Naomi Karn, without saying anything, got up, crossed to the red chair, recently vacated by May Hawthorne, and sank into it. She was the only one left. Immediately upon the departure of the Hawthornes and Dunns, with entourage, both branches of law and order had deserted us too. Inspector Cramer, noticing the young woman still inconspicuous in her corner, had pampered his curiosity by firing a question at Wolfe, but Wolfe had waved it off and he had abandoned it and hastened after the others. Wolfe regarded her with half-closed eyes. After a moment he murmured, "Well. Now you're in a pickle." She lifted her brows a trifle and asked, "Me? Not at all." She wasn't pasty-faced, as she had been some half an hour before, but she was nothing like as ycocky as when she had originally made me sore. "Oh, yes, you are." Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. "Let's don't start with caracoles. You know very well you're in a devil of a pickle. Those police74
FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 75 men are going up there and ask interminable questions. Among others, about Mr. Hawthorne's will. Even if it's a political foray, which seems doubtful, they'll inquire about the will for the sake of appearances. They always do. Then they'll question you. I expect Inspector Cramer will take that on himself. Mr. Cramer's weapons are nothing remarkable for penetration, but they can do a lot of bruising." He pushed a button. "Will you have some beer?" She shook her head. "I can't imagine any question anyone could ask me that would be difficult or embarrassing to answer." ^^�./< "I'll wager that isn't true. Miss Karn. I don t mean merely that there are thousands of questions which I myself would find it difficult or embarrassing to answer, and that doubtless holds for all the members of our race. I mean, specifically, that you were scared half to death when Mr. Skinner announced that Noel Hawthorne was murdered. The confident and defiant intelligence which had flashed from your eyes a moment before, vanished like that." He snapped his fingers. "Also, specifically, what are you here for now?" "I'm here because you sent for me and I don't intend--" "No no no. We've turned that page. Mr. Skinner has. That bomb he lugged in here has started a new FR1;76 WHERE THERE'S A WILL chapter. It caused a lull, temporary perhaps but complete, in the hostilities over the will; everyone had forgotten all about it until I asked Mrs. Dunn if she wished me to proceed. Including you. If after the shock of Mr. Skinner's announcement, you had resumed thinking about the will, your face would have gone on the warpath again, but it didn't; to this moment it shows only wariness and concern. Your mind isn't on money. Miss Karn, it's on murder, and I have nothing to do with that. Why didn't you get up and go as soon as the others had left? Why did you stay?" It looked to me as if he had overplayed it, for she wasn't answering him with words, but with action. She had quietly arisen from her chair and started for the door. Wolfe spoke, with no change in his tone or tempo, to her receding back: "When your mind leaves murder for money again, let me know and we'll talk it over." I was feeling disgruntled. Granting that Skinner's bomb had filled the air with fragments, after all the trouble I had taken to bring her there I saw no sense in his shoving her off like that just to hear himself talk. At least I wasn't going to aid and abet by opening doors; I sat. Then I saw her feet were dragging, and with her hand on the knob she stopped and stood there with her back to us. After a few FR1;WHERE THERE^S A WILL 79 seconds of that she turned abruptly, marched \e^n to the red chair, and sat down. ' She looked at Wolfe and said, "I stayed because I was sitting there thinking about something." He nodded. "Just so," he said pleasantly. "Did you get anywhere?" "Yes. I did. I made a decision. I was going to tell you what it was, and before I got a chance you jumped on me, about my being in a pickle and being scared half to death. I'm not scared, Mr. Wolfe." Her eyes, leveled at him, certainly didn't look scared, and her voice didn't sound like it. "You can't browbeat me. The last time I was in a panic was when I swallowed a live frog at the age of two. I wouldn't be now, even if I had murdered Mr. Hawthorne myself." ^ ^ / .^, -^ ^- r,^"That's fine. I like spunk. What was the decision you made?" "I'm not sure I'm going to tell you. I'm not sure but what, after all, it would be better to let it be a fight instead of a compromise." "Then you haven't really made a decision." "Yes, I have. And I think--I'll stick to it. I assure you I wasn't frightened into it, but certainly I made it because of this--this news. I'm not in any pickle now, but I have sense enough to know that with the whole Hawthorne gang for bitter enemies I might be. With their position and influence. They 76 WHERE THERE'S A WILL chap have half the estate. Half of what was left to ^rc." "Indeed." Wolfe closed his eyes, and after a moment partly opened them again. "So that was your decision." "It was." ^ "And you think you'll stick to it." "I do." "That's too bad." "Why is it too bad?" "Because it's quite -likely that if you had made such an offer, say this morning, when Mr. Stauffer called on you, it would have been accepted. Now, unfortunately, it can't be considered. Do you want to hear a counterproposal?" "What is it?" "That you get a hundred thousand dollars and my clients get the rest." Miss Karn got smaller. That was what it looked like, she simply shrank, not back, but in all around. She was smaller. I watched her doing it for ten seconds. But apparently it was only springs coiling tighter inside of her, for all at once she laughed, and it was a pretty good laugh. Then she stopped laughing and said: "That's very funny." "Oh, no, really, it isn't a bit funny." "But it is." A sort of chuckle came out of her, <i WHERE THERE'S A WILL 79 like the laugh's colt trotting along behind. "I mean, it's funny that Nero Wolfe should be so utterly mistaken. Such an idiotic blunder for you to make! ' You must even be fool enough to think I killed ' Hawthorne myself! That would have been quite a trick, ^dce I was in New York all of Tuesday afternoon.'*