"JOHN BELLINGHAM.
"Signed by the said testator John Bellingham in the presence of us present at the same time who at his request and in his presence and in the presence of each other have subscribed our names as witnesses.
"Frederick Wilton, 16 Medford Road, London, N., clerk.
"James Barker, 32 Wadbury Crescent, London, S.W., clerk."
"Well," said Jervis, laying down the document as Thorndyke detached the last sheet from his writing-pad, "I have met with a good many idiotic wills, but this one can give them all points. I don't see how it is ever going to be administered. One of the two executors is a mere abstraction—a sort of algebraical problem with no answer."
"I think that difficulty could be overcome," said Thorndyke.
"I don't see how," retorted Jervis. "If the body is deposited in a certain place, A is the executor; if it is somewhere else, B is the executor. But, as you cannot produce the body, and no one has the least idea where it is, it is impossible to prove either that it is or that it is not in any specified place."
"You are magnifying the difficulty, Jervis," said Thorndyke. "The body may, of course, be anywhere in the entire world, but the place where it is lying is either inside or outside the general boundary of these two parishes. If it has been deposited within the boundary of those two parishes, the fact must be ascertainable by examining the burial certificates issued since the date when the missing man was last seen alive and by consulting the registers of those specified places of burial. I think that if no record can be found of any such interment within the boundary of those two parishes, that fact will be taken by the Court as proof that no such interment has taken place, and that therefore the body must have been deposited elsewhere. Such a decision would constitute George Hurst the co-executor and residuary legatee."
"That is cheerful for your friends, Berkeley," Jervis remarked, "for we may take it as pretty certain that the body has not been deposited in any of the places named."
"Yes," I agreed gloomily, "I'm afraid there is very little doubt of that. But what an ass the fellow must have been to make such a to-do about his beastly carcass? What the deuce could it have mattered to him where it was dumped, when he had done with it?"