A Town like Alice

Dalhousie and Peters,
    N. H. Strachan
    She rang me up the next day. She had quite a pleasant voice, the voice of a well-trained secretary. She said, "Mr Strachan, this is Miss Jean Paget speaking. I've got your letter of the 29th. I wonder, do you work on Saturday mornings? I'm in a job, so Saturday would be the best day for me."
    I replied, "Oh yes, we work on Saturday mornings. What time would be convenient for you?"
    "Should we say ten-thirty?"
    I made a note upon my pad. "That's all right. Have you got your birth certificate?"
    "Yes, I've got that. Another thing I've got is my mother's marriage certificate, if that helps."
    I said, "Oh yes, bring that along. All right, Miss Paget, I shall look forward to meeting you on Saturday. Ask for me by name, Mr Noel Strachan. I am the senior partner."
    She was shown into my office punctually at ten-thirty on Saturday. She was a girl or woman of a medium height, dark haired. She was good-looking in a quiet way; she had a tranquillity about her that I find it difficult to describe except by saying that it was the grace that you see frequently in women of a Scottish descent. She was dressed in a dark blue coat and skirt. I got up and shook hands with her, and gave her the chair in front of my desk, and went round and sat down myself. I had the papers ready.
    "Well, Miss Paget," I said. "I heard about you from your aunt-I think she is your aunt? Miss Agatha Paget, at Colwyn Bay."
    She inclined her head. "Aunt Aggie wrote and told me that she had had a letter from you. Yes, she's my aunt."
    "And I take it that you are the daughter of Arthur and Jean Paget, who lived in Southampton and Malaya?"
    She nodded. "That's right I've got the birth certificate and mother's birth certificate, as well as her marriage certificate." She took them from her bag and put them on my desk, with her identity card.
    I opened these documents and read them through carefully. There was no doubt about it; she was the person I was looking for. I leaned back in my chair presently and took off my spectacles. "Tell me, Miss Paget," I said. "Did you ever meet your uncle, who died recently? Mr Douglas Macfadden?"
    She hesitated. "I've been thinking about that a lot," she said candidly. "I couldn't honestly swear that I have ever met him, but I think it must have been him that mother took me to see once in Scotland, when I was about ten years old. We all went together, Mother and I and Donald. I remember an old man in a very stuffy room with a lot of birds in cages. I think that was Uncle Douglas, but I'm not quite sure."
    That fitted in with what he had told me, the visit of his sister with her children in 1932. This girl would have been eleven years old then. "Tell me about your brother Donald, Miss Paget," I asked. "Is he still alive?"
    She shook her head. "He died in 1943, while he was a prisoner. He was taken by the Japs in Singapore when we surrendered, and then he was sent to the railway."
    I was puzzled. "The railway?"
    She looked at me coolly, and I thought I saw tolerance for the ignorance of those who stayed in England in her glance. "The railway that the Japs built with Asiatic and prisoner-of-war labour between Siam and Burma. One man died for every sleeper that was laid, and it was about two hundred miles long. Donald was one of them."
    There was a little pause. "I am so sorry," I said at last. "One thing I have to ask you, I am afraid. Was there a death certificate?"
    She stared at me. "I shouldn't think so."
    "Oh…" I leaned back in my chair and took up the will. "This is the will of Mr Douglas Macfadden," I said. "I have a copy for you, Miss Paget, but I think I'd better tell you what it contains in ordinary, non-legal language. Your uncle made two small bequests. The whole of the residue of the estate was left in trust for your brother Donald. The terms of the trust were to the effect that your mother was to enjoy the income from the trust until her death. If she died before your brother attained his majority, the trust was to continue until he was twenty-one, when he would inherit absolutely and the trust would be discharged. If your brother died before inheriting, then you were to inherit the residuary estate after your mother's time, but in that event the trust was to continue till the year 1956, when you would be thirty-five years old. You will appreciate that it is necessary for us to obtain legal evidence of your brother's death."
    She hesitated, and then she said, "Mr Strachan, I'm