“Towkington has some very excellent port,” said Mr. Murbles, in a cautious aside, and clapping his hand over the mouthpiece 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’ 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
