The Ely Testament Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tom, as he calculated Lye’s age.
    â€˜I’m not going to say anything. I do not want you to, ah, have any preconceptions. Look for yourself. Go and hold it under the light over there. Have a good look.’
    Tom carried the metal box across to the gaslight which was burning to one side of the fireplace, and opened the lid. He was surprised by what he saw. He examined the contents of the box for the best part of a minute before glancing up at David Mackenzie.
    â€˜Well?’
    â€˜I’m baffled.’
    â€˜Describe what you can see, Tom, if you would be so good.’
    Tom rested the box on the back of an armchair near the fireplace and rummaged around among the contents. Some items he lifted up to the light.
    â€˜A small skull.’
    â€˜A weasel or stoat’s probably,’ said Mackenzie.
    â€˜A couple of feathers.’
    â€˜Goose feathers, I think.’
    â€˜A clutch of marbles and something that looks like a child’s catapult or slingshot but with only the Y-shaped frame remaining. A lock of hair, fair hair. Several small lead soldiers – I had some very like these as a boy. And several keys, one of them much bigger and longer than the others, older, too, maybe. A ring, a wedding ring? A glass phial which probably held some potion or other—’
    â€˜Anything else?’ said Mackenzie, growing tired of the itemizing which he’d asked for.
    â€˜Well, a few other things . . .’
    â€˜Never mind those. There is something missing, isn’t there? Wouldn’t you expect the private deed-box of a lawyer – a lawyer, mind you – to contain some pieces of paper, some printed or written material? Not just silly childhood mementoes or things with sentimental value like the lock of hair and the ring.’
    Tom closed the box and took it back to the desk. He sat down once more. David Mackenzie had already resumed his seat and his pipe-fiddling.
    â€˜What I expected to find in that box, of course, was Alexander Lye’s last will and testament.’
    â€˜Maybe the will was there but he removed it from the box and decided to put it somewhere else in his office.’
    â€˜Mr Ashley and I have searched his room thoroughly, so far without result.’
    â€˜You mentioned the house in Regent’s Park, the one he shared with his sister. Is it there?’
    â€˜It might be,’ said Mackenzie. ‘I went round yesterday afternoon to see Miss Lye personally. To convey the sad news of her brother’s death and also, I’ll admit, to sound her out about Alexander’s will. I planned to do it discreetly, of course.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜It may be that I have been misjudging Miss Edith Lye. I’ve said that she and her brother did not get on. The house was big enough for them to lead almost separate lives, and they do not have many servants. But she was certainly distraught enough at her brother’s death, overcome by weeping. She would not have been capable of answering any questions and nor would I have wished to put any to her. I left Miss Lye in the care of her maid. But before I went I had a quick glance around Lye’s quarters, his domestic office, as it were. I’m not sure I had been in that room before, or at any rate not for many years.’
    Mackenzie paused, as if to gather his impressions.
    â€˜I do not think I’ve ever seen such a disordered space within four walls. Loose papers and documents, thousands of them higgledy-piggledy, together with law-lists and pocketbooks, all heaped in tottering piles, some so lofty that the uppermost articles had started to slide down like melting snow. In a hollow space somewhere in the centre of these mountains was an easy chair. I can imagine Alexander sitting there and contemplating this . . . this detritus . . . contemplating it with contentment.’
    The single surviving partner in the firm sounded genuinely offended at Lye’s piles of paper.