The Santa Klaus Murder (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Sir Osmond's Will

by Col. Halstock

I sat beside Bingham during the drive to Bristol, for now that I had time at my disposal I was willing to encourage him to talk, as he was ready to do at every opportunity. Even the gossip of the servants' hall may contain valuable specks of information. Bingham might well have picked up something less tangible but more useful to me than an unidentifiable glove.

His chief concern was for those “pore li'l kiddies. A norrible thing for them, 'avin' their grandad shot like that within a few yards of them, where they was playin' so innercent an' enjoyin' their crackers an' all. Sir Osmond too, 'e thought a lot of them kiddies an' 'e was that set up with the idear of that Santer Klaus; talked ter me abaht it, 'e did, because a-course I was ter fix up the tree an' all. Little did 'e think what it would lead to.”

I asked Bingham if he would recognize Crewkerne, because I was myself only slightly acquainted with the lawyer and thought that he and I might not recognize each other in a station crowd.

“Yes, sir; I know 'im well enough. I reckon I can pick 'im out. I fetched 'im up from Bristol once to see Sir Osmond, though the las' time my poor master saw 'im 'e went into Bristol 'imself, to Mr. Crewkerne's orfice. The Thursday before Christmas, that would be. I reckerleck it pertic'ler because Sir Osmond, 'e sat at the back of the car all the way ter Bristol, makin' notes. An' I can't help thinkin',” Bingham declared piously, “that if Sir Osmond was makin' a will, which a-course I don'
know
, but it nater'ly comes to mind, speakin' of lawyers an' my poor master's death, then it's all ter the good that 'e got it done before 'e was bumped off like that, so as now it'll all be divided up in the way 'e would wish, whatsoever that may be. Makes you wonder, don't it, sir, whether 'e 'ad any premonition, as they say. Might've known of some secret enemy, don' you think, sir, with a grudge aginst 'im?”

I thought Bingham had been too often to the movies, but I asked him if he had any ideas about Sir Osmond's possible private enemies.

“Why, no, sir! Can't think 'oo'd want to shoot 'im through the 'ead like that. It's a fair mystery to me.”

From under the bogus embattlements which so strangely adorn Temple Meads station at Bristol surged a Bank Holiday crowd, from which Bingham extricated a tall, gaunt, stooping figure whom he followed towards the car in which I was waiting. Mr. Crewkerne's black eyebrows were drawn together angrily, his long nose was red and the rest of his face yellow. He was not mellowed by Christmas feasting.

I had moved to the back of the car and he got in beside me, after giving Bingham some directions.

“I've asked Bingham to drive us straight to my office,” he said. “Fortunately, I've got all the keys and I can lay my hands on that will in a moment—I take it that it's in order to get a sight of it that you've given me this deplorable journey on this unspeakable day? Shocking affair, very.”

He then proceeded to describe the iniquity of railway officials, the rowdiness of football crowds, and the regrettable state of affairs in the country generally.

At the door of his office he announced, “Come in, do! Most inviting, I assure you. Yule log on the hearth and bunches of mistletoe over the door! Ha! Ha!”

I suggested that probably a few moments would be enough to show me the main points of the will and then we could drive him to his house at Clifton.

“Ah! I can promise you a fine welcome there!” he growled. “Maids all sent home for a holiday; house shut; silver at the bank! Oh, you'll find a festive household!”

The obvious solution was that we should both drive out to my house and I could send him home later. He had already sent a telegram to his housekeeper, who was spending the holiday with relatives in Bristol, and he thought she would have the house ready for him by dinner-time. He was considerably soothed by my suggestion and he unlocked the outer door and skipped upstairs quite briskly to fetch Sir Osmond's will.

We discussed it in low voices on the drive out to my place, Twaybrooks. Sir Osmond had, as Bingham had said, visited Crewkerne on the Thursday before Christmas and had discussed with him some alterations to his will. The existing will had been taken out and Sir Osmond had gone through it, making notes on it of the alterations he was considering. He had a little slip of paper on which he had evidently been planning these beforehand, and he took it away with him. Crewkerne made notes while Sir Osmond talked, and he had these and also Sir Osmond's figures on the will itself. He hadn't drafted the new will yet. Sir Osmond had said that he didn't want to see it until about a week after Christmas. Crewkerne gathered that his client hadn't quite made up his mind and that his final decision might depend on the opinions he formed of various members of his family during their Christmas visit.

“He wasn't a man to talk much about how he intended to dispose of his fortune, from what I knew of him,” Crewkerne stated. “But something may have been said, and in my opinion you'll find two sets of motives in this nice little document. There are several people who would lose a good deal under the proposed new will, and it would be to their interests to prevent that will from being executed. There is another group who stand to gain substantially under the new will and if they were to hear some garbled account of what the old man had been doing they might suppose that the alterations were already made, or that these notes were valid, and that now was their time to strike.”

The lawyer licked his lips. “It's a very pretty little problem, Colonel Halstock. Very pretty indeed.”

He showed no interest at all in the crime itself, not asking how it had been committed or even whether we had made an arrest.

“The ordinary layman, Colonel Halstock,” he continued, “is singularly ill-informed, culpably ill-informed, I may say, about a matter so important in the lives of us all, the making of a will. I would not be in the least surprised to learn that anyone who knows of these alterations to the will—if anyone does know of them—has assumed that they would be upheld as the late Sir Osmond's duly executed testament.”

I asked him whether they would have any force at all; whether those who benefited under the alterations would have grounds for trying to upset the original provisions of the will.

“No grounds at all!” Crewkerne declared, leaning back in the seat, pursing his lips and tapping the tips of his fingers together. “Those notes carry no weight; not the least gramme! Quite apart from the evidence I could give that they do not represent any definite decision by Sir Osmond, I had determined not to draft the new will until I heard again from my client, because I fully anticipated that he would change his mind.”

At Twaybrooks I took Crewkerne into my study and ordered some tea. Then he untied the pink tape and unrolled the document. I had realized on the drive that Crewkerne felt it would be improper to discuss on the highway anything more than generalizations. So I had merely speculated as to whether Witcombe's name would appear in the notes. A quick survey of the will convinced me that he was not mentioned.

Flaxmere and all other real estate was left to George, with the exception of the Dower House, which went to Miss Melbury. A grim jest, that. The Dower House was in the village almost at the drive gates, and Sir Osmond would not have his sister at such close quarters whilst he was living, but he had dumped her neatly on George. Miss Melbury also received a legacy of £500, which would not please her much, I thought. There were small legacies to all employed at Flaxmere, in the house and grounds, who had been there more than three years, Parkins and Bingham receiving the most, £500 each. A few gifts to charities amounted to less than £10,000. Carol Wynford received £1,000 and Grace Portisham £1,000. A substantial legacy, that, for a private secretary, but yet nothing for the family to get on their hind legs about, I felt. The residue of the estate was to be divided into six parts, of which two went to George and one each to Hilda, Eleanor, Edith and Jennifer.

There was nothing sensational in the will; it was much what one might have expected and I thought the family would be relieved. Crewkerne scanned my face as I sat considering it.

“Quite a sound allocation, yes? Ah—but now look at the notes or, if you can't read them—his writing was very small at times—look at my own notes of them.” He passed a sheet of paper across to me and I turned to it in relief from Sir Osmond's tiny scribbled figures on the margin of the will, connected by lines like scraps of spider's web with the relevant parts of the document.

In the revised version the legacies to charities, to employees and to Miss Melbury remained unaltered. The names of Carol and of Miss Portisham were removed from this list. The residue was now to be divided into eight parts, of which George received two parts, as before; Hilda, Eleanor and also Carol one part each; Jennifer, if she were single at the time of her father's death, two parts; whilst Edith shared the remaining part equally with Grace Portisham. If Jennifer had married, she was to receive one-eighth and the remaining eighth was to be divided between Hilda, Carol, Eleanor and Edith.

I have set forth the two different divisions of the property, as it concerned the chief legatees.

When I had taken in the gist of Sir Osmond's after-thoughts, my first idea was of thankfulness that he had not executed a valid will on these lines. It would be bad enough when the family learnt what he had contemplated! I suspected that a double share was willed to Jennifer under the condition that she was still single because her father felt convinced that she would not be single much longer. It was to be dangled before her as a punishment, because she had not obeyed his wishes.

“And now,” I asked Crewkerne, who was regarding me sardonically, “what does all this mean? Roughly what does the estate amount to?”

“He'll cut up pretty well; pretty well. He was a careful man. But neither I nor anyone else can say for certain at this juncture what he is worth. I'll say this, in confidence, mind you; I shall be surprised if the estate, quite apart from Flaxmere and the other property, amounts to much less than two hundred thousand.”

I made some quick calculations. “So the girls may get about thirty-three thousand each. And under the revised allocation they would have had about twenty-five thousand, excepting Edith. Those who would chiefly have benefited under the revision are: Carol, who would get some £25,000 instead of a mere thousand; Grace Portisham, who would get £12,500—a tremendous fortune for her; enough to make her comfortable for life; and Jennifer, if she were single, when she would get about £50,000 instead of £33,000.” I considered that and didn't like the look of it very much.

“You've estimated it at maximum figures,” Crewkerne pointed out. “There are the miscellaneous legacies to be deducted from the total before you divide it into lots, and then there are the death duties.”

“Never mind,” I told him. “My figures give the proportions, and if the estate is anything like what you suggest, the sums won't be so far off what I've put down. Now let's consider the losers under the revised version. First of all Edith would get a miserable £12,500 instead of £33,000. That's the most important. George and Eleanor would each lose a bit, Eleanor about £8,000, in fact, and George twice that; but they still get a good whack. Jennifer would lose a bit if married, but we need hardly consider that; she must be classed under the winners. Hilda's loss of £8,000 would be more than offset by her daughter's gain of £24,000.”

“This'll give the Melburys something to think about for a bit!” Crewkerne chuckled.

“You're quite sure that the properly executed will can't possibly be upset in favour of these notes?” I asked him again.

“Not a hope! Those notes don't constitute a will at all; they're signed, it's true, but not witnessed. That's not to say that there aren't people fools enough to try to get the will upset, or men in my profession irresponsible enough to help them. And then there's the possibility of a sort of blackmail. A person who stood to benefit substantially under the proposed new will, in a way which might be distasteful to the family, could threaten to bring an action, not with any real hope of winning it, but with the idea of frightening the family into buying her off to avoid sensational publicity. You know the sort of thing I mean: newspaper headlines:
Wealthy Man's Family contest Claims of Pretty Typist
. Very unsavoury.”

I couldn't picture Grace Portisham embarking on that sort of trick, but, of course, she might have a needy and avid family in the background who would force her into it.

I had been so absorbed in working out the implications of the will and the notes, that I had forgotten the tea and I began to apologize to Crewkerne, when I saw that he had quietly poured out a cup for himself. In fact, I suspected from the lightness of the teapot that he had manged to drink one and pour out a second whilst I was occupied with making notes and calculations.