Touch and Go

Kemp felt it was time matters were brought to a head. ‘So what was in this will she made with your office?’

Van Gryson had his briefcase open on the sofa beside him. He took out a fat folder, extracted a document and handed it to Kemp.

It was a will made in proper form by Muriel Probert, widow, dated March 1987 and running to several pages. Details of the assets in personalty and real estate consisted mainly of business concerns and properties in Las Vegas. Apart from some gifts to various charities, the principal beneficiaries were Preston John Madison and Clive Edwin Horth. At the end of a short list of legatees who appeared to be women friends or servants Kemp found his own name: To Lennox Kemp, my former husband, in fond remembrance and deep gratitude, my largest ruby necklace in the hope he has got himself a lady more worthy than me.’

Kemp grinned to hide a deeper feeling. ‘At least she remembered me,’ he said, ‘but surely you haven’t come all this way just to hand it over?’

Van Gryson put a hand to his forehead. ‘God! If only it were that simple!’

Puzzled, Kemp gave the document back. ‘I don’t see any problems,’ he said. ‘Who are these two lucky chaps, Madison and Horth? They’re described as casino operators. I’d make a guess and say they’re the late Mr Probert’s partners.’

‘And you’d be right, Lennox. Madison—he’s called Prester John in gambling circles—he ran things for Leo Probert, and Horth’s one of his henchmen.’

‘So Muriel was just putting things right with them when she made this will. I don’t see anything wrong with that. She’d no family of her own, and she couldn’t have children. You knew that?’

‘Naturally we inquired as to other possible heirs in view of the terms of the will.’ Dale was huffed at the suggestion that Eikenberg & Lazard might not have been thorough. ‘She told us she was childless.’

Kemp thought of the operation Muriel had undergone in the early years of their marriage. Just fibroids, the doctor had told them when she went into hospital, but afterwards the surgeon had been uneasy, and a hysterectomy was mentioned. Muriel would have none of it; she had been young then, and hopeful …

‘Well,’ said Kemp, ‘all these assets were accumulated by Leo Probert. It seems perfectly fair to me that they should go back where they came from. Nice men, are they, Prester John and his pal, Clive?’

‘The worst,’ said Van Gryson morosely. ‘Julius Eikenberg and myself, we both wondered if they’d put pressure on her. Make a will in our favour or take the consequences. We explained the undue influence thing to her pretty thoroughly, Lennox, just to be sure, but she was adamant that she was making the dispositions of her own free will so we had to take her word for it. Perhaps when she’d become ill she didn’t have the strength to resist …’

Kemp nodded. ‘That could well be. She’d been threatened by their like before. Poor Muriel.’

Van Gryson sat up. ‘I’d sure like to know about that. She said something about it when your name came up. What did happen, Lennox?’

Kemp sighed as he dredged the old story up from where it had lain half-buried for years. ‘She ran up gambling debts in London,’ he said slowly. ‘The kind not legally enforceable. She was told she’d get acid in her face. She tried to commit suicide. I paid them off.’

‘She said you put your career on the line for her?’

‘You could say that. I embezzled trust moneys. Well, it was an emergency … and I loved her.’

‘You actually stole the money? You broke the law for her?’ Van Gryson was staring at Kemp with undisguised astonishment. Eikenberg & Lazard might wheel and deal along the thin edge of legality for profit’s sake but they knew their limits. ‘Did you go to prison?’

Kemp laughed. ‘It was a close-run thing. I sold all I possessed and reimbursed the trust fund just in time. But the Law Society got wind of it and I was struck off for six years … Don’t worry, Dale, I’ve long since been reinstated on the right side of the law.’

Van Gryson was still shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘You did all that for a woman!’ he said solemnly. He was silent for some moments as if this revelation of Kemp’s lapse had given him food for thought. ‘Have another drink, Lennox,’ he said at last. ‘You’re going to need it.’

He’s decided to let me in on the secret, Kemp was thinking as he sat back and savoured the good wine. Muriel has probably given that necklace away to some woman friend who had been kind to her, or to a maid down on her luck. Muriel had often had these sudden generous impulses, and she would act upon them without further reflection in a way that had been both irritating and endearing. It really didn’t matter. It was good to know she hadn’t quite forgotten his sacrifice …

‘This will—’ Van Gryson was tapping it on the edge of the sofa—‘would have been fine if Muriel Probert hadn’t taken it into her head to make another one.’

It was Kemp’s turn to sit up. ‘She did?’

‘It was all most unfortunate. We’re a big firm, Lennox, and a busy one. It’s not always easy to keep track of clients … I’m not making excuses for us …’

But that’s just what you’re about to do, thought Kemp, amused. And it’s high time you got on with it.

‘Julius and I were in Washington on Government contract business for most of April.’ Van Gryson put on an air of importance which was not sustainable for long. ‘The New York office was understaffed, and there’d been an unexpected late snowfall so that everyone was determined to get home …’ Dale paused to drink, which he did thirstily. ‘It was nearly closing time anyway when Mrs Probert came in and asked for either Mr Eikenberg or myself. Well, she was told we were not available by the only professional left in the office, a new recruit staight out of law school, our Miss Janvier. She saw before her a client in obvious distress who wanted help. Muriel apparently said that it was extremely urgent she make a will there and then—mark you, she never said change, she said, make a will—because she was soon going to die. Miss Janvier did what she saw to be her duty—more or less. She drew up the will, which was short, she got Muriel to sign it in the presence of one of the cleaners and a junior, neither of whom knew any more about the firm’s business than Miss Janvier herself—and that wasn’t much. Our little Miss Janvier had never drawn up a will for a client before, and her law school training doesn’t seem to have included how to use a filing system …’

Van Gryson stopped as his tone turned savage, and he wiped his brow with a large silk handkerchief as if trying to erase any memory of the unfortunate Miss Janvier.

Kemp had listened to all this with a mixture of amusement and understanding. He could appreciate the situation, one not totally unknown to solicitors. Gillorns were small fry compared to the magnitude of Eikenberg & Lazard as evidenced by their notepaper but even the junior staff in the Newtown office were carefully instructed on wills procedure. First, you asked the proper questions, and then, no matter what the client said, you checked. Poor little Miss Janvier had possibly been overwhelmed by her responsibility that snowy evening; she was new, she was eager, and perhaps no one had told her … She had seen only the emergency, the necessity for action, the woman in front of her was going to die …

‘Go on, Dale, tell me the rest of it.’

‘She took it with her.’

‘What, the original? The engrossment?’

‘If that’s what you call it. Yes. Said she wanted it by her. To keep it safe … Oh, Miss Janvier protested about that but Muriel was adamant. She took that newly-made will away with her in her handbag. Miss Janvier—downright pleased with herself no doubt for the speed with which she’d handled the matter—scribbled the attestations on the copy, and went off on holiday.’

‘Not even a photocopy of the original?’

‘The photocopying room was locked up by then. Everyone in the office had gone home.’

‘So now you have two wills, one superseding the other,’ said Kemp briskly, ‘but the later one must hold up in law.’

Van Gryson reached for his glass. He drank deeply and refilled it.

‘There’s worse to come.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Kemp, who had already guessed. ‘You can’t find the new will. You know it was made, you have a perhaps inadequate copy in your office, the client took the original and now it’s missing.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Happens all the time,’ said Kemp airily. He was beginning to feel the effects of the wine. ‘Nine times out of ten when a client takes an original will from their solicitor’s office it’s gone when they come to die.’

‘You’re a cynic, Lennox.’

‘No, just realistic. How did this one disappear?’

‘God only knows. It wasn’t in her handbag when we looked, and it wasn’t anywhere in that apartment. We’re her executors, damn it, don’t think we didn’t ransack the place. Besides, the staff swear Mrs Probert never went anywhere in the house except her own bedroom and the adjoining bathroom … She used the same rented limousine every time she went to the hospital, and the same chauffeur. He says she went nowhere else on these trips except for that one evening when she had him stop by our office. And that was only a couple of weeks before she died.’

Kemp sat still for a moment, deep in thought.

‘Muriel took the will away with her,’ he said carefully, ‘and she returned to her apartment with it. She must have had a reason for doing so. She had been happy to let you keep the other one so why would she want to take the new one? Perhaps to show it to someone …’

Van Gryson shook his head.

‘She was having no visitors at the time. And she never left the apartment again—of that we’re absolutely sure. According to the doctor, her condition suddenly deteriorated—he’d been expecting it and was keeping an eye on her. She could hardly move from her bed. When he advised hospitalization she wouldn’t hear of it, said she wanted to die in her own house so he ordered home nursing to see her through to the end …’

Kemp pursed his lips.

‘Reliable man, this doctor?’

‘Absolutely. Don’t think we didn’t check.’ Van Gryson was terse.

‘What about the servants and the nurses?’

‘Lennox, you gotta remember we couldn’t go around badgering folk. It was a tricky enough situation for our firm. There was a bit of a time-lapse before we—er—discovered about the second will.’

Kemp raised his eyebrows. ‘How come?’ He felt he might as well slip into the idiom.

‘Well, as I said, Miss Janvier went on holiday that night. Her secretary didn’t get round to doing the filing for a week or two …’ His voice trailed off.

Kemp could barely hide a smile. So things like that could still happen even in the best-run offices.

‘And in the meantime your firm assumed there was only the earlier will and so took no action?’

‘In the meantime—’ Van Gryson gulped as if he’d swallowed a draught of bitter medicine—‘Mr Eikenberg and I attended the funeral flanked on either side by Messrs Madison and Horth in good black overcoats with velvet collars …’

Kemp let out a soft whistle.

‘Showing a proper respect as the heirs-at-law … I can restrain my curiosity no longer, Dale. Indulge it before it bursts out of me. You have a copy of this later will?’

Van Gryson withdrew a single sheet from his folder, and held it out between thumb and forefinger as if it was a leaf of stinging nettle. Kemp reached over and took it from him.

‘OK, OK,’ said the big American. ‘I guess you can stand the shock.’

Then he got up and took his hunched shoulders for a walk round the room like a boxer who has just put his man on the canvas.

It was a simple carbon on flimsy with the name of the testatrix and the names and addresses of the two witnesses written in hurriedly beside the attestation clause. The will itself was brief and to the point:

After cancelling all previous dispositions, Muriel Probert, widow, left everything of which she died possessed to her ex-husband Lennox Kemp, of Newtown, England, in recognition of the great service he had rendered her in the past. It was dated the fifth day of April in the present year.

CHAPTER 3

Lennox Kemp had only just seated himself at his desk the following morning when Elvira brought in the mail. She looked down at him with mild disapproval. ‘I waited,’ she said, ‘because you’re late. You don’t look very well.’

‘If you must know, I’ve got a hangover, and I didn’t get much sleep.’

‘Well, if you will go out on the town …’ She put the letters down in front of him. ‘Black coffee’s what you need.’

Despite two strong cups of it, Kemp still found it hard to concentrate on his correspondence; there were too many other things on his mind. He wanted a clear head, he wanted a second opinion. He thought of Tony Lambert, his most intelligent colleague and an expert on probate, but dismissed the idea. He couldn’t talk it over with anyone else, not yet. The last thing Dale Van Gryson had said to him before they parted enjoined confidentiality.

‘Give us time, Lennox. Let us get this thing straightened out at the New York end. It’s only six weeks since the death, we can procrastinate for a while …’

‘But there’s got to be a showdown at some time,’ he’d told the American, ‘it can’t be kept under wraps for ever. Not unless …’ Kemp hadn’t finished the sentence, watching the expression on the other man’s face.

Van Gryson had said nothing but Kemp grinned to himself now. He knew damned well what was in that astute counsellor’s mind—perhaps even in the corporate mind of his firm:

‘Unless I, Lennox Kemp, disclaim any interest in the estate of the late Mrs Probert, and no meeting has ever taken place between myself and any of her trustees …’

It had gone unsaid, and might very well remain so, but the very idea of himself running a clutch of dubious gambling dens in Las Vegas was enough to make him choke over the breakfast table the two of them had shared in the hotel that early morning.

They had discussed the matter more soberly than on the previous night, Kemp probing for information, Van Gryson prevaricating and, in Kemp’s view, revealing the depths of his ignorance. Kemp had been struck by the difference in their approach. The American’s main concern was how to keep his firm out of trouble, which meant carrying out the duties of trustees and executors while keeping the snake in the basket by sitting firmly on the lid. Kemp, who was often ruefully aware that he’d have made a better detective than a solicitor, was more taken up with the investigation possibilities.

He had been careful, however, to lay fairly and squarely before Van Gryson his own view of the position at law.

‘I don’t know whether it’s the same under the United States legal system,’ he’d said, ‘but here in England a will contained in a copy or even a completed draft may be admitted to probate on an application to the Court if proper evidence as to its being made can be adduced, supported by the necessary affidavits—in this case those of Miss Janvier’s and the two witnesses.’

‘Madison’s lawyers would counter that by saying how could they be sure it was Mrs Probert. We haven’t even got a photostat copy showing the signature.’

‘Sworn statement by the chauffeur confirming time of the visit to your office,’ said Kemp promptly, ‘along with identification of the deceased from photographs shown to Miss Janvier. I think we can discount any suggestion of an impostor should they bring it up.’

‘What about evidence of the existence of the second will after the death?’

‘That’s where the crunch will come … I have to admit it’s crucial to any such application on a lost will to the probate courts in this country.’

‘The other side would have a field-day on that one,’ Van Gryson agreed gloomily. ‘They’ll say Mrs Probert had second—or even third—thoughts. She destroyed the new will after she got home.’

‘Could she have done that without someone on her staff knowing? You say she could scarcely rise from her bed … Even torn-up paper has to be dealt with.’

‘She could have burned it.’ Van Gryson was by now entering into the spirit of playing devil’s advocate; presumably it made a nice change from government contracts.

‘Do you know if she smoked? She used to when I knew her. It’s unlikely, of course, in a cancer patient but even doctors indulge such foibles when all hope has gone. How else would she have a lighter or matches at her bedside?’

Van Gryson had begun to take notes. He looked up.

‘I’ll make inquiries, Lennox. As to her flushing the will down the john, Miss Janvier gave her the will in one of our special envelopes. Difficult to dispose of—the fibres would’ve blocked the pipes.’

‘What if she simply got rid of it on the ride home from your office? Having had, as you put it, third thoughts?’

‘We’ll have to question the driver again. He’d have noticed. He knew her well from all those trips to the hospital. The car was ordered from the security desk downstairs in the lobby of the apartments and she always had the same chauffeur because she liked him. She had become sensitive about her appearance on those visits to the hospital and he was a sympathetic man.’

‘Right. Now, what about those servants?’

‘Florence Hermanos had been with Muriel for many years in Las Vegas as her personal maid, and latterly as her trusted friend and companion. That’s why she took her with her when she came to New York.’

‘Was she the one called Florence Bate mentioned in the first will? I saw her name above mine.’ He quoted: ‘To my personal maid and friend, Florence Bate, all my jewellery except the ruby necklace.’

‘You’ve a quick memory, Lennox,’ said Van Gryson admiringly. ‘Yes, she’s the one. And under that will it meant a considerable fortune. Apparently your Muriel was a collector of jewels, mostly rubies. She told us Leo Probert gave them to her on each anniversary.’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t like to tell you this before, Lennox, but we found no rubies, neither your necklace nor anything else, not in the apartment nor in the bank. There was some stuff in a box on her dressing-table but nothing of great value.’

‘So the rubies are missing along with the will? Interesting, don’t you think? Tell me more about Florence. How’d she get to be Mrs Hermanos?’

At that point Dale had thrown down his table napkin.

‘I told you before … We’d no cause to go prying into the affairs of the servants. It was a delicate enough matter for us without blowing it up out of all proportion. We had to tread very softly, and the last thing we wanted to do was alienate these people.’

‘I’d have gone through them with a fine-tooth comb,’ said Kemp succinctly. ‘You said José Hermanos and Florence were a marrried couple, she was the housekeeper and he was a sort of handyman-cum-butler—an unlikely combination.’

‘Apparently she met and married him soon after coming to New York. He’s a spic—sorry, a Spanish or Mexican American. Didn’t take to him myself …’

‘But he’s married to Muriel’s trusted companion so he gets a job on the staff. And the others?’

‘Just a girl who did the cleaning and gave Mrs Hermanos help in the kitchen. There was no need for more servants, Mrs Probert was ill, she never entertained, and the building itself has its own security staff, doormen and concierge—well, you know how we live in New York nowadays …’

‘I don’t but I can guess. That’s why you’re so sure of Muriel’s comings and goings?’

Van Gryson shrugged. ‘Makes it a lot easier to keep track of people’s movements. No one could get in or out of that lobby without being spotted. If there had been visitors they would have been announced. There was no one during those last two weeks except the doctor and the nurse he’d engaged.’

‘Just the one nurse?’

‘That was all he considered necessary—and only for night duty. During the day Mrs Probert insisted that Florence look after her. And, as you seem to have a suspicious mind, Lennox, there was nothing in the death itself or the manner of it to justify further investigation. All Mrs Probert’s medical records were always available to us as her financial advisers. She had cancer, neither the operations nor the chemotherapy could save her, and the nursing during her last days was meticulously documented. She had drugs to alleviate pain but in the end it was the disease which killed her.’

Perhaps Van Gryson thought such pain-speaking was necessary but he had been surprised to see his breakfast companion wince.

‘I’m sorry, Dale,’ Kemp said after a pause. ‘My curiosity for the moment overcame my better feelings. I’m sure Muriel’s death was due to natural causes as they’re called, although cancer to me has always carried the connotation of an evil thing working in the dark, a malignancy at odds with the good … I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘it’s just that I’m trying to see the Muriel I knew, and wondering how she would have reacted to her impending death. I think she did right when she came to you and made that first will. Never mind whatever other pressure she was under, all the riches and luxurious living she had gained for herself had been through Leo Probert. She was not a woman who liked power over others. There was an essential sweetness in her nature. She would have been unhappy with the consequences of that power. Whatever you may think of the characters of her late husband’s partners, the first will is a fair one.’

‘You’re saying it should stand?’

Kemp had laughed. ‘I’m in a cleft stick,’ he said. ‘I mean what I have just said. On the other hand, I’m a lawyer like yourself, and we have been taught, have we not, that a testator’s wishes must be paramount? And if we can be certain what those wishes were we have to use all our powers to uphold them. Oh, I appreciate the tricky position your firm would be in if it had to come to court—two trustees of a will in dereliction of their duty towards a client …’

This time it was Van Gryson who winced. ‘Too damned right it wouldn’t look good, but we could ride that one out. Sure, if we’d known about that visit of Mrs Probert either Julius or I would have been round there on the hour to see what the hell was going on, was she in her right mind, or was it just a whim … But there’s worse things where we have to operate, Lennox. It’s Prester John Madison and his cronies we have to worry about. There’s going to be one helluva row from that quarter if they find out there’s another will. They’ve got plenty of shyster lawyers in their pockets, and they’re not above using strong-arm methods.’

‘Dear me. How different from the home-life of the English judiciary … Sorry, I can see it wouldn’t be a joking matter. Have you managed to stave them off so far?’

‘Prester John’s too smart an operator to go in with all guns firing at this stage. But don’t think there haven’t been hints. Julius is dealing with them. The estate will take time to be wound up, blah blah … legatees have to be traced, etcetera etcetera, and there’s always the goddamned taxes to the government to be settled. Oh, we can give them the runaround for a while yet.’

At that point Van Gryson had leant forward and said with the utmost seriousness: ‘You see how it is. No one must know about the other will back home in New York. Miss Janvier won’t talk, that’s for sure. It was her blunder and she doesn’t want it advertised. The two witnesses are dumbos—they can hardly remember whose will it was anyway, and they’re not being encouraged to try. And we whisked that file copy out of the cabinet before anyone got a peek at it. Believe you me, Lennox, we’ve been thorough.’

‘So it seems. Which only leaves me. You didn’t really have to contact me at all, did you, Dale, unless you had found the original of the second will?’

Van Gryson had assumed his honest counsellor’s face, candid to the point of piety.

‘Ethics of the profession, Lennox. Straight dealing as between men of the law. Julius Eikenberg and I, we discussed the situation at length and came to the conclusion it was only right that you should be told. No, we didn’t have to tell you. We couldn’t afford even to hint at it in a letter. Instead, I came over specially to put it to you.’