Cyril Hare - Untimely Death aka He Should Have Died Hereafter

“In person, Mr. Manktelow? In a case of this nature, that is very unusual.”

“Unusual and unfortunate, my lord. I think I should tell your lordship that those instructing me have more than once urged Mrs. Gorman to take advice in the matter. So far as the costs were concerned my client was prepared to give an undertaking-”

“Is Mrs. Gorman present?”

“I am here, my lord.”

Mrs. Gorman stood up, a not particularly good-looking woman, dressed in country-made black clothes, her low voice barely carrying across the court. Once more, Pettigrew was struck by a change in her appearance. He could not determine what it was, but for some reason or another she seemed a far more impressive personality, now than he remembered her.

“I am here, my lord,” she repeated.

“Mrs. Gorman, I understand-”

“As this gentleman says, I haven’t got a lawyer,” Mrs. Gorman went on as though the Judge had not spoken. And for some reason her calm insistence on saying her piece in complete disregard of the fact that he was addressing her did not seem to savour of disrespect. “I don’t think I need a lawyer, seeing that all I want is for the truth to be known. I’m sure you’ll help me over that, my lord. I only hope the truth won’t hurt my children, but if it does it can’t be helped.”

She sat down again. There was an awkward little pause. Then the Judge cleared his throat and said, “Very well, Mr. Manktelow.”

“As your lordship pleases. My lord, if I may come at once to the point of this action, it is to determine the order in which two of the persons named in the settlement died. One of them is Gilbert Amos Gorman, and he died, according to his Death Certificate which is before me, on Sunday, September the 10th. My lord, no question arises as to that death. It was a natural one-polycystic disease of the kidneys, I observe-and nobody doubts that he did in fact expire on that date. The other person is John Richard Gorman, the husband of the second Defendant, and the cause of his death is described as shock and internal haemorrhage, the date being recorded in the Certificate as Tuesday, September the 12th. My lord, the contention of the Plaintiff is that that date is wrong. His case will be that John died on or before Saturday, September the 9th.”

“You say that the Death Certificate is wrong, Mr. Manktelow?”

“My lord, I do, and in order that I may put the difficulties before me as clearly as possible, let me add that the Certificate was issued in accordance with the instructions of the coroner after an inquest with a jury. My task is to persuade your lordship that the coroner was wrong. I say that he was wrong, that the witnesses, lay and medical, called before him were wrong, that they were deliberately misled and deceived in the interests of the second Defendant and to the prejudice of my client, the Plaintiff.”

The judicial eyebrows shot up. “You say that Mrs. Gorman did all that, Mr. Manktelow?”

“My lord, I do not. It is, of course, not necessary to my case to affix responsibility to anybody, provided I prove my contention, but incidentally I shall call evidence indicating who in my submission is responsible.”

“Very well. Perhaps you will come to the settlement now?”

“If your lordship pleases. My lord, those instructing me have prepared a table showing the pedigree of the various persons involved, and if your lordship has it beside you when the settlement is being read, it will perhaps be of some assistance.”

Manktelow’s instructing solicitors had not been niggardly in the matter of providing copies of the pedigree, and Pettigrew with a little manoeuvring was able to obtain one. He was disappointed to find that it did not give in full what he knew to be the almost endless ramifications of the Gorman family but confined itself to those with whom the settlement was concerned. None the less he found it not without interest:

“In preparing the exhibit, my lord,” Manktelow was saying, “I have ventured to substitute for the baptismal names of the characters the names by which they were habitually known, in order to avoid confusion. Thus John Richard Gorman is Jack and Richard Petherick is Dick.”

“I guessed as much, Mr. Manktelow.”

“Your lordship is very good. If I may now turn to the settlement…”

Pettigrew had no settlement to turn to, but he was able to follow the story adequately enough from Manktelow’s narrative. All the older characters in the pedigree, with their picturesque scriptural names, were long since dead. The proceedings concerned the trust created years before by Samuel, the oldest and, no doubt, by far the wealthiest of the Gormans. It was his hand that stretched out from the grave to manipulate the destinies of his descendants and collaterals.

Clearly, Samuel had been a believer, as the country phrase goes, in “tying his property up”. Indeed, he had tied it up about as tightly as the law allowed. In the process of doing so, he had shown a complete disregard for the interests of the female members of the family. So far as this document was concerned, they might not have existed. His object appeared to have been to preserve the property intact and to preserve it in the male line. Like every lawyer, Pettigrew had met with this unamiable eccentricity before, but there was a peculiarity about these particular dispositions which he did not understand until Manktelow made it clear.

“I may summarize the limitations in the settlement as follows,” he said: “to his son Gilbert for his life, and on Gilbert’s death to his brother Eli for his life. On Eli’s death-”

“Can you explain, Mr. Manktelow, why there is no provision for Gilbert’s children? I am aware that in the event he died unmarried, but he was only a young man at the time of the settlement, and the settlor must surely have contemplated that he would have issue.”

“My lord, that is exactly what the settlor did not contemplate. As the result of a disease of the kidneys contracted in his youth Gilbert was rendered to all intents incapable of marriage, and his father in making the settlement disregarded the possibility.”

“I see. Pray continue.”

“If your lordship pleases. On Eli’s death, then, the property is to go to Eli’s eldest and other sons successively in tail male. I shall have occasion to say something on what I submit is the effect of that provision in the events that have happened, but at this point I should draw your lordship’s attention to the fact that Eli, who was of course alive at the date of the settlement, died before his brother Samuel, and that he in fact left one son only, Jack.”

“So far, then, the effect of the settlement is-to Gilbert for life and on his decease to Jack.”

“To Jack in tail male, my lord.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Please go on, Mr. Manktelow, and don’t waste time.”

“Your lordship is very good. Proceeding, then, we find that the settlement provides that on the failure of Eli’s-that is to say Jack’s-male issue the property is to be settled upon the junior line. The limitation is similar -to Job for his life and upon Job’s death to his eldest and other sons successively in tail. And once more the position is simplified by the fact that Job predeceased his brother Samuel, and left one son only-Dick.”

The Judge yawned.

“It all seems remarkably simple, Mr. Manktelow, so far. I don’t at the moment appreciate why it should be a matter of concern whether or not Gilbert predeceased Jack. The limitation being to males, and Jack having left daughters only…”

“I think that your lordship will see the significance of the question when I tell your lordship that two years ago, that is to say during the lifetime of Gilbert and without his consent, Jack by deed barred his entail.”