Where There's a Will (16 page)

But I didn't get it. She was absent. The only person in the room was a man of about my build, pacing up and down with his fists making his pockets bulge. I stopped short and regarded him with surprise. He had put his pants on, but I recognized him anyway.

I said, “Hello.”

He quit pacing and scowled at me. Before he said a word I knew exactly the condition he was in, more from observation than from personal experience. You drink all night, and pass out, and someone takes you home and drops you on a bed. When you come to, there is no telling what day it is or when they started running the subway inside your head or how many people came to your funeral. But something drastic must be done immediately. You get your pants and shoes on and fight your way to the street and along to and into a place, order a double Scotch and gulp it
down, spilling maybe a quarter of it. You spill much less of the second one, and by the time the third one comes along you have nearly stopped trembling and you don't waste a drop. Then, while you still are not quite ready to tell the date on a calendar, you have a strong impression that you are prepared to cope with whatever it is that requires coping, and off you go.

“Who are you?” he demanded, in a voice that made me afraid he would strip his gears. “I want Glenn Prescott.”

“Yes, sir,” I said ingratiatingly. “I know you do. If you will come this way, please.”

“I'm not coming that way or any other way.” He planted himself. His fists were still bulging in his pockets. “He can come here. You can go and tell him—”

“Yes, sir, I will. But this is a sort of a public room. People come in here all the time. These chairs are no good to sit on, either. I'll be glad to bring Mr. Prescott wherever you say, but I do honestly think the library would be much better.” I backed toward the doorway. “Come and see for yourself. If you don't like it you can return here.”

“I'll like it all right, but he won't.” He stayed planted. Then abruptly he rumbled, “You don't need to show me the library, I know where it is,” and moved so fast he nearly toppled me over as he went by.

I was at his heels going up the stairs, and stayed there, thinking to steer him in case he was too optimistic about knowing where the library was, but he went straight to the door and flung it open. I followed him in, closed the door, and announced to Wolfe:

“Mr. Eugene Davis.”

Davis glared around. “Where's Prescott?” He glared at Wolfe. “Who are you?” He glared at me. “What kind of a run-around is this? You're not Turner! I sent Turner to get Prescott!”

“That's all right,” I said soothingly, “we'll get him. I'm not a butler, I'm a detective. Detectives are better than butlers for getting people. This is Mr. Nero Wolfe.”

“Who the hell—”

He stopped abruptly. You might have thought I had reached inside his skull and flipped a switch. A sort of spasm went over his face, and his shoulders stiffened and then relaxed again, and when he focused his eyes on Wolfe they were no longer merely bleary and foolishly truculent. They were alert and intelligent and on guard.

“Oh,” he said. His tone had changed even more than his eyes. “You're Nero Wolfe.”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You're here helping to prove Hawthorne was murdered. Or that he wasn't. I see.” He turned to survey me. “So Turner announced me to you instead of to Prescott. And told you I was drunk, I suppose. It's Prescott I came here to see. I'll find him.”

He started off, but Wolfe snapped, “One minute, Mr. Dawson!”

Halfway to the door, he halted, stood there for four seconds with his back to us, and then slowly turned around. “My name's Davis,” he said with careful precision. “Eugene Davis.”

“Not on 11th Street. There it's Earl Dawson. And how did you know Hawthorne was murdered? Did Mr.
Prescott tell you? Or did you learn it from Miss Karn when you were dining with her last evening?”

He had things under control all right. Knowing the feeling he must have been experiencing in his stomach under the circumstances, I admired him. All he did was stand and gaze at Wolfe and chew his lower lip. Finally he crossed to a chair, steadily and without haste, sat down, and asked:

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you, Mr. Davis.”

“What about?”

“This mess. This murder. This will business.”

“I know nothing about either one. How did you know I am Earl Dawson on 11th Street?”

“You drank to excess last night. A man who works for me took you home and removed your trousers. Another man who works for me—Mr. Goodwin here, Mr. Archie Goodwin—went there this morning and identified you from articles in your pockets. As for your dining with Miss Karn, she was being followed.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that. I was stupid. It still surprises me to realize I was stupid, because originally I wasn't meant to be. About my being Dawson, I would like to know who has been informed. The police?”

“No. No one. Mr. and Mrs. Dunn know that you were found somewhere in a drunken stupor, but not where, and not that you were incognito.”

“Is that straight?”

“Yes, sir. I would have no compunction about lying to you, but that's straight.”

“I'll take it that way.” I could see that the fingernails of his right hand were digging into his palm. He
saw that I saw it, and stuck the hand into his coat pocket. He went on, “In view of the way things are, I suppose it's an affectation for me to try to keep the Dawson thing—that place—secret, but as I say, I can't be counted on any more not to act stupidly. I don't want that known, Mr. Wolfe. I'll talk about anything you want me to, within reason.”

Wolfe was frowning. “Not with any pledge of secrecy from me, sir. Neither tacit nor explicit. But I expose no man's privy affairs unnecessarily.”

“If that's all I can get, I'll take that. What do you want to ask me?”

“Several things. First, where were you Tuesday afternoon from 4 to 6?”

There was no immediate reply. I could see there was movement inside the pocket where his fist was. To make things easier I horned in: “Which do you want, Scotch or rye?”

He looked at me and said sarcastically, “All the comforts of hell. If you mean it, Scotch. Don't spoon it out, you know.”

I told him I wouldn't and trotted out and downstairs. In the ambush behind the draperies in the living room, on the shelves back of the bar, there were four brands to choose from. I long-armed cross the bar and got one, with a glass, poured out a generous triple, and returned to the library with it. It simply wasn't possible for Davis to keep his fingers from shaking as he took it. He only had to swallow twice. After a moment he put the glass down on the desk, and his fingers were steady.

He met Wolfe's eyes. “Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “I was with Miss Karn from 3 o'clock until around 7.”

“Where?”

“Driving. We went up to Connecticut and back. If the police have questioned her, that isn't what she told them, but I'm not telling the police, I'm telling you. If they question me, I'll tell them where I was, but I'll say I was alone.”

“Did you stop to eat or drink?”

“No. We have no corroboration.”

“That's too bad. Will you have some beer?”

Davis shuddered. “No!”

“I'm thirsty.” Wolfe poured and put the bottle down. “You see, Mr. Davis, you may get into trouble. I doubt if the police have smelled you yet, but they certainly will if they keep on. They'll learn that you formed an attachment for Miss Karn a long while ago, and that when—”

“That's an old story. Back in 1935. How did you know about it?”

“I have men working for me. But the attachment still exists, doesn't it?”

“Certainly not.”

“You were with Miss Karn Tuesday. You were with her last evening.”

“We are friends. I'm a lawyer. She was consulting me.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Please don't waste time like that. There are two pictures of her in your wallet, and Mr. Dawson has eight more scattered around his apartment.”

Davis flushed in sudden anger, and his jaw stiffened. He shot me a glance that he should have been ashamed of, considering the fact that I had just saved his life with a triple Scotch.

“By God,” he declared, “if I wasn't tied hand and foot—”

“You'd assault Mr. Goodwin. I know. I know too, I think, how reluctant you are to admit your attachment for Miss Karn as an item in a discussion like this. It is a vital necessity for you right now to keep your head clear and working efficiently, and that's difficult when a subject arises which causes your heart to pump an excess of blood. I'll go as easy as I can. But here's the material we have to deal with: You were passionately attached to Miss Karn. Noel Hawthorne saw her and liked her, and wanted her, and took her. Naturally you resented that. How much I don't know, but surely you resented it. However, either you continued some sort of association with her, or after a time you resumed association. Which?”

Davis didn't reply. Wolfe went on:

“I'm not thinking about murder now, I'm thinking about that will. Where was it drawn? In the office of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis. Where was it kept? In a vault in that office. Who benefited by it? Chiefly Miss Karn. Did she know that? Yes; Mr. Prescott let her read it shortly after it was drawn, having been instructed to do so by Mr. Hawthorne. Did you know that? I don't know. Did you?”

“No,” said Davis curtly. “It was none of my business. Prescott drew it.”

“But you have access to the vault?”

“I'm a lawyer, not a snoop, Mr. Wolfe.”

“But isn't it plausible that Miss Karn told you about it? Couldn't you have learned it that way?”

“It may be plausible, but she didn't. I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the terms of that will
until Miss Karn told me last night. Has Prescott told you I did?”

“Oh, no. No one has told me anything, really. They're all like you. I've sat in this confounded room over seven hours, and I know very little more than when I entered it. I don't resent it that each of you people has something to conceal—everybody in the world has—but it has never taken me so long to find a loose end. Let's start somewhere else. You say you are Miss Karn's friend and lawyer and she consults you. Did you advise her to come here this afternoon to negotiate with Mrs. Hawthorne?”

“No. Why?”

“Because she came.”

“She came here?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know? Did you see her?”

“No. Mr. Goodwin did. He had a little talk with her. Down in the living room. I thought perhaps—”

He chopped it off because the door suddenly opened. There was no knock, but it swung wide and Glenn Prescott marched in.

T
he two counselors-at-law looked at each other. Prescott, having halted in his stride, advanced and said, “Hello, Gene.” Davis nodded but didn't speak. I could see both their faces. Davis's exhibited vigilance and contempt; Preseott's, vigilance and a sort of exasperated solicitude.

“Relax!” Davis commanded. “Quit looking like the damned Salvation Army! I'm sober. These fellows jolted me sober. They know I was with Miss Karn last evening, and they know my name's Dawson on 11th Street. So I've been answering questions. Nothing indiscreet. Just where I was Tuesday afternoon and things like that.”

Prescott said, “You're a fool. You were a fool to come here. You could have been kept out of this. It can't possibly be kept quiet longer than another day. When the papers start on it, and on you as a part of it—where are Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis going to be?”

“The dear old firm,” Davis sneered.

“Yes, Gene, the dear old firm. We've made it, but
it made us, too. You were headed for the top, you had it in you. You still have. I'm a pretty good lawyer and a hard worker, but you're a lot more than that. You're one of the rare ones, the kind that makes history. I don't need to tell you that. And now you don't even—you come here and step into this—oh, my God.”

He turned abruptly to Wolfe. “You've got us at your mercy. What are you going to do? Hand it over to the police?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir. I might for a quid pro quo, but the police have nothing I want. Sit down; let's talk it over. I was just asking Mr. Davis if he advised Miss Karn to come here to negotiate with Mrs. Hawthorne.”

“If he advised—” Prescott gawked. “Why did you ask him that?”

Davis forestalled Wolfe's answer: “Because she came! She was here!” He was on his feet, confronting his partner. “And now I'm asking you! Did you bring her here?”

“You're crazy, Gene. For God's sake, have a little sense. I tell you, this is no time—”

“You brought her here!”

“You're crazy! Why would I—”

“I'm going to find out,” Davis declared, and tramped from the room.

We all stared at the open door which he had disdained to close. Then Prescott said abruptly, “The damned idiot,” and out he went too. I was out of my chair, asking hopefully:

“Do you want 'em?”

“No, Archie.” Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “No, thank you.” He closed his eyes. “No, thank you.”

“You're quite welcome,” I said politely, and sat down again without bothering to close the door. That was merely one more example of my self-control. Inwardly I was in a turmoil. I knew the signs. I knew that tone of his. It was the first symptom of the approach of a relapse. Unless I could bully him out of it, or unless the murderer came in and confessed within an hour, he would have a relapse as sure as ham loves eggs. What made it so ticklish was the fact that we weren't at home. If we had been at the office I would have stood an even chance of jolting him loose, but there on alien territory I wasn't so sure of myself. So I don't know how long I might have sat there trying to decide the best line to take, beyond the ten minutes or so I did sit, if I hadn't heard footsteps stopping at the doorway. I turned my head and saw it was the butler.