Chapter XIV
Bertha Cool stood at her desk, holding a heavy palm down on the open telegram as though afraid that it might get away from her. She pressed the buzzer which summoned Elsie Brand.
“Take a letter to Donald, Elsie. ‘Dear Donald: You’ve been in the Navy so long you’re full of beans. Bertha had the best handwriting expert in the city go over that will and compare signatures. The signatures are genuine. It may not have occurred to you that the peculiar change in style comes on the second page. That’s the page that has the signatures. Therefore, if there’s anything wrong with that page, the signatures must have been forged — all three of them.’
“You got that, Elsie?”
“Yes, Mrs. Cool.”
“All right, now we’ll give him the other barrel. ‘Apparently your experience in the Navy has let your brains get rusty. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to Bertha whether the second page of that will is forged or not, and there isn’t any chance it could have been forged. I’ll admit that Paul Hanberry looks to me like something the cat dragged in. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could toss my income tax with my left hand, but Josephine Dell is all right. Sometime when you’re out on the ocean with nothing to think about except dive bombers, torpedoes, submarines, and mines, you may realize that Bertha’s client gets his slap in the face on the first page. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to Bertha what happens in the rest of the will. The testator could give the rest of his dough to superannuated naval officers for all Bertha cares. If you’re going to keep on wiring me collect, at least try to get something constructive in your telegrams.
‘Bertha misses you, but the way you miss all the important points on a case, perhaps it’s just as well if we dissolve the partnership. Thank you, however, for trying to help. Don’t bother with it any more. Bertha will take care of it. You concentrate on the enemy. Best wishes.’
Bertha crumpled the telegram, dropped it into a wastebasket, looked at the crumpled ball for a moment, then fished the telegram out, smoothed it out, and said to Elsie, “Put it in the file. It’s the first time the little runt ever got caught off first base, and having it in writing may not hurt anything.”
As an afterthought she added, “Okay, it’s Saturday. We’ve had one hell of a week. Let’s close up shop until Monday.”
Chapter XV
1942 AUG 30
VALLEJO, CALIFORNIA
(NIGHT LETTER COLLECT)
BERTHA COOL, CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS
DREXEL BUILDING
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
YOU HAVE MISSED POINT. THE RULE WORKS BOTH WAYS. CHANGE IN STYLE ONLY INDICATES ENTIRE CONTENTS OF WILL NOT WRITTEN BY SAME PERSON. IF SECOND PAGE OF WILL IS GENUINE THEN SOMEONE HAS SUBSTITUTED FRAUDULENT FIRST PAGE. AMOUNT OF CHRISTOPHER MILBERS’S BEQUEST IS QUITE PROBABLY CHANGED. TWO POSSIBILITIES TO CONSIDER. ONE IS THAT MILBERS HIMSELF, BEING CUT OFF WITH ONE DOLLAR, FORGED FIRST PAGE TO MAKE LEGACY TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. SECOND ALTERNATIVE IS THAT CHRISTOPHER MILBERS MIGHT HAVE BEEN LEFT MUCH GREATER AMOUNT THAN TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS ON FIRST PAGE, THEREFORE SUBSTITUTION MADE BY ONE OF RESIDUARY LEGATEES. IF SECOND PAGE OF WILL IS GENUINE THEN FIRST PAGE WAS FORGED BY SOME PERSON WITH READY GIFT OF EXPRESSION AND FACILE LITERARY STYLE. YOUR DESCRIPTION CHRISTOPHER MILBERS FITS THIS TYPE. HAVE YOU INVESTIGATED CAUSE OF DEATH HARLOW MILBERS? ASK PERSONS IN ATTENDANCE TO DESCRIBE SYMPTOMS. BEST WISHES FOR YOUR SUCCESS IN SOLVING CASE.
Chapter XVI
Walton A. Doolittle, Attorney at Law, regarded the Photostat Bertha Cool had handed him.
“As I understand it, Mrs. Cool, you want to know the legal effect of a partial forgery.”
“That’s right.”
Doolittle took up the first page of the will. “Let us suppose that this is genuine,” he said, “and that the second page containing the purported signature and the attestation clause is a forgery.”
“No chance of that,” Bertha said.
“I understand but I am going to consider the problem in order. Now, a will may be revoked in any one of several ways. One of these ways is by destruction of the will on the part of the testator. But bear in mind, Mrs. Cool, that an unauthorized destruction by any other person does not invalidate the will. Therefore, let us assume that the first page of this will is genuine and that the second page is a forgery. In other words, the first page has been taken from a genuine will, the remaining portions of which have been destroyed; and a forged and fraudulent second page has been added.”
“You’re going all the way around your elbow to get to your thumb,” Bertha said. “You’re taking the same thing I told you and wrapping it up in a lot of words.”
“I want to be certain that you understand the situation,” Doolittle said.
“I do.”
“Under those circumstances,” Doolittle went on, “the will has been destroyed, but its destruction was not a revocation. Therefore, the entire contents of the will could be proved by independent, oral evidence if we could find such evidence. Now, if the first page of the will is genuine, it is the best proof of the contents of the first page of the destroyed will. We wouldn’t need to care what was in the rest of the will, once we prove the first page genuine.”
“In other words, Christopher Milbers gets ten grand. Is that it?”
“Exactly.”
“All right, let’s get to the point. Suppose the first page is a forgery and the second page is genuine. That’s more apt to be the case.”
“Under those circumstances, the same rule of law applies. The destruction of a portion of the will does not constitute a partial revocation. The contents of the first page of the will could then be proven by independent, oral evidence, or, as we say in the law, by parol evidence.”
“And if, in the first page of that will Christopher Milbers got a hundred thousand dollars instead of ten thousand dollars, he could still collect it?”
“If he could prove that that was the original will.”
Bertha said, “Suppose we can prove that the first page has been submitted, but can’t prove what was on the original first page?”
“Under those circumstances, in my opinion, the entire will would be refused probate, inasmuch as a court would have no way on earth of knowing what percentage of the testator’s property should be affected by the residuary clause. It is quite possible that the first page of the will might have contained a dozen specific bequests.”
“And if the will wasn’t admitted to probate?” Bertha asked.
“Then any prior will would be effective, unless it appeared that the testator had, by some positive action, endeavored to revoke that will. It is quite possible that you could get sufficient proof of a revocation without getting sufficient proof of the contents of the genuine will which he made last.”
“Then what?” Bertha asked.
“Under those circumstances, inasmuch as there is no will admitted to probate, the effect would be the same as though Mr. Harlow Milbers had died intestate, except as to the ten thousand dollar bequest to Josephine Dell — which is the only specific bequest for a fixed amount contained on the second page.”
“And Christopher would get all the property except that ten thousand?”
“If he is the sole surviving relative and, therefore, the only heir at law, yes.”