There Was an Old Woman (13 page)

19 . . . The Queen Wills It

Thurlow came downstairs grasping the bottle of cognac by the neck like a scepter. “In the library?” he squeaked, stepping high. “Yes, in the library. Very nice. Nice and proper.” He paused gallantly to permit Sheila to precede him into the study. “I trust everything went off nicely at the funeral, my dear?” asked Thurlow.

Sheila swept by him with a noble loathing. Thurlow clucked, narrowed his eyes into a leer, and then, gravely, stepping higher, he crossed the threshold and waded into the study.

“Aren't the others c-coming?” asked Steve Brent.

“I've sent for them twice,” replied Charles Hunter Paxton.

“What good would it do?” cried Sheila. Then she looked down and took a seat, flushing a little.

“Send for them again,” suggested Inspector Queen.

Cuttins was summoned. Yes, he had delivered Mr. Paxton's message in person to Miss Louella and Mr. Horatio.

“Deliver it again,” said Charley irritably. “We're not going to wait forever. Five minutes, Cuttins.”

The butler bowed and drifted off.

No one spoke as they waited.

It was late afternoon and the westering sun was being coy above the Palisades. It sliced its blades into the library through the French doors, cutting the gilt of book titles, flicking Sheila's hair, stabbing at the dregs of gold in Thurlow's bottle. Ellery, looking about, thought he had never beheld Nature in such an undiplomatic mood. There should be no sharp sparkle in this place; it should be all browns and glooms and dullnesses.

He turned his attention to Thurlow. Thurlow's eyes were still narrowed in that absurd leer. I am master here, he seemed to say. Beware my wrath, for it is terrible. The Queen is dead—long live the King, and you'd better be good subjects! Read, read the will, slave; your master waits.

And Thurlow beamed upon them all: upon Sheila; upon Steve Brent, a haggard man ill at ease and out of place; upon quiet, watching Mr. Underhill; upon Major Gotch, who also sat uneasily, but in a corner, as if he felt himself tied to this house and these people only by the slenderest of Minoan threads; upon harassed Charley Paxton, who stood behind the small kneehole desk in one of the angles of the library, which he had used frequently to transact the Old Woman's business, and tapped a nervous tattoo upon the sealed envelope Inspector Queen had entrusted to his care; upon the Queens, who stood together near the door, forgotten, watching everything.

And no one spoke, and the mahogany grandfather clock which Cornelia Potts had hauled from her first “regular” house up north pick-picked away at the silence, patiently.

Cuttins reappeared in the doorway. “Miss Louella cannot be disturbed for anything,” he announced to the opposite wall. “I am to say that she is engaged in a very important experiment. Mr. Horatio regrets that he cannot attend; I am to say that he is composing a verse and may lose his inspiration.”

Sheila shuddered.

“All right, Cuttins. Close the door,” said Charley.

Cuttins backed away; the Inspector made sure the door was shut. Charley picked up the sealed envelope.

“Just a moment,” said Inspector Queen. He advanced to the desk and turned to face Thurlow. “Mr. Potts, you understand why I'm here?”

Thurlow blinked, looking uncertain. Then he beamed. “As a friend, of course. A friend in our sad troubles.”

“No, Mr. Potts. As the officer in charge of the investigation of two murders which occurred in this house. I admit they're posers, and that we know very little about them, not even the motive … for sure. That's why I'm interested in your mother's will. Do you grasp that?”

Thurlow shrank a little. “Why do you tell me these things?” he asked in frightened tones. The King had run to cover.

“You're head of the family now, Mr. Potts, the eldest.” Thurlow swelled again. “I want you to be sure everything's aboveboard. This envelope—” the Inspector took it from Charley—“was found in your mother's dead hand upstairs. The flap was pasted down tight, as you see it. We have not opened the envelope. It says it's Cornelia Potts's will, and it has her signature on it, but we've no way of knowing until it's opened for the first time, here in this room, whether it's her old will, which was made out many years ago, or a new will which she typed and signed just before she died.

“The odds are it's the old will, because we can find no one in the house who witnessed her signature the other day, as would have had to be done if your mother had made a new will. But new or old, this is her will, and I want you to be satisfied that nobody's putting one over on you or anybody else who might be mentioned in it. All clear, Mr. Potts?”

“Of course, of course,” said Thurlow grandly, waving his bottle. “Very kind of you, I'm sure.”

The Inspector grunted, tossing the envelope onto the desk. “Make sure you don't forget it, Mr. Potts,” he said mildly. “Because there are a lot of witnesses in this room who won't.” And he returned to Ellery's side and made a sign to Charley Paxton. Charley picked up the envelope again and ripped off an edge. He shook the envelope out. A blue-backed document fell to the desk.

“It's the old will, Inspector,” said Charley, seizing it. “Here's the date and the notary's seal. You were right—she just put it into this envelope to get it ready for us … What's this?”

A smaller envelope, bearing a few typewritten lines, had fallen out of the folds of Cornelia Potts's will. Charley read the legend on the envelope aloud:

To be opened after the reading of my will and the election of a new President of the Potts Shoe Company.

He turned the smaller envelope over; it was sealed. Charley stared inquiringly at the Queens.

Father and son came forward eagerly and examined the small envelope.

“Same typewriter.”

“Yes, Dad. Also the same make of envelope as the larger one. There were both sizes in that box of stationery on her night table upstairs.”

“So that's why she typed out a large envelope before she died.”

“Yes. She wrote something on the portable, enclosed it in this smaller envelope, then enclosed envelope and the will from her night table in this large envelope.” Ellery looked up at his friend. “Charley, you'd better get on with the formal reading. The sooner we can open this small envelope officially the sooner we'll find out what I feel in my bones is a vital clue in the case.”

Charley Paxton read the will rapidly aloud. There was nothing important in it that the Queens had not heard from the Old Woman's own lips the day the Inspector had demanded she tell him the terms of her will.

There were, as she had said, three main provisions: Upon her death her estate, after all legal debts, taxes, and expenses of the funeral had been paid, was to be divided “among my surviving children” share and share alike. Stephen, “my husband by my second marriage,” was to get no share whatever, “either in real or personal property.” The election of a new President of the Board of Directors of the Potts Shoe Company was to be held immediately upon her death, or as soon after the funeral as possible.

The Board, as currently constituted, comprised the Potts family (except for Stephen Brent Potts). The new Board was to be the same, plus Simon Bradford Underhill, superintendent of the factories, who was, like the others, to have one vote.

“While the enforcement of this provision is not strictly speaking within my powers as testatrix” (Charley Paxton read), “I nevertheless enjoin my children to obey it. Underhill knows the business better than any of them.”

There were certain minor provisions: The Potts property on Riverside Drive was to remain the joint property of “my designated heirs.” “All of my clothing is to be burned.” “My Bible, my dental plates, my wedding rings” were bequeathed to “my daughter Louella.”

That was all. No bequests to charity, no bequests to old Bridget or the other servants, no endowments to universities or gifts to churches. No specific mention of her daughter Sheila or of her sons Robert and Maclyn. Or of Major Gotch.

Thurlow Potts listened with an indulgent expression, his eyes nearly closed and his head nodding benevolently with every sentence, as if to say: “Quite so. Quite so.”

“Dental plates,” muttered the Inspector.

Charley finished reading and began to put the will down. But then he looked startled and picked it up again. “There's a … codicil at the bottom of this last sheet, under the signatures of testatrix and witnesses,” he exclaimed. “Something typed in and typesigned ‘Cornelia Potts'…” He scanned it quickly, his eyes widening.

“What is it?” demanded Ellery Queen. “Here, let me see that, Charley.”

“I'll read it to you,” said Charley grimly. That forbidding tone sat Thurlow upright in his chair and brought the others half out of theirs.

“It says: ‘Hold the Board of Directors meeting right after the reading of the will. As soon as a new President of the Potts Shoe Company is elected, open the enclosed sealed envelope—' ”

“But we know that,” said Ellery with a trace of impatience. “That's practically the same thing she typewrote on the small envelope itself.”

“Wait. This message attached to the will isn't finished.” Charley was tense. “It goes on to say:
‘The statement inside the small envelope will tell the authorities who killed my sons Robert and Maclyn' ”

20 . . . The Old Woman's Tale

Inspector Queen bounded across the room. “Give me that envelope!” He snatched it and held it fast, glaring about as if he expected someone to try to take it away from him.

“She knew,” said Sheila in a wondering voice.

“She knew?” cried her father.

Major Gotch rubbed his jaw agitatedly.

Thurlow grasped the arms of his chair.

At the door Mr. Queen had not stirred.

“Hold that blasted Board meeting right now!” the Inspector yapped. “Can't do a thing without that Board meeting. Come on, get it over with. I want to open this envelope!” He chuckled and peered at the envelope. “She knew,” he chortled. “The old harridan knew all along, bless her.” Then he growled to Charley: “Did you hear what I said? Get it over with!”

Charley stammered something ridiculously like “Y-yes, sir,” and then he shook his head. “I've got nothing to do with the Board, Inspector. No power and no authority.”

“Well, who has? Speak up!”

“I should imagine if anyone has to take charge, it's Thurlow. Cornelia was President—she's dead. Bob and Mac were Vice-presidents—and they're dead. Thurlow's the only officer left.”

Thurlow rose, frightened.

“All right, Mr. Potts,” said the Inspector testily. “Don't just stand there. Call your Board to order and start nominating, or whatever it is you're supposed to do.”

Thurlow drew himself up. “I know my duties. Charles—I'll sit at that desk,
if
you please.”

Charley shrugged and went over to sit with Sheila, who took his hand in hers but did not look at him.

Thurlow edged behind the desk, picked up a paperweight, and rapped with it.

“The meeting will come to order,” he said, and harrumphed. “As we all know, my dear mother has passed on, and—”

“Kindly omit flowers,” said Inspector Queen.

Thurlow flushed. “You make this difficult, Inspector Queen, most difficult. Things must be done decorously, decorously. Now the first question is the question of—” Thurlow paused, then continued in an acid, querulous tone, “Simon Bradford Underhill. He has not been a member of this Board—”

“Least I can do, Thurlow.” The speaker was Underhill, and he was smiling very sadly. “Cornelia's request, you know.”

Thurlow frowned. “Yes. Yes, Underhill, I know.” He cleared his throat again. “Wouldn't dream of having it otherwise.” He sat down suddenly in the chair behind the desk; it might almost be said that he fell down. He looked longingly at the bottle of cognac, which he had left behind him in the other chair. Then he harrumphed a few more times and said sternly: “I believe we have a quorum. I will accept nominations for the Presidency of the Board of Directors of the Potts Shoe Company.” And now Thurlow did an extraordinary thing: he rose, circled the desk, faced the unoccupied chair, said: “I nominate myself,” nodded defiantly, then went round the desk again and reseated himself. “Any other nominations?”

Sheila sprang to her feet, her dimples plunging deep. “This is the last straw! Everybody here knows you haven't the ability to manage a peanut stand, let alone a business that earns millions every year!”

“What's that? What's that?” said Thurlow excitedly.

“You'd ruin the company in a year, Thurlow. My brothers Bob and Mac
ran
this business, and you've never had a single constructive thing to do with it! All you ever did was make ridiculous mistakes. And you've got the nerve to nominate yourself President!”

“Now Sh-Sheila,” stuttered her father. “Don't upset yourself, d-dear…”

“Dad, you know yourself that if the twins were alive, one of them would have become the new head of the firm to take Mother's place. You
know
it!”

Thurlow found his voice. “Sheila, if you weren't a female—”

“I know, you'd challenge me to a duel,” said Sheila bitterly. “Well, your dueling days are over, Mr. Potts. And you're not going to ruin the company. I'd nominate Daddy if he were a member of the Board—”

“Stephen?” Thurlow gazed with astonishment at his stepfather, as if he had never contemplated the possibility of such a watery character's usurping his prerogatives.

“But since I can't I nominate Mr. Underhill,” cried Sheila. “Mr. Underhill, please. At least you know the business, you know how to make shoes, you're the oldest employee, you own stock in the company—”

Thurlow now turned his astonishment upon the lean old Yankee.

But Underhill shook his head. “I'm very grateful, Sheila. But I can't accept the nomination. I'm an outsider. You know how set your mother was about keeping the firm in the family—”

Thurlow nodded vigorously. “That's right. Underbill's got no business sticking his nose in at all. I won't let him be President. I'll discharge him first—”

Color stained the old man's cheeks. “Now that makes me mad, Thurlow. That makes me real mad. Sheila, I've changed my mind. I'll accept that nomination, by Godfrey!”

The Inspector stamped. “My envelope!” he cried. “For Joe's sake, get this musical comedy over with!”

Thurlow looked desperate. Suddenly he shouted: “Wait!” and scuttled out of the library.

The delay caused by Thurlow's disappearance almost reduced the Inspector to tears. He kept looking at the sealed envelope piteously, looking at his watch, sending Sergeant Velie “to see what that oakum-headed fool Thurlow's up to,” and occasionally berating Ellery in a bitter undertone for standing there and doing nothing.

“Play it out, Dad,” was all Ellery would reply.

Eventually Thurlow returned, and the meeting was resumed. Thurlow looked smug. Something bulged in his breast pocket which Sergeant Velie, who had followed him, whispered to the Inspector was “papers, some kind of papers. He's been racin' all over the joint wavin' papers.”

“Meeting will come to order again,” said Thurlow briskly. “Any other nominations? No? Then we will proceed to a vote by the showing of hands. The nominees are Simon Bradford Underhill and Thurlow Potts. All those in favor of Mr. Underhill who have a legal vote on this Board please signify by raising your hands.”

Two hands went up—Sheila's, and Underhill's.

“Two votes for Mr. Underhill.” Thurlow smacked his lips. “Now. I have here,” and he brought out of his pocket two envelopes, unsealed, “the absentee votes of the other members of this Board, Louella Potts and Horatio Potts. I have their votes by proxy.”

Sheila paled.

“Louella Potts.” Thurlow drew from one of the envelopes a signed statement. “Votes for Thurlow Potts.” He threw down Louella's paper with a disdainful gesture and took up the second envelope. “Horatio Potts. Votes for Thurlow Potts.” And Thurlow Potts held up one pudgy hand triumphantly. “Tally—two votes for Underhill, three for Thurlow Potts. Thurlow Potts is elected President of the Board of Directors of the Potts Shoe Company by a plurality of one.”

Thurlow rapped on the desk. “The meeting is adjourned.”

“No,” said Sheila in a voice full of hate. “No!”

Charley gripped her shoulder.

“Finished?” Inspector Queen strode forward. “In that case, we'll get down to business. Ellery, open this smaller envelope!”

Ellery wielded a letter knife on Cornelia Potts's envelope, slowly. This letter was going to do something final to the Potts murder case: it would name the murderer. Why this should annoy him Mr. Queen did not quite know, except the patently outlandish reason that the naming of murderers had always been a Queen specialty.

They had forgotten the small envelope in their absorption with the Board election. Now they watched him unfold a single long typewritten sheet, and scan it, and there was no sound of anything but the pick-picking of the grandfather clock.

“Well?” cried the Inspector.

Ellery replied in a quite flat voice: “This is the letter Cornelia Potts wrote. It is dated the afternoon of her death, the time specified being 3.35
P.M
. The message goes:

I, Cornelia Potts, being of sound mind and in full possession of my faculties, and knowing that I am shortly to die of my heart ailment, and in prayer that I may be forgiven in Heaven for what I have done, make this statement:

I ask not the world to judge me, for what I have done will be condemned by the world as if it were a fixed jury and I know that its judgment will be prejudiced.

Only a mother knows what motherhood is, how the mother loves the weak and hates the strong.

I have always loved my children Thurlow, Louella, and Horatio. Their weaknesses cannot be laid to them. They are what they are because of their father, my first husband. This I came to know shortly after he disappeared; and I have never forgiven him for it. May he rot. I took his name and made something of it; it is more than he ever did for me or mine.

My first children have always needed me, and I have always been their strength and their defender. The children of my second marriage have never needed me. I hated the twins for their independence and their strength; I hate Sheila for hers. Their very existence has been a daily reminder to me of the folly and tragedy of my first marriage, to Bacchus Potts. I have hated them since their childhood for their health, for their laughter, for their cleverness, for their sanity.

I, Cornelia Potts, killed my twin sons Robert and Maclyn.

It was I who substituted the bullet for the blank cartridge the police had put into Thurlow's weapon. It was I who took the Harrington & Richardson revolver from Thurlow's hiding place with which I held up the newspaper people and made them leave my estate. Later it was I who stole one of Thurlow's other guns and hid it from the police and went with it into my son Maclyn's bedroom in the middle of the night and shot him with it—yes, and whipped him.

I will be called a monster. Perhaps. Let the world cast stones at me—I shall be dead.

I confess these crimes of my own free will, and let this be an end to them. I will answer for them before my Creator.

“The letter,” continued Ellery Queen in the same even voice, “is signed in the usual soft-pencil scrawl, ‘Cornelia Potts.' Dad,” he said, “let's have a look at the Old Woman's other two written signatures—the one on the big envelope and the one on the will.”

It was still in the room.

Ellery looked up. “The signature on this confession,” he announced, “is the authentic handwriting of Cornelia Potts.”

Sheila threw back her head and laughed and laughed.

“I'm glad,” she gasped. “I'm glad! Glad she was the one. Glad she's dead. Now I'm free. Daddy's free. We're safe. There won't be any more murders. There won't be any more murders. There won't be any …”

Charley Paxton caught her as she crumpled.

The Inspector very carefully pocketed Cornelia Potts's will, her confession, and the two envelopes.

“For the record,” he grunted. The Inspector looked tired, but relaxed. He glanced about the empty study, the overturned chair in which Sheila had been sitting, the desk, the books twinkling their titles in the playful sun. “That's that, Ellery. Case of Potts and Potts
kaput
, killed off like a case of Irish whiskey at a wake.” He sighed. “A nasty business from beginning to end, and I'm glad to be rid of it.”

“If you are rid of it,” said Ellery fretfully.

The Inspector stiffened. “If? Did you say ‘if,'' son?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Don't go highfalutin on me, for cripe's sake,” groaned the Inspector. “Aren't you ever satisfied?”

“Not when there's a ragtag end.”

“Talk English!”

Ellery lit a cigarette. He blew smoke at the ceiling without relish, swinging his leg idly against the desk on which he was perched. “One thing bothers me, Dad. I wish it didn't but it does.” He frowned. “I don't think I'll ever be able to sweep it out of my skull.”

“What's that?” asked his father, almost with fear.

“There's still a gun missing.”