Where There's a Will

by Rex Stout

"Your sister May. Wild raspberries?" "No, we have a patch in a corner of the vegetable garden." FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 117 "Did you hear the shots that killed crows?" "Yes, I did. And I heard the third shot, the--the last one. Faintly, but I heard it. Of course I thought it was only my brother still trying to get the hawk, but I'm nervous about guns and I don't like the sound no matter what is being shot. The third shot was a little before five o'clock. I quit picking raspberries and went to the arbor for some grape leaves, and when I got to the house it was ten after five." "I understand that Titus Ames corroborates that --the time of the third shot." June nodded. "He was in the barn milking." "Yes. There seems to have been a great variety of activity around there. Now, Mrs. Dunn, if I asked you a lot of questions would it do me any good?" "I don't know. I'm certainly willing to answer them." "Do you know of anything that would help me?" "No. I know a great many things about my brother, his character and personality, and his relations with us and other people, but nothing that I think would help you find his murderer." "We'll have to talk it over. Not now; I'll see the others first--By the way, Mr. Dunn, I want to send a man up to your place in the country. May I have a note to Titus Ames, telling him to let my man look around, and to answer questions if he asks any? The name is Fred Durkin." FR1;118 WHERE THERE'S A WILL "I'll write it," June offered. "And I'll send-- whom shall I send first, Mr. Wolfe?" ,1 put in an oar. ".Your daughter, Mrs. Dunn, if you please." "My daughter?" She looked at me in surprise. "She wasn't there. She didn't arrive until afterwards."

  "We'll take her first," I said firmly. She accepted it and crossed to her husband, and they left the room together, with his arm around her shoulders and her hand patting him on the back. When the door had closed Wolfe asked, "Why the daughter?" Rummaging through the desk drawers for something to take notes on, I told him, "By request. She's trying to win a prize and wants to take your picture." CHAPTER EIGHT 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 Keen-is 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 119 FR1;120 WHERE THERE'S A WILL 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 FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 121 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 on", 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 l ' 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 FR1;122 WHERE THERE'S A WILL 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 oi 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 FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 123 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. FR1;124 WHERE THERE'S A WILL 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, "J 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 th
e 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?'1 Stauffer answered for her. "Yes," he said shortly. "And I hope to heaven you succeed. But it won't r" WHERE THERE^S A WILL 12? 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--" FR1;126 WHERE THERE'S A WILL "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 faking 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!" WHERE THERE^S A WILL 127 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. CHAPTER NINE I laid my pen down and looked at Wolfe in extreme disgust. "By jiminy," I said, with the whine that I knew set his teeth on edge, "you sure are grilling them. Talk about ruthless. It gives me nervous prostration just to see them suffer. And squirm under your merciless thrusts. Lovin* babe! I don't think I ever saw you in better form--" "Archie! Shut up!" "But who the hell do you think you are, the inquiring reporter?" "I do not, and I don't need that. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think about these people, and in the meantime having another look at them. There's too many of them. If one of them sneaked through those woods and borrowed the shotgun from Noel Hawthorne and blew his head off, who is going to prove it and how? --Good afternoon, Saul. Good afternoon, Johnny. Come in. Sit down. --Am I a confounded Indian, to go up there and crawl around on my hands and knees, smelling footprints? And do you suppose any of this tribe is going to tell us anything?" He snorted. "Trying to get me interested in a family row about Andy being 128 FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 129 an actor! Bah!" He shook a finger at me menacingly. "You let me alone! One more whine out of you and--how the devil can I think if there's nothing to think about?" I elevated my shoulders and turned my palms up. "Then we might as well go home and look at the atlas." "I agree with you." He abandoned me. "Did Orrie find you, Saul?" "Yes, sir." Saul always pretended he didn't hear Wolfe and me jawing. "Miss Karn hadn't appeared when Orrie relieved me at 9:20. At 9:25 I tested her phone and she was in her apartment." "You told Orrie to report here?" "Yes, sir." "You need sleep." "I'll manage till tonight." � "You're free, are you, Johnny?" "Yes, sir, I'm always free when you need me." His bright eager tones, like little Willie offering ^ to clean the blackboard, always gave me a pain. ^ Johnny Keems was the kind of guy who does exer� cises every morning and buys gum at every slot vendor he sees for an excuse to look in the mirror. Dozens of times I would have resigned my job if I hadn't known his tongue was hanging out for it. k "Put this down," said-WoIfe. "Both of you. Dun^ woodie, Prescott & Davis, law firm on lower Broad130 WHERE THERE'S A WILL way. Mr. Glenn Prescott. Mr. Eugene Davis. Naomi Karn got a job there as a stenographer in 1934, and after two years became the secretary of Mr. Davis. A year or so later she left to associate herself with Mr. Noel Hawthorne in a private capacity. This is a fishing trip; I want anything you can get. Saul will direct; Johnny, you will consult with him as usual. One detail: the name of the person who did confidential stenographic work for Mr. Prescott on March 7th, 1938. If any approach is made to that person it must with great circumspection. Johnny will of course canvass the young women with that beauty treatment outfit--what is it, Archie?" "Nothing." I had only made a noise. The rhinoceros had the idiotic idea that when Johnny looked at a girl and smiled she melted like ice cream in the summer sun. The fact is--oh, what's the difference. He'll marry a pickpocket's daughter for her money. They asked some questions, especially Saul, and got answers. After they had gone Wolfe went into a trance. I overlooked it and didn't try any prodding, because it was one o'clock and I knew what he was expecting. Pretty soon it arrived. The butler himself brought one tray and a maid in uniform with a split in the nail of her right index finger followed him with the other one. I saw the split when she nearly stuck the finger in my milk. Her FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 131 intention was to stay and arrange things for us, but Wolfe sent her away. He lifted the covers from the servers with a sanguine hope and a stern misgiving fighting for the mastery in his expression. When no steam came out he looked so disconcerted I could have wept. He bent over the server and glared into it incredulously.

  "This is dandy," I asserted, rubbing my hands with pleasure. "Jellied consomme and a good big "waldorf salad and iced tea and these cute little wafer things--" "Good God," he muttered, stupefied. e It was from purely selfish motives that I went downstairs myself and found somebody and requisitioned a pair of lamb chops and a pot of coffee. The trays were empty, and Volte was sipping the last of the coffee, which I admit wasn't hot enough, in gloomy dissatisfaction, when the door opened and Inspector Cramer entered. "How-do-you-do, sir," Wolfe snapped. "I'm busy." "So I hear." Cramer crossed to a chair and sat down, got out a cigar and stuck it in his mouth, and took it out again. His big phiz was redder even than usual, from the heat. He observed, as if passing the time of day, "I understand you're working for Mr. Dunn." 132 WHERE THERE'S A WILL Wolfe grunted offensively. "He had a rotten lunch," I explained. Cramer nodded. "So did I. At a drugstore counter." He surveyed Wolfe. ^You look about the way I feel. I hate these damn high-life mix-ups. The lousy politicians. Every time you turn around you see a stop sign. I've got a message for you from the commissioner." Wolfe just grunted again. Cramer jut his cigar between his teeth and said, "Maybe you've heard of him, Police Commissioner Hombert. He wants you to understand that there's to be no publicity on this thing until he says so. He also says that you're so intelligent it will be easy for you to appreciate the necessity for a lot of
discretion in a case like this, involving the people it does, and that naturally you'll co-operate with me. For instance, if you were to tell me what that mob was doing in your office yesterday, we'd call that cooperation." "Ask them," Wolfe suggested. "I have. They're pretty remarkable. Most of them seem to be nearly as eccentric as you are. Except Mrs. Dunn, she's fairly levelheaded, and Prescott the lawyer. Prescott told me about the will. They say they went to ask you to take it up with Miss Karn and come to an understanding with her. Since when have you been a board of arbitration?" WHERE THERE^S A WILL 133 "Wolfe muttered, "Go ahead. Come to the point." "I will. Is that what they went to your office for? To get you to make a deal with Miss Karn?" "Yes." "But you had Miss Karn right there, didn't you? By the way, you might have told me who she was when I asked you, but I suppose that would be too much to expect. Anyway, these people have all got tongues in their heads, and they had their lawyer along. What was it they wanted you to do that they couldn't do themselves?" Wolfe shrugged. "They had been informed that I am able, astute, discreet and unscrupulous." "Hell, I could have told them that." Cramer removed his cigar from his mouth and studied the tip of it. "I've been trying to figure out what they needed you for when they already had a good lawyer. I like things to be plausible. What if they suspected Miss Karn had murdered Hawthorne, and they wanted you to sort of collect evidence and put it in shape? That would be a good job for a detective. Then Miss Karn could sign an agreement to let them have the dough, or most of it, and you could decide the evidence wasn't good enough to Justify accusing her of murder. So everybody would be satisfied, except maybe Hawthorne, but he was dead. How do you like that way of figuring it?" FR1;134 WHERE THERE'S A WILL "I think it's clumsy," said "Wolfe judiciously. "If they regarded me as capable of compromising with a murderer, they would also have thought it likely that I would retain the evidence and blackmail them the rest of their lives. Not to mention the detail that they weren't aware Hawthorne had been murdered. You saw their shock and surprise when you told them he had." "Yeah, I saw that. They certainly were shocked." "Indeed they were." Wolfe frowned. "Then aren't you supporting the theory that Hawthorne was killed because he had ruined Mr. Dunn's career with that Argentina loan business? I thought you fellows had that all cooked and ready to serve." "I'm not a cook, I'm a cop. If anybody uses this murder to grease someone's pants, it won't be me. I'm supposed to be looking for a murderer. From what Dunn tells me, so are you." "I am." "Okay. Let's find him or her. I'm going to be frank with you. I like the idea of Miss Karn. Personally. You don't need to tell Skinner that. She inherits seven million dollars, and there have been plenty of murders for a hell of a lot less than that. Since she was intimate with Hawthorne, of course she knew where he was going that day and who would be there. She drives a car. She went there to get him, probably with a gun. She went there to FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 135 do it because she knew there were a dozen people there who would be good suspects for one reason or another. She had a piece of luck and saw him from the road, there by the edge of the woods, with a shotgun. She walked across the field and chinned with him, maneuvered him around to the corner of the woods that can't be seen from the road, made some excuse to get hold of the shotgun, and killed him. She didn't even have to use her own weapon. Then she wiped the shotgun with a bunch of grass, put his prints on it, and beat it." Wolfe grumbled, "Anyone of a million people could have done all t]^at." "Uh-huh. But it only took one to do it. I'm enthusiastic about the idea of Miss Karn, especially after the talk I had with her this morning. Of course I'm not subtle like you, but I know a twolegged female tiger when I see one. She's a dangerous baby, that Karn woman is. It's in her eyes. Incidentally, you can have this for nothing, she has no alibi for Tuesday afternoon. She thinks she has, but that kind is two for a nickel." The inspector lowered his chin and elevated his cigar. "Now just suppose. Andy Dunn and the Fleet girl, and Dunn himself and that Stauffer, Were the first ones at the scene when the body was found. Suppose they looked around out of curiosity and one of them found something. A lady's comFR1;136 WHERE THERE'S A WILL pact or a pack of cigarettes or a handkerchief-- anything. Maybe they knew it belonged to Miss Karn and maybe not. Maybe Stauffer did--he knows her. Maybe they just decided to ditch it on general principles, thinking no lady should be involved. Then they got a sock in the eye when the will was read. The whole pile, except a measly half million, to Miss Karn! So they put their heads together, and if you ask me, Prescott was in it too. But it was too ticklish for him to handle it himself. They went to you and showed you the compact or whatever it was. Maybe they already knew it belonged to Miss Karn, or maybe it was part of your job to prove that. Anyhow you were to put the screws on her. "And now that the murder's out, where are they and where are you? They can't open the bag even if they wanted to, without admitting that they concealed knowledge of a crime and evidence of it. And they wouldn't want to even if they could, because if she was tried and convicted the estate would be divided by the court, and if she was tried and acquitted it would all be hers and they could whistle. Don't you think that's logical?'* Wolfe nodded. "Perfect," he declared. "I congratulate you. I don't see a loophole in it anywhere. Did you suppose all that without any help?'* "I did. For help I'm coming to you. Here I am FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 137 and there it is. I'm making you a proposition. Cough it up, and get them to do the same, and I guarantee no trouble and no publicity on that angle of it for anybody concerned. I guarantee to handle Skinner. I realize you'll have to consult them first, and I'll give you until nine o'clock tomorrow morning." Wolfe said in a silky voice, "It's regrettable. Nearly every order you place with me is for something I haven't in stock. Good day, sir. Archie--" "Wait a minute." Cramer's eyes had narrowed. "This time you're going to lose. This time, thank God, I've got more than you to work on. I can crack one or more of that outfit wide open, and I'm going to. Then you know where you'll be. I've come to you with an absolutely fair offer--" "You've charged me," Wolfe snapped, "with being a knave and a nincompoop. Good day, sir.'* "I'll give you until--" "Don't give me anything. I don't want it." "You're a damn bullheaded boob." Inspector Cramer got up and walked out of the room. Wolfe winced when the door slammed. "It's a funny thing and a sad thing," I observed, "that the purer our motives are, the worse insults we get. Do you remember the time--" "That will do, Archie. Get Mrs. Hawthorne." I groaned. "I don't want her." FR1;138 WHERE THERE'S A WILL "I do. Get her." I departed. In the hall I met the maid coming to get our trays, and she informed me that Mrs. Hawthorne's apartments were on the floor above, so I sought the stairs and mounted another flight. I knocked on the right door if the maid knew what she was talking about, the third time good and loud, but with no result. Ordinarily I would have opened the door for a look, but I didn't like the errand I was on anyway, so I moved on to the next one and tried that. No go. I ventured across the hall and tapped on another one, beyond which there seemed to be a faint hum of voices, received an invitation to come in, pushed it open and entered.