"Accordingly, the applicant petitions to be allowed to produce evidence of his title to the estate and to obtain a decision on that issue as an issue antecedent to the application for permission to presume death."
The judge looked keenly at the counsel during the making of this statement and then he turned a slightly curious glance on Mr. Pippet and from him to his solicitor.
"I must be perfectly clear," said he, "as to the scope of this further application. There appears to be a claim to a title and to the settled property associated with it. Now, I need not remind you that claims in respect of titles of honour lie within the jurisdiction of the House of Lords through a Committee of Privileges."
"We realize that, my lord," said Mr. McGonnell. "But we are not seeking a final and conclusive decision in this court on the question whether the applicant, Christopher Pippet, is or is not entitled to succeed the present tenant, Earl Percy, but merely whether he has such an interest in the estate as will give him the locus standi necessary to entitle him to make an application to presume the death of the said Earl Percy."
"That application," said the judge, "implies certain further proceedings, including, perhaps, a petition to the House of Lords."
"That is so, my lord," counsel agreed. "But we are in a difficulty, and we ask your lordship to exercise a discretion in the matter of procedure. Our difficulty is this: There is reason to believe that Earl Percy is dead; but no direct evidence of his death exists. Consequently, he is, in a legal sense, a living person; and, since no one can be the heir of a living person, it is not possible for Mr. Pippet to initiate proceedings in the House of Lords. Before any such proceedings could become possible it would be necessary for the death of Earl Percy to be either proved or presumed.
"Therefore, the applicant applies for the permission of the court to presume the death. But his right to make this application is contested on the grounds that I have mentioned. Thus he is in this dilemma: He cannot prove his claim until death is presumed, and he cannot apply for permission to presume death until he has proved his claim. But this dilemma, it is submitted, is contrary to the interests of justice; and we accordingly ask your lordship to hear such evidence as shall establish the applicant's position as a person having such an interest in the estate as renders him competent to make the application."
"It is not perfectly clear," said the judge, "that the fact of his having this belief in his title to succeed does not constitute him an interested party to that extent. But we need not go into that, as the issue is not raised. What is the position of the Earl's representatives in regard to the heir presumptive?"
"Our position, my lord," said Anstey, rising as the other counsel sat down, "is that the heir presumptive is Mr. Giles Engleheart, the only son of the late Charles Engleheart, Esquire, who was the Earl's first cousin. Apart from Mr. Pippet's claim, there is no doubt whatever about Mr. Engleheart's position. It is not contested. And I may say, if it is permissible, that we are in full agreement with what my learned friend has just said with regard to the applicant's claim. Since the question has been raised, we submit that it is desirable that the applicant be permitted to produce such evidence as may establish the existence or non-existence of a prima facie case. We agree with my learned friend that the present impasse is against the interests of justice."
"Yes," said the judge, "there ought certainly to be some escape from the dilemma which the learned counsel for the applicant has mentioned. The actual claim will, no doubt, have to be decided in another place; but there is no objection to such provisional proof as may be necessary for the purposes of the present application. I am therefore prepared to hear the evidence in support of the applicant's claim."
He looked at Mr. McGonnell, who thereupon rose and proceeded to open the preliminary case, by a recital of the alleged facts in much the same terms as the sketch which I had heard from Mr. Brodribb, but in somewhat greater detail; and, as I listened, with my eyes on the judge's face, to the unfolding of that incredible and ridiculous story, I was once more astonished that anyone should have the confidence to tell it seriously in a court of law. How it impressed the judge it was impossible to tell. Judges, as a class, are not easily surprised, nor are they addicted to giving facial expression to their emotions; and the present specimen was a particularly wooden-faced old gentleman. All that I could gather from my observations of his countenance was that he appeared to be listening with close attention and placid interest.
"That, my lord," said Mr. McGonnell, when he came to the end of the "story" with a description of the sham funeral, "is an outline of what are alleged to be the facts of the applicant's case; and it would be useless to deny that, taken at its face value, the whole story appears wildly incredible. If it rested only on the family tradition, no one would entertain it for a moment. But it does not rest only on that tradition. It is supported by a considerable body of evidence, including certain very significant entries in a diary kept by Josiah Pippet and certain facts relating to the Earl, George Augustus, who, it is claimed, was the alter ego of the said Josiah. Perhaps it will be well to glance at the latter first.
"The thesis on which Mr. Christopher Pippet's claim is based is that the said Earl, George Augustus, was in the habit of leaving his mansion from time to time and going to 'The Fox and Grapes' Inn, where he assumed the name and style of Josiah Pippet and lived the life and carried out the activities of an inn-keeper. Now, it will naturally be asked, 'Is it credible that any man in the possession of his senses would conduct himself in this manner?' And the answer obviously is that it is not. But here the question arises, 'Was the said Earl in the possession of his senses?' And the answer to that is that, apparently, he was not. At any rate, his conduct in general was so strange, so unusual and erratic, that it would be difficult to name any eccentricity of which he might not have been capable. Let us see what manner of man this was.
"In the first place, he appears to have been a man who had no fixed habits of life. He would live for months at his mansion, busying himself in certain works which we shall consider presently, and then, apparently without notice, he would disappear, leaving no clue to his whereabouts. He would stay away from home for months—in some cases for more than a year—and then would suddenly make his appearance at the mansion, unannounced and unexpected, giving no account of himself or his doings during his absence. And it is worth notice that his alleged double, Josiah Pippet, had similar peculiarities of behaviour. He also was in the habit of making mysterious disappearances and leaving no clue to his whereabouts."
"Is it ascertained," the judge asked, "that the disappearances of the two men coincided in time?"
"That is what is alleged, my lord," was the reply. "Naturally, after the many years that have elapsed, it is difficult to recover the dates as exactly as might be desired."
"No doubt," his lordship agreed; "but the point is highly material."
"Certainly, my lord," counsel admitted. "Its importance has been fully realized and the point has been carefully examined. Such evidence as has been available goes to prove that the disappearances synchronized.
"But these strange disappearances are not the only, or even the most striking evidences of the Earl's eccentricity. Still more suggestive of an unbalanced mind is the way in which he occupied himself in the intervals of those disappearances, when he was in residence at the mansion. Nothing in the traditional story which I have recited is more incredible than the history of his doings when he was at home. For then, it appears, he was in the habit of assembling an army of workmen, and, at enormous expense, employing them in carrying out works on the most gigantic scale and of the most preposterous character. In one part of his grounds, he set up an immense and lofty tower, with no ascertainable purpose except the view from the summit. From the base of this tower, a flight of steps was constructed leading down into the bowels of the earth, and communicating with a great range of subterranean passages of an aggregate length of close upon a mile. Connected with these passages were several la
rge subterranean rooms, lighted from the surface by shafts and elaborately furnished. No reason is known for the construction of these rooms, though it appears that the Earl was accustomed, from time to time, to retire to them with a stock of provisions and pass a few days underground, hidden from the sight of men. These strange burrows and the great tower are still in existence and will be described in detail by a witness who, by the courtesy of the Earl's representatives, was enabled to make a thorough examination of them. But the slight description of them which I have given is sufficient to demonstrate that the Earl George Augustus was a man who, if not actually insane, was so strange and erratic in his behaviour that there is hardly any eccentricity of which he might not have been capable. The objection, therefore, to the traditional story, that it postulates an unbelievable degree of eccentricity in the Earl George Augustus, has no weight; since the said Earl did, in fact, give evidence of an unbelievable degree of eccentricity.
"I will say no more on the subject of this strange man's personality, though further details of his peculiarities will be given in evidence. But, before finishing with him, it will be material to note the salient facts of his life. George Augustus, fourth Earl of Winsborough, was born on the 9th of August in the year 1794 and he died unmarried in 1871, aged 77. He had no brothers. He was succeeded by his cousin, Francis Engleheart, who died in 1893 and was succeeded by his only son—and only child—then twenty-six years of age, the present Earl Percy.
"We now pass to the alleged double of the Earl George Augustus, Josiah Pippet. Of his personal character we have less direct information, but, on the other hand, we have an invaluable and unimpeachable source of evidence in a diary which he kept for many years, and up to the date of his death. From this, we, at least, gather one highly suggestive fact; that he, like the Earl, was in the habit of disappearing at intervals from his home and from his usual places of resort, of staying away for months at a time, and on two occasions for over a year, and, so far as we are able to discover, leaving no clue as to the place to which he had gone or where he was living.
"When I say that he left no clue to his whereabouts, I mean that he gave no information to his wife or family. Actually, the diary furnishes quite a considerable number of clues; and it is a very striking fact that these clues all refer to the same locality, and that the locality referred to happens to be the very one in which Winsborough Castle is situated. But not only is the locality referred to; there are actual references to the Castle itself, and in such terms as to leave no doubt that the writer was, at the time, in residence there. As the diary will be put in evidence, I need not occupy the time of the court with quotations at this stage, but will proceed to the few but important facts that are known respecting Josiah Pippet.
"The first fact that I shall mention—and a very striking and suggestive fact it is—is that, although the date of Josiah's birth is known, no entry recording it appears in any known register. Exhaustive search has been made at Somerset House and elsewhere, but, so far as can be discovered, no record whatever exists of this man's birth. He seems to have dropped from the skies.
"But, as I have said, the date of his birth is known, for it is stated with great exactness on the vault in which his coffin was deposited. Above the entrance to that vault is a marble tablet on which is carved this brief but significant inscription: 'JOSIAH PIPPET, died the 12th day of October 1843, aged 49 years, 2 months and 3 days.'
"Now here is a very exact, though rather roundabout statement, from which we can compute the very day of his birth. And what was that day? A simple calculation shows that it was the 9th of August 1794—the very same day on which George Augustus, Fourth Earl of Winsborough, was born!
"If this is a coincidence, it is a most amazing one. The Earl and his alleged double were born on the same day. And not only that. The birth of the double is unrecorded. There is no evidence that it ever took place. Which is precisely what we might expect in the case of a double. The birth of the Earl duly appears in the register at Somerset House; and I submit that it is a reasonable inference that that entry records the birth, not only of George Augustus Engleheart, but also of Josiah Pippet. That those two men were, in fact, one and the same person; or, in other words, that Josiah Pippet was a purely imaginary and fictitious person.
"But the mysterious circumstances connected with the birth of these two persons—or these two aspects of the same person—are repeated in connexion with their deaths. Just as only one of them is known, and can be proved, to have been born, so only one of them can be proved to have died. It is true that, in the case of Josiah, there was a funeral and a coffin which was solemnly interred. But there was a current belief that the funeral was a sham and that the coffin contained no human remains. And that belief is supported by the fact that there was no medical certificate. The death certificate was signed only by Walter Pippet, the son of the alleged deceased, as was possible in those days, before the passing of the Medical Act of 1858. There is nothing to show that the alleged deceased was attended by any medical practitioner or that there was anything to prevent the sham funeral from taking place with the collusion of the said Walter Pippet. The circumstances of the death, I repeat, like those of the birth, are fully compatible with the belief that there were not two persons at all, but only one person enacting two alternating parts. In other words, that Josiah Pippet was a mythical personage, like John Doe, created for a specific purpose.
"Nevertheless, when we come to the matter of the applicant's ancestry and descent, we must treat the said Josiah as a real person, since he is the applicant's visible ancestor. And he has undeniably the qualities of a real person inasmuch as, in the character of Josiah Pippet, he married and had children. In the year 1822, in the church of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, he was married to Martha Bagshaw, spinster, he being then 28 years of age, and, according to the register, following the occupation of a ship's steward. The exact date at which he became landlord of the 'Fox and Grapes' is not certain, but he is so described in the register where the birth of his eldest child is recorded.
"There were three children of this marriage; Walter, the eldest, born in 1824, Frederick William, born in 1826 and Susan, born in 1832. Susan married and died in 1897. Walter carried on the 'Fox and Grapes' after his father's real or fictitious death, and died unmarried in 1865. Frederick William took to a sea-faring life and eventually settled, in the year 1853, at the age of 27, in the United States, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There he began business by opening a small shop, which grew by degrees into a large and important department store. In 1868 he married Miss Elizabeth Watson, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant of Philadelphia, by whom he had two children, a son, Christopher Josiah, the present applicant, and a daughter Arminella. He lost his wife in 1891, and he died in 1905, leaving the bulk of his large fortune to his daughter and the residue together with the business to his son; who carried on the concern until 1921, when, having made a further considerable fortune, he sold out and retired. It was then that, for the first time, he began seriously to consider raising the claim to what he believes—justly, as I submit—to be his legitimate heritage.
"Before proceeding to call witnesses, I venture, my lord, to recapitulate briefly the points of the case which favour the belief that Josiah Pippet and the Earl George Augustus, Fourth Earl of Winsborough, were one and the same person.
"First, that the said Earl was a man of such wildly eccentric habits and conduct that he might credibly have behaved in the manner alleged.
"That his habit of absenting himself from home for long periods and disappearing from his known places of resort, would have rendered the alleged impersonation easily possible.
"That the man called Josiah Pippet was in the same way addicted to absences and disappearances.
"That the said Josiah is reported to have claimed to be the Earl.
"That, whereas both these persons were born on the same day, there is evidence of the birth of one only.
"That, in like manner, there is
evidence of the death of only one of them, the circumstances being such as to support the rumour which was current that the coffin which was interred contained no corpse.
"Those, my lord, are the facts on which the applicant's claim is based; and I submit that if they can be proved—as they will be by the testimony of the witnesses whom I shall call—they constitute a case sufficiently convincing for the purpose of this application."
Here Mr. McGonnell paused and inspected his brief while the judge shifted his position in his chair and the usher pronounced the name of Christopher Josiah Pippet. Thereupon Mr. Pippet moved across to the witness-box, and, having been sworn, gave his name and the usual particulars. Then his counsel proceeded to open the examination in chief.
IX. THE EVIDENCE OF CHRISTOPER J. PIPPET
"Can you remember, Mr. Pippet," the counsel asked, "when you first became aware that you were possibly the direct descendant of the Earl of Winsborough?"
"No, sir, I cannot," was the reply. "It must have been when I was quite a small boy."
"From whom did you receive the information?"
"From my father, Frederick William Pippet."
"Did he refer to the matter on more than one occasion?"
"Yes; on a great many occasions. It was rather a favourite subject with him."
"Did you gather that he believed in the truth of the tradition?"
"I didn't have to gather," replied the witness, with a dry smile. "He said in perfectly unmistakable terms that he regarded it as pure bunkum."
"Do you know what reasons he had for taking that view?"
"There were several reasons. In the first place, he didn't care a dime whether it was true or not. He was a prosperous American citizen, and that was good enough for him. But I think his beliefs were influenced by the character and personality of his father, Josiah Pippet. Josiah was a very peculiar man; very erratic in his behaviour, and, my father thought, not particularly reliable in his statements. Then he was an inveterate joker and much addicted to what is now called leg-pulling. I gathered that my father regarded the whole story as a leg-pull. But he did express surprise that Josiah should have kept the joke up so long and that so many people seemed to have been taken in by it."
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