Unnatural death
“In January, 1926,” replied Mr. Murbles.
“And Miss Dawson died, rather unexpectedly, as we know, in November,
1925,” went on Peter. “But supposing she had lived, as the doctor fully
expected her to do, till February or March, 1926—are you absolutely
positive, sir, that Mary Whittaker would have inherited then?”
Mr. Murbles opened his mouth to speak—and shut it again. He rubbed his
hands very slowly the one over the other. He removed his eyeglasses and
resettled them more firmly on his nose. Then:
“You are quite right, Lord Peter,” he said in a grave tone, “this is a
very serious and important point. Much too serious for me to give an
opinion on. If I understand you rightly, you are suggesting that any
ambiguity in the interpretation of the new Act might provide an
interested party with a very good and sufficient motive for hastening
the death of Agatha Dawson.”
“I do mean exactly that. Of course, if the great-niece inherits anyhow,
the old lady might as well die under the new Act as under the old. But
if there was any doubt about it—how tempting, don’t you see, to give her
a little push over the edge, so as to make her die in 1925. Especially
as she couldn’t live long anyhow, and there were no other relatives to
be defrauded.”
“That reminds me,” put in Parker, “suppose the great-niece is excluded
from the inheritance, where does the money go?”
“It goes to the Duchy of Lancaster—or in other words, to the Crown.”
“In fact,” said Wimsey, “to no one in particular. Upon my soul, I really
can’t see that it’s very much of a crime to bump a poor old thing off a
bit previously when she’s sufferin’ horribly, just to get the money she
intends you to have. Why the devil should the Duchy of Lancaster have
it? Who cares about the Duchy of Lancaster? It’s like defrauding the
Income Tax.”
“Ethically,” observed Mr. Murbles, “there may be much to be said for
your point of view. Legally, I am afraid, murder is murder, however
frail the victim or convenient the result.”
“And Agatha Dawson didn’t want to die,” added Parker, “she said so.”
“No,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully, “and I suppose she had a right to an
opinion.”
“I think,” said Mr. Murbles, “that before we go any further, we ought to
consult a specialist in this branch of the law. I wonder whether
Towkington is at home. He is quite the ablest authority I could name.
Greatly as I dislike that modern invention, the telephone, I think it
might be advisable to ring him up.”
Mr. Towkington proved to be at home and at liberty. The case of the
great-niece was put to him over the ’phone. Mr. Towkington, taken at a
disadvantage without his authorities, and hazarding an opinion on the
spur of the moment, thought that in all probability the great-niece
would be excluded from the succession under the new Act. But it was an
interesting point, and he would be glad of an opportunity to verify his
references. Would not Mr. Murbles come round and talk it over with him?
Mr. Murbles explained that he was at that moment dining with two friends
who were interested in the question. In that case, would not the two
friends also come round and see Mr. Towkington?
“Towkington has some very excellent port,” said Mr. Murbles, in a
cautious aside, and clapping his hand over the mouth-piece of the
telephone.
“Then why not go and try it?” said Wimsey, cheerfully.
“It’s only as far as Gray’s Inn,” continued Mr. Murbles.
“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. Towkington 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. Towkington, 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 to 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 awful
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 Mr. Towkington, graciously. “Before
1837—”
“Queen Victoria, I know,” said Peter, intelligently.
“Quite so. At the time when Queen 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 legal 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, 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’ meant ‘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 Mr. 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?”
“Probably,” said Mr. Towkington. “You show a remarkable disposition for
crime, don’t you, eh?”
“Well, if I did go in for it, I’d take reasonable precautions,” retorted
Wimsey. “’S wonderful, of course, the tomfool things murderers _do_ do.
But I have the highest opinion of Miss Whittaker’s brains. I bet she
covered her tracks pretty well.”
“You don’t think Mr. Probyn mentioned the matter,” suggested Parker,