CHAPTER XIV

THE WILL OF MRS. BREESE

Mr. Charles Brennon, Havana representative of several important New York law firms, maintained his offices in the older quarters of the city. Here the streets were so exceedingly narrow that walking became an adventure and riding a miracle. Decrepit buildings rose in medieval gloom from the congested street and the crumbling rock pile that housed Mr. Brennon was distinguished by being the most decrepit of them all.

We found it with some difficulty, for both name and number had been erased by time. But a kindly café proprietor several doors away pointed out the building after we had refreshed ourselves at his bar with cocoanut milk properly iced and sweetened, a soft drink delicacy that was a favorite with Perutkin.

As we came through the ancient arch of Mr. Brennon’s building, we were accosted by a whining old man who waved a pad of blue tickets in our faces. He was one of the numerous lottery peddlers who infest the gullible city. Smith waved him aside but the Russian called him back and demanded a sheaf of tickets.

“I have a feeling,” exclaimed Perutkin, “that a great vein of luck has seized me. There is light upon this case, and light in my soul.” He pocketed the blue lottery paper. “I shall be both famous and rich. Then I shall be truly miserable!” he sighed mournfully.

Even Smith could not help laughing at the vagaries of the man. The three of us stepped gingerly into a musty elevator cage and hoped for the best. Slowly the old man in charge tugged us up the narrow shaft. On the third floor we were deposited directly in front of Mr. Brennon’s dim suite of offices. As we entered the ante-room the smell of antiquity overpowered us. From the rug that had long since lost all semblance of its rightful color and the mottled melancholy walls to the white-whiskered office boy at his dust-laden desk, the room seemed to have been transported out of a bygone age. To judge from the dimly seen pictures on the wall, the world had stopped with the Spanish-American war. Mr. Brennon, as I discovered later, was one of those Americans who had come to Cuba to fight and had been conquered by the dolorous quality of the country. So there were photographs and woodcuts of the patriots of independence, scenes of the sinking of the Maine, a wash drawing of Roosevelt at San Juan and a brown faded memento of Mr. Brennon’s own company, grouped fiercely around their commander.

Smith had insisted that we come earlier than the rest because he wanted the opportunity of an uninterrupted interview with the lawyer.

While the white-whiskered office boy went forth to announce us to Mr. Brennon, I reminded the detective that the elder Breese had been the first to mention the subject of a will when he summoned us to his suite to warn us against the actor.

“I haven’t forgotten,” said Smith.

“What would you think,” intervened the Russian, “if, when we hear the will read, we discover that Mr. Thomas inherits the entire estate?”

“I’d say it would look bad for Thomas,” Smith replied.

“And if Mr. Breese proves a false prophet? If Mr. Thomas receives nothing?”

“Then,” said Smith, “we’ll be more at sea than ever.”

“No,” said the Russian. “You will have convincing proof that Mr. Breese deliberately lied to implicate the actor, which is what I have maintained all along.”

But here the white-whiskered office boy returned with Mr. Brennon. Although it was almost unbearably hot, the old lawyer affected a high-wing collar and a rather shiny but undeniably substantial morning coat. He was well over seventy, with silver mustachios and his faded blue eyes smiled feebly at us. He met us with a quavering flow of welcome--he hailed from somewhere in Tennessee--and he seemed to take it as his own short-sightedness that we had come a half-hour too soon. Certainly the old man and his establishment were not easily reconciled with Mrs. Breese, who had been as modern as this morning’s newspaper put out upon the streets the night before.

He asked us into his private office, mustier, if possible, than his ante-room. He moved feebly but with the dignity of an old soldier. After reassuring himself that we were comfortable, he retired into the folds of his own armchair and waited for the detective to begin inquiry.

“I shall be very glad to tell you what I can,” he said, after Smith had made known his mission. “Of course, you understand I cannot divulge the contents of the will until the proper time. But I dare say you won’t press me on that. I expect to read it in half an hour. Now--” he cleared his throat, and one gnarled hand played with a yellow ivory pen-holder--“you ask me the circumstances that led Mrs. Breese to make this will. I can tell you only what I know.

“Some time ago--to be exact, shortly after that very unfortunate divorce action--” he shook his head mournfully--“an unhappy lady, Mrs. Breese. Dreadful tragedy.” He looked off and then seemed to collect his thoughts. “But, as I was saying, shortly after her divorce trial, Mrs. Breese consulted Henry O’Brien in New York. Mrs. Breese asked Mr. O’Brien to write her will. Unfortunately, just as Mr. O’Brien set to work, Mrs. Breese said she must leave for Havana. So Mr. O’Brien very kindly suggested that I attend to the will when she got here. I received a letter from him to that effect.

“I waited for Mrs. Breese to come here, but she didn’t. So I took it upon myself to call on her, and she received me, and we had a very interesting talk. I made out the will. I really had very little to do with it. I was unfamiliar with Mrs. Breese or her family, and I merely took down what she dictated and had my clerks sign as witnesses.” He paused. “I think that’s all I know, gentlemen, and I’m sure I’ll be delighted if it can be of any help to you.”

“Then we are to understand,” inquired Smith, “that Mrs. Breese was not particularly anxious to make out a will? That she only did so because you suggested it?”

“I had my instructions from Mr. O’Brien,” the lawyer explained.

Smith nodded. “That’s a very important point,” he explained. “If Mrs. Breese made out a will a week ago under someone’s influence--someone connected with her establishment--we would want to know that. It might be a very important factor.”

“As far as I know, gentlemen,” the lawyer said, “Mrs. Breese made her will under no undue influence. No one was with her when I called first, or when she signed the document here in my office in the presence of my clerks.”

The white-whiskered office boy (I later learned that he had been his employer’s bugler in the war) announced Gordon Rice’s arrival. Mr. Brennon instructed that the promoter be shown in at once.

Rice greeted us briskly. He seemed to regard the forthcoming ceremony as an event of no particular importance and he fumed at the tardiness of the others.

“Main thing I’m interested in,” he confided, “is to find out if Mrs. Breese made any special request for the funeral. It’s going to be a sad business, that. And it’s up to me to take care of it. The children aren’t up to it, and Mr. Breese is just about all in. I want to get him off to the States as fast as possible.”

The Russian looked up significantly at Smith, but the detective made no comment.

Then the aged office boy ushered the actor in. For the occasion, Mr. Thomas had donned conservative blue flannels, black shoes, a pale blue shirt, and a black four-in-hand. He wove his mourning into the ensemble. His expression was slightly defiant as he looked at us.

No one spoke after the actor entered. Mr. Brennon began turning over long sheets of paper, and examining them through his thick glasses. The Russian mopped his red face, for the room was stifling hot.

It was fully ten minutes before the elder Breese was announced. He was accompanied by the Countess and his son. Mr. Breese seemed to have recovered somewhat from his agitation. Something of his habitual hardness had returned to his expression and he was quite curt with us.

The Countess was dressed in black, and because she had been annoyed by persistent news photographers, her white, haggard face was swathed in a heavy veil. Her brown eyes seemed unnaturally large and bright.

Her brother, who followed her in, took his place carefully away from the rest of us. He, too, showed signs of the emotional shock he had undergone, and he smoked many cigarettes while we waited for the lawyer to begin. I noticed that he looked at the actor but once and then with obvious hatred.

There was a stiff restrained silence for a moment.

The old lawyer had spread the will before him. “It is my duty,” he quavered, “to read you the last will and testament of the late Dora Huntington Breese.”

He paused and brought the document closer to his thick glasses. Then he plunged into the usual formula of Mrs. Breese’s soundness of mind at the time the will was composed. The first few paragraphs disposed of several bequests to favorite servants. Five thousand dollars was given the Association for the Reform of Marriage--of which I had never heard--and sums in proportion to the Speyer Home for Animals, the Society for Psychical Research, the Juilliard Foundation and the Girl Scouts of America. Surely, a strange coupling of movements!

The lawyer read on tremulously. I took notes of the will, and I found my pencil making comments upon what I had heard. Thus I wrote: “_To my daughter, the Countess Giering-Trelovitch, I leave the income of a trust fund ... three hundred thousand dollars for life ... on condition that the said trust fund revert to the estate should she resume relationship in any way, shape, manner or form, with her divorced husband, the Count Giering-Trelovitch._”

I saw Smith look at the Russian. I know that in my note-book I wrote: “Indirect motive for the Count! Mrs. Breese hated him, and the antagonism was undoubtedly mutual!”

“_To Guy Thomas, I bequeath the income of seventy-five thousand dollars in trust as an expression of my gratitude for his loyal friendship and companionship. Should Mr. Thomas remarry, this trust fund will revert to the estate._”

The actor looked up, puzzled, and disappointed, I think. I find in my note-book: “Breese lied about the will. Score one for the Russian!” Then, as I looked at my notes of the Thomas portion of the estate my eye caught the word “remarry.” I wrote: “Investigate. Mr. Thomas is a bachelor. Did Mrs. Breese propose marrying him when she made out the will? Evidently.”

The actor’s exact status after he arrived in Havana had never been plain to me. Mrs. Breese first announced her engagement to him on board the yacht. After her son’s attempt at suicide, she had apparently recanted. Then she had changed her mind once more. And yet, if Thomas’ own story were true, she accepted without protest his plan to marry a New York chorus girl, and even proposed financing the venture.

“_To my first husband, Henry Breese, I leave no reproaches but an earnest entreaty not to subject another woman to the suffering he has caused me._”

I saw the old man wince, and the Countess turn toward him, as if to comfort him.

Henry Breese, Jr., received the residuary estate. As executor, Mrs. Breese named her “_loyal friend, Gordon Rice, and I implore my children to show him the same obedience and respect that they would give their own father were he worthy of it_.”

Another blow at the elder Breese! Seemingly the antagonism, at least, on Mrs. Breese’s side, was even more deep-rooted than I had suspected.

Then followed the strangest portion of this strange document:

“_Three days after my death, when it is established that life cannot possibly return to my body, I desire that my body be burned and cremated. The ashes are to be placed in a suitable urn and brought on board the yacht Mary Rose, no matter where it may be docked, at my death. At the hour of midnight my ashes are to be scattered into the sea. There are to be no prayers, no music and no flowers. The ceremonial is to be carried out exactly as I have instructed. I have never been free in my stay upon earth, and in the life hereafter I want nothing more than to ride the seven seas, my soul as free as the winds._”