Having disposed of the fly argument and the rest of the contents of his glass Dr Magrew sat back in his chair triumphantly.
It was Mr Bullstrode's turn to apply the methods of the law to the problem. 'Let us take the question of capital punishment,' he said. 'It was one of the proudest boasts of the penal system that no man went to the gallows unless he was fit to be hanged. Now a fit man is a healthy man and since death by hanging is instantaneous a murderer died healthy.'
But Dr Magrew was not to be put down so easily. 'Semantics, sir, semantics. You say that a murderer going to the gallows is fit to be hanged. Now I would have it that no man who murders is fit to live. We can turn these things on their heads. It all depends on one's viewpoint.'
'Aye, there's the rub,' said Mr Flawse, 'from what viewpoint should we look at things? Now, lacking any firmer ground than that afforded by my own experience, which has been largely confined to dogs and their habits, I would say we should start a little lower on the evolutionary scale than primates. It is a common saying that dog eats dog. The man who said it first did not know dogs. Dogs do not eat dogs. They work in packs and a pack animal is not a cannibal. It depends upon its fellows to bring down its prey and being dependent has the morality of a social being, an instinctive morality but morality for all that. Man on the other hand has no natural or instinctive morality. The process of history proves the contrary and the history of religion reinforces it. If there were any natural morality in man there would be no need for religion or indeed for law. And yet without morality man would not have survived. Another conundrum, gentlemen; science destroyed the belief in God upon which morality depended for its source; science has likewise substituted the means for man's destruction; in short we are without that moral sense that has saved us from extinction in the past and in possession of the means of extinguishing ourselves in the future. A bleak future, gentlemen, and one I trust I shall not be here to experience.'
'And what advice would you offer the future generation, sir?' inquired Mr Bullstrode.
'That which Cromwell gave his Roundheads,' said Mr Flawse. 'To put their faith in God and keep their powder dry.'
'Which is to suppose that God exists,' said Dr Magrew.
'Which is to suppose no such thing,' said Mr Flawse. 'Faith is one thing; knowledge quite another. It were too easy otherwise.'
'Then you fall back on tradition, sir,' said Mr Bullstrode approvingly. 'As a lawyer I find much to commend your attitude.'
'I fall back on my family,' said Mr Flawse. 'The inheritance of characteristics is a fact of nature. It was Socrates who said "Know thyself." I would go further and say to know thyself one must first know thy ancestry. It is the key to my instructions to the bastard. Let him find out who his father was and then his grandfather and even further back and then he'll find himself.'-
'And having found himself, what then?' asked Mr Bullstrode.
'Be himself,' said Mr Flawse, and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter nine
Upstairs in the solitude of her bedroom Mrs Flawse was beside herself. For the second time in her life a husband had cheated her and the occasion called for wailing and gnashing of teeth. But being a methodical woman and knowing the expense of a new pair of dentures, Mrs Flawse first removed her teeth and put them in a glass of water before gnashing her gums. Nor did she wail. To have done so would have afforded her husband too much satisfaction and Mrs Flawse was determined he should surfer for his sins. Instead she sat toothless and considered her revenge. It lay, she realized, in Lockhart. If in his will Mr Flawse had saddled her with the perpetual occupation of the Hall without amenities, he had likewise saddled his grandson with the task of finding his father. Only then could he deprive her of her inheritance and failing in his search and following the old man's death she would make what improvements she liked to the Hall. Better still, the income from the estate would be hers to do with as she pleased. She could accumulate it year by year and add it to her savings and one fine day she would have saved enough to leave and not return. But all this only if Lockhart failed to find his father. Deny Lockhart the means to search, and here Mrs Flawse's thoughts flew to money, and she would be secure. She would see that Lockhart had no means.
Reaching for her writing-case she put pen to paper and wrote a short, concise letter to Mr Treyer instructing him to dismiss Lockhart from Sandicott & Partner without notice. Then having sealed the envelope she put it away to give to Jessica to post or, more ironically, for Lockhart to deliver by hand. Mrs Flawse smiled a toothless smile and went on to consider other ways of taking her revenge, and by the time the afternoon had waned she was in a more cheerful mood. The old man had stipulated in his will that there should be no improvements to the Hall. She intended to stick to the letter of his instructions. There would be no improvements and for the rest of his unnatural life there would be the reverse. Windows would be opened, doors unlatched, food cold and damp beds damper still until with her assistance the infirmities of age had been accelerated to his end. And the old man had toasted Death. It was appropriate. Death would come sooner than he dreamt. Yes, that was it, delay Lockhart at all cost and hasten her husband's dying and she would be in a position to dispute the will and maybe, better still, bribe Mr Bullstrode to amend its dispositions. She would have to sound the man out. In the meantime she would put a fine face on things.
If Mrs Flawse had been disturbed by the reading of the will so had Lockhart. Sitting on Flawse Rigg with Jessica he did not share her romantic view of his bastardy.
'I didn't know it meant I had no father,' he told her. 'I thought it was just another word he used for me. He's always calling people bastards.'
'But don't you see how exciting it all is,' said Jessica. 'It's like a paper chase, or Hunt the Father. And when you find him you'll inherit the whole estate and we can come and live up here.'
'It isn't going to be easy to find a father who's got to be flogged within an inch of his life the moment he admits it,' said Lockhart practically, 'and anyway I don't know where to start.' 'Well, at least you know when you were born and all you've got to find out then is who your mother was in love with.' 'And how do I find out when I was born?' 'By looking at your birth certificate, silly,' said Jessica. 'I haven't got one,' said Lockhart, 'grandpa wouldn't let me be registered, It's awfully inconvenient and Mr Treyer wasn't able to pay my National Insurance stamps or anything. That's one of the reasons he wouldn't let me go to work. He said that for all practical purposes I don't exist and wished I didn't for unpractical ones. I can't vote or serve on a jury or get a passport.'
'Oh, darling, there must be something you can do,' said Jessica, 'I mean once you do find your father he'll let you have a birth certificate. Why don't you have a word with Mr Bullstrode about it? He seems the sweetest old gentleman,' 'Seems,' said Lockhart gloomily, 'just seems.'
But when as the sun began to set over the firing-range they walked hand-in-hand back to the house they found Mr Bullstrode examining the front of the Range-Rover with a legal eye. 'It would appear that you have been in some sort of collision,' he said.