“Peet, you had better come inside at once. Brady, you, too. Where are Princess and Twig?”
Peet rolled over onto her back and raised her delectable little self on her elbows. The front view was so extraordinary that Grundy felt himself blush.
“Prin went for a walk behind the house,” Peet said. “I think Twig followed her. Did you see Twig follow Prin, Brady?”
“Yes,” Brady said, still looking at her.
“Call them,” Aunt Lallie commanded.
Peet scrambled to her feet and took a deep breath. The deep breath, as deep breaths do, caused her to become greater here and smaller there, and Grundy had a moment’s alarm regarding the pair of Peet-colored scraps, each endangered by opposite reactions. But his alarm was immediately swallowed up by sheer surprise. Peet’s speaking voice, which was small and sleepy and rather fuzzy, had done nothing whatever to prepare him for the clarion call that now issued from her. It was the sound of a French horn produced by a flute.
“Prin!” she called. “Prin and Twig! Come back at once, wherever you are!”
Grundy half expected to see Twig and Prin come flying into view, racing each other for home base. They did indeed come, but at a mere walk. Peet and Brady waited for them on the terrace, and the two pairs of cousins entered the living room together. Peet seated herself on the sofa Buddha-fashion; Brady drew up a chair opposite and continued his visual vacuum-cleaning; Prin perched on the arm of Brady’s chair; and Twig rode the piano bench as if it were an ass. Aunt Lallie remained standing.
As did Grundy. Surrounded by hostile O’Sheas, he had the oddest feeling of entrapment.
“Now, Lieutenant,” Aunt Lallie said, “please relate to my nieces and nephews what you have just related to me.”
The lieutenant repeated what he had told Aunt Lallie about the cause of Slater O’Shea’s death. “He was given a lethal dose of this drug,” he concluded. “We found it (A), in the bottle of bourbon, and (B), in Slater O’Shea.”
Grundy was prepared for anything but nothing. There was no eruption at all. Everyone merely stared at him with distaste and disapproval, as if he had told a bawdy joke in church.
“That’s perfectly silly,” Peet said at last. “I don’t believe it.”
“I believe it,” Grundy said. “The county coroner believes it. The county attorney believes it. And in my opinion, when the time comes, a jury will believe it, too.”
“Where the devil would anyone get such a drug?” Brady said. “I’ve never even heard of it before.”
“It can be had on prescription from any pharmacy. Or it could have been acquired without prescription by someone with a supply of the drug available.”
“Prin’s the only one who works around a pharmacy,” Twig said, looking interested. “Could you possibly mean Prin?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say it,” said Prin, “but you meant it.” She was looking a little cyanotic around the gills.
“Prin,” said Aunt Lallie severely. “Did you steal some of that whatsis and give it to your Uncle Slater in his bourbon?”
“I did not,” said Prin.
“That settles it, Lieutenant. If my niece Prin says she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it. Will that be all today?”
“It’s not that simple.” Damn! Grundy thought. Why did I ever become a cop?
“It’s plain stupidity,” Brady said. “We’ve told you over and over. None of us would have killed Uncle Slater, if only because of that will he told us about.”
“That’s right,” said Peet. “We’ve told you over and over. Can’t you understand English, Lieutenant?”
“Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t,” Grundy said. “But I always understand what I’m plainly told, and I’ve been plainly told by an authority on the subject that no such will exists.”
He was not quite certain afterward whether he made the statement deliberately or had been stung into it against his better judgment. However, the die was cast; and he watched them closely.
“Doesn’t exist? The will doesn’t exist?” Aunt Lallie was opening and shutting her formidable hands as if to prepare them for Grundy’s throat. “Are you trying to — to provoke us, you policeman, you? Or what?”
The others all had their mouths open.
“I’m simply telling you what Slater O’Shea’s attorney just told me. Selwyn Fish states that no such will exists. Mr. O’Shea did have a mock will to that effect drawn up, but it’s only a scrap of paper; he never signed it and it has no legal validity. Fish says he did it for a joke. If you ask me, he wanted you all to believe that if you killed him you’d lose money by it.”
“Why, I can’t believe my ears,” exclaimed Aunt Lallie. “To be dealt such shabby treatment by one’s own brother. A cheap trick—”
“Maybe it’s even cheaper,” said Brady. “Maybe he left another will, a real one, that’s worse.”
“How could it possibly be worse?” said Peet pettishly.
“If he cut us all out altogether. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Is there another will?” Prin asked Grundy. “A real one?”
“And don’t bother with details,” said Twig. “Who gets what?”
“Testator’s sister, Lallie O’Shea,” said Grundy, “inherits everything.”
Watching Lallie O’Shea, the lieutenant had grudgingly to concede that she was either honestly flabbergasted or the world’s greatest unsung actress. She stood frozen in her tracks, mouth agape, but this was only for a moment. Then the virginal little lips came together, and over her dainty features came an expression of pure ecstasy, as if she had just been transported to a higher plane of spiritual existence by an overwhelming religious experience. This was quickly replaced by an earthier look, suggesting that she was not the least bit surprised, a sibling having certain natural rights not to be arrogated by mere nieces and nephews. The nieces and nephews, after exhibiting shock, incredulity, disgruntlement and anger in varying degrees of intensity and speed, turned a battery of stares at their Aunt Lallie in naked targetry — looking at her, speculating upon her character and potential, really for the first time in their lives.
“Do you suppose old Fish could be lying?” Brady wondered aloud.
“Why should he?” Twig said. “He will have to produce the will sooner or later.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Lallie, “and at the first opportunity I shall ask him why it hasn’t been sooner. There is simply no excuse for his having kept me in ignorance all this time.”
“Fish says,” said Grundy, “that he observes the custom of not reading the will until after the funeral.”
“Nonsense,” said Aunt Lallie imperiously. “He should have told me privately what I have a perfect right to know. You may be sure I shall speak to this Selwyn Fish about that.”
“Atta girl, Aunt Lallie,” said her nephew Twig tenderly. “Whatever you say.”
“Well,” said his sister Peet, “I don’t think it was fair of Uncle Slater to leave everything to Aunt Lallie. Though it’s better this way than sharing with seventeen other O’Sheas we hardly know. What I can’t understand,” Peet went on, wrinkling her pretty brows painfully, “is why Prin isn’t the one. We all know you were Uncle Slater’s favorite, Prin. I’d have thought he’d leave you something.”
Prin shrugged.
“Shame on you, Peet,” said Twig severely. “You seem to forget we’re now dependent on Aunt Lallie for everything.”