Face to Face by Ellery Queen Page B

and the Watusi warrior in Glory Guild’s den been gifts from Selma Pilter? The old woman’s wrists and fingers were loaded with jewelry of African craftsmanship.) Only a sliver of dye-shiny black hair showed under the tight turban she wore. For the rest of her, her emaciation was covered by a severe suit; her throat was mercifully hidden by a scarf; her birdlike feet perched on stilted heels. But her eyes were beautiful, black and lustrous, like Carlos Armando’s, and with a deep intelligence. The whole woman was somehow medieval. Ellery was fascinated by her; so, he noted, was Harry Burke.
    Inspector Queen came in last; he shut the door quietly and stood with his back against it. When Ellery offered his chair in pantomime—the office was two chairs shy—the Inspector shook his head. He evidently wanted to be in a position to study every face.
    â€œWe meet here today,” began Wasser, “for the reading of Glory Guild Armando’s will. Two of the interested parties cannot be present—Marta Bellina, who is on a personal appearance tour on the Coast, and Dr. Susan Merckell, who has been called out of state on a consultation.
    â€œThe will,” continued the lawyer, unlocking a desk drawer and taking out a kraft envelope sealed with wax, “or rather this copy of it, is a true copy properly witnessed and notarized.” He broke the seal and drew out a document backed with blue legal paper. “It is dated December the eighth last.”
    Ellery recognized the envelope as the one he had found in a metal box in GeeGee Guild’s loudspeaker hiding place—the envelope marked “My Will. To Be Opened by My Attorney, William Maloney Wasser.” The date of the will struck him as significant. December 8 was only seven days past the date of the blank page in Glory’s diary—the page to which he had applied his lighter and brought out the word “face.” Something had happened on December 1 that apparently was pivotal in the retired singer’s life—some event that immediately caused her to institute a search for her niece Lorette Spanier and within a week to write a new will (it was inconceivable that no previous will had existed).
    He was right, for at this moment Wasser, reading from the document, was saying, “This is my last will and testament, revoking any and all wills in existence prior to this date,” and so on. Whatever the result, the cause had been sufficiently alarming to prevent Glory Guild from spelling it out in her diary, and to drive her to the cryptic one-word reference in disappearing ink, an act which more and more took on the cast of desperation.
    But then Ellery concentrated on the legacies.
    Wasser was reading a long list of bequests to individually named charitable organizations—surprisingly picayune bequests; none exceeded $100 and most were for $25 and $50. Considering the extent of the murdered woman’s estate, this opened a whole new wing of her character. She had evidently been one of those insecure people who dispense their largess diffusively, Ellery thought, to cover as many good causes as possible with the least hurt to themselves, out of some conflict between social parsimony and a hunger for praise. Armando, hovering over Lorette Spanier’s shining head, seemed pleased.
    But the will revealed paradoxes. There was a $10,000 bequest to “my faithful secretary, Jeanne Temple.” (The faithful secretary’s glance leaped from her lap to the lawyer’s face and back again, the brief leap accomplished with surprise, delight, and—Ellery was sure of it—shame.) “My dear friend, Marta Bellina” received a like sum (paradox now, since the opera star was rich as Croesus’s wife, not only from her professional earnings but from the estates of the two rich husbands she had buried). “My physician and friend, Dr. Susan Merckell” was left $10,000 also. (Another pourboire to