“How’s that?” Cramer demanded.
“You’ll get it,” Wolfe assured him, “and you’ll like it.” He focused on Beebe. “The occasion has arisen, I think, Mr. Beebe, for a question. As Mr. Cramer told you, you’re not obliged to answer it. What happened to Mr. Karnow’s last will?”
Thinking it over later, I decided that Beebe probably took his best bet. Him being a lawyer, you might suppose that he would simply have clammed up, but, knowing as he did that he was absolutely hooked on the will, he undoubtedly figured, in the short time he had for figuring, that the best way was to go ahead and take the little one so as to dodge the big one.
He addressed Cramer. “I would like to speak to you privately, Inspector — you and Mr. Wolfe, if you want him present.”
Cramer glanced at Wolfe. Wolfe said, “No. You may refuse to answer, or you may answer here and now.”
“Very well.” Beebe straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. At the angle I had on him I couldn’t see his eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses. “This will ruin me professionally, and I bitterly regret the part I have played. It was a month or so before the notice came that Sidney had been killed in action that I told Ann about the new will he had made. That was my first mistake. I did it because I — of the way I felt about her. At that time I would have done just about anything she wanted. When word came that Sidney had been killed she came to my office and insisted on my showing her the will. I was even—”
“Watch it, Jim!” Ann, turned in her chair, called to him. “You dirty little liar! Ad libbing it, you’ll get all twisted—”
“Mrs. Horne!” Wolfe said sharply. “Would you rather hear him or be taken from the room?”
She stayed turned to Beebe. “Go on, Jim, but watch it.”
Beebe resumed, “I was then even more infatuated with her than before. I got the will from the safe and showed it to her, and she took it and stuffed it inside her dress. She insisted on taking it to show to her mother. It’s easy to say I should have gone to any length to prevent that — it’s easy now, but then I was incapable of opposing her. She took the will with her, and I never saw it again. Two weeks later our engagement was publicly announced. I presented Sidney’s former will for probate, and that was completely insane, since I only had Ann’s word for it that the new will had been destroyed — even though the girl who had typed the new will had got married and gone away.”