“There might not be any dishonest intention-”

Jacob Taverner puffed out his cheeks, and then suddenly expelled the air in a sound like “Pho!” Contempt for his solicitor’s opinion was indicated.

“Taverner’s not all that common as a name, and when you tack Jeremiah on to it-well, I ask you! ‘Descendants of Jeremiah Taverner who died in 1888’-that’s what I put in my advertisement. I had fifty answers, and half of them were just trying it on.”

“He might have had fifty descendants,” said Mr. John Taylor.

“He might have had a hundred, or two hundred, or three, but he didn’t have half of those who answered my advertisement. He had eight children-I’m not counting four that died in their cradles. My father Jeremiah was the eldest. The next five sons were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, and the two girls were Mary and Joanna. Mary came fourth between Mark and Luke, and Joanna was a twin with John. Well, there’s quite a lot of scope for descendants there. That’s what first put it into my head, you know. Old Jeremiah, he kept the Catherine-Wheel inn on the coast road to Ledlington, and his father before him. Up to their necks in the smuggling trade, they were, and made a pretty penny out of it. They used to land the cargoes and get them into Jeremiah’s cellars very clever.” He chuckled. “I remember him, and that’s the way he used to talk about it-‘We diddled them very clever.’ Well, he died in eighty-eight and he left everything to my father, his eldest son Jeremiah.” He screwed up his face in a monkey grimace. “Was there a family row! None of them ever spoke to him again or had any truck or dealings with him. He let the inn on a long lease, put the money in his pocket, and set up as a contractor. He made a pile, and I’ve made another- and because of the family quarrel I can’t make a decent family will without advertising for my kith and kin.”