The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [50]
“It is. My friend John Fitzgerald was a solicitor; he died in 1916, and this was his latest will. I cannot say that it was a will I should have cared to draw up for him myself, nor was it, I think, a will he would willingly have drawn for one of his clients, but you know, Inspector, solicitors are notorious for making bad disposals of their own property.”
“What was the will proved at?”
“At about £50,000. That,” said Mr. Dakers, “did not represent the rewards of the law; the greater part of the money was inherited. But I had better begin from the beginning. John Fitzgerald married in 1888 Mary Penistone, the sister of the late Admiral. She died in 1911, and left two surviving children: Walter Everett, born in 1889, and Elma Mary, born nine years later, in 1898. When Walter was twenty, he got into some kind of trouble at home. I think it had to do with a young woman who was attached to the family in a dependent position—in fact, the governess. His father was extremely angry and there was a terrible quarrel. Young Walter ran away from home and disappeared, and for some time his name was not allowed to be mentioned. You know the kind of thing. Elma, of course, was too young to be told what the trouble was about, but Mrs. Fitzgerald always considered that her husband was too hard upon the boy.
“She died, as I say, in 1911, and I really think the worry about Walter helped to break up her health—in fact, as we used to say, it broke her heart. I know John Fitzgerald thought so, and it had a very softening effect upon him. He made efforts to find Walter, though without success, and he executed a will, dividing his property between Walter and Elma.
“Nothing was heard of Walter till the early part of 1915, when he sent his father a letter written from ‘Somewhere in France.’ He expressed himself as sorry for his previous bad behaviour and six years of neglect, hoped he was forgiven, and said that he was now endeavouring to turn over a new leaf and do his duty to his country. No word about where he had been in the interval. At the same time he enclosed ‘in case of accident’ a will drawn in favour of his sister Elma. His father and sister wrote back at once telling him to come home as soon as he got leave, and that all would be forgiven and forgotten. He never did come home, though he wrote from time to time, and after the disastrous battle of Loos his name appeared in the lists of ‘missing, believed killed.’ His father was at that time a very sick man. He was suffering from Bright’s disease, and had not very much longer to live. He absolutely refused to believe that Walter was dead. He had turned up before, he said, and would turn up again. Having in the meantime come into a large property, he re-drafted his will of 1911, leaving the disposition of his estate the same as before, but with certain additional clauses.
“I must now say a word about his brother-in-law, Admiral Penistone. He—you may know something about his history?”
“I have heard that there was some sort of interruption to his career in 1911.”
“Oh, you know about that? Yes, a disgraceful business. I need not go into details, but the affair was one which made it extremely unsuitable that he should be appointed as guardian of the young girl. Understand me, I express no opinion as to whether Captain Penistone (as he was then) was actually to blame in the matter. But the mere fact that his name had been connected with such an unsavoury business should have been sufficient. However, John Fitzgerald, who never would believe ill of anybody—”
“An unusual trait in a lawyer,” Rudge could not help remarking.
“My good man, a lawyer in his private capacity and in his professional capacity may be two very different people,” retorted Mr. Dakers, with some asperity. “John Fitzgerald could not think ill of his wife’s brother. He maintained that Penistone