Property of a Lady

When Nell got back to the shop, there was a letter from the insurance company saying the annual premium on the buildings was due in January, and asking if she would confirm the exact date of her purchase of the premises. Nell had been able to take over the existing buildings insurance from the previous owners, paying the remaining eight months of the premium. It had been an arrangement agreeable to everyone involved, but the policy expired immediately after Christmas and the new premium was almost due.

The insurers asked that, because of the Christmas post, she phone or email the information, and the letter was dated a week ago so it had better be dealt with today – it was already the 17th. Nell could remember the date she had moved in, but the actual completion of the purchase had taken place a couple of weeks earlier and she was not sure of the precise day. She would have to dig out the conveyance.

She put the printouts about William Lee in a drawer until she could show them to Michael and smiled, remembering how his voice seemed almost to light up when his interest was caught. She might phone him this evening – no, better not. It was the last couple of days of the Oxford term, and there would be various events he would have to attend. She would scan the article on to the computer and email it to him.

The conveyance was in the office safe with the title deeds. Nell had turned a small room at the back of the shop into an office. It overlooked the courtyard and the workshop. She was hoping she could afford to have the workshop painted and the courtyard resurfaced by next spring so that she could set up her antique weekends, but it depended on how business went. Still, Christmas was traditionally a good time, and she was going to have a display of Regency miniatures and some early Victorian jewellery for the shop’s Open Day. The jewellery had come from a house sale in Powys, and there were some really beautiful pieces, so some of it might sell for Christmas gifts.

The office was strewn with trade magazines, and the shelves were stacked with reference books. She unlocked the safe and found the title deeds in their box file. Earlier documents were in a perspex folder to protect them, but the more recent ones were at the front. Land registration, various surveys, abstract of title . . . Here was the conveyance with the date of legal completion: 11th January. The date jabbed at a memory in her mind – what was it? It was the date when William Lee had been hanged. That was a macabre coincidence if ever there was one.

Nell wrote down the date, then started to fold the papers carefully back in place, wanting to keep them in sequence. She had bought the premises from a couple who were retiring and who had run a small coffee house-cum-craft business. It had not needed very much work to adapt it for antiques, although some general modernization had been necessary. The old couple had been here for thirty years; they told her that before they came the place had belonged to a carpenter – one of the old types of cabinetmakers. Lovely pieces he had made and sold, they said, and how nice to think the place would again be used to house beautiful furniture.

Here was the conveyance from the cabinetmaker to the coffee house couple. He had been here for a long time, as well. Nell turned back to find the date he had bought it, briefly curious. He had not bought it; he had inherited it from his father in 1940. There was a transfer of title. It had been drawn up by Grimley & Shrike, the solicitors who had advertised for descendants of William or Elizabeth Lee.

She turned over another document. It was an earlier transfer of title, and the names—

Something seemed to swoop down and press hard on the top of her head.

In 1897 the ownership of these premises had been transferred to a man called Josiah Crutchley, as being: ‘The only known relative or descendant of Brooke Crutchley, on whom a presumption of death had been declared, juris et de jure, at Shropshire County Court.’