“All the better,” said Lord Peter.
Mr. Murbles released the telephone and thanked Mr. Towkington. The party would start at once for Gray’s Inn. Mr. was heard to say, “Good, good,” in a hearty manner before ringing off.
On their arrival at Mr. Towkington’s chambers the oak was found to be hospitably unsported, and almost before they could knock, Mr. Towkington himself flung open the door and greeted them in a loud and cheerful tone. He was a large, square man with a florid face and a harsh voice. In court, he was famous for a way of saying “Come now,” as a preface to tying recalcitrant witnesses into tight knots, which he would then proceed to slash open with a brilliant confutation. He knew Wimsey by sight, expressed himself delighted to meet Inspector Parker, and bustled his guests into the room with jovial shouts.
“I’ve been going into this little matter while you were coming along,” he said. “Awkward, eh? ha! Astonishing thing that people can’t say what they mean when they draw Acts, eh? ha! Why do you suppose it is, Lord Peter, eh? ha! Come now!”
“I suspect it’s because Acts are drawn up by lawyers,” said Wimsey with a grin.
“To make work for themselves, eh? I daresay you’re right. Even lawyers must live, eh? ha! Very good. Well now, Murbles, let’s just have this case again, in greater detail, d’you mind?”
Mr. Murbles explained the matter again, displaying the genealogical table and putting forward the point as regards a possible motive for murder.
“Eh, ha!” exclaimed Mr. Towk much delighted, “that’s good- very good- your idea, Lord Peter? Very ingenious. Too ingenious. The dock at the Old Bailey is peopled by gentlemen who are too ingenious. Ha! Come to a bad end one of these days, young man. Eh? Yes-well, now, Murbles, the question here turns on the interpretation of the word ‘issue’-you grasp that, eh, ha! Yes. Well, you seem to think it means issue ad infinitum. How do you make that out, come now?”
“I didn’t say I thought it did; I said I thought it might,” remonstrated Mr. Murbles mildly. “The general intention of the Act appears to be to exclude any remote kin where the common ancestor is further back than the grandparents- not to cut off the descendants of the brothers and sisters.”
“Intention?” snapped Mr. Towkington. “I’m astonished at you, Murbles! The law has nothing to do with good intentions. What does the Act say? It says, ‘To the brothers and sisters of the whole blood and their issue.’ Now, in the absence of any new definition, I should say that the word is here to be construed as before the Act it was construed on intestacy- in so far, at any rate, as it refers to personal property. which I understand the property in question be, eh?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles.
“Then I don’t see that you and your great-niece have a leg to stand on- come now!”
“Excuse me,” said Wimsey, “but d’you mind- I know lay people are ignorant nuisances- but if you would be so good as to explain what the beastly word did or does mean, it would be frightfully helpful, don’t you know.”
“Ha! Well, it’s like this,” said Towkington, graciously. “Before 1837-”
“Queen Victoria, I know,” said Peter intelligently.
“Quite so. At the time when Victoria came to the throne, the word ‘issue’ had no legal meaning- no legal meaning at all.”
“You surprise me!”
“You are too easily surprised,” said Mr. Towkington. “Many words have no legal meaning. Others have a meaning very unlike their ordinary meaning. For example, the word ‘daffy-down-dilly.’ It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly. Ha! Yes, I advise you never to do such a thing.No, I certainly advise you never to do it. Then again, words which are quite meaningless in your ordinary conversation may have a meaning in law. For instance, I might say to a young man like yourself, ‘You wish to leave such-and-such property to so-and-so.’ And you would very likely reply, ‘Oh, yes, absolutely’- meaning nothing in particular by that. But if you were to write in your will, ‘I leave such-and-such property to so-and-so absolutely,’ then that word would bear a definite legal meaning, and would condition your bequest in a certain manner, and might even prove an embarrassment and produce results very far from your actual intentions. Eh, ha! You see?”
“Quite.”
“Very well. Prior to 1837, in a will, the word ‘issue’ meant nothing. A grant ‘to A. and his issue ’merely gave A. a life estate. Ha! But this was altered by the Wills Act of 1837.”
“As far as a will was concerned,” put in Mr. Murbles.
“Precisely. After 1837, in a will, ‘issue’ means ‘heirs of the body’- that is to say, ‘issue ad infinitum.’ In a deed, on the other hand, ‘issue’ retained its old meaning- or lack of meaning, eh, ha! You follow?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Murbles, “and on intestacy of personal property-”
“I am coming to that,” said Mr. Towkington.
“- the word ‘issue’ continued to mean ‘heirs of the body,’ and that held good till 1926.”
“Stop!” said Mr. Towkington, “issue of the child or children of the deceased certainly meant ‘issue ad infinitum- but- issue of any person not a child of the deceased only meant the child of that person and did not include other descendants. And that undoubtedly held good till 1926. And since the new Act contains no statement to the contrary, I think we must presume that it continues to hold good. Ha! Come now! In the case before us, you observe that the claimant is not the child of the deceased nor issue of the child of the deceased; nor is she the child of the deceased’s sister. She is merely the grandchild of the deceased sister of the deceased. Accordingly, I think she is debarred from inheriting under the new Act, eh? ha!
“I see your point,” said Mr. Murbles.
“And moreover,” went on Mr. Towkington, “after 1925, ‘issue’ in a will or deed does not mean ‘issue ad infinitum.’That at least is clearly stated, and the Wills Act of 1837 is revoked on that point. Not that that has any direct bearing on the question. But it may be an indication of the tendency of modern interpretation, and might possibly affect the mind of the court in deciding how the word ‘issue’ was to be construed for the purposes of the new Act.”
“Well,” said Mr. Murbles, “I bow to your superior knowledge.”
“In any case,” broke in Parker, “any uncertainty in the matter would provide as good a motive for murder as the certainty of exclusion from inheritance. If Mary Whittaker only thought she might lose the money in the event of her great-aunt’s surviving into 1926, she might quite well be tempted to polish her off a little earlier, and make sure.”
“That’s true enough,” said Murbles.
“Shrewd, very shrewd, ha!” added Mr. Towkington. “But you realise that all this theory of yours depends on Mary Whittaker’s having known about the new Act and its probable consequences as early as October, 1925, eh, ha!”
“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t,” said Wimsey. “I remember reading an article in the Evening Banner, I think it was, some months earlier- about the time when the Act was having its second reading. That’s what put the thing into my head- I was trying to remember all evening where I’d seen that thing about washing out the long-lost heir, you know. Mary Whittaker may easily have seen it too.”
“Well, she’d probably have taken advice about it if she did,” said Mr. Murbles. “Who is her usual man of affairs?”
Wimsey shook his head.
“I don’t think she’d have asked him,” he objected. “Not if she was wise, that is. You see, if she did, and he said she probably wouldn’t get anything unless Miss Dawson either made a will or died before January, 1926, and if after that the old lady did unexpectedly pop off in October, 1925, wouldn’t the solicitor-johnnie feel inclined to ask questions? It wouldn’t be safe, don’t y’know. I ’xpect she went to some stranger and asked a few innocent little questions under another name, what?”