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Julian Symondson reached the crest of the hill and stood for a moment looking across the valley at the agreeable little house for which he was making. It was a gusty day towards the end of October, a day of fleeting sun and shower, luminous with all the colour of autumn and keen with a foretaste of winter. It was exactly the type of day that sends energetic young men every Sunday marching in their hundreds over the more picturesque parts of the country. It was exactly the type of day that Julian most cordially detested. It is only right to add that he also disliked the country, whether picturesque or not, walking, and, above all, Sunday.

If Julian had been asked to say what, next to himself, he really cared for, he would certainly have replied, “Life!” “Life” to him did not include the countryside, or bracing October afternoons, or the rich mud which squelched lovingly beneath his over-thin shoes. “Life” meant London, and London meant half a dozen restaurants and not more than three night-clubs (they changed from year to year, but there were never more than three), two bars, ten streets and the faces of a handful of friends. It was not much, but it had been enough to make Julian completely happy—enough, too, to make him, from being rather better than well off, in three years from his coming of age completely penniless. It had seemed unbelievable at the time, but a day came when the restaurants ceased to give credit and the clubs to cash cheques, when the handful of friends shrank into a group of embarrassed people who avoided his eye at meal-times and remembered pressing engagements when he tried to raise the delicate question of a fiver or so to tide him over the weekend. On that day Julian remembered that he was not entirely alone in the world. Blood was thicker than water. He possessed an aunt.

Now he wondered a little wearily, as he descended the slope with the stiff steps of a townsman, whether it would not be truer to say that his aunt possessed him. She owned the cottage in which he lived rent-free, she paid the wages of the servant who looked after him, and the allowance which just kept him in whisky and cigarettes. She had been kindness itself to him—the kind country neighbours whom she had introduced to him had repeated the phrase till he could have screamed; she had certainly saved him from poverty, dire and complete; and in return she exacted—what? Merely that he should live in the country, away from the temptation of that wicked place London, and walk over to tea with her every Sunday. (Walk, mind you, not even use the little two-seater which her bounty allowed! Her window commanded a great stretch of country and she could see a mile off if there were any attempt at shirking.) He was not, he told himself for the hundredth time, an ungrateful man—far from it. He was profoundly thankful to Aunt Agnes for what she had done. He was even fond of her in a way. She was a good sort, really, though incapable of understanding what a young man really wanted in this world, as pious widows who live in the country are apt to be. But he had by now endured three years of this thraldom, and as he climbed the final ascent which led him to the house he caught himself wishing that she were dead.

Nephews—and particularly those who are entirely dependent on their aunts—have no business to entertain, even for a moment, wishes of this kind. Julian was not so depraved as to be unconscious of this, and he had hardly formed the wish before he repented of it, and resolved to atone for his ingratitude by being particularly considerate to his aunt that afternoon. Julian’s good resolutions were not often very effective; and it so happened that this one was even less so than most, for the simple reason that at the moment when it was made Mrs. Thorogood had already been dead for something like half an hour. She had died very quietly in her arm-chair by the drawing-room window, looking out over the view that she loved so much, at about the same time that Julian appeared on the distant horizon. So quiet had been her passing that the maid who brought in the tea-tray had thought that her mistress was dozing, and had gone out for the afternoon as usual without suspecting that anything was wrong. Thus it was that when Julian entered the drawing-room he and the cat were the only living creatures in the house.

There was nothing uncommon in finding the old lady asleep in her chair. He was not sorry when he did so, for thereby he was saved so many minutes of rather painfully righteous conversation. On this occasion, with the deft quietness of one who knows his way about, he lit the lamp beneath the silver urn, brought the water to the boil, made the tea, poured out two cups (weak with milk and two lumps of sugar for her, strong and black for himself) and then turned to wake her up.

His first reaction when he realised that Aunt Agnes would not wake up again, ever, was a feeling of extreme faintness. Not for the first time, but more keenly than ever before, he regretted that Mrs. Thorogood’s principles did not allow her to keep any spirits in the house. For want of a better stimulant he drank both cups, one after the other, and found his nerves beginning to grow steadier. For a time, however, he felt quite incapable of any action. He sat still, staring aimlessly at the motionless features, hardly less animated than his own. Poor old Aunt Agnes! This was (he told himself) a blow—really a much worse blow than he had ever anticipated. He had scarcely realized how dependent on her he had been. After all, for three years she had done everything for him, paid for him, looked after him, thought for him. It was thanks to her that he had been saved from heaven knew what fate, even the ultimate degradation of working for his living. He had never really been as grateful to her as he should, he reflected sadly. And now it was too late. He felt suddenly very much alone in the world.

He rose unsteadily to his feet and looked round the pleasant, well-ordered room. It was very much a respectable widow lady’s room, he reflected—so prim and neat and on its best behaviour! There came back to him the recollection of all the hours of boredom that he had endured in it, and a feeling of relief grew stronger and stronger in his breast. That was over, at all events! No more Sunday afternoons of interminable chatter—he was his own master now! Then he grinned sardonically as he realised that the room and all that it contained was now his own property. His aunt had said so more than once. “When I am gone, Julian,” she had told him, “all this will be yours. You love the place, don’t you?” “Yes, Aunt,” he had assured her, and she had purred in satisfaction. Oh! he had played his cards pretty well, all these years! Love the place, indeed! To his mind there was only one attraction in it, and that was that it was certain to fetch a good price in the market. He knew that she had refused half a dozen offers for it. It wouldn’t take him long to get it off his hands, and that done—London and all its joys spread themselves before his imagination.

It occurred to him to wonder whether she had left a will. Besides the house, which she had promised him, there must be a considerable amount of property, for she had made no secret of the fact that she was a fairly wealthy woman, in spite of her modest way of living. He had only heard her mention the subject once, soon after his establishment as her protégé, and Julian, who had a memory for such things, remembered her words exactly. “I shall really have to think about making my will now,” she had said. “Not that it could make much difference to you, dear boy, as you are my only heir in any case. But there are some things I should like to arrange before I go.” She had never explained exactly what things she meant, but he imagined that she had in mind small legacies to servants and so forth. It would be interesting, at all events, to see if she had done it.

He went across to the writing desk, where, he knew, his aunt used to keep all her business papers. Quietly, almost furtively, though he knew that there was nobody who could possibly disturb him, he ran through the neatly filed and docketed receipts, bills and correspondence which filled it.

It was not long before he lighted upon a long envelope occupying a pigeon-hole to itself and marked in Mrs. Thorogood’s firm, prim handwriting, “My Will”, followed by the date, “December 1910”. This had been struck out, and “January 1956” substituted.

With his heart beating considerably too fast for comfort, Julian drew out the contents. First came a long document in a clerkly hand, the ink somewhat faded with the years. It was the will of Miss Symondson as she then was, dated some twenty years before Julian was born. He glanced at it without interest, put it on one side and then turned to the other. This was quite short and entirely in his aunt’s handwriting. Julian read it from end to end.

Mrs. Thorogood bequeathed to her nephew her house, together with its grounds and furniture and the sum of £500 a year—an amount which, she added, had always sufficed to keep it in proper repair, and should with due economy enable him to do the same. The residue of her property was to be divided between the Charity Organization Society and the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. The will concluded with the words: “Should my nephew cease to occupy the house or attempt in any way to part with the possession or ownership of it by lease, sale, mortgage, or otherwise, he is to forfeit all benefits under this Will.”

There are some disasters too great to be understood at once, and Julian must have read the last sentence through half a dozen times before he grasped its meaning. At last the full horror of it broke in upon him. So this was what the old woman called being her “heir”! After all, she meant to tie him down still from the grave, and keep him in this dead-alive place for the rest of his life! This was all he got in return for what he had done, for all his detestable Sunday walks, for his—his—he was unable to think for the moment of anything else which he had done for his aunt, but this did not in the least moderate his growing fury. He looked out of the window to where the sky was darkening towards sunset, and felt that he had never seen anything so forbidding as the view which he was condemned now to put up with for ever. The thought made him cold, and, going to the fire, he poked it into a warmer blaze. He was still holding the will, and in the firelight the writing flickered as though it were alive. Confound the old woman! Why couldn’t she have left well alone and died intestate as she had half promised to do? With the poker in one hand he absently read the fatal document through once more, down to the names of the witnesses: “Martha Thwaites, Spinster” and “Louisa Peck, Widow”. Who on earth could they be? Then he remembered his aunt’s two “treasures” of maids, Martha and Louisa. They had both been killed in a motor accident on their holiday a year before and she had been quite inconsolable. Then very slowly, for his brain still felt numb with the shock it had received, an idea began to dawn upon him.

Once upon a time, while his parents were still alive, it had been suggested that Julian should become a lawyer, and to that end he had actually gone so far as to make some pretence at studying that dismal science. The pretence had not gone far, and if anybody had asked him how much he knew of the law he would have answered, in all sincerity, “Nothing”. Now, as he stood by the fireside, a fragment of his forgotten learning drifted back into his mind. “Marriage invalidates a will.” He remembered hearing it droned out by a tedious lecturer and copying the words wearily into a shiny red note-book. “Marriage invalidates a will.” Therefore his aunt’s first will, made when she was still Miss Symondson, simply didn’t count. If she had never made the second one—this horrible thing that he held in his hand at this moment—she would have been—what was the word?—intestate. And Martha and Louisa were dead. Therefore ...

Julian would never afterwards admit, even to himself, that he did more than release his grip on the sheet of paper for an instant. But there was no denying the fact that after it had fluttered down into the flames he pressed the poker very firmly upon it until it was a crumpled heap of ashes. That done, he pulled himself together and telephoned for the doctor.

Next day Julian drove the little two-seater over into the neighbouring county town. He made his way to the offices of Messrs. Coltsfoot and Proudie, Solicitors, and sent in his card. The lad who took it in returned almost at once.

“Mr. Coltsfoot will see you, sir,” he said.

Mr. Coltsfoot was an elderly tired-looking man, with a bald head and immense bushy eyebrows which gave his occasional stare a peculiarly disconcerting quality.

“Mr. Julian Symondson,” he said, looking up from the card which he held in his hand. “You are the nephew of the late Mrs. Thorogood, I understand?”

“Exactly,” answered Julian. “Her only nephew, to be accurate—in fact, I think I am her only relative of any kind. And understanding that you were her solicitor——”

“We have acted for her in the past,” interjected Mr. Coltsfoot, “but latterly she seems to have preferred to manage most of her affairs herself.”

“—well, I thought you were probably the right person to see. Considering that I seem to be the heir and so forth, you know.”

Julian’s voice trailed off uncertainly under the purposeful glare of Mr. Coltsfoot’s eye.

“Surely Mrs. Thorogood left a will?” he demanded.

“Certainly not,” answered Julian, completely taken aback. “Absolutely not, in fact. Not in the least, I mean.”

“You have made a thorough search, I suppose? Old ladies sometimes leave these things in odd places.”

“Oh, complete, yes, rather! Looked everywhere, you know, and there’s simply not a thing to be seen. She was a very tidy old lady, too. But if you’ve any doubt about it,” he added with growing boldness, “I wish you’d come over with me and have a look. I want to be perfectly fair about it, I can tell you.”

“I am not suggesting that you are not being perfectly fair, as you call it,” replied the solicitor drily. “But, on the whole, I think it would be as well if I did.”

Julian could hardly restrain himself from chuckling aloud as he drove Mr. Coltsfoot back to the cottage in his car. Everything was working out just as he had hoped. It was too easy! In due course the old will would be found, pushed away under a mass of papers, enclosed in an envelope which he had artistically dirtied that morning to give it the appearance of age. (The original, with the damning date of 1956 upon its face, he had, of course, destroyed.) After that, his sincerity in the matter would be apparent; and Coltsfoot could burrow and rummage as much as he pleased before he found another. Julian had made sure of that.

Things proceeded according to plan. The invalid will was duly discovered, and Julian uttered carefully rehearsed little expressions of surprise. A long and thorough search then ensued—and Mr. Coltsfoot was surprisingly thorough—which produced precisely nothing.

“Odd!” said Mr. Coltsfoot, as he stood exhausted in the drawing-room, his curiosity at last satisfied. “Very odd!”

“What is odd?” asked Julian, by now somewhat impatient.

“This will,” said the solicitor, tapping his left hand with the document in his right, “was prepared by my firm for your aunt many years ago. It was lodged for safe keeping in our strong room. Quite recently—no more than two or three years ago—she asked us to return it to her, as she desired to make a fresh one. She did not—h’m—she did not favour us with her instructions on that occasion, however. But I am certainly surprised to find that she never carried out her intentions.”

“She changed her mind, that’s all,” said Julian shortly. “Nothing surprising in that, is there?”

“At all events,” said the solicitor deliberately, “it is somewhat unfortunate. That is to say, although I know nothing definite”—his eyebrows fairly scintillated discretion—“yet from what she let fall in my last interview with her I rather gathered that the document I hold in my hand did not altogether represent her final intentions. As it is——” He fumbled for his pince-nez and began to read it to himself.

“Now look here, sir,” said Julian rudely. “I know something about the law, I may tell you, even if you don’t. That will was made before my aunt married. Marriage invalidates a will. So——”

He broke off. Mr. Coltsfoot had looked up from his perusal, and Julian did not like his expression.

“Marriage invalidates a will!” the solicitor repeated. “Just so! Tell me, Mr. Symondson, did you ever know the late Mr. Thorogood?”

“Good Lord, no! He died years ago, before I was born.”

“Quite. Well, I’m afraid that he didn’t, in all respects, live up to his name.... At the time he met your aunt, and for many years afterwards, he had a wife living in an asylum, and the divorce laws were stricter then than they are now. Your aunt was very young, very much in love ...”

“You mean that she——?” Julian managed to get out.

“I mean that she committed an indiscretion, as we used to call it in those days, and although she certainly atoned for it in after years by a life of the most exemplary Christian piety, she had no more right to call herself Mrs. Thorogood than I have. I can quite understand that your family did not speak about it, and I am afraid this must be somewhat of a shock to you. She had often told me of your devotion to her. You must try to forget it,” he added kindly.

“But the will!” cried Julian.

“Is, of course, perfectly unassailable in law. The whole estate goes to charity, I see. Dear me, Mr. Symondson, you really look ill. I’m afraid this has been a shock for you!”