Читать книгу Touch and Go - Литагент HarperCollins USD, M. R. D. Meek - Страница 9

CHAPTER 3

Lennox Kemp had only just seated himself at his desk the following morning when Elvira brought in the mail. She looked down at him with mild disapproval. ‘I waited,’ she said, ‘because you’re late. You don’t look very well.’

‘If you must know, I’ve got a hangover, and I didn’t get much sleep.’

‘Well, if you will go out on the town …’ She put the letters down in front of him. ‘Black coffee’s what you need.’

Despite two strong cups of it, Kemp still found it hard to concentrate on his correspondence; there were too many other things on his mind. He wanted a clear head, he wanted a second opinion. He thought of Tony Lambert, his most intelligent colleague and an expert on probate, but dismissed the idea. He couldn’t talk it over with anyone else, not yet. The last thing Dale Van Gryson had said to him before they parted enjoined confidentiality.

‘Give us time, Lennox. Let us get this thing straightened out at the New York end. It’s only six weeks since the death, we can procrastinate for a while …’

‘But there’s got to be a showdown at some time,’ he’d told the American, ‘it can’t be kept under wraps for ever. Not unless …’ Kemp hadn’t finished the sentence, watching the expression on the other man’s face.

Van Gryson had said nothing but Kemp grinned to himself now. He knew damned well what was in that astute counsellor’s mind—perhaps even in the corporate mind of his firm:

‘Unless I, Lennox Kemp, disclaim any interest in the estate of the late Mrs Probert, and no meeting has ever taken place between myself and any of her trustees …’

It had gone unsaid, and might very well remain so, but the very idea of himself running a clutch of dubious gambling dens in Las Vegas was enough to make him choke over the breakfast table the two of them had shared in the hotel that early morning.

They had discussed the matter more soberly than on the previous night, Kemp probing for information, Van Gryson prevaricating and, in Kemp’s view, revealing the depths of his ignorance. Kemp had been struck by the difference in their approach. The American’s main concern was how to keep his firm out of trouble, which meant carrying out the duties of trustees and executors while keeping the snake in the basket by sitting firmly on the lid. Kemp, who was often ruefully aware that he’d have made a better detective than a solicitor, was more taken up with the investigation possibilities.

He had been careful, however, to lay fairly and squarely before Van Gryson his own view of the position at law.

‘I don’t know whether it’s the same under the United States legal system,’ he’d said, ‘but here in England a will contained in a copy or even a completed draft may be admitted to probate on an application to the Court if proper evidence as to its being made can be adduced, supported by the necessary affidavits—in this case those of Miss Janvier’s and the two witnesses.’

‘Madison’s lawyers would counter that by saying how could they be sure it was Mrs Probert. We haven’t even got a photostat copy showing the signature.’

‘Sworn statement by the chauffeur confirming time of the visit to your office,’ said Kemp promptly, ‘along with identification of the deceased from photographs shown to Miss Janvier. I think we can discount any suggestion of an impostor should they bring it up.’

‘What about evidence of the existence of the second will after the death?’

‘That’s where the crunch will come … I have to admit it’s crucial to any such application on a lost will to the probate courts in this country.’

‘The other side would have a field-day on that one,’ Van Gryson agreed gloomily. ‘They’ll say Mrs Probert had second—or even third—thoughts. She destroyed the new will after she got home.’

‘Could she have done that without someone on her staff knowing? You say she could scarcely rise from her bed … Even torn-up paper has to be dealt with.’

‘She could have burned it.’ Van Gryson was by now entering into the spirit of playing devil’s advocate; presumably it made a nice change from government contracts.

‘Do you know if she smoked? She used to when I knew her. It’s unlikely, of course, in a cancer patient but even doctors indulge such foibles when all hope has gone. How else would she have a lighter or matches at her bedside?’

Van Gryson had begun to take notes. He looked up.

‘I’ll make inquiries, Lennox. As to her flushing the will down the john, Miss Janvier gave her the will in one of our special envelopes. Difficult to dispose of—the fibres would’ve blocked the pipes.’

‘What if she simply got rid of it on the ride home from your office? Having had, as you put it, third thoughts?’

‘We’ll have to question the driver again. He’d have noticed. He knew her well from all those trips to the hospital. The car was ordered from the security desk downstairs in the lobby of the apartments and she always had the same chauffeur because she liked him. She had become sensitive about her appearance on those visits to the hospital and he was a sympathetic man.’

‘Right. Now, what about those servants?’

‘Florence Hermanos had been with Muriel for many years in Las Vegas as her personal maid, and latterly as her trusted friend and companion. That’s why she took her with her when she came to New York.’

‘Was she the one called Florence Bate mentioned in the first will? I saw her name above mine.’ He quoted: ‘To my personal maid and friend, Florence Bate, all my jewellery except the ruby necklace.’

‘You’ve a quick memory, Lennox,’ said Van Gryson admiringly. ‘Yes, she’s the one. And under that will it meant a considerable fortune. Apparently your Muriel was a collector of jewels, mostly rubies. She told us Leo Probert gave them to her on each anniversary.’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t like to tell you this before, Lennox, but we found no rubies, neither your necklace nor anything else, not in the apartment nor in the bank. There was some stuff in a box on her dressing-table but nothing of great value.’

‘So the rubies are missing along with the will? Interesting, don’t you think? Tell me more about Florence. How’d she get to be Mrs Hermanos?’

At that point Dale had thrown down his table napkin.

‘I told you before … We’d no cause to go prying into the affairs of the servants. It was a delicate enough matter for us without blowing it up out of all proportion. We had to tread very softly, and the last thing we wanted to do was alienate these people.’

‘I’d have gone through them with a fine-tooth comb,’ said Kemp succinctly. ‘You said José Hermanos and Florence were a marrried couple, she was the housekeeper and he was a sort of handyman-cum-butler—an unlikely combination.’

‘Apparently she met and married him soon after coming to New York. He’s a spic—sorry, a Spanish or Mexican American. Didn’t take to him myself …’

‘But he’s married to Muriel’s trusted companion so he gets a job on the staff. And the others?’

‘Just a girl who did the cleaning and gave Mrs Hermanos help in the kitchen. There was no need for more servants, Mrs Probert was ill, she never entertained, and the building itself has its own security staff, doormen and concierge—well, you know how we live in New York nowadays …’

‘I don’t but I can guess. That’s why you’re so sure of Muriel’s comings and goings?’

Van Gryson shrugged. ‘Makes it a lot easier to keep track of people’s movements. No one could get in or out of that lobby without being spotted. If there had been visitors they would have been announced. There was no one during those last two weeks except the doctor and the nurse he’d engaged.’

‘Just the one nurse?’

‘That was all he considered necessary—and only for night duty. During the day Mrs Probert insisted that Florence look after her. And, as you seem to have a suspicious mind, Lennox, there was nothing in the death itself or the manner of it to justify further investigation. All Mrs Probert’s medical records were always available to us as her financial advisers. She had cancer, neither the operations nor the chemotherapy could save her, and the nursing during her last days was meticulously documented. She had drugs to alleviate pain but in the end it was the disease which killed her.’

Perhaps Van Gryson thought such pain-speaking was necessary but he had been surprised to see his breakfast companion wince.

‘I’m sorry, Dale,’ Kemp said after a pause. ‘My curiosity for the moment overcame my better feelings. I’m sure Muriel’s death was due to natural causes as they’re called, although cancer to me has always carried the connotation of an evil thing working in the dark, a malignancy at odds with the good … I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘it’s just that I’m trying to see the Muriel I knew, and wondering how she would have reacted to her impending death. I think she did right when she came to you and made that first will. Never mind whatever other pressure she was under, all the riches and luxurious living she had gained for herself had been through Leo Probert. She was not a woman who liked power over others. There was an essential sweetness in her nature. She would have been unhappy with the consequences of that power. Whatever you may think of the characters of her late husband’s partners, the first will is a fair one.’

‘You’re saying it should stand?’

Kemp had laughed. ‘I’m in a cleft stick,’ he said. ‘I mean what I have just said. On the other hand, I’m a lawyer like yourself, and we have been taught, have we not, that a testator’s wishes must be paramount? And if we can be certain what those wishes were we have to use all our powers to uphold them. Oh, I appreciate the tricky position your firm would be in if it had to come to court—two trustees of a will in dereliction of their duty towards a client …’

This time it was Van Gryson who winced. ‘Too damned right it wouldn’t look good, but we could ride that one out. Sure, if we’d known about that visit of Mrs Probert either Julius or I would have been round there on the hour to see what the hell was going on, was she in her right mind, or was it just a whim … But there’s worse things where we have to operate, Lennox. It’s Prester John Madison and his cronies we have to worry about. There’s going to be one helluva row from that quarter if they find out there’s another will. They’ve got plenty of shyster lawyers in their pockets, and they’re not above using strong-arm methods.’

‘Dear me. How different from the home-life of the English judiciary … Sorry, I can see it wouldn’t be a joking matter. Have you managed to stave them off so far?’

‘Prester John’s too smart an operator to go in with all guns firing at this stage. But don’t think there haven’t been hints. Julius is dealing with them. The estate will take time to be wound up, blah blah … legatees have to be traced, etcetera etcetera, and there’s always the goddamned taxes to the government to be settled. Oh, we can give them the runaround for a while yet.’

At that point Van Gryson had leant forward and said with the utmost seriousness: ‘You see how it is. No one must know about the other will back home in New York. Miss Janvier won’t talk, that’s for sure. It was her blunder and she doesn’t want it advertised. The two witnesses are dumbos—they can hardly remember whose will it was anyway, and they’re not being encouraged to try. And we whisked that file copy out of the cabinet before anyone got a peek at it. Believe you me, Lennox, we’ve been thorough.’

‘So it seems. Which only leaves me. You didn’t really have to contact me at all, did you, Dale, unless you had found the original of the second will?’

Van Gryson had assumed his honest counsellor’s face, candid to the point of piety.

‘Ethics of the profession, Lennox. Straight dealing as between men of the law. Julius Eikenberg and I, we discussed the situation at length and came to the conclusion it was only right that you should be told. No, we didn’t have to tell you. We couldn’t afford even to hint at it in a letter. Instead, I came over specially to put it to you.’

Once you had me summed up, Kemp thought, and found me maverick enough to just possibly do whatever you might find expedient in the future.

To take the American off his soapbox for a moment, he had murmured: ‘You really couldn’t afford not to. You’d have been pretty hard-pressed for an explanation if the second will, all neatly typed up on your firm’s paper and still in its special envelope, was discovered stuck up the chimney after you’d already disposed of the assets in accordance with the terms of the first …’

‘There aren’t any chimneys,’ said Van Gryson tersely, deciding to ignore the rest of Kemp’s perfectly cogent observation. ‘And there were no loose floorboards in any of the rooms or loose tiles in the bathroom. We inventoried all the furniture, gave us the excuse to rake the whole place over. You couldn’t have hid a matchstick in that apartment.’

‘I still think you should investigate those servants.’

Van Gryson’s eyes were bland. ‘You thinking of coming over and doing it for us?’

Kemp had shrunk back in horror at the suggestion.

‘Not me! It’s only in fiction that the hero hops on a plane and does his stuff in a foreign city. I can’t even read a street map of London, never mind find my way to the subway in New York. No, I’m staying right here where I belong. But it mightn’t be a bad idea if you employed a private eye—is that what they’re still called over there?’

Dale Van Gryson put on a sly look. He pursed his lips rather primly.

‘Mr Eikenberg has that in hand. We’re keeping an eye on anyone who was around at the time of Mrs Probert’s death. The rental on the apartment’s paid for another three months and we’ve retained the servants as caretakers. I admit you’ve got me a bit rattled on Mrs Hermanos. Seemed a nice woman to me …’

‘I tend to be suspicious of nice women. And it might be a good idea to have another talk with that doctor. Sound him out on Muriel’s state of mind … And the night nurse too, you haven’t said much about her.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. She came from a highly reputable agency, and had been recommended by the doctor himself. We didn’t get to speak to her as she’s gone upstate to nurse her own mother who is dying, but don’t worry, we’ll get round to her in due course. We do have some very discreet people we use from time to time on the financial side of matrimonial cases, that kind of thing … No, I don’t think we’d call them private eyes. We have to be careful, you know, we’re a very respectable firm.’

‘Whatever you call them, I’d be obliged, Dale, if you could let me see their reports, if any. After all, I’m an interested party … even under that first will I get a ruby necklace.’

‘Those damned rubies!’ Van Gryson exclaimed. ‘D’you know what happened? They were safe in her bank up till a few weeks before she died, then on one of her trips to the hospital she goes and gets them out. The bank showed us the receipt. Now they’ve vanished into thin air.’

‘I put my money on the butler,’ Kemp had said, cheerfully before the two men went their separate ways. ‘In English detective fiction it’s always the butler who dunnit.’