At last the Ottoman
Government, through the English ambassador, published its repudiation
of the concession, which it seems was a forgery, actually executed or
obtained in Constantinople by my uncle. Well, there was a fearful smash.
Writs were taken out against my uncle, but before they could be served,
he died suddenly of heart disease. I was with him at the time and he
kept saying he saw that gold mask which Jeekie calls Bonsa, the thing
you took back to Africa. He had a fine funeral, for what he had done
was not publicly known, and when his will was opened I found that he had
left me his fortune, but made Lord Aylward there my trustee until I came
to the full age of twenty-five under my father's will. Alan, don't force
me to tell you what sort of a guardian he was to me; also there was no
fortune, it had all gone; also I had very, very little left, for almost
all my own money had gone too. In his despair he had forged papers
to get it in order to support those Sahara Syndicate shares. Still I
managed to borrow about L2000 from that little lawyer out of the L5000
that remain to me, an independent sum which he was unable to touch, and,
Alan, with it I came to find you.
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