The Golden Goose by Ellery Queen Page B

“that you were the late Slater O’Shea’s attorney, Mr. Fish.”
    â€œWho told you that, Lieutenant?” asked the lawyer, cautiously.
    â€œMiss Lallie O’Shea.”
    â€œI see. Well, yes, I was old Slater’s lawyer. Quite a shock, his dying so suddenly.”
    â€œHe’s dead, there’s no question about that.”
    â€œWhy are you interested, Lieutenant? Did Slater break a law before he died? If so, you’re a bit late.”
    â€œHe didn’t break any law. Not that I know of.”
    â€œWell, I’ll venture that he broke quite a few you don’t know of. He wasn’t greatly inhibited by scruples, the old rascal. Just ran down a bit in his later years.”
    â€œHe was a wealthy man, I understand.”
    â€œTo you and me, yes. Wealth is relative, isn’t it? Inherited it from the widow he married. Quite the lady’s man in his day. I suspect Slater made a good thing out of more than one gullible female.”
    â€œYou drew up his will?”
    â€œThat’s right. It’s in my safe there.”
    â€œFunny sort of will, I understand.”
    Fish said quickly, “Why do you say that? Who told you about it?”
    â€œThe family. They all seem to think it was a dirty trick for him to split his estate up among so many heirs.”
    â€œOh, that.” Selwyn Fish laughed, and he sounded like Basil Rathbone doing the Witch in Hansel and Gretel . “That was no will. It was a fraud.”
    â€œWhat!” said Grundy.
    â€œO’Shea had a fine time over it. A joke on his free-loading family, he called it. He had me draw it up, but he never signed it. It has no legal standing at all.”
    â€œThe hell you say.”
    â€œWhatever else he may have been, old Slater was nobody’s fool. He didn’t want his money scattered among a lot of relatives he didn’t give a damn for and who certainly didn’t give a damn for him.”
    Grundy was thinking acidly, This complicates an already complicated mess. “I take it O’Shea left another will? A secret one that’s legal? Who inherits, Fish?”
    â€œWell, now,” demurred the Little Giant, making a steeple out of his conical fingers, “I don’t know that I can tell you that, Lieutenant. As a matter of ethical practice.” Grundy suppressed a snort. “I’d have to have the family’s consent.”
    â€œCounselor, this is a police inquiry.”
    â€œWhy should the police be interested?” asked Fish innocently. “Is there something suspicious about Slater O’Shea’s death?”
    Grundy briefly considered coming clean, then decided against it.
    â€œIt’s just something that’s come up,” he said. “Let’s not get technical, Counselor. I’ll know shortly, anyhow. How about it?”
    â€œWell … I always do prefer to cooperate with the police … All right, Lieutenant. The truth is that Slater O’Shea left his entire estate to his next of kin, his sister.”
    â€œThe one they call Aunt Lallie?”
    â€œThat’s right. Lallie O’Shea.”
    â€œDoes she know this yet?”
    â€œNo, indeed. I follow the custom in such matters. I shall read the will to the family after the testator is properly interred.”
    â€œAny chance that O’Shea might have told his sister about this beforehand?”
    â€œSlater? No, no. That would have given away the show—the fake will. I’m quite certain not a soul knows about the real will except myself. And now you, of course.”
    Grundy rose abruptly. “Thanks, Counselor.”
    Fish waved pooh-poohingly. “Happy to be of assistance. In any way short of betraying a client’s interests, Lieutenant. Everyone knows Selwyn Fish’s reputation.”
    â€œAnd that,” said Grundy, “is a fact.”
    Walking back, he went over the ground in the light of Fish’s information. That the