Chapter 1

I put the 1938–39 edition of Who’s Who in America, open, on the leaf of my desk, because it was getting too heavy to hold on a hot day.

“They were sprinkled at discreet intervals,” I stated aloud. “If they didn’t fudge when they supplied the dope, April is thirty-six, May forty-one, and June forty-six. Five years apart. Apparently their parents started at the middle of the calendar and worked backwards, and also apparently they named June that because she was born in June, 1893. But the next one shows an effort of the imagination. I prefer to suppose it was Mamma who thought of it. Although the baby was actually born in February, they named it May...”

There was no sign that Nero Wolfe was listening as he leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, but I went on anyhow. On that hot July day, in spite of the swell lunch Fritz had served us, I would have sold the world for a dime. My vacation was over. The news from Europe was enough to make you want to put signs at every ten yards along the seacoast, “Private Shore. No Sharks or Statesmen Allowed.” I had bandages on my arms where the black flies had bored for blood in Canada. Worst of all, Nero Wolfe had gone in for a series of fantastic expenditures, the bank balance was the lowest it had been for years, and the detective business was rotten; and just to be contrary, instead of doing his share of the worrying about it he seemed to have adopted the attitude that it would be impertinent to attempt to interfere with natural laws. Which had me boiling. He might be eccentric enough to find pleasure in a personal and intimate test of the operations of the New Deal WPA, but if I had my way about it the only meaning WPA would ever have for yours truly would be Wolfe Pays Archie.

So I went on buzzing. “It all depends,” I declared, “on what it is that’s biting them. It must be something pretty painful, or they wouldn’t have made an appointment to call on you in a body. The death of their brother Noel has probably taken care of their financial potentialities. Noel’s in here too.” I frowned at the Who’s Who. “He was forty-nine, the eldest, three years older than June, and was next to Cullen himself in Daniel Cullen and Company. Did it all himself, started there as a runner in 1908 at twelve bucks a week. That was in his obit in the Times, day before yesterday. Did you read it?”

Wolfe was motionless. I made a face at him and resumed.

“They’re not due for twenty minutes yet, so I might as well give you the benefit of my research. There’s more in this magazine article I dug up than in Who’s Who. A lot of rich and colorful details. For instance, it says that May has worn cotton stockings ever since the Japs bombed Shanghai. It says that Mamma was an amazing woman because she was the mother of four extraordinary children. I have never understood why, in cases like this, it is assumed that Papa’s contribution was negligible, but there’s no time to go into that now. It’s the extraordinary children we’re dealing with.”

I flipped a page of the magazine. “To sum up about Noel, who died Tuesday. It seems he had a row of buttons installed on his desk in the Wall Street offices of Daniel Cullen and Company; one for each country in Europe and Asia, not to mention South America. When he pressed a button, that country’s government resigned and they telephoned him to ask who to put in next. You can’t say that wasn’t extraordinary. The eldest daughter, June, was, as I say, born in June, 1893. At the age of twenty she wrote a daring and sensational book called Riding Bareback, and a year later another one entitled Affairs of a Titmouse. Then she married a brilliant young New York lawyer named John Charles Dunn, who is at the present moment the Secretary of State of the United States of America. He sent a cogent letter to Japan last week. The magazine states that Dunn’s meteoric rise is in great part due to his remarkable wife. Mamma again. June is in fact a mamma, having a son, Andrew, twenty-four and a daughter, Sara, twenty-two.”

I shifted to elevate my feet. “The other two extraordinaries are still named Hawthorne. May Hawthorne never has married. They are thinking of prosecuting her under the anti-trust law for her monopoly on brain cells. At the age of twenty-six she revolutionized colloid chemistry, something about bubbles and drops. Since 1933 she has been president of Varney College, and in those six years has increased its endowment funds by over twelve million bucks, showing that she has gone from colloidal to colossal. It says her intellectual power is extraordinary.

“I was wrong when I said the other two are still named Hawthorne. In April’s case I should have said ‘again’ instead of ‘still’. While she was taking London by storm in 1927 she glanced over the prostrate nobility at her feet and picked out the Duke of Lozano. Four other dukes, a bunch of earls and barons, and two soap manufacturers committed suicide. But alas. Three years later she divorced Lozano, while she was taking Paris by storm, and became April Hawthorne again, privately as well as publicly. She is the only actress, alive or dead, who has played both Juliet and Nora. At present she is taking New York by storm for the eighth time. I can confirm that personally, because a month ago I paid a speculator five dollars and fifty cents for a ticket to Scrambled Eggs. You may remember that I tried to persuade you to go. I figured that since April Hawthorne is the acknowledged queen of the American stage, you owed it to yourself to see her.”

Not a flicker. He wouldn’t rouse.

“Of course,” I said sarcastically, “it is deplorable that these extraordinary Hawthorne gals have no more consideration for your privacy than to come charging in here before you finish digesting your lunch. No matter what is biting them, no matter if their brother Noel left them a million dollars apiece and they want to pay you half of it for putting a tail on their banker, they ought to have more regard for common courtesy. When June phoned this morning I told her—”

“Archie!” His eyes opened. “I am aware that you call Mrs. Dunn, whom you have never met, by her first name, because you think it irritates me. It does. Don’t do it. Shut up.”

“—I told Mrs. Dunn it was an intolerable invasion of your inalienable right to sit here in peace and watch the bank balance disappear in the darkening twilight of the slow but inevitable dispersion of your mental powers and the pitiful collapse of your instinct of self-preservation—”

“Archie!” He thumped the desk.

It was time to side-step, but I was rescued from that necessity by the door’s opening and the appearance of Fritz Brenner. Fritz was beaming, and I could guess why. The visitors he had come to announce had probably impressed him as something unusually promising in the way of clients. The only secrets in Nero Wolfe’s old house on 35th Street near the Hudson River were professional secrets. It was unavoidable that I, his secretary, bodyguard, and chief assistant, should be aware that the exchequer was having its bottom scraped; but Fritz Brenner, cook and gentleman of the household, and Theodore Horstmann, custodian of the famous and expensive collection of orchids which Wolfe maintained in the plant rooms on the roof — they knew it too. And Fritz was beaming, obviously, because the trio whose arrival he was announcing looked more like a major fee than anything the office had seen for weeks. He did it in style. Wolfe told him, with no enthusiasm, to show them in. I took my feet off the desk.

Though the extraordinary Hawthorne gals did not strongly resemble one another, my discreet glances of appraisal as I got them arranged into chairs made it credible that they were daughters of the same amazing mother. April I had seen on the stage; now that I got a look at her off it, I was ready to concede that she could probably take Nero Wolfe’s office by storm if she cared to let loose. She looked hot, peevish, beautiful and overwhelming. When she thanked me for her chair I decided to marry her as soon as I could save up enough to buy a new pair of shoes.

May, the intellectual giant and college president, surprised me. She looked sweet. Later, seeing how determined her mouth could get, and how cutting her voice, when the occasion required it, I made drastic revisions, but then she just looked sweet, harmless, and not quite middle-aged. June, Mrs. Dunn to you, was slenderer than either of her younger sisters, next door to skinny, with hair that was turning gray, and restless dark burning eyes — the kind of eyes that have never been satisfied and never will be. Where they all looked alike was chiefly the forehead — broad, rather high, with well-marked temple depressions and strong eye ridges.

June did the introducing; first herself and her sisters, and then the two males who accompanied them. Their names were Stauffer and Prescott. Stauffer was probably under forty, maybe five years older than me, not a bad-looking guy if he had been a little more careless with his face. He was living up to something. The other one, Prescott, was nearer fifty. He was medium-short, with a central circumference that made it seem likely he would grunt if he bent over to tie his shoestring. Nothing, of course, like Nero Wolfe’s globular grandeur. I recognized him from a picture I had seen in the rotogravure when he had been elected to something in the Bar Association. He was Glenn Prescott of the law firm of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis. He had on a Metzger shirt and tie, and a suit that cost a hundred and fifty bucks, and wore a flower in his buttonhole.

The flower was the cause of a little diversion right at the beginning. I have given up trying to decide whether Wolfe does those things just to establish the point that he’s eccentric, or because he’s curious, or to spar for time to size someone up, or what. Anyhow, they had barely got settled in their chairs when he aimed his eyes at Prescott and asked politely:

“Is that a centaurea?”

“I beg your pardon?” Prescott looked blank. “Oh, you mean my buttonhole. I don’t know. I just stop at the florist’s and select something.”

“You wear a flower without knowing its name?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

Wolfe shrugged. “I never saw a centaurea of that color before.”

“It isn’t,” Mrs. Dunn put in impatiently. “A centaurea cyanus has a much closer formation—”

“I didn’t say centaurea cyanus, madam.” Wolfe sounded testy. “I had in mind centaurea leucophylla.”

“Oh. I’ve never seen one. Anyway, that isn’t a centaurea leuco-anything. It’s a dianthus superbus.”

April started to laugh. May smiled at her as Einstein would smile at a kitten. June darted her eyes that way and April stopped laughing and said in her famous rippling voice:

“You win, Juno. It’s a dianthus superbus. I don’t mind your always being right, not a bit, but when anything strikes me as funny it’s my nature to laugh. And, I might inquire, was I dragged down here to hear you treat the audience to a spot of botany?”

“You weren’t dragged,” the elderly sister retorted. “At least not by me.”

May fluttered a deprecating hand. “You must forgive us, Mr. Wolfe. Our nerves are quite ragged. We do wish to consult you about something serious.” She looked at me and smiled so sweetly that I smiled back. Then she added to Wolfe, “And something extremely confidential.”

“That’s all right,” Wolfe assured her. “Mr. Goodwin is my âme damnée. I could do nothing without him. The spot of botany was my fault; I started it. Tell me about the something serious.”

Prescott inquired reluctantly, “Shall I explain?”

April, waving a hand to extinguish the match with which she had lit a cigarette, and squinting to keep the smoke from her eyes, shook her head at him. “Fat chance of a man explaining anything with all three of us present.”

“I think,” May suggested, “it would be better if June—”

Mrs. Dunn said abruptly, “It’s my brother’s will.”

Wolfe frowned at her. He hated fights about wills, having once gone so far as to tell a prospective client that he refused to engage in a tug of war with a dead man’s guts for a rope. But he asked not too rudely, “Is there something wrong with the will?”

“There is.” June’s tone was incisive. “But first I’d like to say — you’re a detective. It’s not a detective we need. It was my idea we should come to you. Not so much on account of your reputation, more because of what you did once for a friend of mine, Mrs. Llewellyn Frost. She was then Glenna McNair. Also I have heard my husband speak highly of you. I gathered that you had done something difficult for the State Department.”

“Thank you. But,” Wolfe objected, “you say you don’t need a detective.”

“We don’t. But we very much need the services of an able, astute, discreet and unscrupulous man.”

“That’s diplomacy for you,” said April, tapping ash from her cigarette.

It was ignored. Wolfe inquired, “What kind of services?”

I decided what it was about June’s face that needed adjustment. Her eyes were the eyes of a hawk, but her nose, which should have been a beak to go with the eyes, was just a straight, good-looking nose. I preferred to look at April. But June was talking:

“Very exceptional services, I’m afraid. My husband says nothing but a miracle will do, but he’s a cautious and conservative man. You know of course that my brother died on Tuesday, three days ago. The funeral was held yesterday afternoon. Mr. Prescott — my brother’s attorney — collected us last evening to read the will to us. Its contents shocked and astonished us — all of us, without exception.”

Wolfe made a little sound of distaste. I knew it for that, but I suppose it might have passed for sympathy to people who had just met him. But he said dryly:

“Those disagreeable shocks would never occur if the inheritance tax were one hundred per cent.”

“I suppose so. You sound like a Bolshevik. But it wasn’t the disappointment of expectant legatees, it was something much worse—”

“Excuse me,” May put in quietly. “In my case it was. He had told me he was leaving a million dollars to the science fund.”

“I am merely saying,” June declared impatiently, “that we are not hyenas. Certainly none of us was calculating on any imminent inheritance from Noel. We knew of course that he was wealthy, but he was only forty-nine and in extremely good health.” She turned to Prescott. “I think, Glenn, the quickest way will be for you to tell Mr. Wolfe briefly the provisions of the will.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. “I must remind you again, June, that once it is made public—”

“Mr. Wolfe will take it in confidence. Won’t you?”

Wolfe nodded. “Certainly.”

“Well.” Prescott cleared his throat again. He looked at Wolfe. “Mr. Hawthorne left a number of small bequests to servants and employees, a total of one hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars. A hundred thousand to each of the two children of his sister, Mrs. John Charles Dunn, and a like amount to the science fund of Varney College. Five hundred thousand to his wife; he had no children. An apple to his sister June, a pear to his sister May, and a peach to his sister April.” The lawyer looked uncomfortable. “I assure you that Mr. Hawthorne, who was not only my client but my friend, was not a freak. There was a statement that his sisters needed nothing of this, that he made those bequests only as symbols of his regard.”

“Indeed. Does that cover the estate? Around a million?”

“No.” Prescott looked even more uncomfortable. “The residue will be roughly seven million, after the deduction of taxes. Probably a little less. It was left to a woman whose name is Naomi Karn.”

“La femme,” said April. It was neither a sneer nor a flippancy, merely a statement of fact.

Wolfe sighed.

Prescott said, “The will was drawn by me after instructions from Mr. Hawthorne. It is dated March 7, 1938, and replaced one which had been drawn three years previously. It was kept in a vault in the office of my firm. I mention this on account of intimations made last evening by Mrs. Dunn and Miss May Hawthorne that I should have notified them of its contents at the time it was drawn. As you know, Mr. Wolfe, that would have been—”

“Nonsense,” May said cuttingly. “You know very well we were upset. We were gasping.”

“We still are.” June’s eyes pierced Wolfe. “You will please understand that my sisters and I are perfectly satisfied with our fruit. It isn’t that. But think of it, the sensation and scandal of it! I can hardly believe it! None of us can. It’s incredible. My brother leaving his entire fortune, the bulk of it, to that — that—”

“Woman,” April suggested.

“Very well. Woman.”

“It was his fortune,” Wolfe observed. “And apparently that’s what he did with it.”

“Meaning?” May inquired.

“Meaning that if it’s the sensation and scandal you object to, the less you say and do about it the sooner it will be forgotten.”

“Thank you,” said June sarcastically. “We need something better than that. The publication of the will alone would be bad enough. Considering that millions are involved, and the position of my husband, and of my sisters — My Lord! Don’t you realize that we’re the famous Hawthorne girls, whether we like it or not?”

“Of course we like it,” April asserted. “We love it.”

“Speak for yourself, Ape.” June kept her eyes on Wolfe. “You can imagine what the papers will do. Even so, I think your advice is good. I think the best plan would be to do and say nothing, let it run its course and ignore it. But it isn’t going to be allowed to run its course. Something utterly horrible is going to happen. Daisy is going to contest the will.”

Wolfe’s frown deepened. “Daisy?”

“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.”

“My husband spoke very highly of you,” June stated, as if that settled everything, including the weather.

“Thank you.” Wolfe sent a glance around at them, from one to the other, including the two men. “What am I supposed to do, obliterate Mrs. Hawthorne?”

“No.” June spoke with finality. “You can’t do anything with her. You’ll have to attack it from the other end. The woman, Naomi Karn. Get her to give up most of it — at least half of it. If you do that, we’ll do the rest. For some unknown reason Daisy really wants the money, though the Lord knows what she thinks she’s going to do with it. You may find it difficult, but surely not impossible. You can tell Miss Karn that if she doesn’t relinquish at least half of it she’ll have a fight on her hands, and she may lose considerably more than half.”

“Anyone can tell her that, madam.” Wolfe turned to the lawyer. “How does it stand legally? Would Mrs. Hawthorne have a case?”

“Well.” Prescott screwed up his lips. “She would have a case, of course. To begin with, under the common law—”

“No, please. Don’t brief it. In a word, could Mrs. Hawthorne break the will?”

“I don’t know. I think she might. In view of the way the will is worded, the law leaves it open to the facts.” Prescott was looking uncomfortable again. “You might appreciate that I am in an anomalous position. Dangerously close to an unethical position. I myself drew the will for Mr. Hawthorne, having been instructed by him to make it as contest-proof as possible. I cannot be expected to suggest ways and means of attack on my own document; rather it is my duty to defend it. On the other hand, as a friend of all the members of the Hawthorne family — not as an attorney — and I may say, also of Mr. Dunn, who holds a position of national eminence — I realize the incalculable harm that would result from a public trial of the issue. It is extremely desirable to avoid it if possible, and in view of the attitude Mrs. Hawthorne had unfortunately adopted—”

Prescott stopped, and screwed up his lips again. He went on, “I’ll tell you. Frankly and confidentially — and it is highly unethical for me to say this — I regard that will as an outrage. I told Noel Hawthorne so at the time it was drawn, but when he insisted, all I could do was obey his instructions. Entirely aside from its unfairness to Mrs. Hawthorne, I was aware that he had told his sister he would leave a million dollars to the Varney College Science Fund, and that he was making it only ten per cent of that amount. That was worse than unfair, it came close to improbity, and I told him so. Without effect. My opinion was, and still is, that under the influence of Miss Karn he had lost his balance.”

“I still don’t believe it.” It was May again, and she was continuing to do without sweetness. “I still believe that if Noel had decided not to do what he had said he would do, he would have told me so.”

“My dear Miss Hawthorne.” Prescott turned to her with his lips compressed in exasperation. “Last evening I was willing to overlook your remarks because I knew you were under the stress of a great and unexpected disappointment.” There was a tremble of indignation in his voice. “But that you should dare to insinuate, here in the presence of others, that the terms of Noel’s will are not in accordance with his precise instructions — my God, the man could read, couldn’t he—”

“Nonsense,” May interrupted cuttingly. “I was merely expressing incredulity. I would as soon attack the laws of thermodynamics as your integrity. Maybe you were both hypnotized.” Suddenly and flashingly she smiled at him, and swore plaintively. “Damn it. All of this is intolerably painful. I would be for letting it go, without a word, if it weren’t that Daisy’s ghoulish stubbornness makes it imperative to do something. As it is, I insist that in the settlement with Miss Karn there shall be an arrangement to increase the legacy to the science fund to the figure my brother intended at the time he discussed it with me.”

“Ah,” Wolfe murmured. Prescott, his lips still in a tight line, nodded at him as if to say, “Just so. Ah.”

June snapped at her sister. “You’re only making it more difficult, May, and perhaps impossible. Anyhow, you’re bluffing. I know you. You wouldn’t dream of stirring up this nasty mess. If Mr. Wolfe can talk that woman into it, all right; I’m perfectly willing your fund should get the million, but the main point is Daisy and you know it. We agreed on that—”

She stopped because the door from the hall opened. Fritz, entering, approached Wolfe’s desk and extended his hand with a card tray. Wolfe took the card, glanced at it, and placed it neatly under the paperweight. Then he looked at Mrs. Dunn and addressed her:

“This card says Mrs. Noel Hawthorne. ”

They all stared.

“Oh, my God!” April blurted. May said quietly, “We should have tied her up.” June arose from her chair and demanded, “Where is she? I’ll see her.”

“Please.” Wolfe pushed air down with his palm. “She is calling on me. I’ll see her myself—”

“But this is ridiculous.” June stayed on her feet. “She gave us until Monday. She promised to do nothing till then. I left my son and daughter with her to make sure—”

“You left them with her where?”

“At my brother’s home. Her home. We all spent the night there — not her home either, that’s one reason she’s acting the way she is, as a part of the residuary estate it will go to that woman and not to her — but she promised to do nothing—”

“Please sit down, Mrs. Dunn. I’d have to see her anyway, before I could accept this job. Bring Mrs. Hawthorne in, Fritz.”

“There are two ladies and a gentleman with her, sir.”

“Bring them all in.”

Chapter 2

Four people, not counting Fritz, acting as usher, entered the office. Fritz had to bring a couple of chairs from the front room.

I like to look at faces. In a good many cases, I admit, a glance will do me, but usually they have points, of one kind or another, that will stand more of an eye. Andrew Dunn looked like a nice husky kid, with a strong resemblance to pictures I had seen of his father. His sister Sara had her mother’s dark eyes of a fighting bird and the Hawthorne forehead, but her mouth and chin was something new. The other girl was a blonde in the bud who would have convinced any impartial jury that all of this great country’s anatomical scenery had not been monopolized by Hollywood. Later information disclosed that her name was Celia Fleet and that she was April Hawthorne’s secretary.

But though I like to look at faces, and those three were worthy of attention, the one that drew my gaze was the one I couldn’t see. The story had it that Noel Hawthorne’s arrow which had accidentally struck his beautiful wife had plowed diagonally across from the brow to the chin, and what was left was there behind that veil — with, it was said, one eye working — and that was what I looked at. You couldn’t help it. The gray veil was fastened to her hat and extended below her chin, and was harnessed with a strip of ribbon. No skin was in sight except her ears. She was mediumsized, with what would ordinarily be called a nice youthful figure, only with the veil and knowing why it was there, you didn’t have the feeling of anything being nice. I sat and stared at it, trying to ignore an inclination to offer somebody a ten-spot to pull the veil up, knowing that if it was done I’d probably offer another ten-spot to get it pulled down again.

She didn’t take the chair I placed for her. She stood there stiff. I had the feeling she couldn’t see, but she obviously could. After the greetings, and when I was back in my chair again, I noticed that April’s fingers were unsteady as she fumbled for a cigarette. May was looking sweet again, but she was tense. So was June’s voice:

“My dear Daisy, this was unnecessary! We were completely candid with you! We told you we were going to consult Mr. Nero Wolfe. You gave us till Monday. There was no reason whatever why you should have any suspicion — Sara, you little devil, what on earth are you doing? Put that away!”

“In a second, Mom.” Sara’s tone was urgent. “Everybody sit tight.”

A dazzling flash blinded us. There were ejaculations, the loudest and least gentle from Prescott. I, having bounded up from my chair, stood feeling foolish.

Sara said composedly, “I wanted one of Nero Wolfe sitting at his desk. Excuse it please. Hand me that dingus, Andy.”

“Go chase a snail. You darned little fool.”

“Sara! Sit down!”

“Okay, Mom. That’s all.”

We stopped blinking. I was back in my chair. Wolfe inquired dryly, “Is your daughter a professional photographer, Mrs. Dunn?”

“No. She’s a professional fiend. It’s this damnable saga of the illustrious Hawthorne girls. She wants to carry it on. She thinks she can—”

“That isn’t so! I only wanted a shot—”

“Please!” Wolfe scowled across. Sara grinned at him. He slanted his gaze upward at the veil. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Hawthorne?”

“I think not, thank you.” Her voice gave me the creeps and made me want to pull the veil off myself. It was pitched high, with a strain in it that gave me the impression it wasn’t coming from a mouth. She turned the veil on June:

“So you think my coming was unnecessary? That’s very funny. Didn’t you leave Andrew and Sara and April’s secretary to guard me so I wouldn’t interfere with you?”

“No,” June declared, “we didn’t. For God’s sake, Daisy, be reasonable. We only wanted—”

“I have no desire to be reasonable. I’m not an imbecile, June. It was my face Noel ruined, not my mind.” She whirled, suddenly, and unexpectedly, to the younger sister. “By the way, April, speaking of faces, your secretary is much better-looking than you are. Of course she’s only half your age. How brave of you.”

April kept her eyes down and said nothing.

“You can never bear to look at me, can you?” From behind the veil came a terrible little laugh, and then it turned again to June. “I didn’t come here to interfere. I came because I’m suspicious and I have cause to be. You are Hawthornes — the notorious Hawthornes. Your brother was a Hawthorne. He assured me many times that I would be generously cared for. His word, generous. I knew he had that woman, he told me so — he was candid too, like you. He gave me, monthly, more money than I needed, more than I could use, to deceive me, to stop my suspicions. And now even my house is not mine!”

“My Lord, don’t I know it?” June raised a hand and let it fall. “My dear Daisy, don’t I know it? Can’t you believe that our one desire, our one purpose—”

“No, I can’t. I don’t believe a word a Hawthorne says.” The breath of the bitter words was fluttering the veil, but the silk harness held it in place. “Nor you, Glen Prescott. I don’t trust you. Not one of you. I didn’t even believe you were coming to see this Nero Wolfe, but I find you did.”

She turned to confront Wolfe. “I know about you. I know a man you did something for — I used to know him. I telephoned him today to ask about you. He said you may be relied upon completely in trust, but that as an opponent you are ruthless and dangerous. He said if I asked you point-blank whether you are on my side or not, you wouldn’t lie. I came here to ask you.”

“Sit down, Mrs. Hawthorne.”

“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?”

She didn’t answer. She took the sheet from the envelope, unfolded it, and read it with her head turned to one side, using, apparently, the left eye only from behind the veil. Then she stuffed it in her bag, turned, and started for the door. I got up and went to open it, but young Dunn was ahead of me, and anyway we were both premature. She altered her course abruptly, and was confronting April Hawthorne, close enough to touch her; but when she lifted her hand it was to take hold of the bottom edge of the veil.

“Look, April!” she demanded. “I wouldn’t care to have the others see — but just for you — as a favor, you know, in memory of Leo—”

“Don’t!” April screamed. “Don’t let her!”

There was commotion. Most of them were out of their chairs. The one who got there first was Celia Fleet, living up to her name. I didn’t know a blonde’s eyes could blaze the way hers did as she faced the veil. “You do that again,” she said furiously, “and I’ll pull that thing off of you! I swear I will! Try it!”

A masculine voice horned in. “Get away from here! Get out!” It was Mr. Stauffer, the chap who kept his face arranged. It was now fierce with indignation, as he shouldered Celia Fleet aside to stand protectively in front of April, who had shrunk back in her seat and covered her face with her hands. The same terrible little laugh came from behind the veil, then Noel Hawthorne’s widow turned and started again for the door. But again, halfway there, she halted to speak, this time to Mrs. Dunn.

“Don’t send the brats to guard me, June. I’ll keep my word. I’ll give you till Monday.”

Then she went. Fritz was there in the hall, looking concerned on account of the scream he had heard, and I was glad to leave it to him to escort her out the front door. That damn veil got on my nerves. As I rejoined the scene, April’s shoulders were having spasms and Mr. Stauffer was patting one of them and Celia Fleet the other. May and June were quietly observing the operation. Prescott was mopping his face with his handkerchief. I asked if I should get some brandy or something.

“No, thank you.” May smiled at me. “My sister is always teetering on the edge of things, more or less. I doubt if she could be a good actress if she weren’t. It seems that artists have to. It used to be attributed to the flames of genius, but now they say it’s glands.”

April’s face, pale with revulsion, came into view and she blurted, “Stop it!”

“Yes,” June put in, “I don’t think that’s necessary, May.” She looked at Wolfe. “I imagine you’ll agree I was correct when I said our sister-in-law is implacable.”

Wolfe nodded. “I do. Badly as I need money, I wouldn’t attempt to persuade her to relinquish anything. Speaking of money, I have an exaggerated opinion of the value of my services.”

“I know you have. Your bill, if it is short of outrageous, will be paid.”

“Good — Archie, your notebook — Now. You want a signed agreement with Miss Karn. Half of the residuary estate, more if possible, to Mrs. Hawthorne. In addition to the half million she gets?”

“I don’t know — whatever you can.”

“And nine hundred thousand to the Varney College Science Fund?”

“Yes,” May said positively.

“If you can get it, of course,” said June. “Don’t let my sister give you the idea that she’ll smash the settlement if that isn’t in it. She’s bluffing.”

May said quietly, “You’ve been wrong about me before, June.”

“Maybe I have, but not now. Let’s jump that fence when we get to it, Mr. Wolfe.”

“Very well. If we can get it, we will. What about you and your sister? What do you want for yourselves?”

“Nothing. We have our fruit.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe looked at May. “Is that correct, Miss Hawthorne?”

“Certainly. I want nothing for myself.”

Wolfe looked at the youngest. “And you?”

“What?” asked April vaguely.

“I am asking, do you demand a share of your brother’s estate?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“Not that we couldn’t use it,” said June. “April lives at least a year ahead of her income and is in debt to her ears. May washes her own stockings. She never has anything because she gives half her salary to Varney girls who would have to leave college if she didn’t. As for me, I have trouble paying the grocery bills. My husband had a good income from his private practice, but the salary of a secretary of state is pretty skimpy.”

“Then I think we should be able to persuade Miss Karn—”

“No. Don’t try it. If my brother had left us something we could certainly have used it — and I suppose we’re all surprised that he didn’t. But no — no haggling for it. From him direct, yes, but not by way of that woman.”

“If I get it, will you take it?”

“Don’t try. Don’t tempt us. You know how it is. You’re in need of money yourself.”

“We’ll see. What about your children?”

“They get a hundred thousand apiece.”

“Is that satisfactory?”

“Of course. My Lord, they’re rich.”

“Is anything else wanted from Miss Karn for anyone at all?”

“No.”

Wolfe looked at the lawyer. “What about it, Mr. Prescott? Have you any comments?”

Prescott shook his head. “None. I’m happy to stay as well out of it as I can. I drew the will.”

“So you did.” Wolfe frowned at him, then transferred the frown to June. “So much for that. We’ll get all we can. Now what about Miss Karn?”

“What about her?”

“Who is she, what is she, where is she?”

“I don’t know much about her.” June turned to the lawyer. “You tell him, Glenn.”

“Well...” Prescott rubbed his nose. “She’s a young woman, a year or two short of thirty I should say—”

“Wait a minute!” The interruption came from Sara Dunn, the professional fiend, as she glided up to Wolfe’s desk with something in her hand. “Here, Mr. Wolfe, look at this. I brought it along because I thought it might be needed. That’s her laughing, and the man with her is Uncle Noel. You can borrow it if you want to, but I’ll want it back.”

“Where in the name of heaven,” Mrs. Dunn demanded, “did you get that thing?”

“Oh, I took it one day last spring when I happened to see Uncle in front of Hartlespoon’s, and I knew who it must be with him. They didn’t see me snap it. It’s a good shot, so I had it enlarged.”

“You — you knew—” June was sputtering. “How did you know about that woman?”

“Don’t be a goof, Mom,” said Sara sympathetically. “I wasn’t born deaf, and I’m past twenty-one. You were just my age when you wrote Affairs of a Titmouse. ”

“Thank you very much, Miss Dunn.” Wolfe put the picture under a paperweight on top of Daisy Hawthorne’s card. “I’ll remember to return it.” He turned to the lawyer. “About Miss Karn? You know her, do you?”

“Not very well,” said Prescott. “That is — I’ve known her, in a way, for about six years. She was a stenographer in our office — my firm.”

“Indeed. Your personal stenographer?”

“Oh, no. We have thirty or more of them — it’s a large office. She was just one of them for a couple of years, and then she became the secretary of the junior partner, Mr. Davis. It was in Mr. Davis’s office that Mr. Hawthorne first met her. Not long after that—” Prescott stopped, and looked uncomfortable. “But that’s of no present significance. I wished to explain how I happened to know her. She left our employ about three years ago — uh — apparently at the suggestion of Mr. Hawthorne—”

“Apparently?”

“Well—” Prescott shrugged. “Admittedly, then. Since he himself made no attempt to be secretive about it, there is no call for caution from me.”

“The Hawthornes,” said May sweetly, “are much too egotistic to be sneaks. ‘How we apples swim.’”

“Obviously he wasn’t sneaking,” Wolfe agreed, glancing at the picture under the paperweight, “when he paraded with her on Fifth Avenue.”

“I think I should warn you,” Prescott said, “that your task will be a difficult one.”

“I expect it to be. To persuade anybody to turn loose of four million dollars.”

“I know, but I mean exceptionally difficult.” Prescott shook his head doubtfully. “God knows I wish you luck, but from what I know of Miss Karn... it’ll be a job. Ask Stauffer, he’ll tell you what he thinks of it. That’s why we asked him to come down here with us.”

“Stauffer?”

A voice came from the left: “I’m Osric Stauffer.”

Wolfe looked at the good-looking face that was living up to something. “Oh. Are you...” He trailed it off.

The face looked faintly annoyed. “Osric Stauffer of Daniel Cullen and Company. The foreign department was under the direction of Mr. Hawthorne and I was next to him. Also I was fairly intimate with him.”

So it was Daniel Cullen and Company he was living up to. Judging from the way he had been hovering in the neighborhood of April Hawthorne, I had guessed wrong entirely; I had thought he was dignifying a passion.

Wolfe inquired, “You know Miss Karn, do you?”

“I have met her, yes.” Stauffer’s voice was clipped and precise. “What Mr. Prescott was referring to, I went to see her this morning about this will business. I was requested to go by him and Mrs. Dunn — and in a way, unofficially, as a representative of my firm. A will contest — this sort of thing — would be highly undesirable in the case of a Cullen partner.”

“So you saw Miss Karn this morning?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I made no headway at all. Naturally, in my position, I have been entrusted with some difficult and delicate negotiations, and I’ve dealt with some tough customers, but I’ve never struck anything tougher than Miss Karn. Her position was that it would be improper, and even indecent, to interfere with the wishes of a dead man as he had himself expressed them, with regard to the disposal of his own property. Therefore she couldn’t even discuss it, and she wouldn’t. I told her she would have a contest to fight and might lose it all. She said she had a great respect for justice and would cheerfully accept any decision a court might make, provided there was no higher court to appeal to.”

“Did you offer terms?”

“No, not specific terms. I didn’t get that far. She was—” Stauffer seemed momentarily embarrassed how to put it. “She wasn’t inclined to listen to anything about the will, the purpose of my call. She attempted to presume on our comparatively slight acquaintance.”

“Do you mean she tried to make love to you?”

“Oh, no.” Stauffer blushed, glanced involuntarily at April Hawthorne, and blushed more. “No, not that, not at all. I mean merely that she acted as if my visit were — just a friendly visit. She is an extremely clever woman.”

“And you think she wasn’t scared by the threat of a contest?”

“I’m positive she wasn’t. I never saw anyone less scared.”

Wolfe grunted. He turned to June with a frown. “What’s the point,” he demanded, “of asking me to bring your game down with ammunition that’s already been fired?”

“That is the point,” June asserted. “That’s why we came to you. If a simple threat would do it, it would have been simple. I know it’s a hard job. That’s why we’ll gladly pay the fee you’ll charge, if you succeed.”

“It is also,” May put in, “why something my sister said to you at the beginning was untrue. She said we didn’t need a detective, but we do. You will have to find a way to bring pressure on Miss Karn much more compelling than threat of a court contest of the will.”

“I see.” Wolfe grimaced. “No wonder I don’t like fights about dead men’s property. They’re always ugly fights.”

“This one isn’t,” June declared. “It will be if Daisy and that woman get it into a court, but our part of it isn’t. What’s ugly about our trying to avoid a stinking scandal by persuading that woman that three or four million dollars of our brother’s fortune is all she’s entitled to? If her avarice and stubbornness make the persuasion difficult and expensive...”

“And even if it were ugly,” said May quietly, “it would still have to be done. I think, Mr. Wolfe, we’ve told you everything you need to know. Will you do it?”

Wolfe looked at the clock on the wall. I felt sorry for him. He didn’t like the job, but he had to take it. Moreover, he permitted nothing whatever to interfere with his custom of spending four hours a day in the plant rooms on the roof — from nine to eleven in the morning and from four to six in the afternoon — and the clock said five minutes to four. He looked at me, gave me a scowl for my grin, and glanced up at the clock again.

He rose from his chair as abruptly as his bulk would permit.

“I’ll do it,” he announced gruffly. “And now, if you don’t mind, I have an appointment for four o’clock—”

“I know!” Sara Dunn exclaimed. “You’re going up to the orchids. I’d love to see them—”

“Some other time, Miss Dunn. I’m in no mood for it. Shall I report to you, Mrs. Dunn? Or Mr. Prescott?”

“Either. Or both.” June was out of her chair.

“Both, then. Get names and addresses, Archie.”

I did so. Prescott’s office and home, the Hawthorne house on 67th Street, where they all were temporarily, and, not least important, Naomi Karn’s apartment on Park Avenue. They straggled into the hall, and I left the front to Fritz. Stauffer, I noticed, was solicitous at April Hawthorne’s elbow. May was the last one out of the office, having lingered for a word with Wolfe which I didn’t catch. I heard the front door close, and Fritz glanced in on his way back to the kitchen.

“Pfui!” said Wolfe.

“And wowie,” I agreed. “But at that they’re not vultures. I’m going to marry April. Then after a bit I’ll divorce her and marry her blond secretary—”

“That will do. Confound it, anyway. Well, you have two hours—”

“Sure.” I assumed a false cheerfulness. “Let me say it for you. I am to have Miss Karn here at six o’clock. Or a few minutes before, so as not to keep you waiting.”

He nodded. “Say ten minutes to six.”

It was too damned hot to throw something at him. I merely made a disrespectful noise, beat it out to the sidewalk where the roadster was parked, climbed in, and was on my way.

Chapter 3

I suppose altogether, in business and out, I’ve had dealings of one kind or another with more than a hundred baby dolls. I was more or less taking it for granted that my call on Naomi Karn that afternoon would add one more to the number, but I was wrong. As the maid escorted me through the large and luxurious foyer of the apartment on the twelfth floor, on Park Avenue near 74th — where I had got admitted by saying I was sent by Mr. Glenn Prescott — and ushered me into a cool dim room with cool summer covers on the furniture, and I got close enough for a good look at the woman standing by the piano bench, I saw right away that I was wrong.

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.”

“How interesting. When is he coming to see me?”

“He never goes to see anybody. He dislikes motion. He passed a law making it a criminal offense for his feet to remove him from his house except on rare occasions, and never on business. He hires me to run around inviting people to come to see him.”

Her brows lifted. “Do you mean you came to invite me?”

“That’s right. There’s no hurry. It’s only 4:30, and he doesn’t expect you until ten minutes to six.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. It would be interesting to discuss something with Nero Wolfe.”

“Then come ahead.”

“No.” It sounded final. In fact, it sounded as near irrevocable as any “no” I ever heard.

I looked at her. There was no indication whatever of any strain of baby doll in her that I could see. She was close to something new in my experience. She wasn’t homely and she wasn’t pretty. She was dark rather than light, but she wouldn’t have been listed as brunette. None of her features would have classified for star billing, but somehow you didn’t see her features, you just saw her. As a matter of fact, after exchanging only a couple of sentences with her, I was sore. During nine years of detective work I had polished up my brass so that I regarded a rude stare at any human face nature’s fancy could devise merely as a matter of routine, but there was something in Naomi Karn’s eyes, or back of them, or somewhere, that made me want to meet them and shy away from them at the same time. It wasn’t the good old come-hither, the “welcome” on the door mat that biology uses for tanglefoot; I can slide through that like molasses through a tin horn. It was something as feminine as that, it was a woman letting a man have her eyes, but it was also a good deal more — like a cocky challenge from a cocky brain. I knew I had looked away from it, and I knew she knew I had, and I was sore.

“The truth is,” I said, “this thing has been handled incompetently. I understand that fellow Stauffer came to see you this morning and said if you didn’t divvy us, Hawthorne’s widow was going to contest it.”

She smiled. “Yes, Ossie tried to say something like that.”

“Ossie? Good name for him.”

“I think so. I’m glad you like it.”

“I do. But Ossie was deceiving you. The real point of the thing is much sharper than a court contest and it’s apt to hurt more.”

“Dear me. That’s alarming. What is it?”

I shook my head. “I’m not supposed to tell you. But this room is the coolest place I’ve been in today. I could give you a piece of marvelous advice if I felt like it. What are those things with four legs, chairs?”

A breath of a laugh came out of her. “Do sit down, Mr.—”

“Goodwin. Archie.”

“Do sit down.” She moved. It would have been a pleasure to watch her move if I hadn’t been sore at her. She wasn’t as graceful or overwhelming as April Hawthorne, but her motion was just as easy, and more straightforward, without any tricks. She was pushing a button. “What kind of a drink would you like?”

“I could use a glass of milk, thank you.” I selected a chair two paces away from the one she was taking. The maid entered, and was instructed to bring a glass of milk and a bottle of Borrand water. Miss Karn refused the cigarette I offered. When I had mine lit she remarked:

“You have alarmed me, you know. Terribly.” She sounded amused. “Will the milk make you feel like surrendering the advice?”

“I feel like it already.” I met her eyes and went on meeting them. “I advise you not to see Nero Wolfe. I’m being disloyal, of course, but I’m naturally treacherous anyhow, and besides, I don’t like the way they’re ganging up on you. I felt that way already, even before I saw you, but now...” I waved a hand.

“Now treachery is sweet.”

“It could be.”

“That’s very nice of you. Why do you advise me not to see Nero Wolfe?”

“Because I know the kind of trap he’s setting. What you should do is get a lawyer, a good one, and let Wolfe deal with him.”

She made a face. “I don’t like lawyers. I know too much about them — I worked for a law firm for three years.”

“You’ll have to hire a lawyer if there’s a contest.”

“I suppose I will. But you said I am threatened by something more dangerous than a contest. That trap Nero Wolfe is setting. What’s that like?”

I grinned at her and shook my head. The maid came with the liquids, and after Miss Karn’s Borrand water was poured and iced I took a sip of my milk. It was a little too cold, and I wrapped the glass with my palms, grinned again, and said, “It certainly is nice and cool here. I’m enjoying myself. Are you?”

“No,” she said, with a sudden and surprising sharpness in her tone, “I am not enjoying myself. A good friend of mine has died — just three days ago. Mr. Noel Hawthorne. Another man whom I regarded as my friend to a certain extent — at least not an enemy — is acting abominably. Mr. Glenn Prescott. He came here last evening and informed me of the terms of the will with a manner and tone that was inexcusable. Now he is openly conspiring with Mr. Hawthorne’s family against me. He sent that Stauffer here to threaten me. He sent you here with your childish babble about traps and treachery. Bah! Is your milk all right?”

“Yes. Excuse me, but like hell you’re not enjoying yourself. Shall we discuss it seriously?”

“I have no desire to discuss it at all. The one sensible thing you’ve said was that it has been handled incompetently. To send Ossie here to threaten me! I can make him stammer by looking at him! Incidentally, I can’t do that with you.”

“No, but you came close to it.” I grinned at her. “Also you have an idea that another twenty minutes will do the trick; that’s why you invited me to sit down. You may be right, but I can assure you I’m no Ossie. The fact is, I’m just killing time. My boss asked me to bring you to his house, down on 35th Street, at ten to six, but I’d prefer not to get you there until ten after. He needs a lesson about what to expect and what not to expect.” I glanced at my wrist. “We ought to be leaving fairly soon, at that. I had to park over east of Third Avenue.”

“I told you, Mr. Goodwin, that I’m not enjoying myself. I see you have finished your milk.”

“No more, thank you. So you don’t intend to come?”

“Certainly not.”

“What are you going to do, just refuse to say boo till you’re served with a summons and complaint?”

“I’m not refusing to say boo.” Her voice got sharp again. “I tell you, what I resent is the way they’ve gone about it. I know that nothing rational could be expected of Mrs. Hawthorne, but couldn’t Mrs. Dunn have come to see me, or asked me to come to see her, and talk it over? Couldn’t she have said simply that they regarded it as unjust and asked me to consider an adjustment? Couldn’t she have condescended to say that she and her sisters felt they had a natural right to some share in their brother’s estate?”

“But they didn’t. That wasn’t it. It’s Daisy that’s raising hell.”

“I don’t believe it. I think Glenn Prescott started it, and they helped him prevail upon Mrs. Hawthorne. They think the way to do it is to browbeat me. First they sent that Stauffer here, and then they hired a detective, Nero Wolfe, whose speciality is catching murderers. You might think I was a murderer myself. It won’t work. They may be perfectly correct in thinking they should have a slice of Noel’s — Mr. Hawthorne’s wealth, but if they get it now it will be because a court awards it to them.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’m with you. Absolutely. They’re a bunch of wolverines, Prescott is a two-faced shyster, and Stauffer is Ossie. But may I ask you a hypothetical question?”

“It would take more than a hypothetical question to make me budge, Mr. Goodwin.”

“I’ll ask it anyway. It’ll be good exercise for us and pass the time. Let’s say, of course just as a hypothesis, that Nero Wolfe is ruthless, unscrupulous, and quite cunning; that you get him sore by refusing even to go and discuss it with him; that he’s out to do you; that he gets the bright idea of basing the attack on the will, not on the ground that it’s unfair, but on the ground that it’s phony; that he is able—”

“So that’s it.” Miss Karn’s eyes were going through me. “That’s the new threat, is it? It’s no better than the other one, not even as good. Didn’t Mr. Prescott himself draw the will? Wasn’t it in his possession?”

“Sure it was. That’s the point. It’s your own idea that he’s conspiring against you, isn’t it? Since he drew the will and had it in his possession, isn’t he in an ideal position to support Wolfe’s contention that there has been a substitution and the will’s a phony?”

“No. He couldn’t. He is on record as accepting the will’s authenticity.”

“On record with who? Wolfe and the Hawthornes. His fellow conspirators.”

“But—” She chopped it off. Her eyes had narrowed and she sat motionless. In a moment she said slowly, “Mr. Prescott wouldn’t do that. After all, he is an attorney of high standing and reputation—”

“Your opinion of him seems to be going up.”

“My opinion of him is unimportant. But another thing, if he intended to play as dirty a trick as that, he could simply have not produced it. He could have destroyed it.”