Where There's a Will

Chapter 6

The office had been restored to its normal condition as to chairs. As usual, the red one was at the right of Wolfe’s desk, turned to face him, and the college president sat in it. She looked tired and her eyes had little red streaks on the whites, but her backbone wasn’t sagging.

Wolfe said, “That was quite a shock you folks got here this afternoon.”

She nodded. “It’s hard on us. Especially on my sister April, because she pretends she has to laugh at everything. Art making faces at life. Have you had a talk with Miss Kara?”

“A short one. She stayed after the others left.”

“Did you make an agreement with her?”

“No. She offered to relinquish half of the estate, but I refused that.”

“Thank goodness.” Miss Hawthorne looked relieved. “Knowing your reputation, and having had a look at you, I was afraid you might have cornered her and got us committed. But you realize, of course, that the situation is entirely changed. In my opinion, it is now inadvisable to deal with her at all.”

“Indeed. Do the others agree with you?”

“I don’t know. I believe they will. The point is this, we wished to come to an arrangement with Miss Karn as soon as possible to avoid the fracas my sister-in-law was determined to start. Now it doesn’t matter. With the soot a murder investigation will deposit all over us, a will contest wouldn’t even make a smudge.”

Wolfe pursed his lips. “That’s one way of looking at it. I suppose Mr. Skinner and the others followed you people home?”

“Certainly they did. My sister-in-law had them admitted, but on Mr. Prescott’s advice we all — all but Daisy — refused to see them until my sister June had phoned her husband in Washington. He told her we should assist the authorities all we could by answering any relevant questions. Then they went after us — oh, I suppose they were considerate and courteous. The result seems to be that we are all suspected of murder.”

“All?”

“Most of us. I presume that sort of nightmare is familiar enough to you, but I am not a detective and I don’t read crime stories in the papers, I’m too busy. Apparently my brother died — was shot — between 4:30 and 5:30. Titus Ames heard a third shot a little before five o’clock — there had been two previous ones which dead crows account for. At that time my sister April was upstairs taking a nap, but no one was there watching her. My sister was somewhere picking raspberries and grape leaves for a table decoration. I was in a bathroom washing stockings.”

I thought, aha, the magazine was right, she really does! She was going on:

“Celia — Miss Fleet — was in her room writing letters. She answers all the letters from morons my sister April receives. Mrs. Ames was making preparations for the dinner. Daisy, Noel’s wife, was out in a meadow picking blackeyed susans. She calls them daisies. John — my brother-in-law — was chopping wood. Those men actually asked me, very courteously, if I remember hearing his axe going all the time I was washing stockings. I washed my hair too. Mr. Stauffer, whom I violently dislike, had gone to the pond for a swim. Titus Ames was milking cows. Andy had driven to Nyack to get some ice cream, but that doesn’t clear him, because the highway passes not far from where it happened, just the other side of a strip of woods. Sara and Mr. Prescott were in New York and didn’t get there until half past seven, nearly two hours after my brother’s body was found — Mr. Prescott drove Sara out in his car — but I shouldn’t think they’re out of it either — couldn’t one of them have come previously in an airplane and gone back again?”

Wolfe nodded gravely. “Or even a glider from the Empire State Building; it’s only thirty or forty miles. Since it’s already fantastic, we might as well pile it on.”

“It’s not fantastic at all,” Miss Hawthorne retorted. “It’s cold and horrible fact. And they’re going to work on it. They’re going to proceed on the theory that my brother was murdered because he had John Dunn’s career in his grip and wouldn’t let go. They can’t move anything — that is, they can’t convict anyone of murder — but they can ruin John, and they will—”

She pressed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes.

Wolfe murmured, “A little brandy, Archie.”

I got up to get it, but she shook her head and said, “No.” I hesitated. She said, “No thanks, really,” and dropped her hand and opened her eyes at Wolfe.

She straightened her back. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t intend — I only spoke of all that to explain why I think you shouldn’t go ahead with Miss Karn. We no longer shrink from scandal and sensation. I have no rancor for Miss Karn, but there is no reason she should get anything my brother didn’t intend her to get. I don’t believe that that grotesque paper Mr. Prescott read to us expresses my brother’s intentions at all. Noel had faults, plenty of them, but he told me he was bequeathing a million dollars to the Varney science fund, and nothing will ever convince me that he didn’t do it.”

“You said that this afternoon.”

“I repeat it.”

“Then you accuse Mr. Prescott of villainy. He drew the will and produces this one as authentic. Do you think he is splitting with Miss Karn?”

“Good heavens, no.” Her eyes widened in astonishment.

Wolfe frowned. “I’m afraid your mind isn’t working very well, Miss Hawthorne. No wonder, with the jolts you’ve had. You say you believe — when did your brother tell you he was leaving a million to your fund?”

“He mentioned it two or three times. A year ago last winter he informed me he intended to make it a million instead of half that amount. Last summer he told me he had done so.”

“The summer of 1938?”

“Yes.”

“Well. You say you are convinced he wasn’t deceiving you. That he had done what he said. But the will which Mr. Prescott presents as authentic is dated March 7th, 1938, and it was after that date that your brother told you he had changed it to a million for your fund. Therefore you are charging Mr. Prescott with fraud.”

“Not at all,” she declared impatiently. “If I had to base my contention on a supposition as improbable as that, I’d abandon it. I know Glenn Prescott. He’s a fairly shrewd and capable Wall Street lawyer, with the natural flexibility in ethics and morals that is a functional necessity in his environment, but he totally lacks the daring and imagination that are required for banditry in the grand manner. I would be as likely to write a great epic poem as he would be to steal three million dollars by substituting a forgery for my brother’s will. I suppose that’s what you meant — that about his splitting with Miss Karn.”

“Roughly, yes. Some degree of forgery. Not necessarily counterfeiting signatures. Have you seen the document?”

“Yes.”

“Is it all on one page?”

“No. Two.”

“Typewritten, of course?”

“Yes.”

“Are any of the main provisions on page two?”

She frowned. “I don’t — Wait. Yes, I do. Most of the typed matter is on page one. A little on page two, and of course the signatures — my brother’s and the witnesses’.”

“Then it might not have been necessary to attempt the hazardous process of forging signatures. But if you rule out fraud on the part of Prescott, on what ground can you contend—”

“I was coming to it. That’s what I came to tell you. I think it happened like this. Noel did have Prescott draw that will for him, just as it is now, and keep it in his office vault. But at the same time, or rather a little later, perhaps the next day, Noel superseded it by drawing another will, himself, without Prescott’s knowledge, which disposed of his fortune as he did in fact desire to dispose of it. The question is, where is the last will? The only valid one?”

Wolfe grunted. “There seems to be a prior question. Why did your brother have Mr. Prescott draw a will which he intended so promptly to supersede? So much trouble.”

May shook her head. “Not much, since he had to. Prescott himself furnished the hint for that. We asked him last night if Miss Karn knew about the will, and he said yes. He said that the day after it was drawn Miss Karn saw the will and read it through. She went to Prescott’s office — the appointment was made by Noel, and Noel instructed Prescott to show her the will.”

“I see,” Wolfe murmured.

“So that answers your question.” A faint, almost imperceptible tinge of color appeared in the college president’s cheeks. “I don’t pretend to know anything about sex and what it does to people. There is very little else about men and women that I don’t understand fairly well, but I confess that sex is beyond me. It missed me, or perhaps I dodged it. I have my college, my achievement, my career, I have myself. It is only by a rational process, not by any emotional comprehension, that it becomes intelligible to me that my brother descended to such trickery. He wished to keep his word to me and to fulfill his obligations to others. But he had to have Miss Karn, and he could keep her only by showing her that if he died she would get her — reward. I admit that I am incapable of understanding why he had to have Miss Karn specifically, with so fierce a necessity, but there are thousands of experts, from Shakespeare to Faith Baldwin, to back me up.”

Wolfe nodded. “We won’t quarrel about that. It’s a neat theory you’ve built up. Is it yours exclusively?”

“I contrived it. My sisters incline to it. Mr. Prescott weakly contends that Noel was above such a trick, but I think he secretly agrees with me. I suspect he knows as little about sex as I do. He has never married.”

“Are you here as a representative of the group who hired me to negotiate with Miss Karn?”

“Yes. That is, my sisters — not my sister-in-law, Daisy. She won’t talk sense. The fact is, they’re in such a state about the — development regarding my brother’s death — that the will doesn’t matter to them. It does to me. My brother is dead. We have buried him. He desired and intended that in the unhappy event of his death, my college should benefit. I am going to see to it that his intention is fulfilled. With my sisters’ acquiescence — we want you to postpone the negotiations with Miss Karn—”

“I have offered to let her keep two hundred thousand dollars, the remainder to be divided by Mrs. Hawthorne and the rest of you.”

May gawked at him. “You don’t mean she accepted that offer?”

“No. But she may — tomorrow, any time. She’s scared.”

“What’s she scared about?”

“Murder. A murder investigation is a whirlpool of menace, Miss Hawthorne. I confess it doesn’t seem to have frightened you very much.”

“I’m tough. The Hawthorne girls are all tough. But damn it, do you mean Miss Karn murdered Noel herself?” She was still gawking. “My mind was so — that never occurred to me!”

“I have no idea who murdered your brother. Let’s stick to the will. I was only explaining Miss Karn’s fright. In spite of your interesting theory, and granting that it’s sound and even correct, if Miss Karn accepts my offer I shall execute an agreement and have her sign it, and I shall advise you people to sign it also.”

“She won’t accept it.”

“I speak of a contingency.”

“Which we’ll meet if it arises.” She matched his crispness. “What I came here for, and it’s taken me long enough to get to it, was to ask you to find my brother’s will. The last one, the real one. If it gives anything to Miss Karn, she’s welcome to it.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I was afraid you were going to say that. I’m not a ferret, madam. I can’t undertake it.”

That started a wrangle. It lasted for a quarter of an hour, and got nowhere. Wolfe’s position was that it would be farcical for him to try such a job, since he didn’t have access to the various buildings, offices, dwellings, rooms and enclosures in which Noel Hawthorne might have deposited the will, that to gain such access through the authority of the executor of the estate, the Cosmopolitan Trust Company, would be difficult if not impossible, and that if there was such a will it would be found in good time by the persons who went through the dead man’s papers. May contended that detectives were supposed to find things and that he was a detective.

It came out a tie. Like the man trying to pull up an oak tree who finally quit and muttered, “You can’t pull me up, either.” Miss Hawthorne didn’t actually mutter as she got up and walked out of the office, but she wasn’t admitting she was licked, either by her words or the expression of her face. I let her into the hall, and wasn’t sorry when she accepted my offer to drive her home, since it meant a breath of cooler midnight air. She took off her hat, stuck her chin out, closed her eyes, and let her hair fly as we rolled up Fifth Avenue. The Hawthorne residence on 67th Street, which I eyed with moderate curiosity as I drew up in front, was a big old gray stone four-storied affair with iron grills on the windows, a few doors east of Fifth. May smiled sweetly when she thanked me and said good night.

Back home, I went to the kitchen and snared a glass of milk before proceeding to the office. Wolfe had just finished number two of a pair of beer bottles. I stood sipping milk and looking down at him approvingly. The milk was a little too cold and I took my time sipping.

“Stop smirking!” he yapped.

“Hell, I’m not smirking.” I lowered the back of my lap to the edge of a chair. “I think you’re wonderful. The things you put up with to keep Fritz and Theodore and me off of relief! What do you think of the famous Hawthrone girls?”

He grunted.

“The murder part of it,” I declared, “is a cinch. Titus Ames did it because he wants to dress up like a girl himself and go to Varney College and study science, and on account of loyalty to the alma mater he’s going to have he killed Noel so the science fund would get the million. Now May’s furious because the million has shrunk to a tithe of its former self, and with a daring imagination she sells you a fairy tale about a secret will hid in a hollow tree and that kind of crap—”

“She sold me nothing. Go to bed.”

“Do you give credence to her theory about the second will?”

He put his hands on the rim of the desk, getting ready to push his chair back, and seeing that I beat him to it by arising and striding from the scene. I kept on going, up two flights of stairs, to my own room. There, after finishing the milk, I undraped my form, shaved my legs and removed my eyelashes, and dropped languorously into the arms of the sandman.

When I rolled out at eight in the morning it was tuning up for another hot one. The air coming in at the window made you gasp for more when what you really wanted was less. So I kept the shower moderately cool and selected a palm beach for the day’s apparel. Down in the kitchen Fritz was puffing, having just returned from delivering Wolfe’s breakfast tray to his room on the second floor. Glancing over the Times as I sat negotiating with my orange juice and eggs and rolls, I found no indication that Skinner, Cramer & Co., had opened the big bag of news regarding the death of Noel Hawthorne; there wasn’t any hint of it. Apparently they realized it was going to be a busy intersection and were taking no chances. I poured my second cup of coffee and turned to the sports page, and the phone rang.

I took it there in the kitchen, on Fritz’s extension, and got Fred Durkin’s voice in my ear, in an urgent kind of a whisper that gave me the idea he had stepped on somebody’s foot and got arrested again.

“Archie?”

“Me talking.”

“You’d better come up here right away.”

Then I was sure of it, I asked wearily, “Which precinct?”

“No, listen. Come on up here. 913 West 11th, an old brownstone. I’m here and I’m not supposed to be. Push the button under Dawson and up two flights. I’ll let you in.”

“What the hell kind of a—”

“You come on, and step on it.”

The connection clicked off. I said something expressive. Fritz giggled, and I threw a roll at him which he caught with one hand and threw back, but missed me. I had to gulp the coffee, and it was as hot as hell’s dishwater. Giving Fritz a message for Wolfe, I stopped in at the office for my shoulder strap and automatic just in case, trotted a block to the garage to get the roadster, and headed downtown.

But nobody got shot. I parked a hundred feet east of the number on 11th Street, mounted the stoop to the old-fashioned vestibule, punched the button under Earl Dawson, pushed through when the click came, and went up two flights of narrow dark stairs. A door at the end of the hall opened cautiously and gave me a glimpse of Fred’s map of Ireland. I walked to it, shoved it open and went in, and closed it again.

Fred whispered, “Jesus, I didn’t know what to do.”

I glanced around. It was a big room with nice rugs on a polished floor and comfortable chairs and so forth. No inhabitants were in sight.

“Lovely place you’ve got,” I observed. “It would look better—”

“Shut up,” Fred hissed. He was making for a door to an inner room and crooking a finger at me. “Come here and look.”

I followed him through the door. This room was smaller, with another nice rug, a couple of chairs, a dressing table, a chest of drawers, and a big fine-looking bed. I focused my gaze on the man who was lying on the bed, and saw that he checked with the description Saul had given of the item Naomi Karn had met at Santoretti’s, in spite of a couple of missing details. The blue shirt, gray four-in-hand, and gray tropical worsted coat were there on him, but below them was only white drawers, bare legs, and blue socks and garters. He was breathing like a geyser getting ready to shoot.

Fred, looking down at him proudly, whispered, “He groaned when I pulled his pants off, so I quit.”

I nodded. “He don’t look very dignified. Have you named him yet?”

“Yeah, but it’s a mix-up. It says Dawson downstairs, and this is where he said to bring him, and he had keys, but that’s not his name. His name’s Eugene Davis, and he’s in a law firm; Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis, 40 Broadway.”