“Our wills are ours to make them thine.”
Tennyson, In Memoriam
“Hullo! hullo—ullo! oh, operator, shall I call thee bird or but a wandering voice? . . . Not at all, I had no intention of being rude, my child, that was a quotation from the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth . . . well, ring him again . . . thank you, is that Dr. Carr? . . . Lord Peter Wimsey speaking . . . oh, yes . . . yes . . . aha! . . . not a bit of it . . . We are about to vindicate you and lead you home, decorated with triumphal wreaths of cinnamon and senna-pods . . . No, really. . . . we’ve come to the conclusion that the thing is serious. . . . Yes. . . . I want Nurse Forbes’ address. . . . Right, I’ll hold on. . . . Luton? . . . oh, Tooting, yes, I’ve got that. . . . Certainly, I’ve no doubt she’s a tartar, but I’m the Grand Panjandrum with the little round button a-top. . . . Thanks awfully . . . cheer-frightfully-ho!—oh! I say!—hullo!—I say, she doesn’t do maternity work, does she? Maternity work?—M for Mother-in-law—Maternity?—No—You’re sure? . . . It would be simply awful if she did and came along. . . . I couldn’t possibly produce a baby for her. . . . As long as you’re quite sure. . . . Right—right—yes—not for the world—nothing to do with you at all. Good-bye, old thing, good-bye.”
Lord Peter hung up, whistling cheerfully, and called for Bunter.
“My lord?”
“What is the proper suit to put on, Bunter, when one is an expectant father?”
“I regret, my lord, to have seen no recent fashions in paternity wear. I should say, my lord, whichever suit your lordship fancies will induce a calm and cheerful frame of mind in the lady.”
“Unfortunately I don’t know the lady. She is, in fact, only the figment of an over-teeming brain. But I think the garments should express bright hope, self-congratulations, and a tinge of tender anxiety.”
“A newly married situation, my lord, I take it. Then I would suggest the lounge suit in pale grey—the willow-pussy cloth, my lord—with a dull amethyst tie and socks and a soft hat. I would not recommend a bowler, my lord. The anxiety expressed in a bowler hat would be rather of the financial kind.”
“No doubt you are right, Bunter. And I will wear those gloves that got so unfortunately soiled yesterday at Charing Cross. I am too agitated to worry about a clean pair.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“No stick, perhaps.”
“Subject to your lordship’s better judgment, I should suggest that a stick may be suitably handled to express emotion.”
“You are always right, Bunter. Call me a taxi, and tell the man to drive to Tooting.”
Nurse Forbes regretted very much. She would have liked to oblige Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, but she never undertook maternity work. She wondered who could have misled Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe by giving him her name.
“Well, y’know, I can’t say I was misled,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, dropping his walking-stick and retrieving it with an ingenuous laugh. “Miss Murgatroyd—you know Miss Murgatroyd of Leahampton, I think—yes—she—that is, I heard about you through her” (this was a fact), “and she said what a charming person—excuse my repeatin’ these personal remarks, won’t you?—what a charmin’ person you were and all that, and how nice it would be if we could persuade you to come, don’t you see. But she said she was afraid perhaps you didn’t do maternity work. Still, y’know, I thought it was worth tryin’, what? Bein’ so anxious, what?—about my wife, that is, you see. So necessary to have someone young and cheery at these—er—critical times, don’t you know. Maternity nurses often such ancient and ponderous sort of people—if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. My wife’s highly nervous—naturally—first effort and all that—doesn’t like middle-aged people tramplin’ round—you see the idea.”
Nurse Forbes, who was a bony woman of about forty, saw the point perfectly, and was very sorry she really could not see her way to undertaking the work.
“It was very kind of Miss Murgatroyd,” she said. “Do you know her well? Such a delightful woman, is she not?”
The expectant father agreed.
“Miss Murgatroyd was so very much impressed by your sympathetic way—don’t you know—of nursin’ that poor old lady, Miss Dawson, y’know. Distant connection of my own as a matter of fact—er, yes—somewhere about fifteenth cousin twelve times removed. So nervous, wasn’t she? A little bit eccentric, like the rest of the family, but a charming old lady, don’t you think?”
“I became very much attached to her,” said Nurse Forbes. “When she was in full possession of her faculties, she was a most pleasant and thoughtful patient. Of course, she was in great pain, and we had to keep her under morphia a great part of the time.”
“Ah, yes! poor old soul! I sometimes think, Nurse, it’s a great pity we aren’t allowed just to help people off, y’know, when they’re so far gone. After all, they’re practically dead already, as you might say. What’s the point of keepin’ them sufferin’ on like that?”
Nurse Forbes looked rather sharply at him.
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do,” she said, “though one understands the lay person’s point of view, of course. Dr. Carr was not of your opinion,” she added, a little acidly.
“I think all that fuss was simply shockin’,” said the gentleman warmly. “Poor old soul! I said to my wife at the time, why couldn’t they let the poor old thing rest. Fancy cuttin’ her about, when obviously she’d just mercifully gone off in a natural way! My wife quite agreed with me. She was quite upset about it, don’t you know.”
“It was very distressing to everybody concerned,” said Nurse Forbes, “and of course, it put me in a very awkward position. I ought not to talk about it, but as you are one of the family, you will quite understand.”
“Just so. Did it ever occur to you, Nurse”—Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe leaned forward, crushing his soft hat between his hands in a nervous manner—“that there might be something behind all that?”
Nurse Forbes primmed up her lips.
“You know,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, “there have been cases of doctors tryin’ to get rich old ladies to make wills in their favour. You don’t think—eh?”
Nurse Forbes intimated that it was not her business to think things.
“No, of course not, certainly not. But as man to man—I mean, between you and me, what?—wasn’t there a little—er—friction, perhaps, about sending for the solicitor-johnnie, don’t you know? Of course, my Cousin Mary—I call her cousin, so to speak, but it’s no relation at all really—of course, I mean, she’s an awfully nice girl and all that sort of thing, but I’d got a sort of idea perhaps she wasn’t altogether keen on having the will-making wallah sent for, what?”
“Oh, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, I’m sure you’re quite wrong there. Miss Whittaker was most anxious that her aunt should have every facility in that way. In fact—I don’t think I’m betraying any confidence in telling you this—she said to me, ‘If at any time Miss Dawson should express a wish to see a lawyer, be sure you send for him at once.’ And so, of course, I did.”
“You did? And didn’t he come, then?”
“Certainly he came. There was no difficulty about it at all.”
“There! That just shows, doesn’t it? how wrong some of these gossipy females can be! Excuse me, but y’know, I’d got absolutely the wrong impression about the thing. I’m quite sure Mrs. Peasgood said that no lawyer had been sent for.”
“I don’t know what Mrs. Peasgood could have known about it,” said Nurse Forbes with a sniff, “her permission was not asked in the matter.”
“Certainly not—but you know how these ideas get about. But, I say—if there was a will, why wasn’t it produced?”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. There was no will. The lawyer came to draw up a power of attorney, so that Miss Whittaker could sign cheques and so on for her aunt. That was very necessary, you know, on account of the old lady’s failing powers.”
“Yes—I suppose she was pretty woolly towards the end.”
“Well, she was quite sensible when I took over from Nurse Philliter in September, except, of course, for that fancy she had about poisoning.”
“She really was afraid of that?”
“She said once or twice, ‘I’m not going to die to please anybody, Nurse.’ She had great confidence in me. She got on better with me than with Miss Whittaker, to tell you the truth, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe. But during October, her mind began to give way altogether, and she rambled a lot. She used to wake up sometimes all in a fright and say, ‘Have they passed it yet, Nurse?’—just like that. I’d say, ‘No, they haven’t got that far yet,’ and that would quiet her. Thinking of her hunting days, I expect she was. They often go back like that, you know, when they’re being kept under drugs. Dreaming, like, they are, half the time.”
“Then in the last month or so, I suppose she could hardly have made a will, even if she had wanted to.”
“No, I don’t think she could have managed it then.”
“But earlier on, when the lawyer was there, she could have done so if she had liked?”
“Certainly she could.”
“But she didn’t?”
“Oh no. I was there with her all the time, at her particular request.”
“I see. Just you and Miss Whittaker.”
“Not even Miss Whittaker most of the time. I see what you mean, Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, but indeed you should clear your mind of any unkind suspicions of Miss Whittaker. The lawyer and Miss Dawson and myself were alone together for nearly an hour, while the clerk drew up the necessary papers in the next room. It was all done then, you see, because we thought that a second visit would be too much for Miss Dawson. Miss Whittaker only came in quite at the end. If Miss Dawson had wished to make a will, she had ample opportunity to do so.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr. Simms-Gaythorpe, rising to go. “These little doubts are so apt to make unpleasantness in families, don’t you know. Well, I must be toddlin’ now. I’m frightfully sorry you can’t come with us, Nurse—my wife will be so disappointed. I must try to find somebody else equally charmin’ if possible. Good-bye.”
Lord Peter removed his hat in the taxi and scratched his head thoughtfully.
“Another good theory gone wrong,” he murmured. “Well, there’s another string to the jolly old bow yet. Cropper first and then Crofton—that’s the line to take, I fancy.”
Part II
THE LEGAL PROBLEM
“The gladsome light of jurisprudence.”
Sir Edward Coke
NOTE—A genealogical table is printed at the end of the book
