"A little," Luke admitted.
"But done nothing, I'll warrant. Well, I'm about to do something. If it was here in Chicago now, they'd laugh me out of court; but in England and London—Luke, do you know what sensible men over there are doing? High-ups, brainy men with position; not lunatics and women; big men—or some people are powerful liars."
"What are you considering doing?" his son inquired.
Lucas laughed as he liked to laugh when planning a shrewd and clever coup. "Hale Sir Horace Clebourne into court, of course, to swear for us that Oliver's wife is dead! He's high enough, ain't he? And from what I make out, the judge of the case—or do they call him My Lord High Justice in London—well, he'll just be coming out of a séance. The jury—every man of 'em—will all have spook messages of their own that they believe in; my local London counsel—what do they call him there, Luke?"
"Solicitor," Luke supplied.
"That's it. My solicitor will be bang up in the business; he'll believe in spirits all through; and likely enough solicitor for the other side will be believing on the quiet. We'll get a good old English ruling—a precedent; leave it to Jaccard to get a precedent. No one over there will care; they're English. They'll just be interested in the idea of the precedent and in backing up their own royal brains. Then when we have our English ruling, we'll carry it into our courts on the verity—is that a good, legal-sounding word, Luke?"
"I think it will do," Luke said.
"On the verity of the death of our dear Agnes, as
