Face to Face (8 page)

19

Carlos Armando ushered Lorette Spanier into the law office with a deference that none of the onlookers could doubt, least of all the girl. It seemed to Ellery that she was half pleased by it, the other half being annoyance. Armando actually took up a post behind her chair. She was the mystery ingredient in his ointment and, as such, had to be fingered with care. Jeanne Temple he ignored. Whether this was out of the contempt of familiarity or the discretion of broad experience Ellery was unable to decide. In any event, it was clearly a bad situation for the secretary of the dead woman. By the side of the busty child-blonde with the pout and the dimple, the Temple girl faded like an overexposed chromo. She was so aware of it that her muddy brown eyes spattered Armando with loathing before her glance lowered to the gloved hands in her lap, where it remained.

Selma Pilter produced a shock, and a downward revision of Ellery's estimate of Kip Kipley's judgment. The old woman's ugliness approached an esthetic experience, like the ugliness of a Lincoln or a Baroness Blixen. Her fleshless frame was so fine as to suggest hollow bones, like a bird's; Ellery half expected her to flap her arms and sail to a chair. Her long face narrowed to an almost nonexistent chin; the coarse dark skin was like the bed of an extinct river with the ripple-marks showing. Her nose was a scimitar edge, her lips a multitude of hairline wrinkles, her pendulous lobes further elongated by African earrings of ebony. (Had the elephant-hide chair and the Watusi warrior in Glory Guild's den been gifts from Selma Pilter? The old woman's wrists and fingers were loaded with jewelry of African craftsmanship.) Only a sliver of dye-shiny black hair showed under the tight turban she wore. For the rest of her, her emaciation was covered by a severe suit; her throat was mercifully hidden by a scarf; her birdlike feet perched on stilted heels. But her eyes were beautiful, black and lustrous, like Carlos Armando's, and with a deep intelligence. The whole woman was somehow medieval. Ellery was fascinated by her; so, he noted, was Harry Burke.

Inspector Queen came in last; he shut the door quietly and stood with his back against it. When Ellery offered his chair in pantomime—the office was two chairs shy—the Inspector shook his head. He evidently wanted to be in a position to study every face.

“We meet here today,” began Wasser, “for the reading of Glory Guild Armando's will. Two of the interested parties cannot be present—Marta Bellina, who is on a personal appearance tour on the Coast, and Dr. Susan Merckell, who has been called out of state on a consultation.

“The will,” continued the lawyer, unlocking a desk drawer and taking out a kraft envelope sealed with wax, “or rather this copy of it, is a true copy properly witnessed and notarized.” He broke the seal and drew out a document backed with blue legal paper. “It is dated December the eighth last.”

Ellery recognized the envelope as the one he had found in a metal box in GeeGee Guild's loudspeaker hiding place—the envelope marked “My Will. To Be Opened by My Attorney, William Maloney Wasser.” The date of the will struck him as significant. December 8 was only seven days past the date of the blank page in Glory's diary—the page to which he had applied his lighter and brought out the word “face.” Something had happened on December 1 that apparently was pivotal in the retired singer's life—some event that immediately caused her to institute a search for her niece Lorette Spanier and within a week to write a new will (it was inconceivable that no previous will had existed).

He was right, for at this moment Wasser, reading from the document, was saying, “This is my last will and testament, revoking any and all wills in existence prior to this date,” and so on. Whatever the result, the cause had been sufficiently alarming to prevent Glory Guild from spelling it out in her diary, and to drive her to the cryptic one-word reference in disappearing ink, an act which more and more took on the cast of desperation.

But then Ellery concentrated on the legacies.

Wasser was reading a long list of bequests to individually named charitable organizations—surprisingly picayune bequests; none exceeded $100 and most were for $25 and $50. Considering the extent of the murdered woman's estate, this opened a whole new wing of her character. She had evidently been one of those insecure people who dispense their largess diffusively, Ellery thought, to cover as many good causes as possible with the least hurt to themselves, out of some conflict between social parsimony and a hunger for praise. Armando, hovering over Lorette Spanier's shining head, seemed pleased.

But the will revealed paradoxes. There was a $10,000 bequest to “my faithful secretary, Jeanne Temple.” (The faithful secretary's glance leaped from her lap to the lawyer's face and back again, the brief leap accomplished with surprise, delight, and—Ellery was sure of it—shame.) “My dear friend, Marta Bellina” received a like sum (paradox now, since the opera star was rich as Croesus's wife, not only from her professional earnings but from the estates of the two rich husbands she had buried). “My physician and friend, Dr. Susan Merckell” was left $10,000 also. (Another
pourboire
to the well-heeled; Dr. Merckell's practice brought her an income in six figures.)

And Selma Pilter, “my dear friend, to whose brilliant and devoted management over the years I owe everything …” Ellery watched the old woman closely. But there was nothing to be seen on the wrinkled little face. Either she had supreme command over herself, or she knew what was coming. “… I leave the sum of $100,000.” Ellery heard Armando utter something unpleasant-sounding in Italian.

Ellery leaned forward. Wasser was coming to the meat of the will, and he had paused. The lawyer seemed embarrassed, or uneasy.

“To my husband Carlos,” Wasser began, and paused again.

Armando's black eyes were staring at Wasser's lips.

“Yes?” he said. “Yes!” Ellery thought it unworthy of him.

“To my husband Carlos”—the lawyer paused again, but only for a moment this time—”simply to tide him over until he can find another source of income, I leave the sum of $5,000.”

“What!” shrieked Armando. “Did you say $5,000?”

“I'm afraid so, Mr. Armando.”

“But this is—this is criminal! There is some mistake!” The widower was waving his arms hysterically. “True, GeeGee and I had an agreement in which I renounced my share in her estate. But I point out to you, Mr. Attorney, that in the contract it said that at the end of five years GeeGee would tear this agreement up. The five years went by, and she did tear it up—before my eyes. That was almost a year ago. So how could she have cut me off with this … this bagatelle!”

“I don't know what you saw torn up, Mr. Armando,” said Wasser uncomfortably, “but your premarital agreement with Glory Guild is still in existence, therefore in force—” he waved a paper “—here is a copy of it, attached to Mrs. Armando's copy of the will. The original of the agreement is attached to the original of the will. Both are already in the hands of the Surrogate's Court.”

“I wish to see that!”

“Certainly.” Wasser hastily rose, but Armando had already bounded to the lawyer's desk and snatched the paper from his hand. He scanned it unbelievingly.

“But I tell you she ripped the original of this to bits and burned them!” The man was in a panic. He muttered, “I see, I
see.
She did not actually reveal the paper to me. She merely told me it was the one, and I was stupid enough to take her at her word, and then she tore up the dummy paper …” A millrace of invective, in some language Ellery did not recognize (could it be Romany, the language of his allegedly gypsy background?) streamed from Armando's lips. “She duped me!” he howled. The hatred and anguish on his pitted face were Glory-directed; what was in all their minds—that GeeGee Guild had known about or suspected his continuous infidelities, so that in her eyes he had flouted their agreement over and over—apparently did not enter his. “I shall sue! I shall take this to your courts!”

“That, of course, Mr. Armando,” said Wasser, “is entirely up to you. But I don't see what you hope to gain. You can hardly contest your authentic signature on this agreement; and the mere existence of the agreement past the end of the conditional five-year period is
prima facie
evidence that your wife did not consider you to have fulfilled your end of the bargain. I think you'll find that the physical evidence carries all the weight. It certainly isn't going to be overthrown by your unsupported word that she destroyed the agreement when she clearly didn't.”

“I could have had at least one-third of her estate. A million dollars! My dower right! It is not to be borne!”

“In the face of this agreement, Mr. Armando, you'll have to be satisfied with the $5,000 your wife left you.”

Armando seized his head and turned away. “I will get it, I will get it,” he mumbled. Then he seemed to collect himself, and his pretty mouth tightened. He resumed his position behind the English girl's chair, glaring blackly into space. Ellery divined what he was glaring at. He was glaring at the irony of his act. He had engineered his wife's murder for $5,000, instead of the million he had looked forward to. Now someone else would fall heir … Ellery saw Armando's fiercely bitter eyes narrow as his train of thought came to this way station. Who was GeeGee's principal beneficiary?

The lawyer read on: “I leave the whole of my residuary estate, real and personal, to my only close blood-relation, my niece Lorette Spanier, if she should be found …” A long paragraph followed, providing for the event that Lorette Spanier should have died prior to testatrix's death, or the alternative event that she should not have been found, alive or dead, within seven years of testatrix's death; in either instance, the residuary estate was to establish a foundation, the purpose of which was to provide scholarships and fellowships for furthering the musical careers of singers and other musicians. The formulation of the foundation was gone into in detail—irrelevant now that Lorette Spanier had been found alive and legally identified.

It was Carlos Armando who spoke first. “Congratulations, Lorette. It is not every orphan who finds herself a millionaire at the age of twenty-two.” He did not even sound bitter. The count had regained command over himself. Like a good general, he wasted no time brooding over the failure of his attack. He was already making plans for the battle ahead. (Ellery thought: He must be giving himself a medal for his foresight in establishing a bridgehead to his wife's niece at their first meeting.)

As for the young heiress, she sat stunned. “I don't know what to say. Really I don't! I met my aunt only once, for less than an hour. I don't feel as if I have the right—”

“The feeling will pass, my child,” murmured Carlos Armando, stooping over Lorette. “I know of no feelings that can stand up against so much money. Tomorrow, when you have thrown me out of the apartment I have occupied so long—and did you know that it is a condominium, fully paid up?—you will wonder how you could ever have been poor.”

“Oh, don't say that, Uncle Carlos! Of course I shan't do any such thing. You may stay in the apartment for as long as you like.”

“Do not be so generous,” said Armando, shaking his head like a wise old uncle. “I would be tempted to accept, now that it is I who am poor again. Besides, our Mr. Wasser would not allow it—am I correct, Mr. Wasser? I thought so. And we could hardly occupy the same premises; it would cause the kind of talk that is so unfairly associated with my name. No, I shall take my few miserable possessions and move out to some rooming house. Do not concern yourself about my fate,
cara.
I am quite accustomed to privation.”

It was a splendid performance, and Lorette Spanier was moved to tears by it.

20

As the group was dispersing, to Ellery's surprise William Maloney Wasser asked Selma Pilter and Lorette to remain. Harry Burke glanced at Ellery, who gave him the nod, and Burke left with Jeanne Temple and Armando. Armando went away reluctantly.

“Do you mind if I hang around, Mr. Wasser?” asked Inspector Queen.

“Well, no,” the lawyer said. To Ellery, glancing at his father, it looked like a put-up job. “You don't object, do you, Mrs. Pilter?”

“I want Inspector Queen to sit in on this,” said the old woman; she had a voice that seemed to come from her bird's feet, high and clear and sweet. “And Mr. Queen, since he's obviously an interested party.”

“That I am,” muttered Ellery.

Wasser came around and shut his office door carefully. Then he hurried back to his desk, sat down, and rubbed his heavy chin. Lorette was looking puzzled; whatever was on the lawyer's mind, the girl was ignorant of it.

“I hardly know how to say this, Miss Spanier,” Wasser began. “It's an unusual situation—not a black and white matter by any means. I mean … I suppose the only thing for me to do is lay the facts before you and let you be the judge.”

“Facts?” asked the English girl. “About Mrs. Pilter?”

The old woman simply sat there, silent.

“You know, of course, that Mrs. Pilter was your aunt's trusted manager and booking agent for a great many years. I had it from Glory's own lips—and I know it out of my personal dealings with Mrs. Pilter—how very astute and absolutely scrupulous she has been in her handling of Mrs. Armando's affairs. The fact that your aunt left Mrs. Pilter that handsome legacy in her will is proof enough of her esteem and gratitude. However.” He stopped.

It sounded like an ominous conjunction. Lorette glanced over at Selma Pilter in bewilderment.

“I think, Mrs. Pilter,” said the lawyer, “you had better take it from there.”

The ugly old woman rustled as she stirred in her chair. But her beautiful black eyes were fixed on the girl. Whatever lay behind the look, it was deeply tucked away.

“My dear, I am one of those silly, unfortunate people who have an uncontrollable passion for betting on horse races,” Selma Pilter said. “Every penny I've ever saved has gone into the pockets of bookmakers. I would be a wealthy woman today if not for my weakness for gambling.

“Late last month I found myself into the bookies for a great deal of money. They're not exactly reasonable people, and I was actually in physical danger. Of course, it was all my own fault; I had no one to blame but myself. I was badly frightened. They gave me forty-eight hours to pay up, and I had not a single legitimate way of raising the money. So …” she hesitated; then her withered old chin came up. “So, for the first time in my life, I did something dishonest. I borrowed—I told myself it was ‘borrowing'—the money from Glory's funds.

“You see,” the old woman went on steadily, “I had the rationalization worked out in my mind. I knew Glory was leaving me $100,000 in her will—she had told me so. So I talked myself into believing that I was only taking an advance against my own money. Of course, it wasn't that at all; for one thing, Glory could have changed her mind about leaving me so much money. It simply wasn't mine to take. But—I did. And then, a few days later, came Glory's sudden death, which was such a shock by itself, and for the other reason that I faced an accounting that would reveal the shortage. And I had no way of replacing it—I'm afraid my credit isn't very good at the banks.

“That's the situation, Miss Spanier. The legacy will more than repay the shortage, but the fact remains that I did take money entrusted to my care, and you would be entirely within your rights to bring charges against me. And that's the story.”

She stopped and simply sheathed her claws.

“Not the whole story,” Wasser said quickly. “I was completely unaware of the borrowed funds until Mrs. Pilter herself called it to my attention. She phoned me about it last night. And I decided to hold the matter over until after the reading of the will today.

“It's the main reason,” he went on, turning to Inspector Queen, “that I called you last night and asked you to be sure to be present, Inspector. Naturally, I don't relish the prospect of possibly being accused of withholding information in a murder case, although I'm positive the information is totally irrelevant to the case. As far as the borrowed funds are concerned, of course, it's Miss Spanier's decision as to whether to press a charge or not. She's the principal legatee.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lorette. “I don't know you, Mrs. Pilter, but from everything I've heard you practically made Aunt Glory's career. I'm sure that if she put so much trust in you you're a basically trustworthy person. Besides, I can hardly play the role of First Stone-thrower. I saw too much misery in the orphanage—” her dimple showed “—in fact, I caused a great deal of it myself. No, I shouldn't dream of preferring charges.”

Selma Pilter drew a wobbly breath. “Thank you, thank you,” she said in an unsteady voice. “I'm lucky for your charity, child. I have very little for myself.” She rose. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Wasser?”

“Inspector Queen?” The lawyer looked relieved.

“If Miss Spanier won't charge her, that's it as far as I'm concerned,” said the Inspector; and the Queens left.

“You know, Ellery,” the Inspector said as they taxied downtown, “the Pilter woman's embezzlement could be a motive.”

“It could?” Ellery sounded preoccupied.

“Knocking off GeeGee for the hundred grand legacy in order to cover the shortage.”

“And telling Wasser all about it before she even collected? You can't have her covering the shortage and uncovering it in the same hypothesis.”

“She could be playing this smart. For the very reason you've just given—to make herself look like the original honest woman. Meanwhile, she's off the hook with the defalcation. She knew she couldn't have kept it under wraps indefinitely. Not with a shrewdie like GeeGee Guild to account to. And Wasser doesn't seem to me a lawyer you can fool for very long. I say it's a possible motive.”

“I say it's a possible nothing,” Ellery said crudely. He was slumped so far down he was almost sitting on his shoulder blades. “That part of it, anyway. But there is something about Selma Pilter that bothers me.”

“What's that?”

“Her face. It's certainly the outstanding face of the century—outstandingly, outrageously, superbly ugly. So much so that it may be why Glory wrote the word down as she was dying.”

“Do you believe that for one minute?” his father snorted.

“Not for a second,” muttered Ellery.