Where There's a Will (14 page)

“Yes, sir. She is in the living room with Mrs. Hawthorne.”

It sounded goofy to me. I decided that eyesight was better than hearsay, made for the wide doorway to the living room, and went on through; and saw at a glance that sight was just as goofy as sound. On one of the chairs toward the far end was Naomi Karn, in the same blue linen thing she had worn to Wolfe's the day before, and on another one, directly facing her, was Daisy Hawthorne. They both looked at me, at least Naomi did, and the veil turned my way.

I said, “Excuse me,” and beat it for the hall and the stairs. There would be nothing to tell Wolfe, since of
course it was in his presence that Daisy had been informed of the caller who had arrived.

But, opening the library door and entering, I saw that was wrong. There certainly was something to tell him. He was talking to Fred, who stood twisting his hat and looking uncomfortable, and Daisy Hawthorne was sitting there in her chair.

E
vidently I lost my aplomb. I may even have stared with my jaw hanging open. Anyhow, I came to when Wolfe fired at me:

“What's the matter with you? Palsy?”

Fred Durkin says I tittered. I did not. I merely said in a composed tone, “Mr. Brenner would like to speak to you a moment privately. In the hall.”

He glared at me suspiciously, then lifted his bulk with a grunt, crossed, and passed through the door which I opened. I pulled the door shut.

“Well?” he demanded.

I said in an undertone, “We're being stalked. Engage in earnest whispered conversation, mumble umble, diddie riggie …”

The footsteps I had heard became Mr. John Charles Dunn and his wife June. Coming up the stairs, they reached our level, and, turning for the corridor, saw us. Dunn called:

“Have you seen Prescott, Mr. Wolfe? He's here and wants to talk with you.”

Wolfe replied that he hadn't seen the lawyer but
would do so presently. Dunn nodded and, his wife beside him, dragged his feet along the corridor to the next flight of stairs. As soon as they were out of sight I switched to English again:

“Naomi Karn is down in the living room, but that's not what gave me palsy. Daisy Hawthorne is there with her, talking to her.”

He growled, “What the devil did you drag me out here for? If you think this is a time for childish flummery—”

“No, sir, I don't. Far from it. I'm telling you, the veiled widow is there in the library. She is also downstairs chatting with Naomi Karn. I just this second saw her. Someone's playing a funny joke. But who's the joke on, us up here, or Naomi down there?”

“Do you mean to tell me someone is masquerading—”

“Yeah, that's the idea. These Hawthorne girls certainly are cards. But which is which?”

“In the living room talking with Miss Karn?”

“Yep.”

“You just saw them?”

“Yep.”

“Did you see Orrie?”

“Yep. She led him here at 2:28 and was admitted by the butler.”

He frowned at me a moment, pursing his lips, and then said, “Ask Fred to come here.”

I did so. Wolfe told him: “Go on up there and do your utmost to keep awake. Don't lose the letter to Mr. Ames. Don't get in a fight. I'll be either here or at home.”

“Mr. Wolfe, I'm sorry I—”

“So am I. Go on.”

Fred went. Wolfe eyed me. “Now. We don't need to flounder around with this. I'll sit where I was. You sit beyond her. I'll ask you to hand me something, and as you pass her you will lift that confounded veil.”

“I don't want to.”

“I don't blame you. Please open the door.”

That was one of the times I would have resigned on the spot but for the practical certainty that he would have given the job to Johnny Keems out of pure cussedness. I am not a softy. I once smacked a dainty little Cuban lassie out of her senses when she came to the office with a dagger in her sock, with the intention of presenting it to Nero Wolfe point first because he had draped a smuggling job around the neck of her blackeyed boy friend. But as I followed Wolfe back into the library and obeyed his instructions by taking a chair the other side of our version of Daisy Hawthorne, I was gulping down repugnance till I could feel it sticking in my throat.

However, I did it. I mean I tried to. First Wolfe asked a few questions and got her to talk a little. As near as I could tell, her voice, high-pitched, with a strain in it that gave you the feeling that it wasn't coming from a mouth, was exactly the same as it had been in the office the day before. I decided it was either Daisy herself or the best mimic I had ever heard; and it was in my mind, naturally, that while a great actress isn't necessarily a fine mimic, by public repute April Hawthorne was. Wolfe tried another trick, asking her what time it was, but when she looked at her wrist watch she did so with exactly the same slant to her head, using the left eye apparently,
as the previous day when she had read the paper he gave her.

Wolfe asked me to hand him the notes I had taken of the interview with the others. I got up and started for him. When I was even with her chair I stumbled and lurched against her and grabbed to keep from falling, and what I got hold of was the lower edge of the veil. I knew it was anchored and would take a good jerk, and since it had to be done I was going to do it right, but I simply wasn't prepared for what happened. A hurricane hit me. An awful screech split the air, and thirty wildcats flew at my face, which wasn't protected by any veil, with all their claws working. Being stubborn, I was going on through and die fighting, but Wolfe called my name sharply and I jammed on the brake. She was ten feet away, and I never have been able to figure out how she got there and performed mayhem simultaneously.

“You clumsy fool,” said Wolfe. “Apologize.”

“Yes, sir.” I looked at the veil, as intact as if I'd never touched it. “I stumbled. I'm very sorry, Mrs. Hawthorne.”

“The door,” said Wolfe. “That scream must have alarmed people.”

As I reached it I heard hurried footsteps outside, and, opening it, saw Andy Dunn and his father looking white and startled, trotting toward me, and in the background Celia Fleet's white shirt and blouse and the faded blue gown May Hawthorne was sporting. I sang out, “Okay! Sorry! I slipped and fell and scared Mrs. Hawthorne! Excuse it please!”

They said something which I shut off by closing the door almost in their faces. Apparently my explanation
satisfied them that we hadn't bumped Daisy off and the scream wasn't her expiring cry, for they didn't enter to investigate. I looked around for a mirror and didn't see one. My face felt as if someone had scattered gunpowder on it and touched a match.

“You'd better find a bathroom and wash that blood off,” said Wolfe curtly. “Then please go down to the living room and get the notes you left there. Look them over and see if they're what I want.”

I was too irate to speak, so I departed without a word. In the bathroom down the hall I surveyed the devastation in the mirror. My lovely smooth skin was a sight. “Occupational hazard,” I said bitterly. “To hell with it. I'm going to get a job as an executive.” I wet a towel and dabbed at it and did it smart.

And what Wolfe had meant, of course, was that I was to proceed to the living room, to the other Daisy, and turn the other cheek. If he thought I was going to represent the firm at any more unveiling ceremonies, he was deficient above the neck, but in my judgment that would prove unnecessary. I did not believe that anyone, even April Hawthorne, could act the part of thirty wildcats with that amount of fervor; that one in the library actually was thirty wildcats. I had not observed the other one with any particularity, and hadn't heard her speak; probably a few sharp glances and a little conversation would do the trick. So when I had done all I could with the dabbing I moseyed on downstairs to the living room.

I was too late. Naomi Karn was still there, seated in the same chair as before, but she was alone. I walked over to her. Her eyes slanted up at me, and I met them. My mind was sufficiently on something else
so that as far as I was concerned she was about as dangerous as a snake charmer in a circus.

I said, “I wanted to ask Mrs. Hawthorne something. Do you know where she went?”

Miss Karn shook her head. “She said she'd be back shortly.”

“How long ago did she leave?”

“How long? Oh, ten minutes.”

“I just wondered, because Mr. Wolfe is expecting her upstairs, when she gets through with you.” I gazed down at her. “I told Mr. Wolfe you're here, and he said it would be a shame if you closed a deal with these people yourself, since in that case we'd be out a fee.”

“I'm not interested in your fee.”

“No, I suppose not. Did Mrs. Hawthorne phone and ask you to come, or did you just come?”

She let that one go by. A corner of her lip curled. “You may tell Mr. Wolfe that his bluff didn't work. I have learned that his ridiculous offer of a hundred thousand dollars was not authorized by his clients. I'll do a great deal better than that.”

“Good. We don't deserve a fee anyhow. I am strongly opposed to the detective tariff. Why should you contribute to our sensual ease? I agree with whoever it was, millions for defemmes but not one cent for tribute. Excuse me a minute.”

A sudden bright idea had occurred to me. The draperies, heavy red folds from the ceiling to the floor, behind which Daisy had disappeared that morning, were there in the middle of the wall only three paces away. My idea was vague; there was no sense in supposing that she had chosen that exit again and was
there eavesdropping; but I was curious about what was behind them anyhow. I stepped over and parted them enough to look in. Then, seeing what I saw, I passed through and let them fall behind me.

Osric Stauffer stood there, his back to the wall, with his finger pressed against his lips to shush me. I met his eyes, and met an appeal for silence there too, in spite of the dim light.

I glanced around. It was a small room, with a small window in the left rear corner. At one side was a bar, about ten feet long, with an array of glasses and bottles on shelves behind it, and a big picture of barefooted girls picking grapes. A rug on the floor completed the furnishings. In the right rear corner was a door, shut.

Stauffer hadn't moved. He didn't look very menacing, so I saw no reason to interfere with his method of passing the time. I turned around and pawed my way out and was standing in front of Miss Kara again.

“When Mrs. Hawthorne comes back,” I said, “I'd appreciate it if you'd finish with her as soon as possible, because Mr. Wolfe wants her. Why don't you come up and see Wolfe while you're waiting? He'd love to have a chat with you.”

She just looked through me. I shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself. I understand you had a good talk with an old friend of mine this morning. Inspector Cramer. He was warning Wolfe about you and telling about your alibis for Tuesday afternoon.”

She stirred on her chair. “I doubt,” she said, “if at any time in my life I would have regarded you as funny.”

“Pooh.” I looked her in the eye. “Let me tell you
something, Miss Karn. Up to now I am reserving judgment as to whether it was you who blew Hawthorne's head off. If it was, you'd better be making your own will instead of fussing around about his. But if it wasn't, the best thing you can do is trot upstairs without delay and lay your pretty head confidingly on Nero Wolfe's shoulder. I'm telling you. The popping noises around here do not come from firecrackers, which might singe your eyelashes but that's all. Someone's going to get a bad burn out of this before it's over.”

Leaving that for her to consider at leisure, I marched off. Reflecting that if the downstairs Daisy was the counterfeit she had had plenty of time to discard her masquerade, and that therefore peeking through keyholes would have been wasted effort, I decided on a swift gallop around the field before returning to G.H.Q. The result was negative. I dispensed with such niceties as knocking on doors. The other three rooms on the ground floor, including the music room, were uninhabited. In a sitting room one flight up, two doors from the library, I flushed Dunn and his wife, and Prescott, apparently discussing their troubles. Mrs. Hawthorne's apartment on the floor above was empty. Andy Dunn and Celia Fleet saw me enter it and leave it, from a bench they were occupying in the hall. They didn't look interrupted; evidently they weren't discussing anything, just sitting close enough to touch. In the room across the hall where I had found the library edition of Daisy when Wolfe sent me after her, May Hawthorne was lying on a bed with her bare feet protruding beyond the hem of the veteran gown, and her eyes closed. She asked, “Who
is it?” without moving or opening her eyes, and I said, “Nobody much,” and went out again.

That left two to go. I found them together, in a room at the street end of the corridor. April was stretched out on a chaise longue, with her arms flung above her head, dressed in a green thing of thin silk which smoothed itself out on her high spots like a soft skin, and wearing no veil. Sara was on a chair near her, with a book open. Sara stared at me. April's head didn't move, but she got me from the corner of her eyes.

She said, “You might knock, you know. Does that man want me again?”

“No, I'm just looking.”

“Thank heaven.” She sighed with relief. “My niece is reading The Cherry Orchard' to me. Of course I know it by heart. Would you care to listen?”

I said no, much obliged, and departed. Having observed a writing desk in Daisy Hawthorne's suit, I returned there, found some paper in a drawer, got out my pen and sat down and wrote: