Where There's a Will

by Stout Rex

She smiled. I wouldn’t say she smiled at me, she just smiled. “Mr. Goodwin? Sent by Mr. Prescott?”

“That’s right, Miss Karn.”

“I suppose I should have refused to see you. Only I don’t like to do that — it’s so stuffy.”

“Why should you have refused to see me?”

“Because, if you were sent by Mr. Prescott, you’ve come to bully me. Haven’t you?”

“Bully you about what?”

“Oh, come now.” She smiled again.

I waited a second, saw that she wasn’t going to add to it, and said, “As a matter of fact, I wasn’t sent by Prescott. I was sent by Nero Wolfe. He has been engaged by Noel Hawthorne’s sisters to discuss Hawthorne’s will with you.”

“Nero Wolfe, the detective?”

“That’s the one.”