"When you were here last summer," began Prince, leaning forward
over his desk, "you brought me a piece of news that astounded me,
as it did many others. It was the assignment of Dr. West's
property to Mrs. Saltonstall. That was something there was no
gainsaying; it was a purely business affair, and involved nobody's
rights but the assignor. But this was followed, a day or two
after, by the announcement of the Doctor's will, making the same
lady the absolute and sole inheritor of the same property. That
seemed all right too; for there were, apparently, no legal heirs.
Since then, however, it has been discovered that there is a legal
heir--none other than the Doctor's only son. Now, as no allusion
to the son's existence was made in that will--which was a great
oversight of the Doctor's--it is a fiction of the law that such an
omission is an act of forgetfulness, and therefore leaves the son
the same rights as if there had been no will at all. In other
words, if the Doctor had seen fit to throw his scapegrace son a
hundred dollar bill, it would have been legal evidence that he
remembered him. As he did not, it's a fair legal presumption that
he forgot him, or that the will is incomplete."
"This seems to be a question for Mrs. Saltonstall's lawyers--not
for her friends," said Carroll, coldly.
"Excuse me; that remains for you to decide--when you hear all. You
understand at present, then, that Dr. West's property, both by
assignment and will, was made over, in the event of his death, not
to his legal heirs, but to a comparative stranger.
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