Allan and the Ice Gods Read Free

even so humble an individual as myself
    might have pleased her. However, regrets came too late; she was dead
    and all between us at an end.
    A few weeks later, I discovered that here I was mistaken, for, after a
    preliminary telegram inquiring whether I was in residence at the
    Grange, which I answered on a prepaid form to the address of some
    unknown lawyers in London, there arrived at lunch time on the
    following day a gentleman of the name of Mellis, evidently one of the
    firm of Mellis & Mellis who had sent me the telegram. He was shown in
    and, without waiting for luncheon, said:
    “I believe I am addressing Mr. Allan Quatermain.”
    I bowed and he went on:
    “I come upon a strange errand, Mr. Quatermain, so strange that I doubt
    whether, in the course of your life, which as I have heard has been
    full of adventure, you have ever known its equal. You were, I believe,
    well acquainted with our late client, Lord Ragnall, also with his
    wife, Lady Ragnall, formerly the Hon. Luna Holmes, of whose recent sad
    death you may perhaps have heard.”
    I said that this was so, and the lawyer went on in his dry precise
    way, watching my face as he spoke:
    “It would appear, Mr. Quatermain, that Lady Ragnall must have been
    much attached to you, since, a while ago, after a visit that you paid
    to her at Ragnall Castle, she came to our office and made a will, a
    thing I may add that we had never been able to persuade her to do.
    Under that will—as you will see presently, for I have brought a copy
    with me—she left everything she possessed, that is, all the great
    Ragnall property and accumulated personalty of which she had the power
    to dispose at her unfettered discretion, to—ahem—to you .”
    “Great heavens!” I exclaimed, and sank back into a chair.
    “As I do not sail under false colours,” went on Mr. Mellis with a dry
    smile, “I may as well tell you at once that both I and my partner
    protested vehemently against the execution of such a will, for reasons
    that seemed good to us but which I need not set out. She remained firm
    as a rock.
    “‘You think I am mad,’ she said. ‘Foreseeing this, I have taken the
    precaution of visiting two eminent London specialists to whom I told
    all my history, including that of the mental obscuration from which I
    suffered for a while as the result of shock. Each of these examined me
    carefully and subjected me to tests with the result—but here are
    their certificates and you can judge for yourselves.’
    “I, or rather we, read the certificates, which, of course, we have
    preserved. To be brief, they stated that her ladyship was of
    absolutely sound and normal mind, although certain of her theories
    might be thought unusual, but not more so than those of thousands of
    others, some of them eminent in various walks of life. In face of
    these documents, which were entirely endorsed by our own observation,
    there was but one thing to do, namely, to prepare the will in
    accordance with our client’s clear and definite instructions. While we
    were writing these down, she said suddenly:
    “‘Something has occurred to me. I shall never change my mind, nor
    shall I remarry, but, from my knowledge of Mr. Quatermain, I think it
    possible and even probable that he will refuse this great inheritance’
    —a statement, sir, which struck us as so incredible that we made no
    comment.
    “‘In that event,’ she continued, ‘I wish all the real property to be
    realized and together with the personalty, except certain legacies, to
    be divided among the societies, institutions, and charities that are
    written down upon this list,’ and she handed us a document, ‘unless
    indeed Mr. Quatermain, whom, should he survive me, I leave my sole
    executor, should disapprove of any of them.’
    “Do you now understand the situation, sir?”
    “Quite,” I answered. “That is, no doubt I shall when I have read the
    will. Meanwhile, I suggest that you must be hungry after your journey
    and