As to minor legacies, I owed it to my good housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, not to forget the faithful services of past years. Need I add--if I had been free to act as I pleased--that I should have gladly made Rothsay the object of a handsome bequest? But this was not to be. My friend was a man morbidly sensitive on the subject of money. In the early days of our intercourse we had been for the first and only time on the verge of a quarrel, when I had asked (as a favor to myself) to be allowed to provide for him in my will.
"It is because I am poor," he explained, "that I refuse to profit by your kindness--though I feel it gratefully."
I failed to understand him--and said so plainly.
"You will understand this," he resumed; "I should never recover my sense of degradation, if a mercenary motive on my side was associated with our friendship. Don't say it's impossible! You know as well as I do that appearances would be against me, in the eyes of the world. Besides, I don't want money; my own small income is enough for me. Make me your executor if you like, and leave me the customary present of five hundred pounds. If you exceed that sum I declare on my word of honor that I will not touch one farthing of it." He took my hand, and pressed it fervently. "Do me a favor," he said. "Never let us speak of this again !"
I understood that I must yield--or lose my friend.
In now making my will, I accordingly appointed Rothsay one of my executors, on the terms that he had prescribed. The minor legacies having been next duly reduced to writing, I left the bulk of my fortune to public charities.
My lawyer laid the fair copy of the will on my table.
"A dreary disposition of property for a man of your age," he said, "I hope to receive a new set of instructions before you are a year older."
"What instructions?" I asked.
"To provide for your wife and children," he answered.
My wife and children! The idea seemed to be so absurd that I burst out laughing. It never occurred to me that there could be any absurdity from my own point of view.
I was sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house-door which I thought I recognized. In another minute Rothsay's bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from the Mediterranean that morning.
"Am I interrupting you?" he asked, pointing to the leaves of manuscript before me. "Are you writing a book?"
"I am making my will."
His manner changed; he looked at me seriously.
"Do you remember what I said, when we once talked of your will?" he asked. I set his doubts at rest immediately--but he was not quite satisfied yet. "Can't you put your will away?" he suggested. "I hate the sight of anything that reminds me of death."
"Give me a minute to sign it," I said--and rang to summon the witnesses.
Mrs. Mozeen answered the bell. Rothsay looked at her, as if he wished to have my housekeeper put away as well as my will. From the first moment when he had seen her, he conceived a great dislike to that good creature. There was nothing, I am sure, personally repellent about her. She was a little slim quiet woman, with a pale complexion and bright brown eyes. Her movements were gentle; her voice was low; her decent gray dress was adapted to her age. Why Rothsay should dislike her was more than he could explain himself. He turned his unreasonable prejudice into a joke--and said he hated a woman who wore slate colored cap-ribbons!
I explained to Mrs. Mozeen that I wanted witnesses to the signature of my will. Naturally enough--being in the room at the time--she asked if she could be one of them.
I was obliged to say No; and not to mortify her, I gave the reason.
"My will recognizes what I owe to your good services," I said. "If you are one of the witnesses, you will lose your legacy. Send up the men-servants."
With her customary tact, Mrs. Mozeen expressed her gratitude silently, by a look--and left the room.
"Why couldn't you tell that woman to send the servants, without mentioning her legacy?" Rothsay asked. "My friend Lepel, you have done a very foolish thing."
"In what way?"
"You have given Mrs. Mozeen an interest in your death."
It was impossible to make a serious reply to this ridiculous exhibition of Rothsay's prejudice against poor Mrs. Mozeen.
"When am I to be murdered?" I asked. "And how is it to be done? Poison?"
"I'm not joking," Rothsay answered. "You are infatuated about your housekeeper. When you spoke of her legacy, did you notice her eyes."
"Yes."
"Did nothing strike you?"
"It struck me that they were unusually well preserved eyes for a woman of her age."
The appearance of the valet and the footman put an end to this idle talk. The will was executed, and locked up. Our conversation turned on Rothsay's travels by sea. The cruise had been in every way successful. The matchless shores of the Mediterranean defied description; the sailing of the famous yacht had proved to be worthy of her reputation; and, to crown all, Rothsay had come back to England, in a fair way, for the first time in his life, of making money.
"I have discovered a treasure," he announced.
"It was a dirty little modern picture, picked up in a by-street at Palermo. It is a Virgin and Child, by Guido."
On further explanation it appeared that the picture exposed for sale was painted on copper. Noticing the contrast between the rare material and the wretchedly bad painting that covered it, Rothsay had called t o mind some of the well-known stories of valuable works of art that had been painted over for purposes of disguise. The price asked for the picture amounted to little more than the value of the metal. Rothsay bought it. His knowledge of chemistry enabled him to put his suspicion successfully to the test; and one of the guests on board the yacht--a famous French artist--had declared his conviction that the picture now revealed to view was a genuine work by Guido. Such an opinion as this convinced me that it would be worth while to submit my friend's discovery to the judgment of other experts.