Rex Stout - Where There's a Will

I was out of my chair, but I wasn’t needed. Davis had jerked himself up, halfway to his feet, and Cramer had thrust out an arm to block him, but even that hadn’t been necessary. He had made an inarticulate noise of pain, no words, and dropped back again as if it was too much for him. He flopped there limp, staring at Wolfe.

Wolfe looked not at Davis, but at his partner, and went on: “Now, Mr. Prescott, it’s up to you. I have a couple of items of evidence, but before I present them I want an understanding with you. Your attempt to save your firm from ruin has failed. The murderer of Hawthorne and Miss Karn is going to pay for it. If you want to help us in that, this is your chance and your last one.” Wolfe’s eyes went to the right. “Mr. Skinner, I said I have evidence, and I have. But Mr. Prescott can help us if he feels like it. I suggest that if he gives valuable testimony for the state against a murderer, it would be appropriate not to prosecute him as an accomplice in a forgery.”

Skinner growled, “That’s in my discretion.”

“I know it is.”

“Well,” Skinner looked wary. “It depends on the testimony.” He eyed Prescott. “I’ll say this. If you help me, I’m likely to help you. If you don’t, and you concealed a forgery, God can help you.”

Everybody was looking at Prescott. His face was certainly a sight. Added to the fact that it was swollen and puffed and bruised, it was now a sickly purplish tinge all over, as if the traffic in the blood vessels had got into a jam that couldn’t be untangled. He wouldn’t look at Davis; he wouldn’t even look at Skinner because he was in Davis’s direction. With one fairly decent eye and one only a slit, he regarded Wolfe and stammered:

“What — what do you want me to say?”

“The truth, sir. About the will, what—”

Davis put in sharply, “Don’t be a fool, Glenn. Keep your mouth shut.”

“About the will,” Wolfe repeated. “Davis is done for anyway. What sum did Hawthorne will to Miss Karn?”

“He — I can’t—”

“Spill it!” Skinner barked.

Prescott squeezed it out. “He left her nothing. She wasn’t mentioned.”

“I see. And to his wife?”

“The residue. There was — a million to each of his sisters. Bequests to servants and employees, and his niece and nephew — they weren’t changed. A million to the science fund of Varney College. The residue would have been something over two million.”

“Good — Archie, make a note of that and take the rest — I could badger you with a string of questions, but I’d rather not. You tell me. You’re a lawyer, and you know what I want, if you’ve got it. What can you tell me?”

The purple tinge on Prescott’s face was coming and going. He was an object. But his voice was suddenly stronger: “I can tell you — when I saw Miss Karn on Thursday — she admitted that Davis had done it and she had conspired with him. She told me all—”

“You sniveling liar!”

It was Eugene Davis, suddenly on his feet. Cramer was up too, grabbing his arm. So was I, but again I wasn’t needed. Davis, making no effort at further movement, his eyes on Prescott blazing with contempt and hate, was saying it with words:

“You throw me in! You skunk! I’m sorry I beat you up! I’m sorry I touched you! You killed her! You killed her, and for old Dunwoodie’s sake, for the sake of all of them down there, I smashed your face for you and that was all I was going to do! I wanted to kill you, I admit that, but I haven’t got it in me to kill. I just smashed your face. And you fall into the trap this man sets for you, and you offer to throw me in! You cowardly treacherous fool!”

Davis faced Wolfe. “You’re clever,” he said in a cold and bitter tone. “Damned clever. And of course you’re right. Prescott did it. You wanted to open me up, and you have. He wanted Naomi six years ago, but she preferred me. He has always wanted her. He’s sly and he’s secretive and it has gone on festering inside of him. I knew he never stopped wanting her, but I didn’t know how it had rotted his insides until she told me Friday evening what he had done about the will and the proposal he had made to her. And she had accepted it. She was going to marry him. You’re right about her too — she was ambitious, greedy and unscrupulous, but she — well, she’s dead. When she learned Friday that Hawthorne had been murdered, she knew Prescott had killed him. To get her. And she decided to ditch him. That’s why he killed her — that, and the fear that if it got hot she would squeal.”

Cramer rumbled, “Sit down.”

Skinner said, “Wait a minute.” He was scowling at Wolfe. “You said you had evidence that Davis did it.”

“No, sir. I said I had evidence. Archie, get that envelope from the safe.”

I threaded my way between customers, got it and returned with it, and handed it to him. He shook the contents onto the desk, selected a snapshot, and told me to give it to Prescott. I did so. I practically had to close his fist on it, and he made no effort to look at it. His one good eye was glassy.

“That,” said Wolfe, “is a picture of you, Mr. Prescott, taken at six o’clock Tuesday by Sara Dunn as you awaited her with your car in front of the shop where she works. The flower in your buttonhole is a rosa setigera. A wild rose. You remembered that yesterday and stole her camera, but you were too late. Where in the heart of New York City, where did you get that wild rose?”

He paused, but Prescott didn’t reply, and obviously wasn’t able to. All he could do was stare like an imbecile.

“You didn’t get it in New York,” Wolfe continued inexorably. “No New York florist ever has a wild rose. And when you left your office around one o’clock Tuesday, according to the observant young woman at the reception desk — what’s her name, Johnny?”

“Mabel Shanks,” said Johnny, louder than necessary. “But she isn’t young.”

“At any rate, a woman. What was Mr. Prescott wearing in his buttonhole when he left for lunch Tuesday?”

“A cornflower.”

“Just so — And, Mr. Prescott, a wilted cornflower was found by Andy Dunn not far from Hawthorne’s body, hanging on a rose briar. I have two proofs that that was a patch of rose briars, a picture of the scene taken by Sara Dunn Wednesday morning, and a plant in a vase upstairs, brought me by one of my men. I assume it was before you shot Hawthorne, while you were talking with him there, that, being as casual as possible until you got hold of the gun by some ruse, you discarded your cornflower and replaced it with a wild rose. Or possibly Hawthorne did that for you, seeing that your cornflower was wilted. That appears more likely. He laid the gun down to do that, and that was your chance to pick it up. Then, with him dead, in your frenzy to get away and return to New York as fast as possible so as to establish an alibi by calling for Miss Dunn, you forgot all about the rose, and you were still wearing it when you arrived and Miss Dunn took a picture of you. It was that picture that betrayed—”

“Hey!”

Cramer jumped a good eight feet, right over Skinner’s legs and seized Prescott’s throat with both hands. I never saw anything more pitiful, and don’t want to. The poor sap had suddenly stuffed the snapshot in his mouth and began chewing as fast as he could with his sore and swollen jaw, and was trying to gulp it down.

“Let him alone,” Wolfe said curtly. “I have the film. You can have him, Mr. Skinner. Please get him out of here.”

I felt the same way about it. Having looked at Prescott all I cared to, I surveyed the famous Hawthorne gals and their entourage. You might have thought we were running a matrimonial bureau, or even something not so genteel. Andy and Celia were wrapped around each other by the bookshelves. April was letting Ossie enfold her in his protecting arms. John Charles Dunn was leaning over June, kissing her, and she had her hands up clinging to him.