Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

May, the intellectual giant and college president, surprised me. She looked sweet. Later, seeing how determined her mouth could get, and how cutting her voice, when the occasion required it, I made drastic revisions, but then she just looked sweet, harmless, and not quite middle-aged. June, Mrs. Dunn to you, was slenderer than either of her younger sisters, next door to skinny, with hair that was turning gray, and restless dark burning eyes — the kind of eyes that have never been satisfied and never will be. Where they all looked alike was chiefly the forehead — broad, rather high, with well-marked temple depressions and strong eye ridges.

June did the introducing; first herself and her sisters, and then the two males who accompanied them. Their names were Stauffer and Prescott. Stauffer was probably under forty, maybe five years older than me, not a bad-looking guy if he had been a little more careless with his face. He was living up to something. The other one, Prescott, was nearer fifty. He was medium-short, with a central circumference that made it seem likely he would grunt if he bent over to tie his shoestring. Nothing, of course, like Nero Wolfe’s globular grandeur. I recognized him from a picture I had seen in the rotogravure when he had been elected to something in the Bar Association. He was Glenn Prescott of the law firm of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis. He had on a Metzger shirt and tie, and a suit that cost a hundred and fifty bucks, and wore a flower in his buttonhole.

The flower was the cause of a little diversion right at the beginning. I have given up trying to decide whether Wolfe does those things just to establish the point that he’s eccentric, or because he’s curious, or to spar for time to size someone up, or what. Anyhow, they had barely got settled in their chairs when he aimed his eyes at Prescott and asked politely:

“Is that a centaurea?”

“I beg your pardon?” Prescott looked blank. “Oh, you mean my buttonhole. I don’t know. I just stop at the florist’s and select something.”

“You wear a flower without knowing its name?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

Wolfe shrugged. “I never saw a centaurea of that color before.”

“It isn’t,” Mrs. Dunn put in impatiently. “A centaurea cyanus has a much closer formation—”

“I didn’t say centaurea cyanus, madam.” Wolfe sounded testy. “I had in mind centaurea leucophylla.”

“Oh. I’ve never seen one. Anyway, that isn’t a centaurea leuco-anything. It’s a dianthus superbus.”

April started to laugh. May smiled at her as Einstein would smile at a kitten. June darted her eyes that way and April stopped laughing and said in her famous rippling voice:

“You win, Juno. It’s a dianthus superbus. I don’t mind your always being right, not a bit, but when anything strikes me as funny it’s my nature to laugh. And, I might inquire, was I dragged down here to hear you treat the audience to a spot of botany?”

“You weren’t dragged,” the elderly sister retorted. “At least not by me.”

May fluttered a deprecating hand. “You must forgive us, Mr. Wolfe. Our nerves are quite ragged. We do wish to consult you about something serious.” She looked at me and smiled so sweetly that I smiled back. Then she added to Wolfe, “And something extremely confidential.”

“That’s all right,” Wolfe assured her. “Mr. Goodwin is my âme damnée. I could do nothing without him. The spot of botany was my fault; I started it. Tell me about the something serious.”

Prescott inquired reluctantly, “Shall I explain?”

April, waving a hand to extinguish the match with which she had lit a cigarette, and squinting to keep the smoke from her eyes, shook her head at him. “Fat chance of a man explaining anything with all three of us present.”

“I think,” May suggested, “it would be better if June—”

Mrs. Dunn said abruptly, “It’s my brother’s will.”

Wolfe frowned at her. He hated fights about wills, having once gone so far as to tell a prospective client that he refused to engage in a tug of war with a dead man’s guts for a rope. But he asked not too rudely, “Is there something wrong with the will?”

“There is.” June’s tone was incisive. “But first I’d like to say — you’re a detective. It’s not a detective we need. It was my idea we should come to you. Not so much on account of your reputation, more because of what you did once for a friend of mine, Mrs. Llewellyn Frost. She was then Glenna McNair. Also I have heard my husband speak highly of you. I gathered that you had done something difficult for the State Department.”

“Thank you. But,” Wolfe objected, “you say you don’t need a detective.”

“We don’t. But we very much need the services of an able, astute, discreet and unscrupulous man.”

“That’s diplomacy for you,” said April, tapping ash from her cigarette.

It was ignored. Wolfe inquired, “What kind of services?”

I decided what it was about June’s face that needed adjustment. Her eyes were the eyes of a hawk, but her nose, which should have been a beak to go with the eyes, was just a straight, good-looking nose. I preferred to look at April. But June was talking:

“Very exceptional services, I’m afraid. My husband says nothing but a miracle will do, but he’s a cautious and conservative man. You know of course that my brother died on Tuesday, three days ago. The funeral was held yesterday afternoon. Mr. Prescott — my brother’s attorney — collected us last evening to read the will to us. Its contents shocked and astonished us — all of us, without exception.”

Wolfe made a little sound of distaste. I knew it for that, but I suppose it might have passed for sympathy to people who had just met him. But he said dryly:

“Those disagreeable shocks would never occur if the inheritance tax were one hundred per cent.”

“I suppose so. You sound like a Bolshevik. But it wasn’t the disappointment of expectant legatees, it was something much worse—”

“Excuse me,” May put in quietly. “In my case it was. He had told me he was leaving a million dollars to the science fund.”

“I am merely saying,” June declared impatiently, “that we are not hyenas. Certainly none of us was calculating on any imminent inheritance from Noel. We knew of course that he was wealthy, but he was only forty-nine and in extremely good health.” She turned to Prescott. “I think, Glenn, the quickest way will be for you to tell Mr. Wolfe briefly the provisions of the will.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. “I must remind you again, June, that once it is made public—”

“Mr. Wolfe will take it in confidence. Won’t you?”

Wolfe nodded. “Certainly.”

“Well.” Prescott cleared his throat again. He looked at Wolfe. “Mr. Hawthorne left a number of small bequests to servants and employees, a total of one hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars. A hundred thousand to each of the two children of his sister, Mrs. John Charles Dunn, and a like amount to the science fund of Varney College. Five hundred thousand to his wife; he had no children. An apple to his sister June, a pear to his sister May, and a peach to his sister April.” The lawyer looked uncomfortable. “I assure you that Mr. Hawthorne, who was not only my client but my friend, was not a freak. There was a statement that his sisters needed nothing of this, that he made those bequests only as symbols of his regard.”

“Indeed. Does that cover the estate? Around a million?”

“No.” Prescott looked even more uncomfortable. “The residue will be roughly seven million, after the deduction of taxes. Probably a little less. It was left to a woman whose name is Naomi Karn.”

“La femme,” said April. It was neither a sneer nor a flippancy, merely a statement of fact.