Decou

Plaintiff, Helena DeCou, initiated this action in the superior court of Riverside County primarily to compel conflicting claimants to interplead and litigate between themselves their several claims and rights to receive payments due and to become due from her under a contract for the purchase of a nine-acre tract of land of the value of about four thousand dollars, situate in said Riverside County, which she had made with the record owner thereof, Elizabeth E. Sitton, since deceased. The parties claiming ¡an interest in the subject matter, all of whom are defendants, subsequently interpleaded.

The whole ease depends upon a decision of the question whether or not the alleged delivery of a deed made and executed by Elizabeth E. Sitton to her niece, Lois E. Lillie, was a sufficient delivery as to have vested title in the latter.

A brief statement of the case becomes necessary to make clear the relations that the principal actors sustained to each other and the circumstances attending the execution and delivery of said deed.

On December 18, 1915, Mrs. Elizabeth E. Sitton visited the office of John P. Kuhns, a conveyancer and notary public, for the purpose of engaging him to prepare…