Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

There were thirty-six of them altogether, and most of them were pretty good shots. Wolfe discarded the majority the first time through — a bunch that had no discernible connection with Hawthornes or Dunns alive or dead, including nine or ten she had taken Monday evening at the World’s Fair. The remainder he examined with his magnifying glass, asking Sara about them, and marking on the back of each the place, date and hour it had been taken. Finally he returned thirty of them, together with the films, to the envelope, laid it aside, and concentrated on the six that were left. Sara got tired of balancing on the chair arm and resumed her former seat at the end of the desk. I got my own glass and did some concentrating myself, studying each of the six pictures in turn as he laid one down to pick up another one, and starting over again when my first tour disclosed nothing startling.

Sara’s information was that Number One had been taken about nine o’clock Wednesday morning. May Hawthorne was exhibiting one of the crows which had been shot the day before by Noel Hawthorne and which Titus Ames had just found in a meadow; Mrs. Dunn was looking at it curiously while April Hawthorne regarded it with revulsion. Sara had snapped them before they knew it, and a moment later, hearing a noise behind her on the terrace, had turned, seen Daisy with her veil standing there, and snapped her too. That was Number Two.

Number Three had been taken shortly after six o’clock Tuesday afternoon, when Sara had emerged from the shop where she worked and found Glenn Prescott there with his car waiting to take her to the country. Number Four had been taken some three hours earlier the same afternoon, Tuesday. Sara had gone up Park Avenue to deliver a vase to a customer in a hurry, and had taken her camera along as usual. She had seen, crossing the sidewalk, the woman whom she had seen before, months previously, entering Hartlespoon’s in the company of her Uncle Noel; and the door of the car which the woman headed for was being opened by a man whom she recognized, though she had not seen him for years, as Eugene Davis, the law partner of Glenn Prescott. She took a shot as the woman was approaching the car.

Number Five had been taken Wednesday morning, not long before Number One. She had gone through the woods for a look at the spot where her Uncle Noel had met his death, and finding her father, her brother, and Osric Stauffer there, had earned remonstrances from all three of them by snapping a picture of the scene. Number Six, of course, needed no explanation. It was the one she had taken with a flash there in Wolfe’s office Friday afternoon.

My glass was as good as Wolfe’s, and so I had no handicap with regard to details, but after completing my third inspection of everything I could find, I passed. As far as I was concerned, the only thing those snaps proved was that Sara was handy with a Leitax. I went to my desk and sat down.

Wolfe was through, too. He was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. I watched him. His lips were moving, pushing out and thickening, and then closing in again to make a thin line. I watched him, and wondered whether he really had something or was only bluffing. If he was bluffing it could have been only for my benefit, for Sara Dunn didn’t know what that movement of his lips meant.

Suddenly she demanded, “Well? Are you deducing something?”

His lips stopped moving. His eyelids raised to make slits, enough to see her through, and after a moment he slowly shook his head.

“No,” he murmured at her, “the deducing is finished. That was simple. The hard part of it—”

“But you—” She stiffened, staring at him. “You don’t mean — those pictures — not really—”

“Not the pictures. The picture. Just one of them. From it I deduce, among other things, that if you go back to that house you’re apt to get killed. And you’re certainly going to be needed, so — Yes, Fritz?”

Fritz, having closed the door behind him, advanced halfway to the desk and spoke:

“A caller, sir. Mr. John Charles Dunn. A gentleman and three ladies are with him.”

There was an instant’s silence and then Sara Dunn popped out of her chair and pretended she was a cyclone.

At that, she was young and active, and might have presented difficulties if her hands had been free to continue with my face where Daisy had left off the day before, but she was using them to collect snapshots. She had the envelope containing the film and the discards in one hand, and was reaching for the remaining six with the other, when I gathered her in. I did it promptly and neatly, with my left arm clamping both her arms and her body above the waist, and my right hand smothering her mouth and nose and pushing the back of her head into my ribs. She couldn’t even kick, because my knees had her legs pinned against the desk.

Wolfe asked, “Are you hurting her?”

“Not to speak of.”

He grunted, got up and came around the desk, and retrieved the envelope from her left hand. There wasn’t much grip in her fingers on account of the pressure on her arm. Then he collected the six pictures she hadn’t got hold of, dropped them into the envelope, crossed to the safe, put the envelope in a drawer, and closed the safe door.

He ambled back to his chair and deposited himself, and told me with a frown, “I don’t like the look on your face when you’re doing things like that. Turn her loose.”

“She may scream.”

“Then hold on a minute.” He directed his eyes at hers. “You have done everything you can, and it cannot be undone. I’m going to finish this business as soon as possible. None of your family — your father and mother and brother — will suffer by it, nor will you. But I don’t want any talk about those pictures. Furthermore, you are not to leave this house. The attempt to steal that film shows that the murderer is aware of the blunder he made. He doesn’t know where the pictures are and I don’t want him to know just yet, but he knows that anything seen by your camera was seen by you too. He’s a bungler and an ass, but that merely increases your danger. Unless you promise not to leave this house, I’ll have to feed the police a lot of stuff they’re not prepared to digest, to let them take the responsibility for your death instead of me — Let her go, Archie.”

She was half Hawthorne and there was no telling about her reactions, so I unwrapped my arms and retreated two paces simultaneously. But she ignored me completely. She straightened up there against the desk, inhaled with a couple of gasps to catch up on her oxygen, and sputtered at Wolfe:

“You said he. ”

Wolfe shook his head. “You’ll have to wait, Miss Dunn. It will be ticklish going. I’m paying you a compliment by not having Mr. Goodwin tape your mouth shut and lock you in upstairs. I’m going by your eyes. You’re not to leave this house, and you’re to tell no one about those pictures—”

The door burst open and John Charles Dunn stumbled in, with May and June, Celia Fleet, and Osric Stauffer at his heels. He didn’t literally stumble, but he did run into a chair, and then stopped and grabbed the back of it and stood there and said:

“I got tired waiting. We got tired waiting.”

Sara looked at him, at his sagging face and bloodshot eyes, and then made a dive for him, crying out, “Daddy! Daddy dear!”

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Apparently the professional fiend acting that way served to release tension all around. Dunn put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and made noises in his throat. Celia Fleet stared at them and chewed on her lower lip. Stauffer glared around with eyes as bloodshot as Dunn’s. June sat down and got out her handkerchief and wiped off two tears that had started down her cheeks. May marched up to the desk and said to Wolfe in a biting and contemptuous tone: