new will, but after the news came that Sidney had been killed in action, not before. He did take it from his safe and let me read it. It did leave everything to Caroline. He said that no one knew its contents except his former secretary, and she had got married and gone to some little town in the South, so she was out of the way. He said there was no other copy of it, and that he was sure Caroline didn’t know about it because of a letter she had shown him from Sidney. He said he would destroy it, and I and my mother and brother would inherit under the previous will, if I would marry him. Do you want to know everything we said?”
“I think just the essential points.”
“Then I don’t need to tell how I really felt about marrying him. I didn’t tell him. I agreed to it. I suppose you don’t care what I thought, but Sidney was dead, and I thought it was only fair for us to get a share. So I agreed, but I never had any intention of marrying Jim Beebe. He wanted an immediate wedding, before he presented the will for probate, but I talked him out of that, and our engagement was announced. When the will had gone through and the estate had been distributed and we had our share, I married Norman Horne. I didn’t know whether Jim had destroyed the new will or not, but that didn’t matter because he wouldn’t dare to produce it then.” She fluttered a hand. “That’s all.”
“Not quite,” Wolfe objected. “The sequel. Mr. Karnow’s return.”
“Oh, yes.” Her tone implied that it was careless of her to overlook that little detail. “Of course Jim killed him. If you mean how I felt about Sidney’s turning up alive, you may not believe it, but in a way I was glad of it, because I always liked him. I was sorry for Caroline and Paul, because I liked them too, but I knew Sidney wouldn’t try to get our share back from us. There was just one person who didn’t dare to face him. Of course Jim did face him when he went to his hotel room, but he wasn’t facing him when he killed him-he shot him in the back of the head.” She turned to Beebe. “Did you tell him about the will, Jim? I’ll bet you didn’t. I’ll bet he never knew.” She turned back to Wolfe. “Will that do for the truth?”
“It’ll do for a malicious lie,” Beebe squeaked.
Wolfe addressed the law. “I would prefer, Mr. Cramer, to turn the issue of veracity over to you. In my opinion, Mr. Beebe fumbled it, and Mrs. Horne didn’t.”
At a later date, in a courtroom, a jury concurred. Justice is a fine thing, but that night in Wolfe’s office it slipped up on one detail. After Cramer and Stebbins had escorted Beebe out, and the others had gone, Caroline Karnow decided that the occasion called for her returning the kiss she had received in that room twelve hours earlier. But she went right past me, around to Wolfe behind his desk, put her arms around his neck, and gave it to him on both cheeks.
“Wrong address,” I said bitterly.
Die Like a Dog
I
I DO SOMETIMES TREAT myself to a walk in the rain, though I prefer sunshine when there’s not enough wind to give the dust a whirl. That rainy Wednesday, however, there was a special inducement: I wanted his raincoat to be good and wet when I delivered it. So with it on my back and my old brown felt on my head, I left the house and set out for Arbor Street, some two miles south in the Village.
Halfway there the rain stopped and my blood had pumped me warm, so I took the coat off, folded it wet side in, hung it on my arm, and proceeded. Arbor Street, narrow and only three blocks long, had on either side an assortment of old brick houses, mostly of four stories, which were neither spick nor span. Number 29 would be about the middle of the first block.
I reached it, but I didn’t enter it. There was a party going on in the middle of the block. A police car was double-parked in front of the entrance to one of the houses, and a uniformed cop was on the sidewalk in an attitude of authority toward a small gathering of citizens confronting him. As I approached I heard him demanding, “Whose dog is this?”-referring, evidently, to an animal with a wet black coat standing behind him. I heard no one claim the dog, but I wouldn’t have anyway, because my attention was diverted. Another police car rolled up and stopped behind the first one, and a man got out, pushed through the crowd to the sidewalk, nodded to the cop without halting, and went in the entrance, above which appeared the number 29.
The trouble was, I knew the man, which is an understatement. I do not begin to tremble at the sight of Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West, which is also an understatement, but his presence and manner made it a cinch that there was a corpse in that house, and if I demanded entry on the ground that I wanted to swap raincoats with a guy who had walked off with mine, there was no question what would happen. My prompt appearance at the scene of a homicide would arouse all of Purley’s worst instincts, backed up by reference to various precedents, and I might not get home in time for dinner, which was going to be featured by grilled squab with a brown sauce which Fritz calls
Purley had disappeared within without spotting me. The cop was a complete stranger. As I slowed down to detour past him on the narrow sidewalk he gave me an eye and demanded, “That your dog?”
The dog was nuzzling my knee, and I stooped to give him a pat on his wet black head. Then, telling the cop he wasn’t mine, I went on by. At the next corner I turned right, heading back uptown. I kept my eye peeled for a taxi the first couple of blocks, saw none, and decided to finish the walk. A wind had started in from the west, but everything was still damp from the rain.
Marching along, I was well on my way before I saw the dog. Stopping for a light on Ninth Avenue in the Twenties, I felt something at my knee, and there he was. My hand started for his head in reflex, but I pulled it back. I was in a fix. Apparently he had picked me for a pal, and if I just went on he would follow, and you can’t chase a dog on Ninth Avenue by throwing rocks. I could have ditched him by taking a taxi the rest of the way, but that would have been pretty rude after the appreciation he had shown of my charm. He had a collar on with a tag, and could be identified, and the station house was only a few blocks away, so the simplest and cheapest way was to convoy him there. I moved to the curb to look for a taxi coming downtown, and as I did so a cyclone sailed around the corner and took my hat with it into the middle of the avenue.
