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“These are matters of fate, my dear Mr. Crum,” said I piously. “I suppose there’s no doubt about the report?”

“None whatever, as I learn this morning. We cabled his lordship’s valet last night and got the press message confirmed. Death took place up-country, it seems. Baines, his man, talks of bringing the body to the coast and sailing next week by the Pacific Mail Steamer.”

“That of course is the only decent and orderly thing to do,” said I, “and no doubt you’ll kindly see to all these matters—arranging for the funeral and so forth. But what about funds now? I expect this horrible succession duty will make me as poor as a rat for the first year or two, won’t it?”

He lifted his pince-nez, regarding me with a curious expression. I immediately divined by a sort of intuition that he purposed giving himself the pleasure of surprising me. There was a decorously cunning light in the corner of his eye that made him appear not unlike a respectable and intelligent magpie.

“I think you and your uncle were comparatively strangers to each other, were you not? Ah, I thought so. You have the impression, doubtless, that he was restless by choice and temperament alone? I can assure you, in that case, that you are mistaken. Your uncle, for the last few years of his life at any rate, has been dominated by a very determined purpose.”