No Name - Wilkie Collins (free e books to read online .TXT) 📗

garden, as usual, on the day of his death; he ate a hearty dinner; none of the persons in his service noticed any change in him; he was a little more irritable with them than usual, but that was all. It is impossible to attack the state of his faculties: there is no case to go into court with, so far.

“Can we declare that he acted under undue influence; or, in plainer terms, under the influence of Mrs. Lecount?

“There are serious difficulties, again, in the way of taking this course. We cannot assert, for example, that Mrs. Lecount has assumed a place in the will which she has no fair claim to occupy. She has cunningly limited her own legacy, not only to what is fairly due her, but to what the late Mr. Michael Vanstone himself had the intention of leaving her. If I were examined on the subject, I should be compelled to acknowledge that I had heard him express this intention myself. It is only the truth to say that I have heard him express it more than once. There is no point of attack in Mrs. Lecount’s legacy, and there is no point of attack in your late husband’s choice of an executor. He has made the wise choice, and the natural choice, of the oldest and trustiest friend he had in the world.

“One more consideration remains⁠—the most important which I have yet approached, and therefore the consideration which I have reserved to the last. On the thirtieth of September, the testator executes a will, leaving his widow sole executrix, with a legacy of eighty thousand pounds. On the third of November following, he expressly revokes this will, and leaves another in its stead, in which his widow is never once mentioned, and in which the whole residue of his estate, after payment of one comparatively trifling legacy, is left to a friend.

“It rests entirely with you to say whether any valid reason can or can not be produced to explain such an extraordinary proceeding as this. If no reason can be assigned⁠—and I know of none myself⁠—I think we have a point here which deserves our careful consideration; for it may be a point which is open to attack. Pray understand that I am now appealing to you solely as a lawyer, who is obliged to look all possible eventualities in the face. I have no wish to intrude on your private affairs; I have no wish to write a word which could be construed into any indirect reflection on yourself.

“If you tell me that, so far as you know, your husband capriciously struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for doing so, and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than that he acted in this matter entirely under the influence of Mrs. Lecount, I will immediately take Counsel’s opinion touching the propriety of disputing the will on this ground. If, on the other hand, you tell me that there are reasons (known to yourself, though unknown to me) for not taking the course I propose, I will accept that intimation without troubling you, unless you wish it, to explain yourself further. In this latter event, I will write to you again; for I shall then have something more to say, which may greatly surprise you, on the subject of the Will.

“Faithfully yours,

“John Loscombe.”

VII From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe

“November 16th.

“Dear Sir⁠—Accept my best thanks for the kindness and consideration with which you have treated me; and let the anxieties under which I am now suffering plead my excuse, if I reply to your letter without ceremony, in the fewest possible words.

“I have my own reasons for not hesitating to answer your question in the negative. It is impossible for us to go to law, as you propose, on the subject of the Will.

“Believe me, dear sir, yours gratefully,

“Magdalen Vanstone.”

VIII From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone

“Lincoln’s Inn. November 17th.

“Dear Madam⁠—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, answering my proposal in the negative, for reasons of your own. Under these circumstances⁠—on which I offer no comment⁠—I beg to perform my promise of again communicating with you on the subject of your late husband’s Will.

“Be so kind as to look at your copy of the document. You will find that the clause which devises the whole residue of your husband’s estate to Admiral Bartram ends in these terms: to be by him applied to such uses as he may think fit.

“Simple as they may seem to you, these are very remarkable words. In the first place, no practical lawyer would have used them in drawing your husband’s will. In the second place, they are utterly useless to serve any plain straightforward purpose. The legacy is left unconditionally to the admiral; and in the same breath he is told that he may do what he likes with it! The phrase points clearly to one of two conclusions. It has either dropped from the writer’s pen in pure ignorance, or it has been carefully set where it appears to serve the purpose of a snare. I am firmly persuaded that the latter explanation is the right one. The words are expressly intended to mislead some person⁠—yourself in all probability⁠—and the cunning which has put them to that use is a cunning which (as constantly happens when uninstructed persons meddle with law) has overreached itself. My thirty years’ experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the sense which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is not free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit; I believe he is privately controlled by a supplementary document in the shape of a secret trust.

“I can easily explain to you what I mean by a ‘secret trust.’ It is usually contained in the form of a letter from a testator