weeks Barford folk had talked of little else than the danger of living
in the shadows of these great masses of masonry.

But there had soon been something else to talk of. It sprang out of the
accident--and it was of particular interest to persons who, like Linford
Pratt, were of the legal profession. John Mallathorpe, so far as anybody
knew or could ascertain, had died intestate. No solicitor in the town
had ever made a will for him. No solicitor elsewhere had ever made a
will for him. No one had ever heard that he had made a will for himself.
There was no will. Drastic search of his safes, his desks, his drawers
revealed nothing--not even a memorandum. No friend of his had ever heard
him mention a will. He had always been something of a queer man. He was
a confirmed bachelor. The only relation he had in the world was his
sister-in-law, the widow of his deceased younger brother, and her two
children--a son and a daughter. And as soon as he was dead, and it was
plain that he had died intestate, they put in their claim to his
property.

John Mallathorpe had left a handsome property. He had been making money
all his life. His business was a considerable one--he employed two
thousand workpeople. His average annual profit from his mills was
reckoned in thousands--four or five thousands at least. And some years
before his death, he had bought one of the finest estates in the
neighbourhood, Normandale Grange, a beautiful old house, set amidst
charming and romantic scenery in a valley, which, though within twelve
miles of Barford, might have been in the heart of the Highlands.
Therefore, it was no small thing that Mrs. Richard Mallathorpe and her
two children laid claim to. Up to the time of John Mallathorpe's death,
they had lived in very humble fashion--lived, indeed, on an allowance
from their well-to-do kinsman--for Richard Mallathorpe had been as much