“Oh, excuse me. As my sister said, our nerves are in shreds. Our brother’s death was a staggering shock. Then its aftermath — yesterday the funeral — and then this. Daisy is my brother’s wife. His widow. She is well established as a tragic figure.”
Wolfe nodded. “The lady who wears a veil.”
“So you know the legend.”
“Not a legend,” May declared. “Much more than a legend. A fact.”
“I merely share the public knowledge,” said Wolfe. “Of the story that — some six years ago, I believe — Noel Hawthorne was doing archery and an arrow, which he let fly inadvertently, tore a path through his wife’s face, from her brow to her chin. She had been beautiful. Since then she has never been seen without a veil.”
April said, with a little shudder, “It was dreadful. I saw her in the hospital, and I still dream about it. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw except a girl selling cigarettes in a café in Warsaw.”
“She was emotionally barren,” May asserted. “Like me, but without alternatives. She should never have married our brother or anyone else.”
June shook her head. “You’re both wrong. Daisy was too cold to be truly beautiful. The seeds of emotion were in her, waiting to germinate. The Lord knows they’re bearing fruit now. We all heard the vindictiveness in her voice last night, and that’s an emotion, isn’t it?” June’s eyes were at Wolfe again. “She implacable. She’s going to make it as ugly as she can. The income from half a million dollars would be ample for her, but she’s going to fight. You know what that will be like. Utterly horrible. So your advice to let the scandal run its course is inadequate. She hates the Hawthornes. My husband would be called as a witness. All of us would.”
May put in, with all the sweetness gone both from her tone and her eyes, “We are going to prevent it.”
“We want,” said April, letting fire with her ripple, “we want you to prevent it, Mr. Wolfe.”