“And then they both died in the same car smash,” said Henry.
“Oh, you know about that, do you?”
“Your brother told me.”
“Yes — the Head and poor old Pringle did each other in, in the end. Ironic, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, I was abroad at the time; in fact, we all were. I was in the Far East with my regiment; Edwin was in Bugolaland, and Claud in New York. As soon as I heard the news I resigned my commission and hurried home.”
“Resigned your commission?” Henry repeated, surprised.
“Oh, yes. That was the whole idea you see.” Manciple paused. “I’d better explain. You must realize that from an early age it was clear that Edwin and Claud had inherited the Manciple brain. The Head was one of the greatest classical scholars of his day, you know. His commentaries on the later Roman poets are now considered definitive. To his sorrow, none of us followed in his academic footsteps. Edwin realized his missionary vocation while still in his teens, and Claud was messing around with chemistry sets in the nursery. However, as I said, both of them had brains. I took after my mother in mental ability — without, alas, inheriting her looks. So there was really nothing for me except to go into the Army.”
Manciple spoke blandly, without a trace of self-consciousness. He was obviously stating a simple fact which had long ago been acknowledged by the whole family.
He went on. “As a matter of fact, the arrangement suited the Head very well. He was absolutely determined that one of us should make his home here at Cregwell Grange and preserve the house as a nucleus for the family. Edwin would clearly be unable to do so, and Claud had to be prepared to live wherever his work dictated. I didn’t care one way or the other about the Army; it gave me an opportunity for some shooting and polo, but otherwise, quite frankly, it bored me. So I was ideally situated.
“The Head explained all this to the three of us some years before he died. He was going to leave me this place and the bulk of his money, not to mention Mother’s jewelry, on condition that at his death I would chuck the Army and come to live here. The others agreed at once. Claud was already doing famously in his profession, and Edwin had no use for money in the jungle. So that was the agreement.
“Well, after Father’s death the will was read, and it was all just as he had said. He named Pringle as his executor and left him some money, but as Pringle died before the Head that was automatically annulled. For the rest, one quarter of his money, as represented by stocks and shares, was to be divided equally between Edwin and Claud. The remaining three-quarters came to me together with this house and its entire contents and the strongbox containing Mother’s jewelry, which was kept at the bank. All this on two conditions. First, that I should give Aunt Dora a permanent home here, and second that I should live in this house and maintain it as a center to which my brothers and their families could come at any time. The will ended: ‘I charge my son George never to sell the said dwelling house, Cregwell Grange, but to pass it on to his children or to his brothers’ children. I have left him ample means to maintain the property.’ ” The Major paused.
Henry said, “So you retired from the Army and came to live here.”
“You make it sound very simple and straightforward,” said George Manciple dryly. “In fact, it was nothing of the sort. After the will had been proved, we began the business of trying to sort out Father’s affairs. It was a nightmare. Pringle had been the only person in his confidence, and apparently Pringle had been instructed to put as little as possible in writing. Pringle’s files on the Head’s affairs were full of scraps of paper with cryptic numbers and initials scribbled on them — presumably as aids to memory. But Pringle was no longer there to interpret them. In any case, my father had long since refused to take advice from anybody, but managed his own affairs — if managed is the right word. To cut a long story short — and it was a long story, Tibbett, I can assure you — when everything was sorted out we found that my father had run through the best part of his fortune in wild and hopeless speculation on the stock exchange.
“The stockbroker who transacted his business had become resigned years since to the fact that if he recommended my father to buy more of a good stock, he would immediately sell what he had of it and put the money into whatever rickety shares his broker had particularly warned him against. It was all part of his conviction that everyone was trying to cheat him. So what it all added up to was a couple of tons of virtually worthless share certificates. Not totally worthless, of course — he had had the sense to hang on to a few sound investments — but it was nothing like the fortune we had been led to expect. It was all the more of a blow because he had never seemed short of money in his lifetime.
“Well, the shares were sold; Claud and Edwin received their meager portions; and the rest was sensibly re-invested. This, together with my small Army pension, produced just enough for me to live here with my family, but nowhere near enough to maintain the place in its old style. There seemed nothing for it but to sell at least part of my mother’s jewelry.” Again Manciple paused.
Henry said, “A very sensible idea, I should have thought. There was nothing in the provisions of the will to stop you.”
“Just what I thought. I went to the bank, got out the strong box, and took the stuff to a big jeweler in London to be valued. You can imagine my feelings when he told me that the whole lot was fake. Paste and glass. Not a real stone among the lot.”
“Good heavens!” Henry was taken aback. He had certainly not expected that.
“I went back and questioned the bank manager. It seemed that over a period of ten years or more before his death the Head had been in the habit of visiting the bank at intervals and taking out the box. Naturally, he did not permit anyone to see what he took out of the box — or put into it. Once, the manager did venture to ask whether the listed contents of the box remained the same — and he had his head bitten off for his pains. I then found some unspecified receipts from a London jeweler among Father’s papers. I visited the man and discovered that over the years the Head had been bringing him the items of real jewelry one by one, and having them copied in paste — all in strict secrecy of course. He must then have replaced the real piece with the fake and sold the genuine article. It explains why he was never short of money.”
“Then,” Henry began. “he must have known that he was leaving you nothing but worthless…”
Manciple sighed. “Oh, yes, he knew all right. I suppose he simply couldn’t face telling me, poor old man. He expected to live for many years longer than he actually did, and I dare say he always hoped that one of his mad speculations would turn up trumps and restore his fortunes. As a matter of fact, before he died in the hospital he was asking for me. The doctor wrote and told me. Apparently he was not very coherent, but he was trying to tell me something. All very sad.
“I suppose you might say that in the circumstances I was not bound to keep the house, whatever the will said. In fact my lawyers advised me that there would be no obstacle to selling. But — well — I talked it over with Violet and my brothers, and we all agreed that if it were humanly possible we should carry out the Head’s wishes.
“It hasn’t been easy, I can assure you. I have had to sell a lot of the original land, and finally the Lodge itself; and a lot of the better pieces of furniture and pictures have gone, to say nothing of my father’s library, as I told you. But we manage, you know. We manage.