Long ago **** had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was this put-away treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr. Beeton whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and **** drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth leg-bands, and the heavy flannel shirts doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin case of stationery.
'These we don't want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else I'll keep. Pack 'em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you've done that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute; get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper.'
It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and **** had particular reasons for wishing that his work should be clear. So he began, following his right hand with his left: '"The badness of this writing is because I am blind and cannot see my pen." H'mph!--even a lawyer can't mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn't be witnessed. Now an inch lower--why did I never learn to use a type-writer?--"This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Heldar.
I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous will to revoke."--That's all right. Damn the pen! Whereabouts on the paper was I?--"I leave everything that I possess in the world, including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight pounds held for me"--oh, I can't get this straight.' He tore off half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting. Then: 'Ileave all the money I possess in the world to'--here followed Maisie's name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.
'It mayn't be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to dispute it, and I've given Maisie's address. Come in, Mr. Beeton. This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks. To-morrow you must take me to the landlord and I'll pay forfeit for leaving without notice, and I'll lodge this paper with him in case anything happens while I'm away. Now we're going to light up the studio stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want 'em.'
No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year's accumulation of bills, letters, and dockets can make. **** stuffed into the stove every document in the studio--saving only three unopened letters; destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases alike.
'What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough in one place, to be sure,' said Mr. Beeton, at last.
'He does. Is there anything more left?' **** felt round the walls.
'Not a thing, and the stove's nigh red-hot.'
'Excellent, and you've lost about a thousand pounds' worth of sketches.
Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds' worth, if I can remember what I used to be.'
'Yes, sir,' politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that **** had gone mad, otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of the way.
There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could not be accomplished to to-morrow. **** groped about the floor picking up the last pieces of paper, assured himself again and again that there remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk, and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting iron cracked in the silence of the night.
