Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/466

 offering a substantial reward for news of it, with a reward to the sender of the codicil, if he came forward. Fresh stories, too, came up from Gloucester. It was rumoured that Mr. Chadborn and a companion had been seen, just after the death, busy tearing up and burning papers in the testator's room. This was duly charged, and, strange to say, admitted. They were unimportant papers—old lottery-tickets, &c. On being pressed, it was owned that one of these papers was a sort of power of attorney to Chadborn, which, as it was now useless, he thought it better to destroy.

Then the case began to drag itself slowly through the court. It exhibited some highly characteristic instances of human subtlety and nice reasoning. No less than six-and-thirty witnesses were brought forward for the executors, to prove his hatred of the corporation of Gloucester, and his dislike of charities. Nearly all these were shown the codicil, and were almost positive as to its being a forgery. Their reasons found a valuable commentary on the fallibility of such a test. He always wrote "exors" in a peculiar way; Mr. Counsel's name was spelled "Council;" and he had been heard again and again to caution clerks and others against writing amounts in figures, as they could be altered. Yet all these vast sums were in figures. But a little industry in searching his papers, showed precedents for all these points, spelling being one of his weak points, and "Lien in Hospital" being found in his handwriting for Lying-in Hospital. Such tests are fallacious, as assuming human nature to be consistent always; and as Lord Lyndhurst acutely remarked, a forger would have taken care to write the amounts in words, not in figures, knowing this peculiarity. Though here again an ingenious advocate might retort that a more clever forger still would refine on this, and would have written in figures, because it would be said that a forger would have taken care to know his peculiarity. An instance of the speciousness of human testimony arose in the case. A Mr. Smith declared that only a few years before, he had seen a will of Jemmy Wood's, in which he had left twenty thousand pounds to an hospital, on the strange condition that the money was not to be paid until the hospital was built. This seemed particular enough; the witness was very positive, and they seemed to be on the track of something. But a sort of letter-book turned up, in which this very will was found, in Smith's writing, but it was a will he had drawn for a Mr. Chetwynd.

It was curious that all the thirty-six witnesses should have such a strong opinion against the codicil. The supporters of the latter were lucky enough to find five-and-twenty to swear positively to the writing. They gave the usual reasons, a particular flourish here, a straight stroke there. They went through in regulation cross-examination. Look at that trembling down-stroke in the letter D, now look at this D are the two alike?

At last, it came to decision before Sir Herbert Fust Jenner, who reviewed the whole case in what was called "an elaborate judgment." He went through all the evidence, and finally decided that he could not act upon the codicil, which had nothing to support it, and had come into being in too suspicious a manner. This decision of course affected no one, costs came out of the fund, and both parties must have appealed whatever way it had been decided. It was then taken to the Privy Council, and in 1841 Lord Lyndhurst gave what was no doubt the correct judgment, reversing that of the lower court, and thus diminishing the gains of the executors by about a quarter of a million. It was all but certain that a will had been destroyed. Most probably what had taken place was this. Chadborn returning home, and searching among his papers had found various codicils and wills, which had virtually reduced what was to come to the executors to some insignificant sum. These he found referred to each other, and were so connected that he could not destroy one without destroying all; on the other hand, by destroying them he destroyed the names of the executors, a loss he could only supply by the device of wafering on the old "instructions." The codicil he no doubt thought he had torn and burnt with the rest. Who saved that codicil? Who wrote that most dramatic note? Why did the writer conceal himself? What risk would he run by coming forward? Why was he not tempted by the handsome reward of the corporation? Had he no spirit of revenge if he had been defrauded of a legacy? Was it some spying servant, prowling about that irregular house when the ransacking and burning the papers was going on, and had he found it under the grate just scorched? Or was it some more important person in the drama, some one struck with alarm at the magnitude of the deed, or perhaps conscience stricken, and wishing to leave it to fortune to make reparation—but who dare not appear? Was it Chadborn himself?