Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/486

 Leaves from an English Solicitor's Note-Book. peerage Following up this hint, I found that the return of the X family was made by Thomas, the sixth Lord X, some few years before his death; that he made no mention of his elder brother William having left a widow; and that the dates therein given of his brother William's death and of his own father's death, and consequently of his own succession to the peerage, were incorrect by several years when compared with the actual dates, as given in the parish registers, of their burial. I asked myself, as I now ask my readers, does a man of birth and education lightly forget the date of the death of an elder brother which made him heir-appar ent to a peerage and to valuable family es tates, and the date of the death of his own father which brought him into actual enjoy ment of these? The discrepancies in dates were very extraordinary, and I never could account for them satisfactorily except on the theory that, on William's death, Thomas, knowing that William had a son abroad, did not in his own mind become heir-apparent; and so, when his father (the fifth Lord X) died, Thomas knew that he only held the estate as loeum tenens for his elder brother's absent son, the rightful heir. I found out that it was not until many years after his father's death that Thomas took his seat in the Irish house of peers. I may also state here that, with all my searching, I could never discover that William left any will, or that letters of administration, in default of a will, were ever taken out to his personal es tate. This would be inconsistent with the old Fleet prisoner's being a base-born son of William, for whom naturally William would wish to make some provision; but it would not be inconsistent with the Fleet prisoner being a lawful son, who would, under the law of entail and settlement, be come entitled in possession to the estates on the death of the fifth Lord X, and also to the personal estate, subject, as to both es tates, to the widow's dower and thirds. I must now relate an extraordinary cir

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cumstance told me by the claimant, namely, that, immediately he heard of the death of the old Fleet prisoner, he went with his father (who died soon after) to the prison, and that they saw a strange gentleman leav ing the chamber of death; that they made inquiry as to who he was, and learned that it was Mr. Z, who had married Helen, the heiress. The claimant and his father searched every nook and cranny of the room for the old man's pocket-book, but it was nowhere to be found, and never came to light after wards. I asked myself, and I ask my read ers, how was it that Mr. Z was on the spot before the old man's son and grandson? What was the old Fleet prisoner to him, or he to the old Fleet prisoner? and had his early presence in the death chamber any thing to do with the loss of the pocketbook? and what interest had he in the contents of the pocket-book? But if the old Fleet prisoner's story were true, and if the old man lying dead in that chamber was the rightful peer, and the rightful owner of the estates, to the knowledge of Mr. Z, who was then enjoying the estates in right of his wife; and if (as was probable) the old man had boasted to others besides the claimant (for instance one of the warders of the prison) that the proofs of his title (such as a certifi cate of the marriage of his parents) were in his pocket-book, and this boast had reached Mr. Z's ears, — his presence in the death chamber, and the abstraction of the pocketbook, which otherwise would be unaccount able, are no longer insoluble mysteries;- for Mr. Z would have the liveliest interest in destroying all evidence which would enable the old man's son to lay claim to the title, and to the estates also. All the energies of my mind were now directed to discover legal proof of the first marriage of William the widower, the eldest son of the fifth Lord X, and of the birth or baptism of the old Fleet prisoner. I got the claimant to repeat again to me his recol lections of his conversations with the old