The Lady in Blue by Fred M. White

"And what is this new trouble?" Blanche Trevenner demanded.

"This is what you call a story," Magavitch observed with a leer. "On racecourses they speak of it as telling the tale. Does madam imagine for a moment that the Grand Duke's relatives will permit her to take his vast properties without, at least, a protest? Ah, it is all very well for them to turn their back upon him when he is alive; but dead, that is a different matter. You come forward and claim the property, and they ask you all kinds of subtle questions. They will also ask me all sorts of subtle questions, and if we do not tell the same tale, then, assuredly, there will be trouble. Out narrative must be as simple as possible. We fix a day on which the will was made and signed, and that day, of course, we put in as the date. Now let us choose a date when something out of the common happened. Let me call to your mind the night, in Paris, when an attempt was made on the life of the Grand Duke, outside the stage door of the Odeon Theatre, where he was waiting for you, in company with Count Artim. Afterwards you all supped together at the Grand Duke's villa, which I remember perfectly well, as I came in during supper with some letters for my master to sign. He kept me there and gave me a glass of champagne, because he had just scribbled out his will, and I and the Count witnessed it. Now, what think you of that? It is a neat and convincing story. The Duke was afraid lest he might die before he had provided for the woman whom he loved, and, behold, the will is accounted for!"