Tightrope Walker Page 11

  He interrupted me. “The will was not written in this office, Miss Jones. I can assure you that as a graduate of the Harvard Law School no will constructed in my office would read as this one does.”

  I said with all the ingenuousness I could summon, “You’ve written other wills for her, of course.”

  He gave me a sharp glance. “Yes.”

  “You had been her attorney then for many years?”

  His voice was dry. “Yes, Miss Jones.”

  “May I ask why she didn’t have you write this one for her, sir? I mean, were you away, perhaps, on—” I took a moment to examine the date, as if I didn’t already know it by heart. “On July 2, 1965?”

  “No, Miss Jones, I was in my office. Just as I am today.”

  “Then didn’t you—er—wonder, sir, at her not contacting you? You must surely have felt rather—well, surprised?”

  “Is this a court of law, Miss Jones?” he inquired with humor.

  I looked at him, and I realized that something had changed in the atmosphere since I’d begun asking my questions, but where I would have supposed there would be tension—a reaction of anger or disapproval—it was quite the opposite: Mr. Mason had relaxed. He was wary but he was relaxed and waiting. But waiting for what, I wondered.

  So I went at once to the point. “Mr. Mason,” I said, meeting his eyes directly, “I would like very much to know—I realize it’s confidential information but I would like to ask—and after all, so much time has elapsed and your client is dead—”

  “Yes, Miss Jones?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. “I would like to ask how this will differs from previous wills you drew up for her in your office.”

  “Ah …” It was like a sigh, a long expelling of breath that seemed to fill and haunt the room before it reached an end. He sat looking at me, and those ancient eyes—still so blue—seemed to go through and through me. He said, “It is confidential information you’re asking for, Miss Jones, you are quite correct in that.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You seem an oddly determined young woman,” he added with a twisted little smile. “You are not from these parts, Miss Jones?”

  “From Trafton, Pennsylvania.”

  He nodded. “This is a curious corner of Maine, Miss Jones. I have lived here for over fifty years and yet I am still an outsider. They will say of me that I’m ‘from away.’ Hannah, too, was ‘from away.’ We live here surrounded by Liptons, Tuttles, Pritchetts, and Gerards.”

  “You called her Hannah,” I said eagerly.

  He did not reply to this. He was silent for a moment and then he said, “Her previous wills were very similar to each other but not similar to this will of July 2, 1965, Miss Jones, no. Over the years that she lived here—first in Anglesworth, in the house she later donated to the town for a library, and then in Carleton—she made perhaps half a dozen wills, changing them to fit circumstances but only in minor ways. In all of them she left a stated amount to her housekeeper, Jane Morneau, and she bequeathed sums to the Greenacres Psychiatric Hospital and to the Jason Meerloo Orphanage. The residual—and we are talking here of perhaps two million dollars after taxes—”

  “Two million!” I exclaimed.

  “—was to be divided between her nephew Robin and her niece Nora.”

  “But there was never before any mention of—” I stopped abruptly. “I appreciate your giving me this—this confidential information, sir.”

  He bowed courteously, mockingly. “But then as you have pointed out, Miss Jones, it happened many years ago and my client is dead. You have read her book, of course.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Many times, and I own a first edition.”

  He nodded. “A pity it’s out of print. I’ve always felt that if the sequel could have been published it would have firmly established The Maze in the Heart of the Castle as the classic it deserves to be.”

  “Did she ever consider writing a sequel?” I asked.

  “I believe that she had completed one at the time of her death.”

  “What?” I gasped. “Do you mean that? A second one, after so many years?” I was incredulous. “But what happened to it? It was never published, was it?”

  “I doubt that many people knew of it,” he told me with a shrug. “People were accustomed to her scribblings, as she called it, every morning. I know of it only because in her previous will—drawn up two months before this one—she specifically mentioned leaving her niece and nephew the right to apply for copyright renewals on The Maze in the Heart of the Castle, and—if it was published—a book entitled In the Land of the Golden Warriors. A sequel to the first, she called it.”

  I whistled faintly. “And the manuscript was never found? Nobody knew?” And then it hit me. “You say a previous will was drawn up only two months before the July 2 one?”

  He nodded, watching me with interest.

  “Mr. Mason,” I said, “wasn’t anyone—surely you must have been skeptical—just a little—of this final July will? Didn’t it seem strange, the circumstances and all, at the time? Strange to someone?”

  I had the strangest impression that I had met with his approval; his smile was that of an instructor with an apt pupil. “It seemed strange to one person, her nephew Robin,” he said. “Robin insisted on a Probate Court hearing.”

  “A hearing,” I repeated, not understanding.

  He explained. “A will is filed in probate shortly after the death of the testatrix. Following this a legal notice called a citation is issued to all the heirs, listing the terms of the will, and if any heir objects or feels that his or her rights have been violated they may ask for a hearing in the Probate Court.”

  “I see,” I said breathlessly. “So there was an investigation, or at least a hearing into all this? Would there be any records still available?”

  “There are always records,” he assured me. “Court stenographers take down each word in court, you know, and although officially the records belong to the court stenographer they can be purchased.”

  I sighed. “Oh dear, after so many years would there still be a copy?”

  “I can lend you mine,” he said with his curious little smile, and rang for his secretary. “I couldn’t represent Robin because I was named co-executor of the estate but I followed the hearing closely and took pains to secure a copy for my files. My partner Mr. Gerard handled the case. Miss Edmonds,” he said when she entered the room, “will you fetch us the probate hearings on the Hannah Meerloo will—October 1965, I believe. Late October.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And a large manila envelope so that this young lady can return the document to me by mail.”

  She was gone and we smiled at each other politely, but I was feeling uneasy by now. I felt as if I were no longer leading this conversation but was being tantalized in some obscure way, or subtly directed. There were a dozen questions I longed to ask him but I knew that the rules of the game were his, and his courtesy would extend only so far.

  A moment later Miss Edmonds was back. Garwin Mason glanced over what looked to be a two-inch-thick sheaf of printed matter, nodded, tucked it into a large envelope, and handed it across the desk to me. “There you are, Miss Jones,” he said. “Just return this, it’s all I ask.”

  “I will,” I promised and stood up to go. “And thank you.”

  I had reached the door when he said, “Miss Jones.” I stopped and turned.

  He was polishing his reading glasses with an immaculate white handkerchief but now he paused and looked at me, and although his face was stern his eyes were kind. “You are not writing a biography of Hannah Gruble.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No, sir.”

  He nodded. “I didn’t, for more than one or two moments, assume so.”

  “Then you’ve been very patient with me, sir.”

  He said dryly, “No, Miss Jones, grateful. For years I’ve lived with the mystery of Hannah Meerloo’s last will and I can now exchange that mys
tery for another: why a young woman scarcely out of her teens has suddenly begun asking the questions about Hannah’s will that were never properly answered in 1965.”

  “Questions were asked, then, in 1965?” I asked curiously.

  “A few,” he said. “But as I also mentioned, we are surrounded here, Miss Jones, by Pritchetts and Tuttles, Liptons and Gerards. The questions were only—unfortunately—tolerated.”

  “Mr. Mason,” I said impulsively, “what was she like?”

  “Hannah?” He looked at me and then his gaze moved to the corner of the room, and probably into the past as well. He said thoughtfully, “I always find it difficult to describe her, Miss Jones. I could tell you that she had dark hair, gray eyes, small regular features, nothing distinguishing about either them or her. I think in 1965 she would have been called a plain-looking woman, although fashions in beauty change, as you may be too young to realize yet. Possibly she was even a woman you would have passed by on the street without a second glance—I’ve been told that she was—but I will say this,” he added with a slight smile, “that ever since knowing her I have never ceased to give a second glance, even a third, to every plain woman I see on the street.”

  “Meaning what?” I asked, caught by something in his voice.

  “Meaning that I am an old man, Miss Jones, nearing eighty. I have met a great many people in my lifetime and what has impressed me about the majority of them is the smallness of their souls. Pinched, shrunken, undernourished. Hannah Meerloo was in fact—literally—the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”

  “Beautiful,” I whispered, nodding.

  “She had an eager, childlike quality which, Miss Jones, if I may say so, I see somewhat repeated in yourself. But there was added to it a kind of magic: if you once spoke to her you never forgot her. She never lost a sense of wonder, she made one notice things. She was a woman who loved life.”

  “Loved life,” I repeated, and then, very quietly, I said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Mason. Thank you very much.”

  “Amelia,” Joe said when I joined him in the van, “you look funny again. You have these interviews and you come out of them looking the way people do when they’ve seen a Hitchcock or a Bergman film.”

  “It’s possible,” I said. “Joe, he knew her. She was a plain woman, he said, but the most beautiful he’s ever known.”

  “That will take time to puzzle out,” Joe said. “What about facts? And what’s that enormous envelope you’re carrying?”

  “A copy of the court hearing that Robin asked for,” I told him breathlessly, “and it should prove a heck of a lot more interesting to read than Astronomy for the Layman, Joe, because they only have probate hearings when an heir protests a will. And, Joe—Mr. Mason says Hannah had just finished writing a second book, In the Land of the Golden Warriors—and he did not draw up this will for her, he was in his office that day, July 2, but never contacted, and in all the other wills the residual or whatever it is was divided between only Robin and Nora. And Joe, he’d drawn up a will for Hannah only two months before this one.”

  “We’ve hit paydirt again,” Joe said, starting up the van.

  “No,” I said suddenly, “I think we’ve just entered the maze in the heart of the castle. Joe, where are you taking us?”

  “Back to the motel to start reading,” he said, and headed the van out into traffic.

  We sat next each other on the bed in unit 18 with doughnuts and coffee on the table beside us. “Skip the preliminaries,” Joe said as I removed the pages from their envelope. “Find the important parts and read them aloud.”

  “Mmmmm,” I murmured, scanning the first page. “Well, here we go,” I said eagerly. “Robin is definitely accusing John Tuttle, boy chauffeur, of exercising undue influence on the testatrix, or Hannah.”

  “Hooray,” Joe said, pulling out a pillow and punching it. “The plot thickens.”

  “Or sickens,” I reminded him. “Robin points out that Hannah had drawn up that new will in April, carefully prepared by her attorney, Garwin Mason, but that this new will of July 2 was written without the knowledge of her lawyer, that two of its witnesses are unknown to him—this is Robin speaking—and that all previous wills made by his aunt were always discussed with him and Nora, and they were sent copies. Copies, Joe.”

  “Okay, go on.…”

  “That the contents of the July 2 will were unknown to his cousin Nora when she signed as a witness—hmmm, that’s interesting—and that this sudden inclusion of John Tuttle, his aunt’s chauffeur—even though his aunt had a very real interest in his career and had financed his college education—has deprived him and his cousin Nora of their rightful, legal, and previously stipulated legacies.”

  “The lines are drawn,” Joe said, nodding. “The operative word is now Undue Influence.”

  “Oboy, here we go,” I said, reaching page four. “Hubert Holton testifies.”

  Joe slid flat on the bed and placed the pillow across his stomach. “Every word, Amelia. Every nuance.”

  “They don’t provide nuances,” I said crossly. “In fact it’s just question and answer, with the names of the witness and lawyer at the top of the page. But here I go, it’s Mr. Gerard questioning Mr. Holton.”

  Q. Mr. Holton, would you explain, please, how you came to be staying at Mrs. Hannah Meerloo’s home during the month of July?

  A. Certainly, sir. I was on vacation, touring Maine. Passing through Anglesworth I thought I’d stop in or at least telephone Jay Tuttle to say hello. John Tuttle, that is. John was a student of mine at Union College—a brilliant student—and I’d become very interested in his future, an interest, I might add, that was obviously shared by Mrs. Meerloo, who had seen his potential when he was at the Orphanage she founded.

  Q. But you had never met Mrs. Hannah Meerloo before?

  A. No, sir. I telephoned Jay—John Tuttle, that is—from Anglesworth on July second. He suggested my coming out to Carleton for an evening of talk, he explained that he occupied the apartment over the garage and how to find him. In turn I suggested my arriving earlier than that and taking him back to Anglesworth for dinner. I arrived at his apartment about five o’clock, we had a drink or two and before leaving for dinner he wanted Mrs. Meerloo to meet me.

  “Suspicious amount of detail there,” interposed Joe. “He sounds as if he’s on trial for murder.”

  “Perhaps he thought he was,” I said dryly, and continued.

  A. After meeting Mrs. Meerloo she very kindly insisted that I have dinner there with her and Miss Harrington and Jay—John Tuttle—who apparently dined regularly with them. He was not the usual chauffeur, you see, he drove for her summers as a way of paying her back for her kindness.

  Q. So you would say that summers Mr. John Tuttle was more or less a member of the family?

  A. Well, it all seemed very informal, and they were certainly on very friendly terms.

  Q. Mrs. Meerloo then invited you to remain as a house guest?

  A. I believe it was actually Nora’s idea, sir. Miss Nora Harrington. We did have a particularly stimulating and interesting evening discussing books and politics—I teach political science—and Nora somewhat impulsively asked her aunt if I couldn’t stay the weekend. They had a tennis court, you see, and I play tennis. Nora pointed out that with Robin not there she’d have a tennis partner and also she could show me the local sights.

  Q. But you stayed longer than the weekend, Mr. Holton?

  A. Yes. I was there until—until the tragic and most regrettable accident that happened on the twenty-fifth of July.

  Q. Also at Nora’s invitation?

  A. I don’t really recall, sir. I would mention leaving, and no one would hear of it, and frankly I was enjoying their company very much. It was much pleasanter than idle sightseeing and staying alone in motels.

  Q. Mr. Holton, how would you describe John Tuttle’s relationship with Mrs. Meerloo?

  A. Oh, charming, absolutely charming. He obviously thought the world of Miss
Hannah, as he called her.

  Q. Would you describe any incident in which, in your estimation, John Tuttle might have exercised “undue influence” upon Mrs. Meerloo in changing her will to his benefit?

  A. I must remind you, sir, that I was asked to sign the will as a witness that very first evening I came to see John and stayed over for dinner. That is to say, I have carefully checked my diary on this matter of dates. I arrived in Anglesworth the night of July 1 and phoned Jay—John, that is—on the morning of the second of July, which is the same day that I met Mrs. Meerloo for the first time. But I was after this a member of the household for three weeks—as house guest—and I frankly cannot imagine on what Mr. Robert Gruble bases this alleged undue influence unless—

  Q. Unless what, Mr. Holton?

  A. Unless it was the fact that the relationship between Jay Tuttle and Mrs. Meerloo was more like that of mother and son, and some jealousy might have been involved, but that is, of course, only speculation.

  Q. Yes it is, Mr. Holton, and quite unsolicited and uncalled for. The court is interested only in facts, not speculation.

  A. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.

  “Ha,” intervened Joe, sitting up and leaning closer to look at the page. “He got that in very smoothly; neat little touch, what? Robin, the displaced son-nephew, jealous of the interloper, Charming Jay. Or John, that is, as Holton kept saying. Who testifies next?”

  “Nora,” I said, “and I don’t understand the tennis business, or the drives, if Nora was going to leave soon afterward. Move a little, Joe, you’re throwing a shadow across the page.”

  “Read on,” he said, removing himself two inches.

  “Okay, here’s Nora: Leonora Hannah Harrington of Boston, daughter of Patience Gruble, Hannah’s sister, questioned by Gerard.”

  Q. Now, Miss Harrington … A statement was made by you to the newspapers that you had arrived at your aunt’s house only a few hours before her tragic accident on July 25?