CHAPTER XI
Wimsey presented himself at Mr. Urquhart’s house at 9 o’clock the next morning, and found that gentleman at breakfast.
“I thought I might catch you before you went down to the office,” said his lordship, apologetically. “Thanks awfully, I’ve had my morning nosebag. No, really, thanks – I never drink before eleven. Bad for the inside.”
“Well I’ve found the draft for you, said Mr. Urquhart pleasantly. “You can cast your eye on it while I drink my coffee, if you’ll excuse my going on. It exposes the family skeleton a little, but it’s all Ancient history now.”
He fetched a sheet of typescript from a side-table and handed it to Wimsey, who noticed, mechanically, that it had been typed on a Woodstock machine, with a chipped lower case p, and an A slightly out of alignment.
“I’d better make quite clear the family connection of the Boyeses and the Urquharts,” he went on, returning to the breakfast-table, “so that you will understand the will. The common ancestor is old John Hubbard, a highly respectable banker at the beginning of the last century. He lived in Nottingham, and the bank, as usual in those days, was a private, family concern. He had three daughters, Jane, Mary and Rosanna. He educated them well, and they ought to have been heiresses in a mild way, but the old boy made the usual mistakes, speculated unwisely, allowed his clients too much rope – the old story. The bank broke, and the daughters were left penniless. The eldest, Jane, married a man called Henry Brown. He was a schoolmaster and very poor and quite repellently moral. They had one daughter, Julia, who eventually married a curate, the Rev. Arthur Boyes, and was the mother of Philip Boyes. The second daughter, Mary, did rather better financially, though socially she married beneath her. She accepted the hand of one Josiah Urquhart, who was engaged in the lace-trade. This was a blow to the old people, but Josiah came originally of a fairly decent family, and was a most worthy person, so they made the best of it. Mary had a son, Charles Urquhart, who contrived to break away from the degrading associations of trade. He entered a solicitor’s office, did well, and finally became a partner in the firm. He was my father, and I am his successor in the legal business.
“The third daughter, Rosanna, was made of different stuff. She was very beautiful, a remarkably fine singer, a graceful dancer and altogether a particularly attractive and spoilt young person. To the horror of her parents she ran away and went on the stage. They erased her name from the family Bible. She determined to justify their worst suspicions. She became the spoilt darling of fashionable London. Under her stage name of Cremorna Garden, she went from one disreputable triumph to another. And, mind you, she had brains – nothing of the Nell Gwyn business about her. She was the take-it-and-keep-it sort. She took everything – money, jewels, appartements meublés, horses, carriages, all the rest of it, and turned it into good consolidated funds. She was never prodigal of anything except her person, which she considered to be a sufficient return for all favours, and I daresay it was. I never saw her till she was an old woman, but before she had the stroke which destroyed her brain and body, she still kept the remains of remarkable beauty. She was a shrewd old woman in her way, and grasping. She had those tight little hands, plump and narrow, that give nothing away – except for cash down. You know the sort.
“Well, the long and the short of it was that the eldest sister, Jane – the one who married the schoolmaster – would have nothing to do with the family black sheep. She and her husband wrapped themselves up in their virtue and shuddered when they saw the disgraceful name of Cremorna Garden billed outside the Olympic or the Adelphi. They returned her letters unopened and forbade her the house, and the climax was reached when Henry Brown tried to have her turned out of the Church on the occasion of his wife’s funeral.
“My grand-parents were less straitlaced. They didn’t call on her and didn’t invite her, but they occasionally took a box for her performances and they sent her a card for their son’s wedding, and were polite in a distant kind of way. In consequence, she kept up a civil acquaintance with my father, and eventually put her business into his hands. He took the view that property was property, however acquired, and said that if a lawyer refused to handle dirty money he would have to show half his clients the door.
“The old lady never forgot or forgave anything. The very mention of the Brown Boyes connection made her foam at the mouth. Hence, when she came to make her will, she put in that paragraph you have before you now. I pointed out to her that Philip Boyes had had nothing to do with the persecution, as, indeed, neither had Arthur Boyes, but the old sore rankled still, and she wouldn’t hear a word in his favour. So I drew up the will as she wanted it; if I hadn’t, somebody else would have done so, you know.”
Wimsey nodded, and gave his attention to the will, which was dated eight years previously. It appointed Norman Urquhart as sole executor, and, after a few legacies to servants and to theatrical charities, it ran as follows: -
“All the rest of my property whatsoever and wheresoever situated I give to my great-nephew Norman Urquhart of Bedford Row Solicitor for his lifetime and at his death to be equally divided among his legitimate issue but if the said Norman Urquhart should decease without legitimate issue the said property to pass to (here followed the names of the charities previously specified). And I make this disposition of my property in token of gratitude for the consideration shown to me by my said great-nephew Norman Urquhart and his father the late Charles Urquhart throughout their lives and to ensure that no part of my property shall come into the hands of my great-nephew Philip Boyes or his decendants. And to this end and to mark my sense of the inhuman treatment meted out to me by the family of the said Philip Boyes I enjoin upon the said Norman Urquhart as my dying wish that he neither give, lend or convey to the said Philip Boyes any part of the income derived from the said property enjoyed by him the said Norman Urquhart during his lifetime nor employ the same to assist the said Philip Boyes in any manner whatsoever.”
“H’m!” said Wimsey, “that’s pretty clear, and pretty vindictive.”
“Yes, it is – but what are you to do with old ladies who won’t listen to reason? She looked pretty sharply to see that I had got the wording fierce enough before she would put her name to it.”
“It must have depressed Philip Boyes all right,” said Wimsey. “Thank you – I’m glad I’ve seen that; it makes the suicide theory a good deal more probable.”
In theory it might do so, but the theory did not square as well as Wimsey could have wished with what he had heard about the character of Philip Boyes. Personally, he was inclined to put more faith in the idea that the final interview with Harriet had been the deciding factor in the suicide. But this, too, was not quite satisfactory. He could not believe that Philip had felt that particular kind of affection for Harriet Vane. Perhaps, though, it was merely that he did not want to think well of the man. His emotions were, he feared, clouding his judgment a little.
He went back home and read the proofs of Harriet’s novel. Undoubtedly she could write well, but undoubtedly she knew only too much about the administration ofarsenic. Moreover, the book was about artists who lived in Bloomsbury and an ideal existence, full of love and laughter and poverty, till somebody kindly poisoned the young man and left the young woman inconsolable and passionately resolved to avenge him. Wimsey ground his teeth and went down Holloway Gaol, where he very nearly made a jealous exhibition of himself. Fortunately, his sense of humour came to the rescue when he had cross-examined his client to the verge of exhaustion and tears.