'I hope you and Mrs Kipper parted friends,' I said.
He gave a short bark of hard laughter. 'Oh, I think I persuaded the lady,' he said with a smile.
I didn't like that smile; it was almost a smirk. Did it mean that the photo of Glynis Stonehouse and the Mrs Kletz letter had gone for naught?
I considered what he knew about me — or guessed. I thought my cover in the Kipper case was still intact, that he accepted my role of law clerk making a preliminary inventory of the estate. In the Stonehouse matter, Glynis would have told him of my investigation into her father's disappearance. He knew that I had uncovered the arsenic poisoning. What he did not know, I felt sure, was that I was aware of his intimate relationship with Glynis.
'That was my last visit to the Kipper home,' I offered.
'The expert appraisers will take over now.'
'Oh?' he said in a tone of great disinterest. 'Well, I suppose you have plenty of other things to keep you busy.'
'I certainly do,' I said enthusiastically. 'I've been ordered to devote all my time to a case involving a man who disappeared without leaving a will.'
'That sounds interesting,' he said casually, taking a sip 356
of his martini. 'Tell me about it.'
I imagined that was what fencing must be like: lunge, parry, thrust.
'There's not much to tell,' I said. 'Just what I've said: a man disappeared — it's been two months now — and no will has been found. The legal ramifications are what make the case so fascinating. All the assets are in his name alone. So it will require a petition to the court to free living expenses for his family.'
'And if he never shows up again?'
'That's the rub,' I said, laughing ruefully as I tried to recall what Mr Teitelbaum had told me about applicable law. 'I think that five years must elapse before a missing person's estate can go to probate.'
'Five years!' he exclaimed.
'Minimum.' I said. I laughed merrily. 'It would be a lot simpler if the missing man's body turned up. If he is, indeed, dead, as everyone is beginning to suspect. But I'm boring you with all this.'
'Not at all,' he said genially. 'Good talk for a rainy afternoon. So if the missing man turned up dead, his estate could be distributed to his legal heirs at once?'
Got him, I thought with some satisfaction.
'That's right,' I said airily. 'Once proof of death is definitely established, the man's will goes to probate.'
'And if no will exists — or can be found?'
'Then the estate is divided under the laws of intestacy. In this case, it would go to his wife, daughter, and son.'
'Is it a sizeable estate?' he asked slowly.
Greedy bugger.
'I believe it is,' I said, nodding. 'I have no idea of the exact dollar amount involved, but I understand it's quite sizeable.'
He pulled pipe and tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket. He held them up to me.
'You don't mind?'
'Not at all,' I said. 'Go right ahead.'
I watched and waited while he went through the deliberate ceremony of filling his pipe, tamping the tobacco down with a blunt forefinger, lighting up, tilting back his head and blowing a long plume of smoke at the ceiling.
'The law is a wonderful thing,' he said with a tight smile.
'A lot of money there. I mean in the practice of law.'
'Yes, sir, there certainly is.'
'Sometimes I think justice is an impossible concept,' he went on, puffing away. 'For instance, in the case you were describing, I would think the very fact of the man's disappearance for two months would be enough to allow his family to share in his estate. He left voluntarily?'
'As far as we know.'
'No letter or message to his lawyer?'
'No, nothing like that. And no evidence of foul play. No evidence at all. He may still be alive for all we know.
That's why the law requires a diligent search and a five-year grace period. Still, it's murder on the family.' I couldn't resist, but, then, neither could he.
'It surely is,' he murmured, a wee bit too fervently.
'However,' I said, sinking the hook as deeply as I could,
'if the body is discovered, regardless of whether he died a natural death or was a victim of accident or foul play, the estate goes to probate.' I thought I had said enough and changed the subject abruptly. 'Pastor, did you tell me you were from Chicago originally?'
'Not the city itself,' he said, meeting my gaze. 'A suburb. Why do you ask?'
'I have a cousin who lives there, and he's invited me out for a visit. I've never been in Chicago and wondered if I'd like it.'
'You'll find a lot to do there,' he said tonelessly.
'Did you like it?' I persisted.
'For a while,' he said. 'I must confess, Joshua, I get bored easily. So I came on to New York.'
'New worlds to conquer?' I asked.
'Exactly,' he said with a wry grin.
'And you haven't regretted it?'
'Once or twice,' he said, still grinning, 'at three in the morning.'
I found it difficult to resist the man's charm. For one brief instant I doubted all I had learned about him, all I had imagined.
I tried to analyze why this should be so, why I was fighting an admiration for the man. Most of it, I thought, was due to his physical presence. He was big, strong, stalwart: everything I was not. And he was decisive, daring, resolute.
More than that, he really did possess an elemental power. Behind the bright laugh, the bonhomie, the intelligence and wit, there was naked force, brute force. I realized then how much I wanted him to like me.
Which meant that I feared him. It was not a comforting realization.
We finished our drinks without again alluding to either the Kipper or Stonehouse matters. Knurr insisted on paying for the drinks. He left a niggardly tip.
He said he had an appointment uptown, and since I was returning to the TORT building, we parted company under the hotel marquee. We shook hands and said we'd be in touch.
I watched him stride away up Fifth Avenue, erect in the rain. He seemed indomitable. I tried to get a cab, then gave up and took a downtown bus. It was crowded, damp, and smelled of mothballs. I got back to my office a little after one o'clock and stripped off wet hat, coat, and rubbers. I stuck my dripping umbrella in the wastebasket.
I called Stilton's office and was told he couldn't come to the phone at the moment. I left my number, asking that he call back. Then I sat staring at the blank wall and ignoring the investigation requests filling my IN basket.
I was still thinking about the Reverend Godfrey Knurr. I acknowledged that the resentment I felt towards him could be traced to my feeling that he took me lightly, that he patronized me. The glib lies and little arm punches, the genial pats on shoulder and knee, and that bright, insolent laugh. That he considered me a lightweight, a nuisance perhaps, but of no consequence bore out my worst fears about myself. I strove to keep in mind that by attacking my self-esteem, he was attempting to gain control over me.
I opened the Kipper and Stonehouse files and reread only those notes pertaining to Godfrey Knurr. He seemed to move through both affairs like a wraith. I suspected him to be the prime mover, the source, the instigator of all the desperate events that had occurred. I had enough notes about the man: his strength, determination, charm, etc. I even had a few titbits on his background.
But I knew almost nothing about the man himself, who he was, what drove him, what gave him pleasure, what gave him pain. He was a shadow. I had no handle on him.
I could not explain what he had done yesterday or predict what he might do tomorrow.