“Yes, but who knows except yourselves? That didn’t come out in court. All that came out was, that you three still held the money.”
“Is that a complete answer?”
“I’m not quite sure. I work on the common law side, and I don’t want to dogmatise on a chancery point; but it seems to me at any rate arguable that if the trust is a simple trust for her benefit, claimable by her on Sir John’s death, if she were then alive, then it had already vested in her before the Treasury took action against you, and consequently the trust created by the will was at an end, and the money would be her absolute property before the court decrees it to yourselves. If it were hers I should fancy the decree could hardly divest her of her absolute property. You’ll probably have to open that packet, if the thing is pressed, for it has the semblance of being a genuine claim and one that looks prima facie as if it might be substantiated.”
“Do you recommend us to pay or get out the papers?”
“I wouldn’t get ’em out yet. Sir John trusted you all so implicitly that I wouldn’t get them out until the very last resort. If this is a mere bluff, you may stop it by bluffing back. Go and see the letter, and if it’s in Sir John’s handwriting, then ask for proof of the marriage and proof of identity. When those are forthcoming, if they are, simply point-blank refuse to pay, and see what happens. Say that under the judgment of the court the trust is over and the money vested in yourselves. Here, I’ll draft you the reply.”
Seating himself at his writing-table Tempest wrote as follows:—
“Messrs. Clutch & Holdem.
“Dear Sirs,—Without attempting to discuss the merits of the claim, if any, which your client may conceive herself to possess, we would refer you to the terms of the will of Sir John Rellingham, of which you appear to have ample knowledge. We would remind you that the Crown commenced legal proceedings against us, to compel a disclosure of the terms of the trust; that we resisted this; and that the court decreed that under the expressed terms of Sir John’s will the capital funds had vested in us as our absolute property.—Yours faithfully, Rellingham, Baxter, Marston & Moorhouse.”
The solicitor read the draft.
“I don’t like it, Tempest. All three of us are ready and anxious to pay over the money, if this be really Sir John’s intention.”