The Golden Goose

14

Lieutenant Grundy was hot, damp and irritated. Office fan notwithstanding, his collar sawed at raw neck and his shoes nipped at swollen toes. He unbuttoned the collar and slipped off the shoes, leaned back in his swivel chair and sighed, and he closed his eyes.

Grundy had just returned from Slater O’Shea’s funeral. His attendance had been a compromise between attending and not attending; that is, he had avoided the service at the church, but he had trailed along to the cemetery. He had not gone to the cemetery out of respect or grief. He had gone to the cemetery because that was what the book prescribed. Of course, the book prescribed it on the theory that the murderer cannot stay away from the funeral of his victim, and in this case the murderer was bound to be there anyway, as a member of the family; but perhaps the aberrant O’Shea character would manifest a guilt he could seize on.

So, naturally, they behaved impeccably. Damn contrary crew! Aunt Lallie had stood with bowed head, a scrap of black cambric pressed to her eyes, and it was actually moist afterward. Twig, who looked as if he prowled cemeteries at night for the fun of it, on this daylight occasion looked almost human. Brady O’Shea had seemed distressed. Peet had been pertly interested. And Prin, slim and grave, had presented an appearance chaotically at odds with Grundy’s suspicions of her. The tearlessness of her eyes was contradicted by the pinched set of her lips; there was a touch of suffering gallantry about her. Grundy had not known whether to be sorry or glad.

He sighed again. He was not feeling as a police officer should in the prevailing circumstances. Now that Slater O’Shea had been laid to eternal rest on his subterranean couch, the wickedness that had put him there seemed not very important. Whereupon Lieutenant Grundy thought: Damn all O’Sheas to hell and back!

That was when the sergeant came into the office. “Say, Lieutenant, some young twerp name of Collins is out there, real brass monkey. Says he’s got to see you in person, no stand-ins.”

“Coley Collins?” Grundy sat up straight. Princess O’Shea’s boy friend had been at the cemetery, too, supporting her elbow. “You send that monkey in!”

Coley entered scowling. It was the same expression, Grundy remembered, that he had worn at the cemetery, as if in dying Slater O’Shea had imposed unreasonable demands on him, Coley Collins.

“What can I do for you?” Grundy snapped.

“It’s not what you can do for me that counts,” Coley said, “it’s what I can do for you.”

“That so? And just what is it you can do for me?”

“I can tell you who knocked off Slater O’Shea.”

Grundy glared with resentment. “Oh, you can, can you?” he said. “All right, sit down.”

Coley sat down calmly. Grundy rocked back in his swivel. The resentment persisted; and this was ungracious, he knew, inasmuch as Coley’s information, if it could be supported by evidence, would end a case that for Grundy could not end soon enough.

“That’s a pretty big hunk of real estate you’ve just bitten off, young fellow,” Grundy said. “Maybe you’d better think about it before you say any more.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Coley said. “Look, Lieutenant. Do you want to crack this nut or don’t you?”

“Can you substantiate what you’re going to tell me?”

“That’s your job, not mine. I can only tell you what to look for.”

Grundy braced himself. “Shoot. Who murdered O’Shea?”

“His sister Lallie.”

Grundy experienced disappointment. He had half hoped for someone outside the area of his suspicions. That is, he had half hoped for a Twig or a Brady.

“Miss Lallie O’Shea is indicated by circumstances,” he said, to lead Coley Collins on.

“You mean because of the will?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that brings me to someone else who may surprise you. Aunt Lallie is guilty, no question about it, but she’s not alone in this. No, sir.”

Here comes my little Princess, thought Grundy, killing Coley Collins with his glance. It was made all the worse by the identity of the informer. What kind of crum was this, to betray his girl friend — especially a girl friend like Princess O’Shea?

“Well, speak up,” Grundy barked. “Who is it?”

“Selwyn Fish.”

Grundy’s mouth assumed a fishlike character for a moment. “Selwyn Fish? The lawyer?”

“I thought that would jar you,” said Coley Collins, smacking his lips. “Yes, sir, that slimy shyster is right in it with Lallie, and you can bank on it.”

“Fish... Where does Fish come into it?”

“With Slater O’Shea’s last will and testament, that’s where.”

“Which will,” Grundy asked cautiously, “would that be?”

“The one allegedly leaving everything to Lallie O’Shea.”

“Allegedly?” Grundy shot up in his chair. “What do you mean, Collins? Talk plain English, will you?”

“All right, here it is: The will that Fish claims gives everything to Lallie O’Shea is a fraud, with a forged signature.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it has to be. Because I know as a matter of absolute fact that Slater O’Shea didn’t leave a plugged quarter to his sister Lallie. Because I know as a fact that he left everything to his niece Princess O’Shea.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Lieutenant Grundy, passing a hand over his forehead. “How do you know that?”

“Because,” said Coley Collins simply, “Slater O’Shea himself told me.”

“Slater O’Shea himself told you.” Grundy got a grip on himself. “Collins, you’re going to have to tell me a hell of a lot more than that before I stop suspecting you’re an escaped psycho. When did O’Shea tell you this? Where? And why — why would he tell you?”

“One at a time, Lawman,” said Coley, unruffled. “When? About ten days, maybe two weeks, before I even laid eyes on Princess O’Shea for the first time. Where? At the bar in the hotel taproom, one night when I was on duty. And why? Because old Slater was aslosh to the guards that night with bourbon Manhattans. It was a slow night and I had plenty of time to listen. And also he’d taken a shine to me, from hanging around my bar so much. And most of all because I was a bartender... None of it meant a thing to me at the time, because I’d never laid eyes on any of the O’Sheas except the old boy. All I knew about them was what he’d confided in me. Next question?”

Grundy had kept his ear tuned for a false note throughout Coley’s explanation. He could not detect one. Still...

“Okay, Coley,” the lieutenant said. “Just what was it he told you?”

“First he told me about the phony will he’d had Fish draw up, the one he never signed. He said it was a kind of life insurance. He wouldn’t put anything past an O’Shea, he said, even murder; but if the five relatives living with him thought that on his death they’d have to share his estate with seventeen other O’Sheas scattered to hell and gone, they’d sit up nights biting their nails trying to figure how to keep him alive forever.

“At the same time,” continued Coley, “he wanted his estate to go to the only relative he really liked and trusted, his niece Prin. So he told me he’d had Fish secretly draw up a valid will leaving everything to Prin, the secret will to be kept in Fish’s safe; and he said that the only ones in the world who knew about that will were Fish and himself — he hadn’t even let on to Prin.”

“So the way you see it,” said Grundy, “Fish must have suppressed the real will and drawn and signed the will you claim is fraudulent — the one leaving everything to Lallie O’Shea?”

“Who else could have drawn and signed it, me?” jeered Coley. “Who told you such a will exists, and that it’s old Slater’s last will and testament? Lawyer Fish. Who told you said will is in his possession? Lawyer Fish. Who’s going to read that will to the family? Lawyer Fish. Who’s going to file it for probate? Lawyer Fish. And who hasn’t breathed a syllable about the will old Slater told me was his last will and testament, the one leaving everything to Princess O’Shea? Lawyer Fish!”

“Maybe some time between the night Slater told you about the Princess will and his death, he had a change of mind and decided to leave everything to his sister,” pointed out Grundy. “That would collapse your whole argument.”

“Then why didn’t Fish mention that to you, Lieutenant? If that Lallie thing is valid and will stand up under examination, Fish wouldn’t have any reason to conceal the existence of an earlier will, would he?” Coley shook his head disgustedly. “Anyway, this whole Lallie-inherits-all caper reeks, and you know it. And I know it because of the way old Slater talked about his kin, including his sister Lallie... all except Prin, whom the old scoundrel doted on.”

Grundy rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “So you figure that Fish and Lallie are in a conspiracy in this thing — Fish doing the mechanical dirty work so Lallie can fraudulently inherit, on some kind of split arrangement?”

“How else is there to figure?” said Coley. “Come on, Lieutenant, get with it. You can bet your shield they’ve got something going between them. And don’t be surprised, when you dig into this midden heap, if you find more than a money arrangement between them. Lallie’s a pretty sleek little old girl, except for those hands of hers, and who knows? Maybe Selwyn Fish has a hand fetish, or something else that would fit right in with the rest of him — revolting as the idea sounds to a normal person like me.”

And Coley stopped, regarding Lieutenant Grundy coolly. Grundy was drumming out a jazz beat on his desk with four fingers of his right hand.

“You don’t buy it,” said Coley in a very flat voice. “By God, no wonder the United States has the highest crime rate in the world!”

But Grundy refused to be ruffled. “Let’s see what you’ve been trying to sell me,” he said. “For business and/or amorous reasons, Selwyn Fish, Slater O’Shea’s lawyer, and Lallie O’Shea, his only sister and closest blood-relative, enter into a murder conspiracy. Fish draws up the phony will naming Lallie as sole heir. Fish either destroys or hides the real will naming Princess O’Shea as Slater’s sole heir. Then Lallie O’Shea slips a lethal dose of that drug into her brother’s bourbon, either having procured it herself or, more likely, got hold of some through Fish. And that’s it. Very ingenious. There’s only one thing wrong with it.”

“What’s that?”

“I have only your word for it that any such conversation between you and Slater O’Shea took place. In other words, that any such will as the one you claim leaves everything to the niece exists or existed.”

“I knew you’d louse it up,” said Coley disgustedly. “Of course you’ve got only my word for it. How about you getting off your duff and proving I’m telling the truth?”

“Was there a witness to this conversation?”

“Of course not.”

“Why didn’t you come forward with this information before?”

“Would you expect a priest to come running to you with something he had heard in the confessional?” asked Coley with dignity. “A bartender holds just as sacred the confidences told to him over his bar. The only reason I’ve come in with the story is that I can’t stand by any longer, keeping this to myself. I’m not going to let my girl be cheated out of her rightful inheritance or those two fiends in human form get away with murder. By God, Lieutenant, you ought to be down on your knees thanking me for solving your case for you, instead of acting as if I were high man on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

“Easy, kid,” said Grundy. “I’m only doing—”

“Your duty? The hell you are! You should be out right now getting a court order to take that phony Lallie will out of Fish’s possession and having Slater O’Shea’s and the other signatures on it expertized. Do I have to point out to you that therein lies the weakness in the plot?”

“What weakness?” asked the lieutenant feebly.

“Look. That slippery Fish monger must have a thousand smelly contacts — you can bet he knows more than one forger who’d do a job for a price and keep his mouth shut. Or he forged old Slater’s name and the witnesses’ signatures himself — all he had to do was trace the signatures from the valid Prin will to the phony Lallie one. Who’d know the difference? Slater O’Shea is dead. The witnesses to his genuine signature, whoever they are, probably have no idea what was in the will they witnessed — the law only requires, as I understand it, that the testator declare the document they sign to be his legal will — he doesn’t have to let them read it or tell them what’s in it. So Fish figured he and Lallie O’Shea would be absolutely safe. And this is my clincher: Don’t forget that Fish never expected the forged Lallie will to be subjected to expert examination. He thought nobody knew about the genuine Prin will except old Slater and himself — how could he foresee that the old boy would spill it to me in his cups? So it’s my considered opinion, Lieutenant, that those signatures on the Lallie will won’t stand up for thirty seconds. Well?”

Grundy could not help shaking his head in admiration. “You’re quite a lad. All right, Coley, I’ll check your yarn out. By the way, have you told Princess O’Shea about this?”

“I didn’t know if I should, but I finally decided she had a right to know. I told her this afternoon, right after the funeral.”

“Did you tell her you were coming to me with the story?”

“Well, no,” said Coley, looking a bit shamefaced. “She asked me to promise not to tell you till she could have a talk with her Aunt Lallie. I sort of evaded promising. I mean, I’m pretty good at evading commitments when I deem it necessary.”

“You may be good at evading commitments,” said Grundy grimly, “but you’re not so good at using your head. How long ago was it that you left the girl?”

“Not long. An hour or so.” Coley looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Because the last thing that girl ought to do is talk to her aunt!”

“But what of it?”

“What of it? What do you suppose she means to talk to her aunt about? She’ll spill the whole story as you told it to her, and Lallie O’Shea will know she and Fish are in hot water, and the first thing she’ll do is contact Fish, to tell him. She may have done so already. And if she has, my young Sherlock Holmes, there won’t be any will with forged signatures to expertize. The first thing Fish will do is burn it. Now do you see what you’ve done?”

“By God, oh, by God,” groaned Coley. “You’re right, Lieutenant, I didn’t give this enough thought. Wait! Maybe Prin hasn’t talked to her yet! I’ll call her right now—”

“If you don’t mind,” said Lieutenant Grundy, “I’ll call her.”

But all he could get out of the O’Shea residence phone was the peevish beep of the busy signal.

Grundy banged the receiver and began to jam on his shoes. “Ten to one Lallie O’Shea’s talking to Fish right this minute! We’d better get over to Fish’s office in a hurry!”

“Hello?” said Aunt Lallie agitatedly. “Is that you, Selwyn?”

“Whom would you expect to answer my phone,” Selwyn Fish said, “Cary Grant? What’s up, Lallie? You sound excited.”

“Is it any wonder? Everything is going all wrong, and it’s your fault!”

“If you’re referring again to the drug in poor Slater’s bourbon, it seems to me you’re at fault there, old girl, not I. If you had waited — not been so greedy — and done the job under competent supervision nobody would have suspected, not even that old ferret Appleton.”

“Selwyn Fish, are you accusing me of — of disposing of my own dear brother Slater?”

“Come off it, Lallie. I confess I didn’t think so at the start. I thought Slater had died a convenient natural death — I couldn’t believe that even you could be so stupid as to have gone ahead without consulting me first. However, what’s done is done. Stop worrying and leave everything to me.”

“I can see now why you have never succeeded in your profession,” said Aunt Lallie spitefully, “even with an utter lack of ethics to get in your way. You can’t recognize the truth when you hear it, Selwyn Fish.”

He chuckled. “I can recognize a bird of a feather. That’s why you and I are so compatible, old girl.”

“Please don’t be any more offensive than you absolutely have to, Selwyn. I’m in no mood for it. Besides, I am no longer so sure we’re compatible. In fact, you are proving a terrible disappointment to me. Not only have you caused me to be suspected of a murder, you have also made it impossible for me to receive any benefit from it.”

“What precisely are you babbling about?” asked the lawyer, a bit sharply. “Whatever it is, though, we had better not discuss it over the telephone. Come over to my office — I’m all alone here.”

“There’s no time. My niece Princess has just told me that Coley Collins has probably already gone to tell Lieutenant Grundy about the will.”

“Will? Which will?” Fish sounded very sharp now. “Damn it, Lallie, try to be explicit!”

“Please do not swear at me, Selwyn Fish.”

“All right, I apologize and all that,” he said rapidly. “Now. Which will?”

“The one you forged, of course — the one making me sole heir. Why should I be concerned about any other will?”

“Will you not use words like forge? Who’s Coley Collins? Wait. Isn’t he the young wolf Princess O’Shea picked up in some bar?”

“She did not pick him up — my nieces do not do such vulgar things. He works there as a bartender, and it was a sad day for you and me when he got that job.”

“For the love of heaven, Lallie, is it necessary for you always to talk like the Delphian Sibyl? Why was it a sad day? What could a young imbecile of a bartender possibly have to do with us?”

“Coley Collins is not such an imbecile as you think.”

“Damn it, come to the point. Come to the point at once. What are you trying to tell me?”

“That Coley Collins knows Slater left everything to Princess, and not to me, because Slater told him so one night when he was intoxicated at Coley Collins’s bar.”

“Oh,” said Selwyn Fish in a sort of moan. “Oh, that besotted idiot. Slater promised me — he promised me he wouldn’t breathe a word about the Princess will — to anyone, anyone!” He was silent, and Aunt Lallie, hearing him breathe like a leaky steampipe, felt an obscure satisfaction. “We may be all right, though, Lallie. It would only be the word of a bartender against that of the testator’s attorney—”

“Since when has the testator’s attorney’s word been taken by anybody for anything?” asked Aunt Lallie sadistically. “Anyway, you are not thinking clearly, Selwyn. Princess has told me that Coley Collins is going to demand that the signatures on the forged will be analyzed by an expert.”

“Will you stop using that word!”

“Do you want to risk that?” continued Aunt Lallie.

“Well... no. I don’t. You’re right. I had better do some thinking.”

Aunt Lallie graciously permitted him to do it, and Fish did it furiously. It took him perhaps fifteen seconds to draw a major conclusion from the facts.

“Well,” he said.

“And what do you think, Selwyn?”

“I think, old girl, that we must retreat to a prepared position. In short, I must regretfully resort to old Slater’s genuine will, which I have saved for just such an emergency.”

Aunt Lallie began to snuffle. For some reason Selwyn Fish, hearing the snuffling sound, immediately thought of her hands. “It’s a great disappointment to me, Selwyn, and so are you. After all your promises — my complete trust in you — I’m to inherit nothing, nothing at all.”

“It’s better than going to jail, which I hope to avoid. It’s also better than squatting on the hot seat, which is something you still have to consider.”

“You stop saying things like that!” said Lallie O’Shea hysterically. “I don’t know why I ever listened to you, or let you — let you—”

Selwyn Fish hung up on her. It was exactly two minutes after Grundy had hung up in his office.

And approximately ten minutes before Grundy and Coley Collins rushed into Fish’s office. The little lawyer was seated at his desk over some legal papers, the very portrait of a busy attorney.

He looked up in surprise. “Why, Grundy, hello,” he said cordially. “I didn’t hear you gentlemen come in. Always glad to see a worthy member of the law enforcement arm. Sit down, sit down.”

“You may not be so glad to see this one,” said the lieutenant. “Know Coley Collins?”

“I believe I have not had the pleasure formally. However, we have mutual acquaintances. Indeed, we attended a funeral together today, didn’t we, Mr. Collins? All three of us did, come to think of it. Won’t you gentlemen sit down?”

“I’d sooner sit down on a rattlesnake’s nest,” said Coley.

“Ah, then this is more or less official,” said Selwyn Fish, leaning back comfortably. “What’s bothering you, Lieutenant?”

“Mr. Collins here,” said Grundy, “has made a serious charge against you, Fish.”

“So? I can’t imagine what it is. What is it?”

Grundy said abruptly, “I want to see that O’Shea will.”

“You mean the one you questioned me about, Lieutenant?”

“That’s right.”

“You know, Lieutenant,” said Fish, “I stretched ethical practice a bit when I told you about it. Now you ask to see it. I haven’t even read it to the bereaved family yet — that’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. Must you see it, Lieutenant?”

“I sure as hell must,” said Grundy grimly. “Of course, you can refuse to show it to me, but then I’d have to get tough. In the end I’d get it, anyway. Come on, Fish, what is it? Yes or no?”

“But my dear Grundy,” said Fish, smiling, “I haven’t the faintest intention of refusing. I simply wanted to establish that I am showing it to you under duress. Fact is, it happens to be right at hand. Here in this drawer. I was reading it over shortly before you arrived, in preparation for tomorrow.” He opened the belly drawer of his desk and extracted a thin blue-clad document, consisting of a single sheet of legal paper. “Here you are, Lieutenant.”

“Before I take it,” said Grundy, “I want to be sure I get this straight. This is Slater O’Shea’s genuine last will and testament, right?”

“Right,” said Fish, cheerfully.

“I mean, the will that makes Miss Lallie O’Shea her brother’s sole heir?”

“I beg your pardon?” Fish, who had been holding the document extended, suddenly retracted it. “Did I hear you correctly, Lieutenant? Did you just say Miss Lallie O’Shea?”

“That’s what I said. And the reason I said it is that that’s what you told me.”

“Really?” The lawyer looked distressed. “Heavens above, how could I possibly have been so absentminded as to use the wrong name?”

“What d’ye mean the wrong name?” growled Grundy. “You not only told me the heir is Lallie O’Shea, you even referred to her as Slater O’Shea’s sister.”

“I did? I don’t see how I possibly could have. Of course, I’m not doubting your word, Lieutenant; it’s just that I don’t understand how I could have made such a lapsus linguae. Well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose. The important thing is what the will says. Here, take a look.”

Grundy took it. Coley, at Grundy’s shoulder, looked at it with him. It was the simplest kind of will, with scarcely three paragraphs. The important one stated that Slater O’Shea left all his worldly goods, real and personal, “to my beloved niece, Princess O’Shea, daughter of my deceased brother Royal O’Shea.” The signature “Slater O’Shea” was a quick, slashing arrangement of pen strokes, without a quiver in it.

The lieutenant looked up and at the lawyer. “By God,” he said slowly. “The old switcheroo. You’ve put the real one back.”

“By God,” said Coley Collins, “the little shyster at least had the good sense to hang on to it in case something went wrong, as it has, and he needed it, as he does. It’s pretty clear what’s happened, Lieutenant. Prin has unwisely let the cat out of the bag to Aunt Lallie, and Aunt Lallie has handed the cat over to Fish, and Fish has decided to drown it. So — an empty bag. But that’s better than a stretch, old Fishy, isn’t it?”

Old Fishy rose to his full stature, which in spite of its limitations managed to look formidable. “Let me give you some free legal advice, young man,” he said sternly. “Don’t ever again call a lawyer a shyster until you familiarize yourself with the laws of slander. And good day to you, sir!”

“A better one than it’s going to be to you,” snapped Coley. “But that’s the lieutenant’s department. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got back for Prin what her uncle meant her to have, and that’s all I care about.”

“Gentlemen,” said Selwyn Fish, “you are wasting my time.”

“I’ve done a lot more than waste my time, Fish!” shouted Lieutenant Grundy. “I’ve let you make a fool out of me! Damn it, I’ve already told the whole O’Shea shebang that Aunt Lallie is the sole heir — including Aunt Lallie!”

“So I heard,” Selwyn Fish said disapprovingly, “and I could scarcely credit my ears. I was tempted to disillusion Miss Lallie O’Shea at once; it seemed a shoddy trick to play on the poor woman, raising her hopes falsely that way. But then it occurred to me that you might have done it for some police purpose, however cruel, so I held my tongue. Will that be all, Lieutenant?”

“For now,” snarled Grundy, still red in the face. “But you haven’t heard the last of this, Fish — I’m going to pass it on to the district attorney. However, when the will fraud business comes out, though, I want to remind you that nothing’s changed as far as the motive for dosing Slater O’Shea with that insulin substitute is concerned, and everybody involved had better keep that in mind—” Grundy whirled “—including you, Collins!”

“W-what do you mean, Lieutenant?” stammered Coley.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you where this gumshoe work of yours has left Princess O’Shea? Now she’s the only one with motive!”

And Grundy stalked from the room, to be followed a moment later by a stumbling, protesting Coley Collins — leaving Selwyn Fish with his fingers laced over his belly in an intricate design.