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Sasha decided that her independent occupation of that part of the Mosman house no longer mattered. She burnt her bridges behind her. ‘Seagrave Dunworthy attempted to enter a marriage that would have involved him in bigamy.’
Hester sat down, a look of triumph spreading across her face. ‘Is that so?’ she encouraged.
‘Yes,’ Sasha said firmly. ‘I have proof of the existence of the first wife and she was alive at the time the second marriage was to take place.’
‘Absolute proof?’ Hester queried.
‘Absolute,’ Sasha assured her. ‘Certificates double-checked. The second marriage was to take place at St. Mary’s Cathedral, Bishop Clancy officiating. It was the social wedding of the year. The bride turned up. The groom turned up. So did the brother of the first wife, uninvited and unannounced.’
‘I don’t need the details of that part,’ Hester said sharply.
‘Of course, once the existence of the first wife was made known, the wedding could not go ahead.’
‘Get on with the good dirt,’ Hester encouraged. ‘This part is boring.’
‘The name of the bride was suppressed in the newspaper. It turned out she had lied about her age and didn’t have parental consent. There were also implications that she was pregnant at the time.’
‘I’m interested in Dunworthy,’ Hester snapped. ‘Not in some flighty female.’
‘He died soon after. Within two years. The death certificate states the cause as a fall from a horse. Some say he invited death, others that it was by his own hand.’
‘Nonsense!’ Hester scoffed. ‘He was simply careless.’
‘A few close friends said it was from an excess of passion.’
‘Aggravated remorse, more likely.’
‘His first wife was institutionalised in Zurich for deep psychological problems.’ The diagnosis on the medical report was schizophrenia, but Sasha knew that was the popular label for any mental disorder in those days.
‘In a word, she was mad,’ Hester declared.
‘Yes. After her death...’
‘When was that?’
‘A month before he died.’
Hester frowned. ‘You’ve got uncontestable proof of the date of her death?’
‘Yes. And once he was free of his legal obligations to his first wife, Seagrave Dunworthy made his extraordinary will. It was signed one week before his fatal fall from a horse.’
Hester sat for a while in brooding silence. She finally gave Sasha a beetling look. ‘He was a callous, unfeeling man.’
Sasha shrugged, not prepared to agree or disagree with that judgement.
‘Is that all you’ve dug up on him?’ Hester demanded.
‘I haven’t had time to work through all the trusts and find out what they mean. But I did find one thing. I think it’s something important.’
She had Hester’s keen attention.
‘Among the papers I examined there were archival files from Brumby, Blackridge and Bagwell. They were Seagrave Dunworthy’s solicitors. In the correspondence, reference was made to a Mary Ester Dawson...’
Sasha paused, looking for a reaction from Hester. It was one of the names in the Dawson family bible where the dates had been changed. Hester stared at her unblinkingly, giving nothing away, waiting for her to go on.
‘The letter is dated a few days before he died. I think the letter was meant to be passed on, but no one realised its significance until it was too late. It wasn’t passed on and he received no reply to it. After he died...well, there was no point to it any more. Until I found it.’
‘You have it here?’ Hester demanded gruffly.
