Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 3, February 1961

My Remarkable Client by H. F. Maltby

A brief story of a strange Will.

I was thoroughly enjoying my first night of freedom — my wife had left the day before on a ten day holiday with her folks in Philadelphia. Suddenly, the front door bell rang twice. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was just nine-thirty. I rose from my chair, and went out into the hall with every intention of making the caller unwelcome.

Standing on the step was a small, bedraggled girl. She did not look more than fifteen and her face was very pale. “Does Mr. Perry live here?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m Mr. Perry. What do you want?”

“Are you Mr. Perry the lawyer?”

“That’s right,” I said.

She pointed her hand vaguely into the darkness. “You’re to come at once?” she said.

I stared at her. “That sounds a little vague. You’d better give me a few details.”

“He said I was to bring you with me,” she replied.

“Now look,” I said, becoming a little impatient. “Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” It was bitterly cold and I didn’t relish standing in the doorway.

“It ain’t no joke,” she said in a scared voice. “He’s dying.”

“Who’s dying?”

“The old man who boards with us.”

“What’s his name?” I asked, my impatience rising. “Do I know him?”

“I don’t know his name. He’s only been with us three days. He’s just an old man.”

“But I don’t understand,” I said. “If he’s dying why does he want me? He needs a doctor!”

“No,” she insisted. “He’s had a doctor. He says he can’t last out the night. He wants a lawyer to make his last will.”

“But what made you come to me?” I asked. “This isn’t my office. There are a half-dozen lawyers with offices in the neighborhood. Why don’t you go to one of them?”

“He said you were the nearest,” she said. “He found your address in the phone book. You’re to come at once. He says he can’t die happy unless he makes his last will and testimonial. He says that if he don’t he won’t rest peacefully in his grave.”

I was becoming annoyed. I felt that he, whoever he was, ought to know better than to die at that time of night. Why couldn’t he do it during business hours and give the job of his last will and testament to someone else. I certainly didn’t want it.

I closed the door, pulled on my overcoat and muffler and going to my study, picked up a few sheets of legal paper. The girl had come in a taxi. When I opened the front door again, I found her still standing on the doorstep and the cab waiting outside.

“Fourteen Hawthorne Street,” she told the driver, and we started off.

I was vaguely familiar with Hawthorne Street. It was in a semi-slum neighborhood near the Norwalk railroad station. Here I was, the senior partner of one of the oldest firms of lawyers in Manhattan, sitting in a taxi with a little tenement district child, on my way to make a will for some impoverished old man — with perhaps less than two hundred dollars to his name.

The taxi finally drew in to the curb. “Here we are,” said the girl, who had not spoken a word during the trip.

I opened the door and got out, putting my hand in my pocket to pay the fare. But the girl was before me.

“He said I was to pay,” she explained. “He gave me the money.”

At any rate, my new client possessed some sense of decency.

“This way,” said the girl when she had settled with the driver.

“One minute,” I interrupted, addressing myself to the taxi-driver. “You’d better wait. Never mind what the meter shows.” He nodded. It had occurred to me it would be difficult getting another taxi at that time of night and I would feel safer knowing he was outside.

She led the way across a muddy patch and through the open door of an ancient frame house. The passage and stairs were lit by a single dim light bulb. It was easy to see that this was just a very shabby boarding house.

We mounted the creaking stairs and, turning left at the landing, mounted again. Reaching the second floor we climbed another flight and eventually found ourselves in the top hallway, in almost complete darkness.

“There’s four more steps,” the girl said. “Will you take my hand?”

She clasped my hand tightly and together we ascended what felt like a rickety step-ladder.

“Here we are!” she said, as she knocked at the door.

From within a weak voice replied, “Come in.”

A door opened and I found myself in an attic bedroom. The room, which was lit by another solitary small bulb, seemed to be all ceiling. The room was practically bare of furniture — the most conspicuous item being the bed.

Upon an old-fashioned iron bed lay a frail old man with a wrinkled face, white mustache and bald head. He smiled feebly as I entered.

“It’s good of you to come,” he said in a singularly refined voice. “I must apologize for being a nuisance. If I had known my attacks were going to recur this evening I would have attented to this business earlier in the day and not have troubled you.”

“But are you sure—” I began.

“That I cannot last out the night?” he asked with a smile. “For years I have suffered from a painful malady. I understand its symptoms better than the doctors. Tonight I have received my final warning. It is only a question of hours.”

I was silent. His quiet resignation impressed me.

“Nellie.” he said. “A chair for Mr. Perry.” He watched the girl bring over a rickety wooden chair, a grim smile upon his face.

“Our one and only chair,” he said. “And now, Nellie, you can run away while Mr. Perry and I discuss our business.”

He paused and lay back, smiling faintly.

“You wish me to draw up your will,” I asked, as soon as we were alone.

He nodded. “It may seem curious to you that a man in surroundings like these should bother with a will. It was indeed good of you to come.”

I waved his thanks aside, remembering with what impatience and bad grace I had answered his call.

“But I do not expect you to do it for nothing,” he said. “I have written out a check for your fee. It is made payable to Bearer.”

He drew from beneath his pillow a check which he handed to me. It was for one hundred dollars.

“You have your pen and paper?” he asked, before I could point out that the amount was excessive.

I assured him that I had.

“You will require my full names,” he said. “They are Henry — Wilton — Callwood. A family name,” he explained.

“Address?” I asked.

“I have none. As I have resided here for three days and will shortly be dying here, I think we may use it as an accommodation address.”

He watched me closely while I wrote the usual opening clause.

“I appoint as my sole executors the Queens National Bank,” he dictated, adding, “I have made all required arrangements with that institution for the carrying out of these bequeaths.”

I wrote, wondering what was coming next.

“I declare that I am of sound mind,” he went on, “and that this, my last will, is made for the sole purpose of making certain that none of my nephews, nieces, or relatives, who have so long and so impatiently awaited my demise, shall benefit in any way by my death.”

“So that’s the secret,” I thought. “Revenge. He could not die in peace if he thought any of his relatives would gain a cent.”

When I had finished with the opening clauses, I waited for him to continue.

“I leave and bequeath to Our Dumb Friends League, The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and to The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children the sum of five thousand dollars each.”

I was startled. We were dealing in big figures, it seemed. But the bequest that followed surprised me more. Unless he was quite mad, this little wreck of a man must be worth over fifty thousand dollars, and every penny of it was to go to charity.

“The residue of my estate,” he dictated, “I leave and bequeath to the Parks Commission of the City of New York as a small return for the many concerts of splendid music I have enjoyed across the years.”

It was the most remarkable will I have ever drawn up, and the circumstances were equally remarkable.

In the presence of the small girl who had brought me to the boarding house I witnessed it. Then, bidding him goodbye, I returned to the waiting taxi.

I remained so preoccupied with what I had seen that it wasn’t until the driver drew in to the curb and opened the door for me that I realized we’d arrived at my home. I settled with him, discovering to my surprise that I had spent over an hour with my extraordinary client.

On entering the house, I realized at once that something out of the ordinary had taken place during my absence. My clothes were strewn about everywhere. I rushed to my study — it was in the wildest imaginable disorder.

The contents of all of my drawers lay scattered on the floor. My safe had been forced and everything of value had vanished. I strode wildly from room to room; it was the same everywhere. The place had been ransacked. I seized the telephone, but the wire had been cut. I tore out of the house to my nearest neighbor and called the police.

In a few minutes two policemen arrived in a radio patrol car. Together we proceeded to fourteen Hawthorne Street. The little frightened girl met us at the door. She was with another woman I took to be her mother and it was evident they were both in a state of great agitation.

“Oh,” the girl gasped on seeing me. “He’s gone!”

“Dead?” I asked.

“Dead, my foot!” said the elderly woman. “The moment you had gone a big car drove up and he was up and into it and away before no one could stop him. He ain’t paid his rent. He ain’t ever paid for the things I got for him.”

“Has he left nothing behind?” I asked.

“Only this,” said the girl. She held up the will in my handwriting, and across it, in blue pencil, was scribbled, “Nuts to you, my credulous friend.”