by Gene Wolfe
He shrugged. "Getting her to change her hunting grounds isn't going to save any, either. People somewhere else will die. It won't be anyone you know, but that's the only difference."
"You're right, of course. Do you think you could get her to kill only bad people?"
"Bad people like Ieuan?" It was a challenge.
"I hadn't thought of that. He is your brother, after all."
"He is." Emlyn sighed. "Someday Ieuan may kill me. I've been afraid of that for years. But if I were to kill him, or if I were to get him killed, I'd be as bad as he is. No, I'd be worse."
"You're right. You would."
"Besides, I don't think you can get werewolves to do anything like that. It would be like training a real wolf to kill only the black sheep. Generally you've got to kill werewolves. Father told me that once, and he knows about these things."
"In that case, you're going to have to kill this one," I told him.
"Me alone? I'm not a man yet, Bax."
"Yet you brought her, and I still think that you ought to have some influence with her."
"No, I did not bring her!"
"I think you did. You lined up those three rings, the arrow, the face, and the animal. You wanted that alignment to mean 'find the facefox.' "
He nodded. "Go on."
"Suppose that animal on the ring wasn't a fox at all. Suppose that it was a wolf. Wouldn't that mean 'find the werewolf'?"
At that, his jaw dropped. I have not seen jaws drop often, Millie, but his did then.
"Thus I think you should have some influence with her. I used the triannulus for money, and spent it as I pleased when I got it. Earlier I asked for fish, and I ate them."
"All right, I'll try. I'll try if I can find her." Emlyn backed away.
"Don't forget to thank her for her gift!" I called as he turned and fled.
You will wonder whether I really drove that enormous antique to the lawyer's office, Millie. I did, and it was the first time I had ever driven it by myself. Believe me, I was very careful indeed and chugged along at a most moderate speed, although I nearly panicked when I could not find either Wilson Street or Railway Road. I very politely asked a policeman instead, and he was so taken with my car that he got in and directed me. It was only three blocks away, and he never asked to see my license.
I was the last to arrive. Urban Trelawny is a bony man of fifty and more, with side whiskers. His eyes say quite plainly that he once trusted someone, that he has been repenting it for longer than you or I have been alive, and that he will never take the chance again.
"Sit down, sir," he said as his secretary left us. "The chair between Mr. Hardaway's and Mrs. Griffin's will do. You present yourself as the heir?"
I sat. "Yes, I suppose I do."
"You cannot prove it?"
I shook my head. "I can prove that I'm Baxter Dunn. I can't prove I'm Alexander Skotos's heir."
"We had hoped that the late Mr. Skotos had written you, expressing his intention to leave you his property."
I shook my head again.
"Also, that you would present Mr. Skotos's letter for Mr. Hardaway's examination as well as my own."
I said that I was sorry to disappoint them.
"I urged that course upon him." Trelawny sighed. "He told me he did not have your address. It may possibly have been true, although he was not, generally speaking, what is called a truthful man."
Doris murmured, "I'm sorry to hear that, sir."
"Nor was he a man, generally speaking, who complied with his attorney's advice." Trelawny paused to wipe his nose. "That is of no consequence to us tonight. I asked how his heir might be positively identified. He described the man, but in terms so vague that I positively refused to incorporate them in his will. I insisted that he--"
Doris interrupted. "He described his heir to you, sir? Don't you think we ought to hear his description?"
She was seconded at once by Mr. Hardaway.
"You are here by sufferance, my dear young lady. You are not so entitled."
At this point, Millie, I found myself wondering how I might bring Trelawny to Lupine's attention. I rose. It would be pleasant for me to write at this point that Doris and Mr. Hardaway fell silent at a mere gesture and a stern glance from me, but it would not be truthful. Doris was shrill and Mr. Hardaway furious; I outshouted them.
"As the heir to the estate, I believe that I am fully justified in having an adviser present. Mrs. Griffin and I will engage another adviser, an attorney. He or she will contact you in due course. In the meantime, I intend to file a complaint with the American Bar Association. The late Alexander Skotos described me to you, but you will not permit us to hear his description? That's outrageous!"
Trelawny shaped a steeple of bony fingers. "The description will only delay us, Mr. Dunn. But if you insist."
"Whether Mr. Dunn insists or not, I do!" Mr. Hardaway had risen, too. He pounded Trelawny's desk as he spoke.
Trelawny nodded. "I am outvoted. I hope that it has occurred to all of you that since Mr. Skotos's description of his heir was never committed to paper, I may now say whatever I wish. I might state that his Baxter Dunn was one-legged, one-eyed, and bald, for example. I do not, yet I might."
Mr. Hardaway said, "Pah!" and we sat down again.
"Permit me to mention as well that I will be repeating a vague description heard years ago. If my reconstruction of it is something less than exact, that will scarcely be surprising."
"Let's hear it." Mr. Hardaway was brusque.
"Lastly, I shall mention that prior to his demise the late Mr. Skotos vouchsafed other particulars concerning his heir--more precise particulars that were in fact committed to paper as parts--or a part, a section--of his last will and testament."
Trelawny waited for some objection, and hearing none vouchsafed us a frosty smile. "Baxter Dunn, the late Alexander Skotos said, was a man of moderate height and average build. He had sandy hair, blue eyes, and regular features."
Doris's ladylike fist thumped the padded arm of her chair. "I've always believed Bax was the heir, and now I'm totally positive."
Mr. Hardaway nodded vigorously. "In my judgment as executor, Urban, this matter is no longer in dispute."
Trelawny's bloodless smile was chilling. "My oral recitation of a description I heard years ago means less than nothing, Jim. The proofs demanded in the will are significant. Not sandy hair or regular features."
He turned to me. "You think ill of me, Mr. Dunn--if that is indeed your name. But consider. There are no near relatives to dispute the will. As things stand tonight, it is unlikely that the matter will ever come before a court. What we will do here, this night in this office, is liable to be decisive."
I said, "I understand."
"Decisive, and the estate is worth millions. Decisive--unless another claimant should appear subsequently."
At that point, Millie, I was conscious that someone outside the office was talking to Trelawny's secretary; I gave it slight heed, however.
"Let us proceed forthwith to the proofs that the will specifies." Trelawny wiped his nose again. "The Baxter Dunn we seek, my client Alexander Skotos has declared, is a great scholar. Have you proofs of scholarship, Mr. Dunn?"
I nodded. "As a matter of fact, I have. I brought some diplomas, thinking they would establish my identity. One's been lost, a master of fine arts from the University of Chicago. The university can furnish a duplicate copy, I feel sure, if we request it."
"May we see those that have not been lost?"
"Certainly. How about my Ph.D.'s? Looking at those first should save some time." I handed them to him.
He took out a pair of reading glasses, put them on, and applied a fresh Kleenex to his nose. "Humph!"
Mr. Hardaway asked, "If two Ph.D.'s don't establish a man as a great scholar, what the hell would?"
Trelawny looked at him over the tops of his glasses. "This is in Nineteenth-Century English Literature." He displayed the paper to Mr. Hardaway.
"A legitimate subject for scholarship."
"While this one is in Ancient History."
"And this," Doris declared hotly, "has become pure farce. Bax fits the description. Bax is a great scholar by any sane measure. Bax is the heir."
Trelawny's smile would have wilted a tomato vine. "An heir who will not divulge his connection to the testator. That is correct, Mr. Dunn? Still correct, I mean?"
I nodded. "I will not divulge my personal affairs, and I will most certainly not divulge your client's when he is no longer alive to defend his reputation." Strictly speaking, Millie, that was the truth. I did not want to divulge my own, and could not have divulged Mr. Skotos's if I had wanted to, since I did not know them.
"I see. There are two further proofs we have yet to touch upon."
Trelawny's secretary was arguing with someone in the outer office; he paused for a moment to listen, then said, "We proceed to the second proof. Baxter Dunn--I intend Alexander Skotos's heir--is ambidextrous. Are you, Mr. Dunn?"
I shrugged. "I can write with both hands, if that's what you mean. It was quite useful in college. When one hand tired, I wrote with the other. Shall I demonstrate?"
"Please do." He handed me this ballpoint pen and a tablet.
"I'd like another one," I told him. "Another pen, please, and another tablet. Or a book or something else that will give me a writing surface."
Doris and Mr. Hardaway watched with great interest as I positioned a tablet on each knee. Have you ever seen me write different things simultaneously, Millie? One with each hand? It is a parlor trick, I confess, but since I have very few I am absurdly proud of it.
In this instance, I composed notes of thanks to each of them, employing cursive for Doris's note and print for Mr. Hardaway's.
Trelawny wiped his nose more thoroughly than ever and leaned back in his swivel chair. "Impressive, Mr. Dunn. Most impressive, I confess."
Doris rose. "Want to hear mine? 'Doris, you are a pillar of strength, and a pillar far more lovely than any Greek caryatid.' It's signed 'Bax.' " She laid it on the desk. "You can look at it if you want to, but you have to give it back."
"Mine thanks me for my friendship and support," Mr. Hardaway said. "It's signed 'Baxter Dunn.' " He laid his note on Trelawny's desk as well.
"Mr. Dunn." Trelawny leaned forward again, glanced at the notes, and reprised the finger-steeple. "I would like you to understand my position. Everyone present, yourself included, seems to have the notion that I seek to discredit you. It is erroneous. I personally believe that you are the Baxter Dunn to whom the will refers. I have given you credence--if we may call it that--from the moment you walked into the room. With no support from the executor, I am attempting to do my duty as attorney for the estate. I do not ask for your friendship, Mr. Dunn. Only for your understanding."
"You have it. Shouldn't we proceed to the third proof?"
"We should. The Baxter Dunn specified by the will is a twin. Although the will does not say it, Mr. Skotos once referred to him as an identical--"
His secretary was screaming. Trelawny stood up, strode to the door to the outer office, and flung it open--
--admitting George, your husband, who shoved him quite violently. "Are you the lawyer? Well, by God I've got a few things to say to you and you'd better listen."
Trelawny pushed past him and hurried through the doorway; his secretary's screams faded to loud sobs.
George fastened on me. "I don't know what you've been up to, Bax, but if you're cooking up some scheme to defraud me again, you're not going to get away with it. Now get the f-k out of here!"
I urged him to control himself. Mr. Hardaway joined me in that, and George turned on him, shouting obscenities.
"Bax! Oh, poor, poor Bax!"
It was not until she spoke that I realized that Doris was clinging to me. I made haste to assure her that George would not become violent.
"He knocked down my secretary." That was Trelawny, behind his desk once more and (it took me a long half-second to realize this, Millie) holding a gun. "I've told her to call the police." George took a step toward him, and he added, "Sit down, you! Be seated, or I'll fire!"
"With that?" George pointed. "It must be a hundred years old."
"It is far older," Trelawny told him. "It was made in England at the time of the American Revolution, but it is in perfect working order. Do you want to find out whether it is loaded? If you don't, you had better be seated this instant."
"He can have my chair, Urban." Mr. Hardaway rose. "I'll stand behind him and grab him if he tries anything."
At that point I advised George to sit down, and he did.
"Now then, sir." Trelawny was still aiming his silver-mounted flintlock pistol. "What is your name?"
"It's George J. Dunn. I'm the real George J. Dunn."
"It appears to me that you and Mr. Baxter Dunn are identical twins. Do you deny that? Either of you?"
George glared and shook his head. I said, "We are."
"That would seem to settle the matter." Trelawny looked toward Mr. Hardaway. "It certainly appears to me that the Baxter Dunn who is here in my office is the--"
Trelawny's secretary stepped in. Her makeup was in ruins and her eyes still swam in tears, but her voice no longer quavered. "I've called the police, Mr. Trelawny. They say somebody will be here right away."
He nodded curtly. "Our time is short. I shall employ your first name, as well as your brother's, to minimize any confusion. Why did you come here, George?"
"Oh, for God's sake! To protect my interests, damn it! To keep from being robbed again!"
"At some point in the past, your brother Baxter robbed you?"
George sprang to his feet. "It's all he's ever done. He's robbed me over and over again. He's been my curse! I have a brother who looks just like me, and he's a criminal and a lunatic. Why in holy hell can't people understand?"
Trelawny snapped, "Sit down, George! Sit or I shoot!"
"I won't! Shoot, damn you! Do it!"
Doris went to him, looking very starched and prim. "Are you saying Bax is insane? Is that serious?"
"He's a maniac. You ought to s-see his l-letters. He's a g-goddamn m-m-maniac and a th-th-thief." George wept.
I went to him, patted his back, and put my arm around his shoulders. "Can't we be friends? I'm not as bad as you think."
"You bastard! You utter bastard! I've worked hard, so damned hard all my life, and your butler told me where you were. Your g-g-goddamn butler!" He swung at me after that, Millie, something I had been half expecting. Though jarred, I deflected his follow-up punch, and Mr. Hard-away got his arms around him and forced him down into his chair.
Trelawny laid aside his pistol. "Thank you, Jim. For a moment there I was afraid I'd have to shoot."
Soon afterward there were voices from the outer office and a policeman and a policewoman came in. The woman was Officer Finn, whom I had met before. I hope, Millie, that you saw the letter in which I spoke of her.
"What's going on here?" the male officer asked. I have since learned that he is Officer Dominic Perrotta.
Trelawny pointed to George. "My secretary wishes to charge this man with simple assault."
Mr. Hardaway said, "He burst in here and became quite violent, officer. I had to subdue him just a moment ago."
"He was crying. Then he hit his brother," Doris told Officer Finn.
I intervened. "He didn't actually hit me, and I have no wish to have him charged with anything."
Officer Finn looked exasperated. "He didn't hit you, sir?"
"No, he did not." I shook my head.
"Well, somebody did two or three days ago. Wait a minute." She grasped my chin and turned my head until my left cheek was toward the light. "That's a nice red spot you've got there, sir. I'd call it a new one, and it's starting to swell."
Doris told her, "They're twins."
"Yeah, I saw. But it won't be real hard to tell one from the other for a while."
Officer Perrotta muttered,
"See if the secretary will sign a complaint, Kate." Officer Finn nodded and went into the outer office.
Trelawny cleared his throat. "She will."
"You got that right. Kate's good at getting 'em to sign."
At which, I regret to say, George sprang to his feet again, jabbing a trembling finger at Trelawny and shouting, "That man pointed a gun at me!"
"Siddown!" Officer Perrotta pushed George back into his chair. "That's a damn shame, Mack. Might even be a violation of your civil rights. Lemme see now. You came busting into his office and knocked down his secretary? Is that right? So he pulled a gun on you and called the cops? Why, it's a dirty shame. Keep your ass in that chair!"
"It was this gun, officer." Trelawny displayed it. "Please be careful with it. It is quite valuable."
"Nice! Can I hold it for a minute? I always wanted to hold one of these."
"Certainly, just be very careful with it."
Mr. Hardaway joined them. "I know something about these old guns, officer, and I ought to point out that it couldn't possibly fire. There's no flint between the jaws of the cock."
"Sure. I seen that." Officer Perrotta was aiming the antique pistol at a lamppost beyond the window and squinting at the sights.
Officer Finn returned. "Got it!" She tapped George on the shoulder. "Stand up, sir, and put your hands behind you."
He struck her then, Millie. I hated to write those words more than I can say, but they are the truth. He will have telephoned you long before you receive this; no doubt you have engaged an attorney. I find the entire affair extremely distasteful and more than a little sad; I fear it is also fairly serious.
Forever your friend,
Bax
Number 23
SILVER BULLETS
Dear George:
I have tried (injudiciously perhaps) to reach you by telephone. You may be pleased to hear that my attempts have been fruitless. I hesitate to visit you without an invitation; but should you desire to see me, please let me know. Visiting hours are three to five Saturdays and four to six Sundays. Letters, I am informed, will reach you without difficulty so long as they contain no contraband.