A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson

limped round to the passenger side as his uncle came towards him. Leo adored fast cars and loved driving Hugo’s Talbot Lago, which he did at every opportunity. Hugo shook hands with his uncle, took his suitcase and put it into the boot.
    Bill watched the car reverse and drive off, saying morosely to Mr Godley that it was just like a religious gent to be too mean to want a porter. Bill was a staunch member of the Union: he wanted everything to be nationalised that already wasn’t; thought all churches should be pulled down; and held that those who didn’t work on the railways were useless wastrels and a drain on society.
    ‘Come the revolution there won’t be no gents in peculiar collars driving away in fast cars or going to any castles.’
    ‘Come the revolution, you’ll be in one of Joe Stalin’s camps.’
    During the war, Mr Godley had had to put up with the indignity of having female porters, but thank goodness those days were over. Although, as he looked with a jaundiced eye on old Bill, he thought perhaps the girls had been an improvement.
    Scene 2
    Leo slowed down as they came to the main street. He said, ‘Are we going straight to the Castle?’
    Hugo said, ‘Yes.’
    ‘Has Selchester already arrived?’
    ‘He came yesterday with his two daughters,’ Hugo said. ‘I gather you already met him, in Oxford.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Hugo was quick to pick up hesitation in his uncle’s voice ‘Don’t you like him?’
    Leo said, ‘Indeed I do. He’s a most likeable man and a fine scholar. How he’ll cope with being Earl of Selchester I don’t know, but he’s capable and he’ll learn. No, there was an incident in Oxford that slightly disturbed me, that’s all. He has come into his inheritance in unusual circumstances, and perhaps there are those who haven’t welcomed the reappearance of an heir.’
    Hugo glanced at his uncle. ‘Incident? Involving Gus?’ He didn’t like the sound of that.
    ‘Yes. He wasn’t harmed.’
    ‘So what happened?’
    ‘A car mounted the pavement and would have hit him if a passer-by hadn’t pulled him back.’
    ‘Did the driver stop?’
    ‘No, he apparently drove off at high speed. I heard about it when I dined in college that evening. I sat next to Professor Firkin, the passer-by who rescued Lord Selchester. Firkin’s no youngster, but was obviously quick on the uptake. He was still most indignant about what happened. He dislikes all cars in general and those in Oxford in particular. I think he believes that all drivers, once they get behind the wheel, are potentially going to commit some hit-and-run atrocity. However, he’s an astute man and even in the flurry of saving Lord Selchester, he noticed the number plate of the car. He’d rung the police to tell them and they’d got back to him to say it was a false number plate. They think the driver must have been involved in some criminal activity, which was why he didn’t stop.’
    They had driven through the town, passing from the stately Victorian houses near the station, to the elegance of Georgian terraces, to the heart of the town with its higgledy-piggledly mediaeval streets in mellowed stone, and had reached the bridge. Leo took it at a rush before braking to turn into the Castle gates.
    ‘Odd,’ said Hugo. ‘But it must have been an accident. Who would want to kill Gus? Sonia wouldn’t mourn for him, but she’s hardly driving cars at him. She’ll be here for Christmas, by the way, but not arriving until tomorrow.’
    ‘I dare say Lady Sonia hasn’t taken kindly to being disinherited, although I imagine she hasn’t been left penniless.’
    ‘When they drop the H-bomb and the world ends, the one person left alive and sitting on a pile of money will be Sonia. She was very well off anyway, as you know, and she inherited money from her father.’
    Leo said dryly, ‘No doubt, but nothing compared to what the Castle and land are worth. Selchester was one of the lucky ones. All that time during the thirties