THE MAKER OF WILLS
General Sir John Standerton was a man of hateful and irascible
temper. The excuse was urged for him that he had spent the greater
portion of his life in India, a country calculated to undermine the
sweetest disposition. He was a bachelor and lived alone, save for a
small army of servants. He had renamed the country mansion he had
purchased twenty years before: it was now known from one end of the
country to the other as The Residency, and here he maintained an
almost feudal state.
His enemies said that he kept his battalion of servants at full
strength so that he might always have somebody handy to swear at, but
that was obviously spite. It was said, too, that every year a fresh
firm of solicitors acted for him, and it is certain that he changed
his banks with extraordinary rapidity.
Leslie Frankfort was breakfasting with his brother one morning in his
little Mayfair house. Jack Frankfort was a rising young solicitor, and
a member of that firm which at the moment was acting for Sir John
Standerton.
“By the way,” said Jack Frankfort, “I am going to see an old friend of
yours this afternoon.”
“Who is my old friend?”
“Old Standerton.”
“Gilbert?”
Jack Frankfort smiled.
“No, Gilbert’s terrible uncle; we are acting for him just now.”
“What is the object of the visit?”
“A will, my boy; we are going to make a will.”
“I wonder how many wills the old man has made?” mused Leslie. “Poor
Gilbert!”
“Why poor Gilbert?” asked the other, helping himself to the marmalade.
“Why, he was his uncle’s heir for about ten minutes.”
Jack grinned.
“Everybody is old Standerton’s heir for ten minutes,” he said.
“I verily believe he has endowed every hospital, every dog’s home,
every cat’s home, every freakish institution that the world has ever
heard of, in the course of the last twenty years, and he is making
another will to-day.”
“Put in a good word for Gilbert,” said Leslie with a smile.
The other growled.
“There is not a chance of putting in a good word for anybody. Old
Tomlins, who acted for him last, said that the greater difficulty in
making a will for the old beggar is to finish one before the old man
has thought out another. Anyway, he is keen on a will just now, and I
am going down to see him. Come along?”
“You know the old gentleman?”
“Not on your life,” said the other hastily. “I know him indeed, and he
knows me! He knows I am a pal of Gilbert’s. I stayed once with him for
about two days. For the Lord’s sake do not confess that you are my
brother, or he will find another firm of solicitors.”
“I do not usually boast of my relationship with you,” said Jack.
“You are an offensive devil,” said the other admiringly. “But I
suppose you have to be, being a solicitor.”
Jack Frankfort journeyed down to Huntingdon that afternoon in the
company of a pleasant man, with whom he found himself in conversation
without any of that awkwardness of introductions which makes the
average English passenger so impossible.
This gentleman had evidently been in all parts of the world, and knew
a great many people whom Jack knew. He chatted interestingly for an
hour on the strange places of the earth, and when the train drew up at
the little station at which Mr. Frankfort was alighting, the other
accompanied him.
“What an extraordinary coincidence,” said the stranger heartily. “I am
getting out here too. This is a rum little town, isn’t it?”
It might be described as “rum,” but it was very pleasant, and it
contained one of the most comfortable hostelries in England.
The fellow-passengers found themselves placed in adjoining rooms.
Jack Frankfort had hoped to conclude his business before the evening
and return to London by a late train, but he knew that it would be
unwise to depend upon the old man’s expedition.
As a matter of fact, he had hardly been in the hotel a quarter of an
hour before he received an intimation from The Residency that Sir John
could not be seen until ten o’clock that evening.
“That settles all idea of going back to London,” said Jack
despairingly.
He met his fellow-passenger at dinner.
Though he was not particularly well acquainted with the habits of Sir
John, he knew that one of his fads was to dine late, and since he had
no desire to spend a hungry evening, he advanced the normal dinner
hour of the little hotel by thirty minutes.
He explained this apologetically to the comfortable man who sat
opposite him, as they discussed a perfectly roasted capon.
“It suits me very well,” said the other, “I have a lot of work to do
in the neighbourhood. You see,” he explained, “I am the proprietor of
the Safe Agency.”
“Safe Agency,” repeated the other wonderingly.
The man nodded.
“It seems a queer business, but it is a fairly extensive one,” he
said. “We deal principally in safes and strong rooms, second-hand or
new. We have a pretty large establishment in London; but I am not
going to overstep the bounds of politeness”--he smiled--“and try to
sell you some of my stock.”
Frankfort was amused.
“Safe Agency,” he said; “one never realises that there can be money in
that sort of thing.”
“One cannot realise that there is money in any branch of commerce,”
said the other. “The money-making concerns which appeal are those
where one sees brains being turned into actual cash.”
“Such as----?”
“Such as a lawyer’s business,” smiled the other. “Oh, yes, I know you
are a lawyer, you are the type, and I should have known your trade if
I had not seen your dispatch case, and then your name.”
Jack Frankfort laughed.
“You are sharp enough to be a lawyer yourself,” he suggested.
“You are paying yourself a compliment,” said the other.
Later, in the High Street, when he was calling a fly to drive him to
The Residency, Jack noticed a big covered motor lorry, bearing only
the simple inscription on its side: “The St. Bride’s Safe Company.”
He saw also his pleasant companion speaking earnestly with the
black-bearded chauffeur.
A little later the lorry moved on through the narrow streets of the
town and took the London Road.
Jack Frankfort had no time to speculate upon the opportunities for
safe selling which the little town offered, for five minutes later he
was in Sir John Standerton’s study.
The old General was of the type which is frequently depicted in
humorous papers. He was stout and red of face, and wore a close-cut
strip of white whisker, which ended abruptly below his ear, and was
continued in a wild streak of white moustache across his face. He was
bald, save for a little fringe of white hair which ran from temple to
temple via the occiput, and his conversation might be described as a
succession of explosions.
He stared up from under his ferocious eyebrow, as the young man
entered the study, and took stock of him.
He was used to lawyers. He had had every variety, and had divided them
into two distinct classes--they were either rogues or fools. There was
no intermediate stage with this old man, and he had no doubt in his
mind that Jack Frankfort, a shrewd-looking young man, was to be
classed in the former category. He bullied him into a seat.
“I want to see you about my will,” he said. “I have been seriously
thinking lately of rearranging the distribution of my property.”
This was his invariable formula. It was intended to convey the
impression that he had arrived at this present state of mind after
very long and careful consideration, and that the making of wills was
a serious and an important business to be undertaken, perhaps, once or
twice in a man’s lifetime.
Jack nodded.
“Very good, General,” he said. “Have you a draft?”
“I have no draft,” snapped the other. “I have a will which has already
been prepared, and here is a copy.”
He threw it across to his solicitor.
“I do not know whether you have seen this?”
“I think I have one in my bag,” said Jack.
“What the devil do you mean by carrying my will about in your bag?”
snarled the other.
“That is the only place I could think of,” said the young man, calmly.
“You would not like me to carry it about in my trouser’s pocket, would
you?”
The General stared.
“Do not be impertinent, young man,” he said ominously.
It was not a good beginning, but Jack knew that every method had been
tried, from the sycophantic to the pompous, but none had succeeded,
and the end of all endeavours, so far as the solicitors were
concerned, had been the closing of their association with the
General’s estate.
He was rather a valuable client if he could only be retained. No human
solicitor had discovered a method of retaining him.
“Very well,” said the General at last. “Now please jot down exactly
what my wishes are, and have the will drafted accordingly. In the
first place, I revoke all former wills.”
Jack, with a sheet of paper and a pencil, nodded and noted the fact.
“In the second place I want you to make absolutely certain that not a
penny of my money goes to Dr. Sundle’s Dogs’ Home. The man has been
insolent to me, and I hate dogs, anyhow. Not a penny of my money is to
go to any hospital or to any charitable institution whatever.”
The old sinner declaimed this with relish.
“I had intended leaving a very large sum of money to a hospital fund,”
he explained, “but after the behaviour of this infernal
Government----”
Jack might have asked in what way the old man expected to get even
with the offending Government by denying support to all institutions
designed to help the poor, but wisely kept the question in the
background.
“No charitable institution whatever.”
The old man spoke slowly, emphatically, thumping the table with every
other word.
“A hundred pounds to the Army Temperance Association, though I think
it is a jackass of an institution. A hundred pounds to the Soldiers’
Home at Aldershot, and a thousand pounds if they make it
non-sectarian.” He grinned and added: “It will be Church of England to
everlasting doomsday, so that money’s safe! And,” he added, “no money
to the Cottage Hospital here--do not let that bequest creep in. That
stupid maniac of a doctor--I forget his beastly name--led the
agitation for opening a right-o’-way across my estate. I will
‘right-o’-way’ him!” he said viciously.
He spent half an hour specifying the people who were not to benefit by
his will, and the total amount of his reluctant bequests during that
period did not exceed a thousand pounds.
When he had finished he stared hopelessly at the young lawyer, and a
momentary glint of humour came in the hard old blue eyes.
“I think we have disposed of everybody,” he said, “without disposing
of anything. Do you know my nephew?” he asked suddenly.
“I know a friend of your nephew.”
“Are you related to that grinning idiot Leslie Frankfort?” roared the
old man.
“He is my brother,” said the other calmly.
“Humph,” said the General, “I thought I recognised the face. Have you
met Gilbert Standerton?” he asked suddenly.
“I have met him once or twice,” said Jack Frankfort carelessly, “as
you may have met people, just to say ‘how do you do?’ and that sort of
thing.”
“I have never met people to say ‘how do you do?’ and that sort of
thing,” protested the old man with a snort. “What sort of fellow do
you think he is?” he asked after a pause.
The injunction of Leslie to “say a good word for Gilbert” came to the
young man’s mind.
“I think he is a very decent sort of fellow,” he said, “though
somewhat reserved and a little stand-offish.”
The old man glowered at him.
“My nephew stand-offish?” he snapped, “Of course he is stand-offish.
Do you think a Standerton is everybody’s money? There is nothing
Tommyish or Dickish or Harryish about our family, sir. We are all
stand-offish, thank God! I am the most stand-offish man you ever met
in your life.”
“That I can well believe,” thought Jack, but did not give utterance to
his thought.
Instead he pursued the subject in his own cunning way.
“He is the sort of man,” he said innocently “whom I should think money
would be rather wasted on.”
“Why?” asked the General with rising wrath.
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, he makes no great show, does not attempt to keep any particular
place in London Society. In fact, he treats Society as though he were
superior to it.”
“And so he is,” growled the General, “we are all superior to Society.
Do you think, sir, that I care a damn about any of the people in this
county? Do you think I am impressed by my Lord of High Towers and my
Lady of the Grange, and the various upstart parvenu aristocrats that
swarm over this country like--like--field mice? No sir! And I trust my
nephew is in the same mind. Society as it is at present constituted is
not worth that!” He snapped his fingers in Jack’s impassive face.
“That settles it,” said the General with decision. He pointed his
finger at the notes which the other was taking. “The residue of my
property I leave to Gilbert Standerton. Make a note of that.”
Twice had he uttered the same words in his lifetime, and twice had he
changed his mind. It might well be that he would change his mind
again. If the reputation he bore was justified, the morning would find
him in another frame of mind.
“Stay over to-morrow,” he said at parting. “Bring me the draft at
breakfast time.”
“At what hour?” asked Jack politely.
“At breakfast time,” roared the old man.
“What is your breakfast hour?”
“The same hour as every other civilised human being,” snapped the
General “at twenty-five minutes to one. What time do you breakfast,
for Heaven’s sake?”
“At twenty to one,” said Jack sweetly, and was pleased with himself
all the way back to the hotel.
He did not see his train companion that night, but met him at
breakfast the next morning at the Christian hour of half-past eight.
Something had happened in the meantime to change the equable and
cheery character of the other. He was sombre and silent, and he looked
worried, almost ill, Jack thought. Possibly there was a bad time for
safe selling, as there was a bad time for every other department of
trade.
Thinking this, he kept off the subject of business, and scarcely half
a dozen sentences were exchanged between the two during the meal.
Returning to The Residency, Jack Frankfort found with surprise that
the old man had not changed his mind over night. He was still of the
same opinion; seemed more emphatically so. Indeed, Jack had the
greatest difficulty in preventing him from striking off a miserable
hundred pounds bequest which he had made to a northern dispensary.
“The whole of the money should be kept in the family,” said the
General shortly; “it is absurd to fritter away little hundreds like
this, it handicaps a man. I do not suppose he will have the handling
of the money for many years yet, but ‘forethought,’ sir, is the motto
of our family.”
It was all to Gilbert’s advantage that the lawyer persisted in
demanding the restoration of the dispensary bequest. In the end the
General cut out every bequest in the will, and in the shortest
document which he had ever signed bequeathed the whole of his
property, movable and immovable, to “my dear nephew” absolutely.
“He is married isn’t he?” he asked.
“I believe he is,” said Jack Frankfort.
“You believe! Now what is the good of your believing?” protested the
old man. “You are my lawyer, and your business is to know everything.
Find out if he is married, who his wife is, where she came from, and
ask them up to dinner.”
“When?” demanded the startled lawyer.
“To-night,” said the old man. “There is a man coming down from
Yorkshire to see me, my doctor, we will make a jolly party. Is she
pretty?”
“I believe she is.”
Jack hesitated, for he was honestly in doubt. He knew very little
about Gilbert Standerton or his affairs.
“If she is pretty, and she is a lady,” said the old General slowly, “I
will also make provision for her separately.”
Jack’s heart sank. Would this mean another will? For good or ill, the
wires were dispatched.
Edith received hers and read it in wonder.
Gilbert’s remained on the hall table, for he had not been home the
previous night nor during that day.
The tear-reddened eyes of the girl offered eloquent testimony to the
interest she displayed in his movements.