Dear Old Dead(60)

“I don’t think Gregor Demarkian is half as frightening as I thought he’d be,” Victor put in.

The women ignored him. They always ignored him.

“Gregor Demarkian is definitely the one we have to worry about,” Martha said. “He insinuates himself into places. Have you noticed that? He’s everywhere.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about anyone,” Ida said. “None of us did it. None of us is in any danger of being accused of doing it. Grandfather got killed by some stray crazy who wandered up to the third floor without anyone realizing it.”

“Is that what happened to Rosalie, too?” Martha asked. “Maybe the stray crazy is hiding in somebody’s closet up there. Maybe he’s like the phantom of the opera, always waiting in the wings.”

“Oh, stop it,” Ida snapped. “Just stop it. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Victor didn’t know why he put up with either of them. He didn’t know why he put up with sitting in this chair. The conference door opened and Bartram Cole came in, carrying a sheaf of papers in one hand and a cardboard accordion file under the other arm. He bounced and bustled to the head of the table and sat down.

“Well,” Cole said. “Here we are. Pleasant news in the wake of tragedy. A deeply felt tragedy, of course, but here we are. Pleasant news nonetheless.”

“It’s pleasanter than it could have been,” Victor agreed. “You know, now that I’m thinking of it, what happens to Rosalie’s money? The money she inherits under the will, I mean?”

“Oh, Victor,” Martha said.

Bartram Cole shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. Miss van Straadt—possibly she would have said Ms. van Straadt—wasn’t a client of ours. She preferred to retain a separate firm of attorneys. Of course, we would have been more than happy to oblige her. It’s so often true that one can avoid a great deal of red tape, of duplication and expense, if all of a family’s affairs are under one legal roof, so to speak. But Miss van Straadt was adamant. She wanted her own firm.”

“It all depends on if she made a will,” Ida explained to Victor. “If she did make a will, then her money goes to whoever she willed it to. If she didn’t, then it goes to her next of kin. That would probably be her mother, if she’s still alive.”

“I think she is.” Victor sighed.

“You’ve got to wonder what’s wrong with this family,” Martha said. “People who marry into it disappear as soon as they get the chance. We must send off some kind of antiattraction signal.”

“Rosalie didn’t send out any antiattraction signal,” Ida said. “She had so many men around, you fell over them every time you ventured through her front door.”

“Maybe one of them killed her,” Martha said. “Rosalie van Straadt, cut off in her prime for being the world’s champion prick tease.”

“Did she only tease?” Ida asked the air. “Maybe that was the trouble.”

Bartram Cole cleared his throat. “Well now,” he said. “I have copies of the will for each of you. If you’ll just look these over for a moment.” He handed out long legal-size sheets of paper. Ida took one and appeared to read it. Martha took one and turned it upside down. Victor refused to touch his. It might be catching.

“Isn’t it funny,” he said. “This was supposed to be Rosalie’s big moment. Grandfather dead. The will being read. Now she isn’t even here to be upset that Grandfather died too soon.”

“Just be glad that Grandfather didn’t die too late,” Martha said. “Did you know about all this, Mr. Cole? That Grandfather was thinking of changing his will.”

“Well, yes.” Bartram Cole was nonplussed. “Your grandfather spoke to me about it just a week before he died. I’ve been worried about it. I’ve been thinking I ought to tell the police about it. Under the circumstances, you know. On the other hand, confidentiality being what it is, and the firm acting in the interests of the remaining family—”

“Oh, there’s nothing confidential about this,” Victor said. “Everybody on earth knows that Grandfather was only a day away of leaving everything to Rosalie. You wouldn’t be telling the police anything new.”

“I don’t understand,” Bartram Cole said.

“You ought to go right ahead and talk to the police about Grandfather’s changing his will,” Martha explained patiently. “It’s perfectly all right with us, because it isn’t really a secret. We knew all about it all along. And of course we told the police all about it, too. So you wouldn’t be betraying a confidence or anything like that.”