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
