Free The Case of the Horrified Heirs by Erle Stanley Gardner Page A

the desk. "It's an older model?"
    "Yes. We had it in the office for years. It's an exceedingly durable make and this model is pretty well dated. When the appraiser appraised the office furniture he put a very low value on this typewriter because it was so old, and Mr. Bannock's brother told me to just keep it and forget about it."
    "Then you could prepare a carbon copy of a will and date it back three or four years and we could mix that carbon copy in with the old papers that went to Mr. Bannock's brother and if anyone should happen to be snooping around through those papers looking for a copy of Lauretta Trent's will, we could fool him into relying on that copy and perhaps get him to betray himself."
    "Would that do any good?" she asked.
    "It might do a great deal of good… I take it you'd like to help a person who was a client of Mr. Bannock's?"
    Her face lit up. "Then you mean Lauretta Trent would ask me to do this herself?"
    "No, there are certain reasons why Lauretta Trent couldn't request you to do it, but I can tell you it would be very much to her advantage."
    "You're connected with her then in some way?"
    "I am speaking for her."
    "Would it be all right for me to ask the nature of the association or of your representation?"
    He smiled and shook his head. "Under some circumstances," he said, "money talks."
    He took a wallet from his pocket and extracted a hundred-dollar bill. He paused for a moment; then extracted another hundred-dollar bill. Then, significantly, another hundred-dollar bill and kept on until there were five one-hundred-dollar bills lying on the table.
    She eyed the money thoughtfully, "We'd have to be rather careful," she said. "You know Mr. Bannock used stationery that had his name printed in the lower left-hand corner."
    "I hadn't realized that," the man said.
    "Fortunately, I have some of that stationery-Of course, we'd have to destroy the original and leave this as a carbon copy."
    "I think you could make a good job of it," he said.
    She said, "I'd have to have your assurance that it was all right, that there wasn't going to be anything fradulent connected with it."
    "Oh, certainly," he said. "It's simply to trap someone who is trying to make trouble with Mrs. Trent's relatives."
    She hesitated for a moment. "Could I have some time to think this over?"
    "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Baxter. We're working against time and if you're going to go ahead with this we'd have to do it immediately."
    "What do you mean by 'immediately'?"
    "Right now," he said, indicating the typewriter.
    "What do you want in this will?"
    He said, "You make the usual statements about the testatrix being of sound and disposing mind and memory and state that she is a widow; that she has no children; that she has two sisters who are married; that one is Dianne, the wife of Boring Briggs; that the other is Maxine who is the wife of Gordon Kelvin.
    "Then go on and state that you have recently become convinced that your relatives are actuated by selfish interests and that, therefore, you leave your sister, Dianne, a hundred thousand dollars; that you leave your sister, Maxine, one hundred thousand dollars; that you leave your brother-in-law, Boring Briggs, ten thousand dollars; that you leave your brother-in-law, Gordon Kelvin, ten thousand dollars; that you leave your faithful and devoted chauffeur, George Eagan, who has been loyal to you throughout the years, all of the rest, residue and remainder of your estate."
    Virginia Baxter said, "But I don't see what good that is going to do."
    "Then," her visitor went on firmly, "you make another will which purports to have been executed just a few weeks before the date of Mr. Bannock's death. In that will you state that you leave Maxine and Gordon Kelvin one thousand dollars apiece; that you leave Boring Briggs and his wife, Dianne, one thousand dollars apiece, being satisfied that these people are actuated purely by selfish interests and have no real affection for you, and you leave all the