Where There's a Will

Chapter 8

Sara Dunn came in on a lope, but she had to sit and wait a while until some chores were disposed of. A phone call to Saul Panzer to tell him to report to us there as soon as possible, one to Fred Durkin ditto, and one to Johnny Keems also ditto. One to Fritz to tell him we wouldn’t be home for lunch. A demand, relayed by a maid to the butler, for beer. And time out for my report to Wolfe, more in detail, on the episode of Mr. Eugene Davis. After that, Wolfe sat with his lips pushing in and out for some moments, and then leaned back, sighed, and addressed the first victim.

“You told Mr. Goodwin you wanted to see me, Miss Dunn?”

“Yes,” she said. It was astonishing how much her eyes were like her mother’s, while her mouth and chin weren’t Hawthorne at all. “I want to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well... I suppose you know that in my parents’ opinion I’m no good for anything.”

“We didn’t get around to discussing that point. Do you agree with them?”

“I haven’t made up my mind. The trouble with me is that I’m the daughter of one of the Hawthorne girls. If they had had a lot of daughters, I suppose it would have been different, but there’s only one, and I’m it. I was sick of it by the time I was ten years old, and I had an inferiority complex about the size of the perisphere. It was awful. At college they kept looking at me as if they expected suns and stars to begin shooting out of my ears. So I revolted. I ran away from college and from home too, and got a job and made enough to live on. But because I was a daughter of a Hawthorne girl I had to figure out an inexpensive way of being eccentric and audacious, and the best I could do was get a secondhand camera and take pictures of people when I wasn’t supposed to. I still do it. Isn’t it pathetic? You see, I have no imagination. I think up plenty of dashing things to do, but they’re all either dumb or impossible or plain silly. I have no confidence in myself, not really. The glib way I’m talking to you now, that’s just bluff. Inside of myself I’m trembling like a coward.”

“There’s nothing to tremble about.” Wolfe put down his beer glass and wiped his lips with his handkerchief. “You say you ran away from home?”

She nodded. “Over a year ago. I told my mother — oh, that doesn’t matter. Anyway, I severed connections, you know? I was going to carve out a canyon that would make the Hawthorne girls look like turtles in a ditch. So I got a job at twenty dollars a week selling antique glassware in a Madison Avenue shop, and bought a camera. Pretty good, no? On going home, even for a weekend visit, I was adamant. The first time I came close to weakening on that was last Monday, when mother came into the shop to ask me to come to her silver wedding anniversary. I had already refused, in a letter. Next morning, Tuesday, Mr. Prescott came to the shop and tried to persuade me. I still refused, but when I quit work at six o’clock he was in front waiting for me, with his car. I tried to carry it off, but he carried me off instead. And, then, when we got there, we found — Uncle Noel was dead.”

Wolfe said patiently, “That was too bad. A sad greeting for your first visit home in a year. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it. Was that what you wanted?”

“No.” She was keeping her eyes aimed straight at his. There was nothing disconcerting about them, as there was about Naomi Karn’s, but their fierce steadiness gave the impression of a thrust rather than a stare. “No,” she said, “I told you that only because you need to know it if you’re going to help me. I was going to see District Attorney Skinner this morning, but I thought it over and realized I couldn’t do it without help. It has to be done in a way to convince him, and everybody else, that it was I who told Uncle Noel about that Argentina loan, and I who shot Uncle Noel Tuesday afternoon.”

My penpoint caught and spattered ink on the paper. Wolfe demanded, “What? Say that again.”

“You heard it,” said Sara composedly. “One evening — I think it was in April — I heard my father talking about the loan with the Argentine ambassador, and I told Uncle Noel about it to get money from him. Recently Uncle Noel threatened to expose me — to tell my father how he learned about the loan — and that was why I killed him.”

“I see. And since you did in fact kill him, since his lips are sealed forever, why do you now confess these crimes? Because your conscience bothers you?”

“No. My conscience doesn’t bother me at all. I do it to save my father from disgrace. And my mother too, since she will share it. At the time of committing the crimes I didn’t stop to realize what the consequences would be.”

“You should have,” said Wolfe gravely. “And you should stop now to realize the consequences of your confession. They’d trip you up in two minutes. One thing alone; will your arm reach from Madison Avenue to Rockland County to pull the trigger of a shotgun? What was the phrase you used a while ago? ‘Dumb or impossible or plain silly.’ You’ve run the gamut this time. Think up something else. Great hounds and Cerberus!”

“But if you’ll only help me, we can do it, really we can! I can say I left the shop—”

“Pfui! Miss Dunn, please! I’m doing a job for your father. If you will kindly ask Miss April Hawthorne to come here?”

It took him ten minutes to persuade her out of the room, and at one point I was about to pick her up and carry her. But finally she went.

Wolfe poured beer and muttered, “If they’re all like that...”

“You’re not through with her,” I told him cheerfully. “Don’t forget Skinner and Cramer are downstairs. Five gets you ten she’s in jail before the day’s out, and you’ll have to spring her. She’s our client. We sure picked a bunch of pips this time.”

Before the day was out I wouldn’t have minded a nice quiet cell myself, to give me a chance to think about things.

When April came in, it seemed she had a headache. She also had a retinue, sticking alongside like outriders for a royal coach, consisting of Celia Fleet, who looked as if she hadn’t slept much, and Osric Stauffer, Ossie to Naomi Karn, who had been home at least long enough to change his clothes. They took chairs flanking royalty without any invitation from us.

April said, with the ripple in her voice much more subdued than it had been the day before, “I can’t talk about it, I simply can’t. I came because my sister said I must, but I can’t talk because my throat fills up. Why should I be like that? Other people can talk no matter what happens. Something has happened to my throat.”

Celia Fleet smiled at her. Stauffer gazed at her with a sickening smirk. Maybe I did the same. When she came in and pressed her hands to her temples like the heroine at the end of the second act, I had decided that the wedding was off, but it wasn’t as easy as that. Something that went out from her made you forget she was a professional who knew how to get a million people to pay four-forty at the box office to watch her work. I would have died for her on the spot if I hadn’t been busy taking notes.

“I doubt if you’ll need to do a lot of talking,” said Wolfe. “As a matter of fact, this is probably quite useless, but I have to poke around somewhere. It isn’t about the will, you know. Did your sister tell you that Mr. Dunn has engaged me to find out who killed Noel Hawthorne?”

Stauffer answered for her. “Yes,” he said shortly. “And I hope to heaven you succeed. But it won’t do any good to torment Miss Hawthorne about it. Last night that damned police inspector—”

“I know,” Wolfe agreed. “Mr. Cramer is so forthright. I certainly don’t want to torment anybody. I may not have to ask Miss Hawthorne to say anything at all. You, Miss Fleet, you were writing letters Tuesday afternoon?”

Celia nodded. “Miss Hawthorne has thousands of letters. I answer all I can. When we finished tea, about a quarter past four, I went to an alcove of the living room and was there alone, writing for about an hour, until Andy — Mr. Dunn came.”

“Let’s say Andy. There was another Mr. Dunn around. What did you do then?”

“Andy suggested a walk. We walked — we went to the woods—”

Celia appeared to have struck a snag. April said, “They’re in love. It’s a family row. Celia and I want Andy to go on the stage, he was born for it. June and her husband want him to be a lawyer and politician and get elected president. My brother wanted him in the Cullen office — my brother always wanted a son and didn’t have one. We fought about it at tea. They’re idiots. Andy is a rotten lawyer.”

“We were in the woods a while,” said Celia, “and then we went on through and came out at the other side. We didn’t see anything until we stumbled on it. I nearly fell and Andy caught me—”

“I don’t need all that,” Wolfe interrupted. “The chief thing is, you were writing letters at five o’clock.” He looked at April. “And you were upstairs taking a nap.”

“Yes. Mr. Stauffer asked me to go for a swim, but I didn’t feel like it. The pond’s dirty.”

“So you went for a swim alone.” Wolfe told Stauffer.

“Yes. The pond is in the opposite direction from the woods, down at the foot of the hill.”

Wolfe chuckled. “The police wanted to know about that, I’ll wager. Don’t resent it. They’re probably making discreet inquiries right now about the opening in Daniel Cullen and Company that Hawthorne’s death makes for you. Will you be made head of the foreign department? Will you be made a partner? Quite a plum — Oh, I’m not asking, but they probably are.”

Stauffer had stiffened. “This is really—”

“Don’t, Mr. Stauffer. What do you expect them to do when they’re after a murderer? You people are lucky. On account of your position and standing. Even if you killed Hawthorne yourself, you probably won’t hear a single impolite word until the district attorney gets you on the witness stand. You might as well escort Miss Hawthorne back to her room. I’m through with you too, Miss Fleet. If I need — Come in!”

The door opened to admit the butler. He was beginning to look as if he wouldn’t mind going back to his ancestral halls for a little vacation.

“Two men to see you, sir, a Mr. Panzer and a Mr. Keems.”

Wolfe told him to show them up.