“No. I only came to ask you that.”
“Then I’ll answer it.” Wolfe was brusque. “I’m not on anybody’s side. Not yet. I have a violent distaste for quarrels over a dead man’s property. However, I am at the moment badly in need of money. I need a job. If I accept this one, I undertake to persuade Miss Naomi Karn to relinquish a large share, as large a share as possible, of Mr. Noel Hawthorne’s legacy to her, in your favor. That’s what these people have asked me to do. Do you want that done?”
“Yes. But as my right, not as largess from her. I would prefer to compel—”
“You would prefer to fight for it. But there’s the possibility you would lose, and besides, if persuasion doesn’t get satisfactory results, you can still fight. You came to see me because you don’t trust these people. Is that right?”
“Yes. My husband was their brother. Glenn Prescott was his lawyer and friend. They have tried to cheat and defraud me.”
“And you suspect that they came to get my assistance in further chicanery?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s dispose of that. I wish you’d sit down.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie, take this down and type it. One carbon. ‘I hereby affirm that in any negotiations I may undertake regarding the will of Noel Hawthorne, deceased, I shall consider Mrs. Noel Hawthorne as one of my clients and shall in good faith safeguard her interests, and shall notify her in advance of any change in my commitments, semicolon, it being understood that a bill for her share of my fee shall be paid by her. A line for a witness.’”
I swiveled and got the machine up and rattled it off, and handed the original to Wolfe. He read it and signed it and handed it back, and I signed as witness. Then I folded it and put it in an envelope and offered it to Daisy Hawthorne. The hand that took it was dead-white, with veins showing on the back, and long thin fingers.
Wolfe asked her politely, “Will that do, madam?”