Touch and Go. Литагент HarperCollins USD
he did thirstily. ‘It was nearly closing time anyway when Mrs Probert came in and asked for either Mr Eikenberg or myself. Well, she was told we were not available by the only professional left in the office, a new recruit staight out of law school, our Miss Janvier. She saw before her a client in obvious distress who wanted help. Muriel apparently said that it was extremely urgent she make a will there and then—mark you, she never said change, she said, make a will—because she was soon going to die. Miss Janvier did what she saw to be her duty—more or less. She drew up the will, which was short, she got Muriel to sign it in the presence of one of the cleaners and a junior, neither of whom knew any more about the firm’s business than Miss Janvier herself—and that wasn’t much. Our little Miss Janvier had never drawn up a will for a client before, and her law school training doesn’t seem to have included how to use a filing system …’
Van Gryson stopped as his tone turned savage, and he wiped his brow with a large silk handkerchief as if trying to erase any memory of the unfortunate Miss Janvier.
Kemp had listened to all this with a mixture of amusement and understanding. He could appreciate the situation, one not totally unknown to solicitors. Gillorns were small fry compared to the magnitude of Eikenberg & Lazard as evidenced by their notepaper but even the junior staff in the Newtown office were carefully instructed on wills procedure. First, you asked the proper questions, and then, no matter what the client said, you checked. Poor little Miss Janvier had possibly been overwhelmed by her responsibility that snowy evening; she was new, she was eager, and perhaps no one had told her … She had seen only the emergency, the necessity for action, the woman in front of her was going to die …
‘Go on, Dale, tell me the rest of it.’
‘She took it with her.’
‘What, the original? The engrossment?’
‘If that’s what you call it. Yes. Said she wanted it by her. To keep it safe … Oh, Miss Janvier protested about that but Muriel was adamant. She took that newly-made will away with her in her handbag. Miss Janvier—downright pleased with herself no doubt for the speed with which she’d handled the matter—scribbled the attestations on the copy, and went off on holiday.’
‘Not even a photocopy of the original?’
‘The photocopying room was locked up by then. Everyone in the office had gone home.’
‘So now you have two wills, one superseding the other,’ said Kemp briskly, ‘but the later one must hold up in law.’
Van Gryson reached for his glass. He drank deeply and refilled it.
‘There’s worse to come.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Kemp, who had already guessed. ‘You can’t find the new will. You know it was made, you have a perhaps inadequate copy in your office, the client took the original and now it’s missing.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Happens all the time,’ said Kemp airily. He was beginning to feel the effects of the wine. ‘Nine times out of ten when a client takes an original will from their solicitor’s office it’s gone when they come to die.’
‘You’re a cynic, Lennox.’
‘No, just realistic. How did this one disappear?’
‘God only knows. It wasn’t in her handbag when we looked, and it wasn’t anywhere in that apartment. We’re her executors, damn it, don’t think we didn’t ransack the place. Besides, the staff swear Mrs Probert never went anywhere in the house except her own bedroom and the adjoining bathroom … She used the same rented limousine every time she went to the hospital, and the same chauffeur. He says she went nowhere else on these trips except for that one evening when she had him stop by our office. And that was only a couple of weeks before she died.’
Kemp sat still for a moment, deep in thought.
‘Muriel took the will away with her,’ he said carefully, ‘and she returned to her apartment with it. She must have had a reason for doing so. She had been happy to let you keep the other one so why would she want to take the new one? Perhaps to show it to someone …’
Van Gryson shook his head.
‘She was having no visitors at the time. And she never left the apartment again—of that we’re absolutely sure. According to the doctor, her condition suddenly deteriorated—he’d been expecting it and was keeping an eye on her. She could hardly move from her bed. When he advised hospitalization she wouldn’t hear of it, said she wanted to die in her own house so he ordered home nursing to see her through to the end …’
Kemp pursed his lips.
‘Reliable man, this doctor?’
‘Absolutely. Don’t think we didn’t check.’ Van Gryson was terse.
‘What about the servants and the nurses?’
‘Lennox, you gotta remember we couldn’t go around badgering folk. It was a tricky enough situation for our firm. There was a bit of a time-lapse before we—er—discovered about the second will.’
Kemp raised his eyebrows. ‘How come?’ He felt he might as well slip into the idiom.
‘Well, as I said, Miss Janvier went on holiday that night. Her secretary didn’t get round to doing the filing for a week or two …’ His voice trailed off.
Kemp could barely hide a smile. So things like that could still happen even in the best-run offices.
‘And in the meantime your firm assumed there was only the earlier will and so took no action?’
‘In the meantime—’ Van Gryson gulped as if he’d swallowed a draught of bitter medicine—‘Mr Eikenberg and I attended the funeral flanked on either side by Messrs Madison and Horth in good black overcoats with velvet collars …’
Kemp let out a soft whistle.
‘Showing a proper respect as the heirs-at-law … I can restrain my curiosity no longer, Dale. Indulge it before it bursts out of me. You have a copy of this later will?’
Van Gryson withdrew a single sheet from his folder, and held it out between thumb and forefinger as if it was a leaf of stinging nettle. Kemp reached over and took it from him.
‘OK, OK,’ said the big American. ‘I guess you can stand the shock.’
Then he got up and took his hunched shoulders for a walk round the room like a boxer who has just put his man on the canvas.
It was a simple carbon on flimsy with the name of the testatrix and the names and addresses of the two witnesses written in hurriedly beside the attestation clause. The will itself was brief and to the point:
After cancelling all previous dispositions, Muriel Probert, widow, left everything of which she died possessed to her ex-husband Lennox Kemp, of Newtown, England, in recognition of the great service he had rendered her in the past. It was dated the fifth day of April in the present year.
Lennox Kemp had only just seated himself at his desk the following morning when Elvira brought in the mail. She looked down at him with mild disapproval. ‘I waited,’ she said, ‘because you’re late. You don’t look very well.’
‘If you must know, I’ve got a hangover, and I didn’t get much sleep.’
‘Well, if you will go out on the town …’ She put the letters down in front of him. ‘Black coffee’s what you need.’
Despite two strong cups of it, Kemp still found it hard to concentrate on his correspondence; there were too many other things on his mind. He wanted a clear head, he wanted a second opinion. He thought of Tony Lambert, his most intelligent colleague and an expert on probate, but dismissed the idea. He couldn’t talk it over with anyone else, not yet. The last thing Dale Van