Where There's a Will

by Stout Rex

“Wait a minute.” Eugene Davis had decided it was time to say something. He was regarding Wolfe with narrowed eyes. “Are you saying I killed Hawthorne?”

“I seem to be hinting at that as a possibility, Mr. Davis.”

“Then you’re a damned idiot. And it’s certainly actionable to accuse—”

“It may be. Or it may not. You’re a lawyer; why don’t you let me go on till I sink? Four. It is reasonable to assume that it was on Tuesday evening that Davis went to the office of his firm and, getting Hawthorne’s will from the vault, typed a new first page for it — the same paper, even the same machine — and of course wording it and ending it so it would fit the continuance on the second page, where the attestations and signatures were. He would hardly have proceeded with that until Hawthorne was actually dead, though he may have done the typing previously, since it was a delicate and difficult job.

“Five. It is probable that there was no bequest to Miss Karn in Hawthorne’s will. What gifts he may have made her we can only conjecture, but I doubt if her name was in his will. It isn’t commonly done that way. Even if it was, the legacy was certainly a comparatively modest one. So Davis, wanting to bind Miss Karn to him with a tie that would render unlikely further adventures with millionaires, made her a tempting offer. If she would pledge constancy to him, the will found in the vault would have the first page he had typed, and she would inherit seven million dollars.”

“Glenn Prescott drew the will,” May Hawthorne said acidly.

Wolfe nodded. “Yes. But six. Davis had calculated the risk. If there was a duplicate of the will anywhere, he knew where it was, and either destroyed it or gave it a new first page also. There were only three other sources of evidence of the contents of the will as originally drawn. The stenographer’s notebook. That, following routine, had been destroyed. The stenographer herself. She also had been destroyed, by death. Glenn Prescott, his partner, who had drawn the will. There was his risk, and he took it. He was shrewd, audacious, and desperate, and he took it. He knew Prescott; he knew that the dearest thing to his heart was the reputation and prosperity of that law firm. So he calculated: Prescott, getting the will from the vault and discovering the substitution that had taken place, would be shocked, horrified, stunned. He would suspect at once that Davis had done it. But would he expose him?”

Davis blurted in a rasping sarcastic tone, “Good God, you were sunk long ago.”

“I’m going deeper yet,” said Wolfe imperturbably. “Davis answered that question, would Prescott expose him, with a no. Prescott regarded Davis as a rarely gifted lawyer, the kind that makes history. He knew he was being ruined by his infatuation for Miss Karn. With Hawthorne dead, and Miss Karn’s greediness so adequately satisfied, thanks to Davis, Davis might have her and be himself again, to the greater glory of the firm. On the other hand, if Prescott exposed the crime, if he disclosed the facts, whether Davis’s guilt was legally established or not, the thing would be a staggering blow to the prestige and standing of the firm. Dunwoodie is an old man, hardly more than a name. Prescott has ability but no brilliance, and knows it. With Davis out, and such a stink pervading that office, the firm would be ruined.

“Davis figured that was the way Prescott would react, and he was right. I don’t know how long Prescott struggled with himself about it, but finally he took the will up to the Hawthorne residence on Thursday evening and read it to the family gathered there. Then, of course, he was irrevocably committed. Davis was safe as far as Prescott was concerned. But he found himself confronted by another danger. Where and how and when it first showed itself, I don’t know, nor have I any proof that Naomi Karn became convinced that Davis had killed Hawthorne, and either threatened to expose him — which seems unlikely — or announced an invincible repugnance to intimate association with a murderer — which seems much more probable. At any rate, the result was that when Davis entered the Hawthorne living room yesterday afternoon and saw Miss Karn there, he knocked her on the head and strangled her and shoved her behind — Archie!”