"And interesting!" "Oh, it's interesting enough!" agreed Mr.Portlethorpe, with a chuckle.
"Deeply so.

Well, that's how things were until about a year before old Sir Alexander died--which, as you know, is fourteen months since.

As I say, about six years before his death, formal notice came of the death of Michael Carstairs, who, of course, was next in succession to the title.
It came from a solicitor in Havana, where Michael had died--there were all the formal proofs.

He had died unmarried and intestate, and his estate amounted to about a thousand pounds.

Sir Alexander put the affair in our hands; and of course, as he was next-of-kin to his eldest son, what there was came to him.