William Abbott, of Sydney, N.S.W., was a wool broker who came to England in the year 1906 and died worth some hundred and fifty thousand pounds. He had three sons, John, Alexander and Richard.
The Will was simple and direct. Murchison laid a copy of it before me, taken by permission of Abbott’s lawyer’s, whom he had found, and it ran something like this.
“Owing to the conduct of my eldest son, John Abbott, I hereby revoke my Will of June 7th, 1902, by which I bequeathed him the whole of my property, with the exception of the sum of twenty thousand pounds to be equally divided between my sons Alexander and Richard. I hereby bequeath the whole of my property to my son Alexander Abbott. Signed: William Abbott, July 10th, 1904. Witnesses: John Brooke, Jane Summers.”
“Well,” said Murchison, as I handed the paper back, “that signature is a forgery; the body of the document is written as if by a clerk in almost print character, but though I have never seen the handwriting of William Abbott, I will bet my reputation that the signature is forged.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Because the signatures of the witnesses are forged; they have both been written by the same hand. The signature ‘William Abbott’ has evidently been carefully copied from an original, there is a constraint about it that tells me that, but the witnesses’ signatures, where the forger had nothing to copy and had to invent imaginary names, simply shout. The fool never thought of that; leaving the point of similarity aside, the woman’s signature is as masculine as a Grenadier. The body of the document, though almost in print, is also the work of the forger.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” said he, “handwriting with me is not only a science which I have studied for fifty years; it is something that has developed in me an instinct. Now to go on. Alexander Abbott lives in a big house down in Kent. Richard, at the time of his father’s death, was a captain in the Black Bird Line, evidently working for his bread. A year after his father’s death he bought the steamer Shanghai, paying a large sum for it spot cash. He was an unmarried man, and when ashore occupied a flat in Bayswater. Alexander is a widower with one daughter.—That’s all. The case is complete.”
“How do you read it?” I asked. The old chap fetched a snuff box out of a drawer in the desk, took a pinch and put the box back without offering it.
“I read it,” he said, “in this way. John, the eldest son, was a bad lot; the father may have intended to disinherit him, and make a second will; anyhow, he didn’t; put it off as men do. When the father died, Alexander boldly did the trick. Richard may have been party to the business, at first—who knows? Anyhow, it seems that he was later on, since he was able to plank that big sum down for the ship, and since he was left nothing in the will, and since, as you say, he put up that notice you took off the boat and which told the truth.”