He receives a shock when his aunt's lawyer calls and tells him that he posted the will on to the dead lady at her request. It can no longer be found among her papers, and Charles realises that, as she fell dying, the will she was holding in her fingers dropped into the fire. No other copy exists, and therefore a former will comes into effect. This one left Harter's fortune to a niece (Charles's cousin) Miriam, who had proved unsatisfactory to her aunt for marrying a man of whom her aunt did not approve. Charles receives a second shock when the doctor telephones him to say that the results of the autopsy prove that his aunt's heart was in a worse condition than he thought, and there is no way she could have lived more than two months at the outside. Charles angrily realises he need never have set up his elaborate stunt.