‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said Simon Puckle with every appearance of genuine regret. He sounded every bit as professional as a doctor did when delivering bad news to a patient. Sympathetic and concerned but at the same time detached. ‘The terms of the Mayton Trust are quite specific in the matter.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said a dejected Clive Culshaw, his shoulders sagging perceptively.
The solicitor did, however, contrive to still sound sympathetic towards the worried businessman sitting across his desk, clutching an untidy file of papers. Not that that helped the man opposite. ‘I fear, Mr Culshaw, that the inheritance is only to be distributed – and I may say accounted for, too – when all the legatees are in a position to receive it at the same time.’
‘So you can’t help me at all, then? I was wondering if you would just consent to my having a loan from the money coming to me. Short term, of course.’
‘I’m sorry but any premature distribution of the capital might make for uncertainty. And it could also perhaps complicate the furtherance of a theoretical claim against the trust by or on behalf of some or of all the other legatees, you understand.’
Clive Culshaw’s shoulders sagged even further. ‘I can’t say that I do understand, Mr Puckle,’ he said. ‘After all, my having an advance on what is coming to me anyway can’t possibly make any difference to any of the other legatees.’
‘There could be a challenge to the whole estate from others who might even at this late stage consider themselves interested parties,’ said Simon Puckle, before quickly adding, ‘although we have naturally taken every precaution we can against such a contingency.’
‘Naturally,’ said Culshaw, struggling to keep a note of sarcasm out of his voice. The last person he wanted to upset at this particular time was the solicitor.
‘We could postulate other difficult circumstances too but the main fact to bear in mind is the provision against what you are proposing contained in the terms of the trust in relation to anticipating any capital from it before its distribution.’
The solicitor had never – could not ever have – met the long-deceased Algernon Mayton but having had the trust under his care for so many years he felt he knew the old man’s mind by now. Anticipating money would, he was sure, have been anathema to a man who had made so much of it in his time. It would have been a dangerous practice in Mayton’s day and it was a dangerous thing to do today.
‘Surely it couldn’t do any harm …’ Clive Culshaw began in a persuasive, salesman’s voice.
The solicitor hadn’t finished. ‘There is the added complication of our inability to find Daniel Elland. You do realise that if he cannot be found it could conceivably be seven years before we could make a claim for presumption of death?’
‘I don’t believe it,’ howled Clive Culshaw. ‘It can’t be.’
‘Every possible contingency has to be taken into consideration.’
‘Except my urgent need for money,’ said Culshaw bitterly.
‘There is also,’ continued the solicitor, sounding sterner now, ‘the added consideration of the … er … unexplained – the unresolved – death of one of the other legatees as well as the aforementioned unavailability of another, both of which understandably preclude a speedy settlement.’
‘The law doesn’t make anything easy,’ muttered Clive Culshaw sourly, ‘although you’d think it should.’ He shifted tack a little. ‘If it isn’t legally possible for me to have an advance on my share of the Mayton money, then would there be any objection to my using the fact of my eventual inheritance as collateral for a loan?’
He pointed to the file in his hand. ‘As you can see from these papers, Culshaw’s Bakery …’
‘Your firm,’ Puckle reminded him gently, ‘of which you are the sole owner.’
‘My firm which is in financial straits.’
‘Dire financial straits,’ said the solicitor, who had been shown the papers.
‘And is in great danger of going under,’ conceded Culshaw. ‘Some of my creditors are getting very pressing.’
‘Word does tend to get around,’ murmured Puckle.
‘Vultures looking for pickings,’ said Culshaw, ‘that’s what they are. Well, at this rate they won’t be fat ones.’
‘Smaller firms are always at risk from bigger ones,’ observed Puckle in a detached way, forbearing to say it was how the world of business worked or that this factor applied in the animal kingdom as well.
‘It’s all very well for you to say that, Mr Puckle, but it’s not only my livelihood that’s at risk but that of my workers, to say nothing of my family’s well-being as well,’ responded Culshaw haughtily. The fact that the game of bridge cost almost nothing to play wasn’t likely to compensate his wife for losing a standard of living that she had got used to.
‘True,’ nodded Simon Puckle, refraining from passing any opinion on the matter. ‘Very true.’
Clive Culshaw got straight back to the matter in hand. ‘So, then,’ he asked directly, ‘can I borrow what I need to keep going on the strength of this inheritance, using the promise of the Mayton money to come? That’s what I need to know now if you won’t advance me any of it.’
Simon Puckle, senior partner in the long-established firm of Puckle, Puckle and Nunnery, Solicitors and Notaries Public, and an experienced operator, said, ‘That, Mr Culshaw, is entirely a matter for whomsoever you are able to secure a loan from.’