere talk’! Mere——”
    The letter for the coroner was now produced, but carried things little further. It stated simply that Simon Rosenberg took all responsibility for the act of suicide, to which he had been driven by the full realization of the entire worthlessness of human existence. “We may, I think,” the coroner interrupted himself to say, “mark that sentence as evidence of a very abnormal state of mind.” Unconscious of the lowering glare which Roger turned on him, he went on: “There is enclosed with this brief letter another document which purports to be the deceased’s last will and testament. I have had the opportunity of submitting it to the deceased’s solicitors, Messrs. Patton & Fotheringay, and in order that you may have all the evidence possible on deceased’s state of mind before you I shall now read it.”
    He proceeded to do so. It began normally enough, followed up this opening with a few legacies to servants, clerks, and acquaintances, and then in one magnificent clause left the whole of the rest of the estate, real and personal, shares, jewels, houses, lands, and everything else from the smallest salt-cellar in the farthest shooting-lodge to the largest folio in the London library, to two second cousins, Ezekiel and Nehemiah Rosenberg, defined with all necessary exactitude as the grandchildren of the deceased’s grandfather’s younger brother Jacob Rosenberg.
    â€œAnd I do this,” the strange document ran on, “because they have followed in the way of our fathers, and kept the Law of the Lord God of Israel, and because though I do not know whether there is any such God to be invoked or any such way to be trodden, yet I know that everything else is despair. If this wealth belongs to their God let him take it, and if not let them do what they choose and let it die.” Nigel Considine and the Grand Rabbi were named as executors, with a hope that though they had not been consulted they would not refuse to act.
    There was a prolonged silence in court. Roger Ingram thought of several verses in Deuteronomy, a line or two of Milton, and a poem of Mangan’s. Sir Bernard wished he knew Nehemiah and Ezekiel Rosenberg. Philip thought it was a very peculiar way of making a will. The coroner proceeded to explain to the jury the difference between felo-de-se and suicide while of unsound mind, with a definite leaning towards the second, of which (he suggested) “despair—to use the word chosen by the deceased—was, anyhow when carried to such an abnormal extent as the letter and will together seem to indicate, perhaps in no small measure a proof.” The jury, after a merely formal consultation, in the rather uncertain voice of their foreman agreed. The court rose.
    On the steps outside, Sir Bernard and Roger instinctively delayed a little and were rewarded by seeing Considine come out. He was listening to a round-faced man who was probably either Mr. Patton or Mr. Fotheringay, but in a moment he noticed Roger, waved to him, and presently, parting from his companion, came across.
    â€œSo, Mr. Ingram,” he said, as he shook hands, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
    â€œNo,” Roger answered; “as a matter of fact I came with——” he completed an explanation with an introduction.
    â€œBut, of course I know Sir Bernard’s name,” Considine said. “Isn’t it he who explained the stomach?”
    â€œTemporarily only,” Sir Bernard answered.
    Considine shrugged. “While man needs stomachs,” he said, “which may not be for so very much longer. A very ramshackle affair at present, don’t you think?”
    â€œIn default of a better,” Sir Bernard protested,