"I will not say but that you have perhaps acted for the best," remarked Mr. Melray. "Still---- But at this stage of the affair it would be futile to dwell on suppositions. What I have now to decide upon is the nature of the steps which it behoves me to take after what has been told me to-day. That, however," he added with a sigh, "is a problem which requires consideration."
"May I ask whether Mr. Dyson is entitled to any bequest under his late cousin's will?" It was Winslade who put the question.
"His name is down in the late Mr. Melray's will for a legacy of three thousand pounds," replied the lawyer. "The reason he has not been paid it before now is because the estate has not yet been finally wound up."
Presently Mr. Melray and Winslade went their way, the former to the railway station, the latter to prosecute certain inquiries on his own account.
The first thing he did was to retrace his steps to the office of Mr. Noyes.
"I must ask you to excuse me for troubling you again," he said to the money-lender; "but what I am desirous of knowing is whether any communication passed between Dyson and yourself after his return from his holidays?"
"I wrote to him the day after the funeral, asking him to come and see me. He came. Thereupon I proceeded to tell him of Mr. Melray's discovery of the payment by the latter of the three hundred and fifty pounds (principal and interest of the loan), and of my return to him of the policy of assurance. What, however, I positively declined to tell him, although he pressed me hard to do so, was how and by whose agency the discovery had been brought about. From that day to this I have seen nothing of Mr. Dyson, neither do I care if I never set eyes on him again."
Philip Winslade thanked Mr. Noyes and took his leave. "There can be little doubt," he said to himself as he walked along, "that, as Dunning suggested, Dyson obtained access to the dead man's papers before Mr. Cray had an opportunity of going through them, and abstracted the promissory note and other documents which bore Mr. Melray's signature as forged by himself."
In the course of the interview with Mr. Dunning the question had suggested itself to him whether it was really a fact that Dyson did not get back from his holidays till the third day after Mr. Melray's death. In order to answer it, it would be needful for him to go to Merehampton; but, as he had still another inquiry to make in Solchester, he resolved to take that in hand first.