The Incidents
The Nine Tenths Rule
anon 1908
The Nine Tenths Rule is a cat & mouse tale of two privileged wealthy English families determined to safeguard all that they own. At the heart of the affair is an unresolved winner-takes-all contract, one created three generations earlier in the offices of Bainbridge & Bainbridge, one that despite the long passage of time still awaits resolution. Tracking down the whereabouts of a 19th century long nosed Tom Morris putter becomes their all consuming objective because, as the title implies, possession is nine tenths of the law.
Not only does The Nine Tenths Rule explore the main protagonists' ever-changing tide of emotions, it asks the reader to consider how they too would respond if everything they owned was suddenly at risk. Would you enter into a truce with the other party to bury the 90 year old contract and leave it unresolved? Or would doubts begin to creep in? Could you really trust a stranger? Could you really trust yourself?
