“You may be good at evading commitments,” said Grundy grimly, “but you’re not so good at using your head. How long ago was it that you left the girl?”
“Not long. An hour or so.” Coley looked puzzled. “Why?”
“Because the last thing that girl ought to do is talk to her aunt!”
“But what of it?”
“What of it? What do you suppose she means to talk to her aunt about? She’ll spill the whole story as you told it to her, and Lallie O’Shea will know she and Fish are in hot water, and the first thing she’ll do is contact Fish, to tell him. She may have done so already. And if she has, my young Sherlock Holmes, there won’t be any will with forged signatures to expertize. The first thing Fish will do is burn it. Now do you see what you’ve done?”
“By God, oh, by God,” groaned Coley. “You’re right, Lieutenant, I didn’t give this enough thought. Wait! Maybe Prin hasn’t talked to her yet! I’ll call her right now—”
“If you don’t mind,” said Lieutenant Grundy, “I’ll call her.”
But all he could get out of the O’Shea residence phone was the peevish beep of the busy signal.
Grundy banged the receiver and began to jam on his shoes. “Ten to one Lallie O’Shea’s talking to Fish right this minute! We’d better get over to Fish’s office in a hurry!”
“Hello?” said Aunt Lallie agitatedly. “Is that you, Selwyn?”
“Whom would you expect to answer my phone,” Selwyn Fish said, “Cary Grant? What’s up, Lallie? You sound excited.”
“Is it any wonder? Everything is going all wrong, and it’s your fault!”
“If you’re referring again to the drug in poor Slater’s bourbon, it seems to me you’re at fault there, old girl, not I. If you had waited — not been so greedy — and done the job under competent supervision nobody would have suspected, not even that old ferret Appleton.”
“Selwyn Fish, are you accusing me of — of disposing of my own dear brother Slater?”
“Come off it, Lallie. I confess I didn’t think so at the start. I thought Slater had died a convenient natural death — I couldn’t believe that even you could be so stupid as to have gone ahead without consulting me first. However, what’s done is done. Stop worrying and leave everything to me.”
“I can see now why you have never succeeded in your profession,” said Aunt Lallie spitefully, “even with an utter lack of ethics to get in your way. You can’t recognize the truth when you hear it, Selwyn Fish.”
He chuckled. “I can recognize a bird of a feather. That’s why you and I are so compatible, old girl.”
“Please don’t be any more offensive than you absolutely have to, Selwyn. I’m in no mood for it. Besides, I am no longer so sure we’re compatible. In fact, you are proving a terrible disappointment to me. Not only have you caused me to be suspected of a murder, you have also made it impossible for me to receive any benefit from it.”
“What precisely are you babbling about?” asked the lawyer, a bit sharply. “Whatever it is, though, we had better not discuss it over the telephone. Come over to my office — I’m all alone here.”
“There’s no time. My niece Princess has just told me that Coley Collins has probably already gone to tell Lieutenant Grundy about the will.”
“Will? Which will?” Fish sounded very sharp now. “Damn it, Lallie, try to be explicit!”
“Please do not swear at me, Selwyn Fish.”
“All right, I apologize and all that,” he said rapidly. “Now. Which will?”
“The one you forged, of course — the one making me sole heir. Why should I be concerned about any other will?”
“Will you not use words like forge? Who’s Coley Collins? Wait. Isn’t he the young wolf Princess O’Shea picked up in some bar?”
“She did not pick him up — my nieces do not do such vulgar things. He works there as a bartender, and it was a sad day for you and me when he got that job.”
“For the love of heaven, Lallie, is it necessary for you always to talk like the Delphian Sibyl? Why was it a sad day? What could a young imbecile of a bartender possibly have to do with us?”
“Coley Collins is not such an imbecile as you think.”
“Damn it, come to the point. Come to the point at once. What are you trying to tell me?”
“That Coley Collins knows Slater left everything to Princess, and not to me, because Slater told him so one night when he was intoxicated at Coley Collins’s bar.”
“Oh,” said Selwyn Fish in a sort of moan. “Oh, that besotted idiot. Slater promised me — he promised me he wouldn’t breathe a word about the Princess will — to anyone, anyone!” He was silent, and Aunt Lallie, hearing him breathe like a leaky steampipe, felt an obscure satisfaction. “We may be all right, though, Lallie. It would only be the word of a bartender against that of the testator’s attorney—”
“Since when has the testator’s attorney’s word been taken by anybody for anything?” asked Aunt Lallie sadistically. “Anyway, you are not thinking clearly, Selwyn. Princess has told me that Coley Collins is going to demand that the signatures on the forged will be analyzed by an expert.”
“Will you stop using that word!”
“Do you want to risk that?” continued Aunt Lallie.
“Well... no. I don’t. You’re right. I had better do some thinking.”
Aunt Lallie graciously permitted him to do it, and Fish did it furiously. It took him perhaps fifteen seconds to draw a major conclusion from the facts.
“Well,” he said.
“And what do you think, Selwyn?”
“I think, old girl, that we must retreat to a prepared position. In short, I must regretfully resort to old Slater’s genuine will, which I have saved for just such an emergency.”
Aunt Lallie began to snuffle. For some reason Selwyn Fish, hearing the snuffling sound, immediately thought of her hands. “It’s a great disappointment to me, Selwyn, and so are you. After all your promises — my complete trust in you — I’m to inherit nothing, nothing at all.”
“It’s better than going to jail, which I hope to avoid. It’s also better than squatting on the hot seat, which is something you still have to consider.”
“You stop saying things like that!” said Lallie O’Shea hysterically. “I don’t know why I ever listened to you, or let you — let you—”
Selwyn Fish hung up on her. It was exactly two minutes after Grundy had hung up in his office.
And approximately ten minutes before Grundy and Coley Collins rushed into Fish’s office. The little lawyer was seated at his desk over some legal papers, the very portrait of a busy attorney.
He looked up in surprise. “Why, Grundy, hello,” he said cordially. “I didn’t hear you gentlemen come in. Always glad to see a worthy member of the law enforcement arm. Sit down, sit down.”
“You may not be so glad to see this one,” said the lieutenant. “Know Coley Collins?”
“I believe I have not had the pleasure formally. However, we have mutual acquaintances. Indeed, we attended a funeral together today, didn’t we, Mr. Collins? All three of us did, come to think of it. Won’t you gentlemen sit down?”
“I’d sooner sit down on a rattlesnake’s nest,” said Coley.
“Ah, then this is more or less official,” said Selwyn Fish, leaning back comfortably. “What’s bothering you, Lieutenant?”
“Mr. Collins here,” said Grundy, “has made a serious charge against you, Fish.”