“You knew the truth when you got her to sign that paper, didn’t you?”
“Knew is too strong a word. I had a hunch, let’s say. And I had nothing to lose. If my hunch was wrong, all I had to do was tear up the agreement and forget the quarter-million.”
“When did you first realize it was Leon Wallace who died on the raft and not Hawley?”
“I think it first came to me as a possibility when he replied to my wire signed by his wife… refusing to show his face in Miami. And then when I read the diary… noticed that after the death-bed confession Groat no longer called the dead man Hawley, as he had referred to him previously. Instead, he said, ‘The soldier died…’ I wasn’t sure how significant that was, but I realized what it could mean. And then everything fitted. It was the only reasonable explanation for the one thing that had bothered me from the beginning… a divorced man making a new will leaving everything to his ex-wife even though she remarried. Particularly a man divorced under those circumstances… just as he was being drafted. Normally, he’d be plenty sore about that.”
“Do you really think you can collect on that agreement?” Lucy asked in an awed voice.
“It’s absolutely airtight the way it’s worded. No one can deny that I provided…” Shayne paused to grin at Lucy and clear his throat before quoting one of the phrases she had torn out of her notebook “… the necessary evidence to prove in court that her ex-husband was the legal heir to his uncle, Ezra Hawley, on said Ezra Hawley’s death. She’ll pay up all right. But let’s not start spending all of it, angel. If you agree, I thought we might sort of split the take with Albert’s mother. Somehow, I feel sorry for that old lady. All that trouble and expense she went to just to keep her no-good son out of the army. And then there’s Mrs. Wallace with a pair of twins living on a farm in Littleboro. It was her husband’s death that threw Ezra’s estate to Albert and Matie, so it seems only fair that she should get a goodly portion of the proceeds.”
“Oh, Michael, you’re… wonderful.” Lucy’s eyes were starry as she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him warmly on the mouth. “You make me so ashamed for accusing you of trying to steal money from the Hawley family last night. When all the time you were just doing it for them… and for poor Mrs. Wallace.”
“Well, not exactly just for them,” evaded Shayne. “I think we might hold out a few bucks as a reasonable fee. At least enough to buy that mink coat and blue convertible we talked about last night. Unless you still feel you don’t want to be compromised…”
Her arms tightened about his neck and she whispered ecstatically, “Oh, Michael,” and he knew she didn’t in the least mind being compromised that way.