“I gave him drugs, of course.
That’s my profession.
But I gave him nothing that could by any stretch of the imagination affect his mind.”
Mr. Waite’s story was given circumstantially and directly.
On the twelfth of the previous August he had received a telephone call from Walter Somers, asking him to see his father that afternoon at the Imperial Hotel and to draw up a will for him.
As he knew that Mr. Somers had been very ill and was still a sick man, he took the precaution of calling up the doctor here, who was attending him, and inquiring as to his mental condition.
Doctor Simonds said that he knew Mr. Somers was contemplating a new will, and that he was entirely competent to make one.
The result was that he had drawn up the draft late that afternoon, and took back the finished document at something after four o’clock the next day.
It was signed in duplicate.
Katherine listened with slowly rising color.
“Do you mean to say that you would draw up a will as vital as that, as—revolutionary, without question?
What about undue influence being brought to bear?
A man may appear to be normal, but after a severe illness, when he is weak and broken—”
“There was certainly no influence evident at the time.
The manager of the hotel took me up, and Walter Somers met me at the door and took me in.
Then he went out and I did not see him again, either that day or the next.”
“Was Sarah Gittings present?”
“She left the room.
She was there when I first went in, and she came in on the second day to witness the signatures.
And I may add this.
There was some discussion of the terms of the will.
Mr. Somers himself knew that it was what you have called revolutionary, but he said that Walter had reached years of discretion, and that he felt that there was plenty for all.”
“That is not the question,” said Katherine sharply.
“The money’s nothing.
What does money matter?
What does matter is that at the end he should have repudiated me.
What brought that about, Mr. Waite?
What happened here last summer to change his entire attitude toward me?
Why did he put that will in his box, endorsed in his own hand ‘to be given to my son Walter in the event of my death’?
That is very serious, Mr. Waite.
Had he ceased to trust me?
And that fund of fifty thousand dollars to be administered by Walter at his discretion!
What did he say about that?
What secret was he covering?”
“He said that Walter understood.”
“And that is all he said?”
“That is all.”
She leaned back in her chair, apparently exhausted, and there was a short silence broken at last by Alex Davis.
“Have you the duplicate of the will with you, Mr. Waite?”
And then some of Mr. Waite’s air of offended dignity left him.
He stirred in his chair.
“I was coming to that.
As a matter of fact, a very strange thing has happened to that copy, Mr. Davis.
It has disappeared from our files.
Mr. Henderson has been searching for several days, ever since Mr. Somers’ death, in fact.
He has a theory as to its disappearance, but as it is not a pleasant one—”
I happened to glance at Jim and his mouth was twitching crazily.
“I think we must hear it, nevertheless.”
“It’s like this.
On the day of Sarah Gittings’ murder—that afternoon in fact—a clerk in our office opened the safe at Florence Gunther’s request, and left her there to secure certain documents.