Thanks. The solicitor strikes me as very likely (based on his role in the story) to be the executor, which fits. The only question left (for those better acquainted with legal matters than I am) is whether, when you're a solicitor, you can legally be the executor to your client's will, particularly since the solicitor had persuaded the man who'd made out the will to do so, and name the MC's family as his heirs.
(To explain a bit more about the situation (this is backstory that won't be directly brought up in the book, but I established it in a "just-in-case-it-has-to-come-up" manner - there's an old family in a corner of England with certain unusual responsibilities - though they've been unaware of these for a long time, and the ones they perform are usually done without knowing their full import. The family solicitor *is* aware of these responsibilities and their significance, and determined that they continue. Recently, the family's somehow become thinned out until there was only one member left in England - but he was young and engaged to be married, so it seemed as if there wasn't much to worry about, that he'd probably soon wed and have a few children to continue the family line. The solicitor, however, took the precaution of locating a junior branch of the family in America - descended from a younger son who'd emigrated to the States in the latter half of the 1800's - and having his client write out a "just-in-case" will leaving the family property to the American relatives if he dies without issue. Shortly afterwards, the client dies in an accident, and the solicitor - no doubt feeling thankful that he'd had his late client write out that will - contacts the American relatives, who are the MC's family, informing them of their inheritance....)
