第3章 The Barrister

Thomas Hartley was not a man who impressed on first acquaintance. He was of middling height, with a face that was pleasant without being handsome, brown hair that was always slightly dishevelled, and a wardrobe that, while clean and well-maintained, showed the careful mending of a man whose income did not quite stretch to a new coat each season. He was thirty-one years old, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and he possessed one of the sharpest legal minds in London—though few people knew it, and fewer still cared. He worked from a set of chambers in Gray's Inn that he shared with two other young barristers, neither of whom had yet made a name for himself. The chambers were on the second floor, overlooking a small courtyard where the noise of the city was reduced to a distant murmur. The rooms were cluttered with books and papers, the shelves sagging under the weight of legal volumes, and the air smelled perpetually of ink and coal smoke. Thomas had come to the law by a route that was, even in a profession not known for conventional career paths, somewhat unusual. He was the son of a Yorkshire miller, a man who had worked his way from the plough to a modest prosperity and who had determined that his eldest son should rise above the trade of grain. Thomas had been sent to school in York, then to Cambridge on a scholarship, where he had read law with a ferocity that astonished his tutors and alienated his fellow students. He had taken his degree with first honours, been called to the Bar at twenty-four, and spent the intervening seven years building a practice that was, if not lucrative, at least respectable. He was not, by temperament, a man of the courtroom. He lacked the theatrical flair that made great advocates, the booming voice and commanding presence that could sway a jury or reduce a witness to tears. What he possessed instead was something rarer: an ability to see the structure of a case the way an architect sees the structure of a building—to understand the load-bearing walls, the hidden stresses, the points where a single well-placed argument could bring the whole edifice crashing down. It was this ability that had brought him to the attention of Mr. Samuel Graves, the village solicitor from Ashworth-in-the-Wold, who had written to him three days ago with a request for his services in a matter of considerable delicacy and complexity. Mr. Graves arrived in London on a Thursday morning, stepping off the Bath coach with a leather valise clutched to his chest and an expression of profound discomfort. He was a small, round man of sixty, with a red face and a nervous manner, and he looked as though he had not slept since receiving the earl's letter of summons some weeks before. Thomas met him at the coaching inn in Cheapside, where Mr. Graves had taken a room and was sitting in the parlour with a cup of tea that had gone cold. Mr. Hartley. Thank you for coming. I know the journey from the Inns is not inconsiderable. Mr. Graves. Please, sit down. Thomas took the chair opposite and waited while the solicitor arranged his papers with fussy precision. Your letter mentioned a matter of inheritance. The Pemberton estate. Mr. Graves nodded, his face grave. Indeed. A most unfortunate situation. The earl died intestate three weeks ago, and the estate is—well, it is in a state of some confusion. I understand that Sir Julian Pemberton has presented himself as the heir. He has. He arrived at the manor the day after the funeral and has been—well, he has been very thorough in his examination of the estate papers. Very thorough indeed. Mr. Graves paused, and Thomas noticed the solicitor's hands trembling slightly. But I have reason to believe that Sir Julian may not be the rightful heir, Mr. Hartley. Or rather, that there may be—complications. Complications? Mr. Graves leaned forward, lowering his voice even though they were alone in the parlour. I was the earl's solicitor for twenty years. I handled his affairs, his investments, his legal matters. And I can tell you, Mr. Hartley, that the earl was not a man who died intestate by accident. He was a careful man. A methodical man. If he did not leave a will, it was because he was prevented from doing so—or because he intended for the matter to be settled by other means. You suspect foul play? No, no. The doctor was quite clear—apoplexy, natural causes. But I suspect that the earl had made other arrangements. Arrangements that may not have been committed to paper. He paused again, and Thomas could see that the man was struggling with something—some confidence that he was not certain he should share. Mr. Graves, Thomas said gently, I cannot advise you unless I know everything. Whatever you are holding back, I must hear it. The solicitor took a deep breath. There are rumours, Mr. Hartley. Among the servants. Of an illegitimate son. A child the earl had with a woman in a traveling circus, many years before he succeeded to the title. If this child exists—and I stress that I have no proof that he does—he would have no claim to the title itself. But if the earl acknowledged him, or if there was a marriage— A secret marriage would change everything. Precisely. And I have reason to believe that the earl may have kept records. Letters, perhaps, or a marriage certificate. Something that he intended to produce at some point but was prevented from doing so by his death. Thomas sat back in his chair, his mind already working through the implications. You were the executor of the estate? I was named executor in a previous will—a will that was made some five years ago and has since been superseded, or so Sir Julian claims, by a more recent document that cannot be found. The situation is, as you can imagine, legally complex. And Sir Julian knows about these rumours? He knows. He has been—investigating. I do not know what he has found, but he has dismissed two of the household staff since his arrival. The housekeeper believes he is searching for something. Thomas steepled his fingers and considered the matter. It was, he had to admit, the most interesting case he had been offered in some time. A disputed inheritance, a missing will, a possible secret marriage, an illegitimate son raised in a circus—it had the elements of a sensation novel, and it touched upon questions of law that went to the heart of the English system of aristocratic succession. You want me to investigate, he said. I want you to find the truth, Mr. Hartley. Whatever it may be. If Sir Julian is the rightful heir, I want to be able to say so with confidence. If there is another claimant, I want to know before Sir Julian consolidates his position beyond challenge. The estate, the tenants, the servants—they all depend upon a clean resolution. And your fee? Mr. Graves named a sum that was, for Thomas, unexpectedly generous. It was clear that the estate's funds were being drawn upon, and that Mr. Graves considered this investigation a necessary expense. I shall need access to the estate papers, Thomas said. All of them. And I shall need to speak with the household staff—anyone who might have knowledge of the earl's private life. Of course. And I shall need time. This is not a matter that can be rushed. Take whatever time you require, Mr. Hartley. But I must warn you—Sir Julian is not a man who will wait patiently. He is already taking steps to secure the estate in his name. If we do not act swiftly, he may make the matter irreversible. Thomas nodded. He understood the urgency. In cases of disputed inheritance, the party that controlled the property first held a significant advantage, even if their legal claim was ultimately found to be weaker. Sir Julian was playing the game that every ambitious heir played: occupy the ground, control the papers, and dare the opposition to dislodge you. I shall begin immediately, Thomas said. I will go to Ashworth Manor within the week. Mr. Graves looked relieved. Thank you, Mr. Hartley. I have confidence in your abilities. Thomas did not share that confidence, not yet. He was a good lawyer, but he was not an experienced investigator, and he had never dealt with a case that involved the aristocracy at this level. The world of earls and estates was foreign to him—a world of privilege and power that operated by rules he understood in theory but had never encountered in practice. But he was a man who liked puzzles, and this was the most intricate puzzle he had ever been offered. He left the coaching inn that afternoon with his mind already full of questions, and he spent the evening in his chambers reading everything he could find on the law of inheritance, entail, and legitimacy. He did not sleep well that night. Not because of anxiety, but because his mind would not stop working—turning over the facts, examining the possibilities, building and dismantling theories like a man constructing and demolishing buildings in his imagination. Somewhere out there, in the vast and varied landscape of England, there might be a man who was the rightful Earl of Pemberton. And that man, if he existed, had been raised among the acrobats and clowns and horse-riders of a traveling circus. Thomas Hartley, son of a Yorkshire miller, lay in his narrow bed and allowed himself a small, grim smile. The law, he reflected, had a sense of humour that its practitioners rarely appreciated. ---