When we went up the front steps and into the hall the telephone was ringing. Mead came out of the dining room and answered it. I stood and watched him because I was conscious of the fact that the call might be for me.
It was. Mead listened with a funny look on his face and then glanced up and saw me. He held out the instrument. “For you. It’s George Black. How did he know you were here?”
“I was expecting the call. Told him to try the McClure house and then here.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the way things were turning out. James Mead knew George Black as well as I did, and I could tell he was wondering just what was going on. George Black’s voice was coming over the wire. “Gil?”
“All right.”
“Ready?”
“Shoot.”
“I have some dope for you. You don’t want to know where it came from, do you?”
“Yes, give me the whole thing. I won’t use names unless I have to.”
“Well, I tried Joe Fulton of Carpenter & Shearer. I had a devil of a time getting him out at the Country Club. No soap there at all. Never heard of any of your names except the Harpers, and never had any dealings with them. Tried Bill Anderson over at Dobson & Company and did a little better. One of your people put in an order the first of the week. Said to buy at the market whatever it might be and keep buying until further notice. Who do you reckon it was?”
“Haven’t time to guess. Give it to me for pete’s sake.”
“Jim Mead.”
I looked up and Mead was still standing there not over five feet away and his ears were doing everything but shimmying. I couldn’t tell whether he could hear anything or not. When I caught his eye he looked away and then back again, and then he turned abruptly and went into the dining room. I said: “Thanks, George. Don’t stop. Keep at it and call me every time you have anything. If I am out of reach for a long time, I will call you myself.”
“OK. I hope you remember this. Next time ask me something easy.”
36 Domenico Antonio “Two-Ton” Galento (1910–1979) was an American heavyweight boxer. Known as a brawler and famous for gorging on six chickens, spaghetti, and beer or wine before his fights, he lost spectacularly to then-champion Joe Louis in 1939.
54
I knocked on the door of Mrs. Harper’s room and Miss Knight opened it, looking as prim and virginal as ever. As soon as Mrs. Harper saw me she squirmed around in her chair, and I could see she was trying to work up a good mad at me.
I held up my hand and said: “Skip it. It’s no good for the blood pressure and too much of it will give you gallstones.”
I smiled and after a moment of uncertainty she smiled back at me in a reluctant sort of way. “There’s something about you I like, but I don’t know what it is. You look funny and you do things in a queer way and when you’re gone I wonder why I trust you.”
“But you do trust me. The rest is immaterial.”
“Yes, I do, and for all I know, you may skin me out of my eye teeth.”
I said: “Maybe I will, at that.”
I sat down in the same chair over by the door to the study and then I got up and walked out through the French windows and took a long look to be sure that someone wasn’t eavesdropping again. When I returned Mrs. Harper was watching me. She said: “You look like you’re dog-tired.”
“I think I’ve been bit by tsetse flies. I’m the original sleepy man.”
“I’m ready to attend to the will thing. Then you can get a room at the hotel and charge it to me and sleep until next March if you want to.”
Miss Knight was sitting by her side looking very inoffensive and uninterested and I didn’t think her mind was wandering. I pulled out the two envelopes, looked in one of them, put it back and handed her the other. “I believe Miles is to be the other witness. While you are reading it, Miss Knight can go after him and we’ll be ready to sign as soon as they come back.”
Mrs. Harper made a gesture and Miss Knight went out and closed the door behind her. Mrs. Harper got out her glasses and read the will slowly while I held my breath. The skin around her eyes crinkled with concentration. When she was through she looked at me intently for a long time. I looked right back at her.
“You don’t think I’m going to live very long, do you?” she asked calmly.
“I hope you do. I want you to be careful.”
“Now let me see the other will.”
I took it out and handed it to her and she read it with her finger marking each line as she went through. Then she looked at me again and I thought I saw a little twinkle. She folded the second one, put it back in its envelope and handed it to me.
“Do you think it’s as bad as that?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s important, don’t you?”
“Do you know or are you guessing?”
“Guessing, now. But I’m going to know.”
She gave me another of her long quivering sighs and looked down at the hands clasped in her lap. “If I’m wrong in trusting you, I’ll come back and haunt your gizzards out of you.”
At that point Miss Knight came in with no expression on her face and Miles followed her and closed the door. I took out my fountain pen and handed it to Mrs. Harper. Miss Knight handed her a stiff magazine and she put it across her knees. I held my hand over the will to keep it flat and she signed “Alice Holt Harper” in a beautiful spencerian hand.37
I said: “Now go up there and put in the date. There’s also a space for you to put the day of the week. It’s Thursday and seven-thirty P.M. Maybe a minute one way or the other.”
When she was through I beckoned to Miss Knight and Miles and said: “Mrs. Harper, do you acknowledge this to be your last will and testament in the present of these witnesses?”
“Yes, I do.”
I turned the will without picking it up and handed the pen to Miss Knight. She hesitated so long that I looked up at her and there was some strange conflict that she resolved just as I caught her eye. She hadn’t intended for me to see it and she bit her lip in annoyance. She took the pen away from me a bit ungraciously and wrote “Genevieve Knight” and walked away.
“I’m sorry, Miss Knight,” I said at her back, “you’ll have to come and watch while the other witness signs. Requirement of law. Witnesses sign their names in the presence of the testator and in the presence of each other. That means you’re looking when it happens.”
She came back and watched impassively while Miles signed his name in a bold angular scrawl.
When the ink was dry Mrs. Harper folded the will herself, put it in the envelope and sealed it. I suggested that she write her name across the sealed flap and she did so. I put it in my pocket.
Miles was standing very stiff and straight, and I wondered who he was trying to make an impression on. He bore a faint resemblance to the Petrified Forest.38 He said: “Is that all, Madam?”
Mrs. Harper looked at me and I said: “That’s all there is to it. Janet is all taken care of. Since she’s named executrix, it might be a good idea to send for her and tell her all about it now.”
Miles went out in a rather precise sort of way. Mrs. Harper looked at Miss Knight and nodded her head toward the door and Miss Knight went on out to find Janet.
I looked at Mrs. Harper and she said: “You wanted them out of the room. What now?”
“This thing ought to be put in a safe somewhere. I don’t feel much like carrying it around with me. Where is the safe?”
“In the study.”
“Know the combination?”
“I used to. I think so.”
“Well, let’s go. You can put it in with your own hand and lock the thing. I don’t want to even know how it works.”
“You’ll have to do it. I haven’t walked that far in years.”
“Don’t kid me. It’s your heart that’s weak, not your legs. I
t’ll do you good.”
She tried to stare me down but I outlasted her. I remembered that the French windows of the study were fastened from the inside so I went out into the hall and around to the study door. The case was so completely solved as far as the law was concerned that there was not even a guard in the hall although I could hear voices in the dining room and someone was shuffling his feet outside the front door.
The study had the flat dank smell of a room that has been shut up tight for awhile. I closed the door behind me, crossed over and opened the French windows and went around into Mrs. Harper’s room by way of the terrace.
There was nothing wrong at all with the way she walked. I gave her my arm, escorted her back to the study and watched from a distance while she slid back a panel in the wall, fiddled with a dial, opened the safe and put the will inside. When she had locked the safe and restored the panel, we went back into her room again. Miss Knight was still gone.
The telephone rang out in the hall and I started to go out and take care of it when Mrs. Harper said: “You can take it in here.” There was an extension phone on a stand by the big four-poster bed. It was George Black again.
“More news?” I asked.
“Sure. How’m I doing?”
“Fine. Let’s have it.”
“I couldn’t get hold of the man in Farjean, Tully & Andrews. He’s on his vacation and won’t be back for two weeks. I don’t know the man who takes his place. That just leaves Holcraft, Munday & Company. Baker Trask is the man over there. He got a toothache and had hauled his dentist away from his dinner and down to his office to get it worked on. It was a devil of a job but I got him to the phone and I don’t think I had better see him again for about ten days.”
“Very interesting. You lead a tough life, but where’s this getting me?”
“I’m getting to that. Don’t be impatient. Let’s see, I’ve got your list here. He never heard of your McClure people. Has a client named Miles but he’s Vice-President of the Transit Corporation and I don’t think he’s the man you’re talking about. No orders for Harper stock anyway. Doesn’t remember any Miss Knight but then he says he could have a customer by any name and he wouldn’t necessarily remember it. Says he’s sure she isn’t a big trader, whoever she is. Nothing on Mead, but of course I gave you the dope on him. Doesn’t know Mrs. Harper. Got all that?”
I said: “What the hell. You haven’t said anything yet.”
“Just getting the routine out of the way. That leaves Janet Harper and your Mr. Jolley. Jolley has been buying Harper stock off and on for several months but nothing doing lately. I squeezed it out of Trask that he’s in fairly heavy on margin and with the stock going down fast, they may have to sell him out. Janet Harper placed a standing order last Saturday. Anything else you want to know?”
“No, that’ll do. Thanks a lot. We’ll skip the fellow who’s on his vacation. I’ll do you a favor sometime.”
“OK, Bub. Keep your nose clean.”
He hung up. Before I broke the connection I heard something that sounded like a faint click. I put the receiver down in the cradle.
“Nice little gadget you’ve got here.” I said to Mrs. Harper. “Got ’em scattered all over the house?”
“Four or five extensions. You can plug them in almost anywhere but we don’t move them around much. There is this one, and one in the study and one in the hall where most of the calls are taken. Then there is one upstairs and one in the butler’s pantry and one out in the servants’ quarters that you can switch on or off.”
“Do you take your own calls or does a flunky take them and see who it’s for?”
“Ordinarily we take the calls ourselves. Whoever is closest. If it rings more than two or three times, one of the servants will answer it in the butler’s pantry. If we are all going to be out of the house, we throw the switch and the servants can take it out at their place.”
I would have given a lot to know who had been listening in on my conversation with George Black but there didn’t seem to be much possibility of running it down. I wanted very badly to have a chance to sit down and add these last nuggets of information to the store of apparently unrelated material I had scraped together but at that moment there was a knock on the door and Miss Knight came sailing in with Janet Harper behind her. Janet’s face was flushed and there were sparks in her eyes. Despite the slightly horsey cast of her face, she was almost beautiful but she was furiously angry and I hoped the anger was not directed at me.
She said to Mrs. Harper: “You sent for me.” She was controlling herself with an effort.
“Nothing particularly important,” said Mrs. Harper taking it all in. “I just wanted to tell you that I have signed a new will and you’re provided for. The will’s in the safe in the study.”
“Thanks. Is that all?” There was a touch of impatience in Janet’s voice and manner.
Her mother said rather shortly: “Sorry. I must have interrupted something. You look as if you would burst a blood vessel. Come back when the storm is over and we can talk about it then.”
I couldn’t tell whether Janet was going to say anything or not and I don’t think she could tell either for a minute. She turned as if she would leave the room and then thought better of it and blurted out: “The storm’s already over. Maybe I’ve been mistaken about Hillman. Don’t give out any more about our plans. I doubt very much if they will come off.”
She had cooled off a little but not enough. She looked as if she could not trust herself to say any more and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Everything was silent for maybe a full minute and then Mrs. Harper said: “Nice day, isn’t it.”
“Very nice,” I agreed. “There are a few clouds but I doubt very much if it will rain before morning.”
“Are we all through?”
“All but a little incidental matter that I’d rather we didn’t overlook.”
“Oh, yes, the fee.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I said I wouldn’t argue about it. Tell me how much and that’s the end of it.”
“All right. A thousand dollars.”
She didn’t change expression as I would have done if someone had asked me for a thousand dollars but she was nobody’s fool and she gave me one of those hard steady stares that I was beginning to expect.
“Nothing cheap about you, is there?”
“Not particularly. You can make it two thousand if you want.”
“Never mind. I heard you the first time. How long did it take you?”
“Maybe an hour. Maybe more. Maybe less. What do you want me to charge you? Fifty cents and a beer check?”
Her eyes got the twinkle back in them. “You’ll do,” she said. “I think maybe I will want to use you again sometime. But for heaven’s sake, put a tooth in that hole in your face. Give me my checkbook, Knight.”
“Look,” I said, “about this check business. I’ll settle for fifty dollars cash.”
“Is that all you think my checks are worth?”
“No, but I’ll settle for fifty dollars cash just the same.”
“No dice. You’ll take a check. I know what you’ve got on your mind and I think I’ll just keep you on my side.”
When I had the check in my pocket, I went across to the dining room and got hold of the sheriff.
“Listen,” I said, “Mrs. Harper is worth a lot of dough. I want you to put a man on the terrace and a man by her door and keep them there all night. Tell ’em to sleep there.”
“I’m running this thing,” said the sheriff frigidly. “I’ll think up the orders and I’ll give ’em. You go away and peddle your papers. I still think you ought to be in the jailhouse and I’m liable to slap you in there any minute.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Mrs. Harper’s in danger. This thing isn�
�t over yet. You think up the orders and you give ’em but if anything happens to her, it’s going to look awful funny when I tell the newspapers I tipped you off and you were too damn smart for your own britches.”
“What do you know that you haven’t told?” he fairly roared at me. “You haven’t warned me of nothing.”
“All right, I warn you now. The killing isn’t done. Somebody is going to be next and I’ll take a guess it’s supposed to be Mrs. Harper. I don’t know any more than you know but I’m telling you, if anything happens to her, I’ll pop off plenty to the newspapers and you’ll be on the hottest spot you ever saw in your life.”
Somehow I got it over. He grumbled around and scratched his head and finally said grudgingly: “I don’t know why I pay any attention to little dumb squirts but there can’t nobody say I ain’t willing to take precautions. OK. I’ll put Duncan and Parker on for the night and if nothing happens I’ll let them take you apart tomorrow.”
I found Ruth in the big living room curled up in one of the big chairs sound asleep. Her face was peaceful and relaxed for the first time in two or three days. I hated to wake her up but I thought she belonged in her own bed so I shook her gently by the shoulder. Her eyes popped wide open in a second and the look of terror and anxiety came back into them.
“Look, girlie,” I said, “take yourself home and put it in a hot tub of water and then take it to bed.”
“And you?”
“I’ve got some things to do. Do you want me to drive you home or will you take the keys and run along by yourself? Too sleepy?”
“No, I’m all right.”
On the way out to the car I said: “By the way, there’s something I’ve been wondering about. How did you happen to pick me?”
“You really want to know?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“You won’t feel bad?”
“Should I?”
“Well, you might. To be frank I thought Mr. Mead might have something to do with the proposition Mr. Harper made me about the stock and I thought the best way to find out would be to try to hire someone in his own firm. Then probably you’d know Mr. Mead represented Harper and his company and you’d ask him and then if you turned me down, I’d know. You were the last name on the door, and I thought I could pump you easier than anybody else. Mr. Jolley told me where your office was.”
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