“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, “the time he went down and tried to get Miss Dawson to make her will.”
“I don’t,” said Wimsey, with energy, “but I’m pretty certain he tried to explain matters to the old lady, only she was so terrified of the very idea of a will she wouldn’t let him get a word in. But I fancy old Probyn was too downy a bird to tell the heir that her only chance of gettin’ the dollars was to see that her great-aunt died off before the Act went through. Would you tell anybody that, Mr. Towkington?”
“Not if I knew it,” said that gentleman, grinning.
“It would be highly undesirable,” agreed Mr. Murbles.
“Anyway,” said Wimsey, “we can easily find out. Probyn’s in Italy—I was going to write to him, but perhaps you’d better do it, Murbles. And, in the meanwhile, Charles and I will think up a way to find whoever it was that did give Miss Whittaker an opinion on the matter.”
“You’re not forgetting, I suppose,” said Parker, rather dryly, “that before pinning down a murder to any particular motive, it is usual to ascertain that a murder has been committed? So far, all we know is that, after a careful postmortem analysis, two qualified doctors have agreed that Miss Dawson died a natural death.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep on saying the same thing, Charles. It bores me so. It’s like the Raven never flitting which, as the poet observes, still is sitting, still is sitting, inviting one to heave the pallid bust of Pallas at him and have done with it. You wait till I publish my epoch-making work: The Murderer’s Vade-Mecum, or 101 Ways of Causing Sudden Death. That’ll show you I’m not a man to be trifled with.”
“Oh, well!” said Parker.
But he saw the Chief Commissioner next morning and reported that he was at last disposed to take the Dawson case seriously.
XV
Temptation of St. Peter
L. Housuan: Prunella
Pierrot “Scaramel, I am tempted.” Scaramel “Always yield to temptation.”
As Parker came out from the Chief Commissioner’s room, he was caught by an officer.
“There’s been a lady on the phone to you,” he said. “I told her to ring up at 10:30. It’s about that now.”
“What name?”
“A Mrs. Forrest. She wouldn’t say what she wanted.”
“Odd,” thought Parker. His researches in the matter had been so unfruitful that he had practically eliminated Mrs. Forrest from the Gotobed mystery—merely keeping her filed, as it were, in the back of his mind for future reference. It occurred to him, whimsically, that she had at length discovered the absence of one of her wineglasses and was ringing him up in a professional capacity. His conjectures
