SIXTH. Before you proceed to the game room there will be one minute of silent prayer for your good old Uncle Sam.
“Ladies and gentlemen, heirs (for we all inherited something), let us bow our heads in silent prayer for our benefactor Sam Westing, alias Sandy the doorman.”
“Crow!” Otis Amber leaped to his feet as Ed Plum led the cleaning woman through the door.
27 A Happy Fourth
HIS AVIATOR’S HELMET again flapping over his ears, Otis Amber danced up to his soup-kitchen companion, flung his arms around the taut body, and squeezed her tightly. “Hey Crow old pal, old pal, old pal.”
“They said I was innocent, Otis. They said I was innocent,” she replied vaguely.
Angela, too, wanted to hug her in welcome, but closeness was not possible for either of them. Instead, Angela offered a crooked smile. Crow nodded and lowered her eyes, only to raise them to Madame Hoo, clutching a Mickey Mouse clock. “Things very good,” Madame Hoo said, extending her free hand and shaking Crow’s hand up and down.
“It was all a regrettable mistake,” Ed Plum explained to the judge. “Can you imagine, that sheriff wanted to arrest me, not Crow—me, Edgar Jennings Plum—he wanted to arrest the attorney! Fortunately, the coroner determined that Mr. McSouthers died of a heart attack, as did Samuel W. Westing.”
“Then Turtle’s right,” Theo said. “There was no murder. The coroner was part of the plot.”
Ed Plum had no idea what Theo was talking about. Masking his ignorance with arrogance, he continued. “I had my suspicions about this entire affair from the start. I came here for one reason only: to announce my resignation from all matters regarding the Westing estate, with sincere apologies to all concerned.”
“Wasn’t there a last document?” Judge Ford asked, knowing that Sam Westing had to make his last move.
“Yes, but as I no longer take a legal interest . . .”
“Please turn it over to the court.”
Baffled by the word “court,” the lawyer set the envelope on the desk and found his way out of Sunset Towers.
Without once clearing her throat, Judge Ford proceeded to read the final page of the will of Samuel W. Westing.
SEVENTEENTH • Good-bye, my heirs. Thanks for the fun and games. I can rest in peace knowing I was loved as your jolly doorman.
EIGHTEENTH • I, Samuel W. Westing, otherwise known as Sandy McSouthers and others, do hereby give and bequeath all the property and possessions in my name as follows:
To all of you, in equal shares, the deed to Sunset Towers;
And to my former wife, Berthe Erica Crow, the ten-thousand-dollar check forfeited by table one, and two ten-thousand-dollar checks endorsed by J. J. Ford and Alexander McSouthers.
NINETEENTH • The sun has set on your Uncle Sam. Happy birthday, Crow. And to all of my heirs, a very happy Fourth of July.
Judge Ford set the document down. “That’s it.”
That’s it? What about the two hundred million dollars, the heirs wanted to know.
“We lost the game,” the judge explained, staring at Turtle, her face a mask of sad, childlike innocence as she nestled once again in Flora Baumbach’s arms. “I think.”
Turtle rose and walked to the side window, seeking the Westing house, which stood invisible in the moon-clouded night. (Hurry up, Uncle Sam, I can’t keep up this act much longer. The candle must have burned through the last stripe by now.)
Behind her the discontented heirs grumbled: He made fools of us all. He played us like puppets. He was a g-good m-man. He was a vengeful man, a hateful man. Windkloppel? He tricked us, the cheat. A madman, stark raving mad.
“Oh my, oh my, just listen to you,” Flora Baumbach said. “You each have ten thousand dollars more than you started with and an apartment building to boot. The man is dead, so why not think the best?”
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
“Happy Fourth of July,” Turtle shouted as the first rockets lit up the Westing house, lit up the sky.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
BOOM!!!
The heirs gathered around Turtle at the window.
BOOM! Stars of all colors bursting into the night, silver pinwheels spinning, golden lances up-up-BOOM! crimson flashes flashing blasting, scarlet showers BOOM! emerald rain BOOM! BOOM! orange flames, red flames leaping from the windows, sparking the turrets, firing the trees. . . .
“BOOM!” cried Madame Hoo, clapping her hands with delight.
The great winter fireworks extravaganza, as it came to be called, lasted only fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes later the Westing house had burned to the ground.
“Happy birthday, Crow,” Otis Amber said, reaching for her hand.
THE ORANGE GLOW of the morning sun had just begun its climb up the glass front of Sunset Towers when Turtle set out to collect the prize. She pedaled north past the cliff, still smoldering with the charred remains of the Westing house. Reaching the crossroads, she turned into the narrow lane whose twisting curves mimicked the shoreline.
The heir who wins the windfall will be the one who finds the fourth. It was so simple once you knew what you were looking for. Sam Westing, Barney Northrup, Sandy McSouthers (west, north, south). Now she was on her way to meet the fourth identity of Windy Windkloppel. She could probably have figured out the address, too, instead of looking it up in the Westingtown phone book—there it was, number four Sunrise Lane.
A long driveway, its privacy guarded by tall spruce, led to the modern mansion of the newly elected chairman of the board of Westing Paper Products Corporation. Turtle climbed the stairs, rang the bell, and waited. The door opened.
Turtle felt her first grip of panic as she confronted the crippled doctor. Could she have been wrong? “I’d like to see Mr. Eastman, please,” she said nervously. “Tell him Turtle Wexler is here.”
“Mr. Eastman is expecting you,” Doctor Sikes said. “Go straight down the hall.”
The hall had an inlaid marble floor (no Oriental rugs). Reaching its end, she entered a paneled library (this one filled with books). There he was, sitting at the
