Ann Horne’s head jerked around, and she told Caroline, “Thank you so much, Lina darling.” Caroline made no reply. Judging from her intent face and rigid posture, if she replied to anything it would be an explosion.
“Therefore,” Wolfe resumed, “it appeared that the hypothesis that Karnow had made a new will deserved a little exploration. To ask any of you about it would of course have been jackassery. It was reasonable to suppose that for such a chore he would have called upon his friend and attorney, Mr. Beebe, but it seemed impolitic to approach Mr. Beebe on the matter. I don’t know whether any of you has ever heard the name Saul Panzer?”
No reply. No shake of a head. They might all have been in a trance.
“I employ Mr. Panzer,” Wolfe said, “on important missions for which Mr. Goodwin cannot be spared. He has extraordinary qualities and abilities. I told him that if Mr. Beebe had drafted a new will for Mr. Karnow it had probably been typed by his secretary, and Mr. Panzer undertook to see Mr. Beebe’s secretary and try to get on terms with her without arousing her suspicion. I would entrust so ticklish an errand to no other man except Mr. Goodwin. Early this afternoon he called on her in the guise of an invesigator from the Federal Security Agency, wanting to clear up some confusion about her Social Security number.”
“Impersonating an officer of the law,” Beebe protested.
“Possibly,” Wolfe conceded. “If such an investigator is an officer of the law, he is a federal officer, and Mr. Panzer can await his doom. In ten minutes he collected an arsenal of data. Mr. Beebe’s secretary, whose name is Vera O’Brien, has been with him two and one-half years. Her predecessor, whose name was Helen Martin, left Mr. Beebe’s employ in November nineteen-fifty-one to marry a man named Arthur Rabson, and went to live with her husband in Florence, South Carolina, where he owns a garage. So if Karnow made a new will before he left New York, and if Mr. Beebe drafted it, and if Mr. Beebe’s secretary typed it, it was typed by the now Mrs. Arthur Rabson.”
“Three ifs,” Cramer muttered.
“Yes,” Wolfe agreed, “but open for test. I was tempted to get Mrs. Rabson on the phone in South Carolina, but it was too risky, so Mr. Panzer took a plane to Columbia, and I phoned there and chartered a small one to take him on to Florence. An hour ago, or a little more, I got a phone call from him. He has talked with Mrs. Rabson, she has signed a statement, and she is willing to come to New York if necessary. She says that Mr. Beebe dictated to her a new will for Mr. Karnow in the fall of 1951, that she typed it, and that she was one of the witnesses to Karnow’s signature. The other witness was a woman named Nora Wayne, from a nearby office. She supposes that Miss Wayne did not know the contents of the will. By it Karnow left everything to his wife, and it contained a request that she use discretion in making provision for Karnow’s relatives, who were named. Mrs. Rabson didn’t know that—”
“Sidney wouldn’t do that!” Aunt Margaret cried. “I don’t believe it! Jim, are you going to just sit there and blink?”
All eyes were at Beebe except Wolfe’s. His were on the move. “I should explain,” he said, “that meanwhile Mr. Goodwin was making himself useful. He learned, for instance, that the only item of tangible evidence against Mr. Aubry, a card of his that was found in Mr. Karnow’s pocket, had been accessible to all of you last Friday in Mr. Beebe’s office.”