An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [69]
By the time he arrived he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It took him only a few inquiries at the ostler's where he left the horse, before he was sitting in the office of the court clerk, a James Westwood, who received him with grave courtesy. He sat behind a magnificent walnut desk, his spectacles balanced on the end of his rather long nose.
“I can tell you nothing confidential, you understand,” he warned pleasantly.
“Yes, I do understand.” Henry nodded. “My son is a barrister in London.”
“Rathbone!” Westwood's face lit up. “Really? Oliver Rathbone? Well, well. So he is your son? Fine man.” He smiled. “I still can't tell you anything confidential. Not that much of it, mind you. Nasty business. All very foolish.”
“The estate was in the Gower family?” Henry began. He repeated essentially what Antonia had told him.
“Precisely,” Westwood replied. “Originally the estate was in the Colgrave family. Then Mariah, the widow of Bartram Colgrave. She married Geoffrey Gower and had two sons by him. One of them died as a child, the other is Ashton Gower. But the whole thing was much smaller than before they built that big house, and of course long before they found the archaeological site with all the coins and so on. But I'm ahead of myself.” Westwood coughed and cleared his throat. “The widow, Mariah Colgrave, brought not only the land, but a great deal of money to her second marriage. With it Geoffrey Gower purchased more land, and built that house that is the center of the estate now. When he died, it passed to Ashton, his surviving son.”
Henry was puzzled. “Then what was it that was forged? And how could Ashton Gower be responsible? It seems to have happened before he was born. How could Peter Colgrave have had any right to it? He wasn't in direct descent.”
Westwood pursed his lips. “It's not the estate itself, it's the date of it that's at issue,” he explained. “It all hinges on whether the extra part of it, which includes the house, the better part of the land, and the place where the Viking hoard was found, was purchased before Wilbur Colgrave died, or after.”
“Who was Wilbur Colgrave?” Rathbone was following it with difficulty.
“Bartram's brother, and Peter Colgrave's father. A matter of which way the inheritance went, you see?” Westwood said. “Before and it should pass to Peter Colgrave, after and it passes to Mariah, and then to her son, Ashton Gower.”
“Didn't they know that at the time?” Henry still did not understand. “And if it was a forgery, then Ashton Gower was not even born, so he couldn't possibly be to blame.”
Westwood waved his finger in the air. “Ah, but it was only questioned when Mariah died, just over eleven years ago. Before that everyone took it for granted.”
“Well, if Mariah forged it, or Geoffrey did, it is still not Ashton Gower's fault!”
“That is the crux of it!” Westwood said, his face sharp with interest in the problem. “The forgery was recent! They knew that from the ink on the paper, even though whoever did it lifted all the seals off the old one, the family one, and reused them. Very clever, but the rest of it was rubbish!”
“Then why didn't Wilbur Colgrave claim the estate, and the money, at the time? It was rightfully his!” Henry pointed out.
“That is a very good question,” Westwood agreed keenly. “He is a bit of a scoundrel, and rumor has it that he was always more than a little in love with Mariah—his brother's wife. By all accounts, she was a real beauty in her day. They even said she paid for the land with personal favors.”
He blushed very slightly. “Least said the soonest mended, I think. Anyway, the part that concerns Judah Dreghorn is that when Ashton Gower came to claim his inheritance, Peter Colgrave swore that the Gower deeds to the estate were forged, and it should be his, as heir to Wilbur Colgrave, who was the younger brother and heir to Bartram, rather than his widow, who forfeited it on remarriage. It was entailed, and supposed to remain in the Colgrave name, except that Wilbur died, too, leaving his widow and child, Peter. All rather a mess.”
“And Ashton