their way laboriously up the slanted planking, the two men shouting encouragement, laying about them with the whip and crop.
Then suddenly, the bridge collapsed, utterly, swiftly, its death knell a sharp crack as the supports gave way, a crack that was almost a sigh of relief at the end of an unequal struggle. The coachman had barely enough time to lift the flap and shout, “My Lord!” as a warning before he was flung into the cold, greedy current.
The postilion clung to his horse as it sank in over its head, kicking and threshing wildly to escape the trap of its harness and the merciless river. The instant they broke water, the postilion jerked out a knife and cut it free, then slid from its back and groped for the other animals and the carriage drifting rapidly downstream. He was swept against his off-side horse, cut it loose, then the current tore them apart. As he couldn’t swim, he drowned within minutes.
Percival Sanderson awakened to the danger only when the horses reached the middle of the bridge and the water rose halfway up his boots. He sat paralyzed, unable to believe that the coachman had been right. Servants never spoke the truth. His mind, seeking to dispel the horror mounting within him, fastened on the punishment he would inflict on that scoundrel once he was safely ashore. The thought of that insolent clod not explaining more emphatically that the bridge really was unsafe was too preposterous to dwell upon.
Then the carriage was overturned and sent rushing on its side down the swollen river, the horses trapped by the twisted harness and kicking vainly to free themselves.
To his final moment Percival never knew how he managed to stand upright in the jolting, jerking, water-filled carriage and push open the upper door. As he clambered out, his saturated cloak caught on an obstruction. Frightened out of his wits, Percival lunged back, ripping the cloak from his shoulders. The momentum carried him off the floating carriage into the dark, savage river.
“Help!” screamed Percival, struggling to keep his head above water. No one answered.
“Help!” screamed Percival again. “I am almost a Duke! Aid to the Duke!”
He heard a whisper behind him and turned his head. His eyes popped out of their sockets when he saw the gigantic form of an uprooted tree bearing down relentlessly on him. He opened his mouth to scream again, but it never came out, for at that instant the trunk of the tree struck him fully in the face, breaking his neck like a rotten twig.
The first indication that something had not gone well with the affairs of Lord Percival Sanderson reached the castle in the form of the coachman, soaked to the bone, reeling with fatigue on one of the horses cut loose by the postilion before he took his final drink of water. Four brief words by the coachman to the doorkeeper flew to each corner of the old stone edifice quicker than a flash of lightning, and to be scrupulously fair to the memory of the departed ‘Almost a Duke’, it must be noted that they drew appreciative chuckles from the servants. The coachman had said, “The shit has drowned.”
The butler heard the news only seconds later from the mouth of the under-butler, who had been blessed several times by Lord Percival for not having brought up wine warm enough or cool enough during his constant attendance on his uncle.
The butler hastened to the chamber of his master and tiptoed over to the bed. The Duke had held his own during the twenty minutes since the solicitors had come, but it was merely a matter of time and everyone in the room knew it.
“Your Grace,” shouted the butler, “the most distressing news has just come. Lord Sanderson has drowned.”
Trembling, the old man raised himself on one elbow. “What!” he screamed.
“Drowned. Dead, Your Grace.”
Horror welled up in his watery eyes. “Quick! Quick!” he called out to the solicitors. “What happens to my estate?”
Mr. Blatherbell turned pale. “It goes to your next of kin, Your Grace.”
“Exactly!” shouted the Duke. “To that rum-swilling, hussy-chasing, card-playing blackguard. Quick! Draw up another will!”
Mr. Blatherbell opened his case and took out a sheet of paper. The butler hurried over with a quill and pot of ink.
“I hereby leave all my worldly goods to ...” He looked up at Mr. Blatherbell writing swiftly on the paper. “To whom?” he asked. “There’s actually nobody else.”
Mr. Blatherbell’s face brightened. “To the Crown, Your Grace. He would never be able to contest your will under those conditions.”
The old man chuckled. “Blatherbell, you’re a scoundrel after my own heart. Quick, let me sign.”
Mr. Blatherbell placed the paper in front of the Duke and two doctors lifted him upright. The Duke grasped the quill and poised it over the paper. “Hee, hee,” he cackled. “The happiest moment of my life.”
At that instant, he dropped dead!
Silence filled the room as the doctors slowly lowered the corpse to the bed. Mr. Blatherbell reached out to take the quill from the lifeless hand. He tugged and tugged, but the fingers had closed in a vice-like grip on the feather. He looked down at the newly drawn-up will, needing only a very small signature to make it valid. He pushed the hand of the dead man closer to the paper, as if by magic it would leap to life and just scrawl his initials at the bottom. His face twisted as he pondered the affect of this evening on his fortunes, for he was quite aware that he had undertaken the execution of the Duke’s will on a percentage basis rather than his usual fee, and that collecting his commission from the black sheep of the family could be somewhat difficult.
With a low sigh, he released the hand and picked up the paper, tearing it slowly into tiny bits.
“Well,” he said, to no one in particular. “We had best begin looking for His Grace, Paul Sanderson, the Fourteenth Duke of Wesfumbletonshire.”
Chapter II
The Gare St. Lazare in Paris, France, was crowded. Mr. Blatherbell leaned out of his compartment window as the train eased to a halt and looked up and down the platform.
“Porteur!” he called, spying a simply clad man with a leather apron wheeling a small cart.
The man hustled over and took off his hat, “A votre service, Monsieur.”
“Les bagages. Et appelez un fiacre.”
“Immediatement, Monsieur.”
While their cases were being passed out of the window by the car porter to the baggage man, Mr. Blatherbell led his two partners off the train onto the platform. He lifted his cane and stabbed it to the left. “The way out must be there. Forward.” Without a backward glance at his junior partners, Mr. Blatherbell took off, followed at exactly two paces by Mr. Snoddergas, who was followed at exactly two paces by Mr. Poopendal. In perfect time, their canes thrust forward, striking the ground, then lifted for another thrust, they steamed through the crowd towards the exit.
A carriage driver, observing their fine apparel and foreign appearance, waved off a less affluent-looking customer and moved his carriage ahead a few paces to garner the three tourists.
“Inspect
