The Westing Game

Some Solutions

Monday was a gray, rainy day. Depressing. So was the stock market, which fell another six points. Turtle was jittery. All the heirs were jittery. The bomb squad was called in several times to examine suspicious parcels. One turned out to be a sealed vacuum cleaner bag full of dust that Crow had set behind the incinerator door. Another was a box delivered to Mrs. Wexler. In it were bonbons (her favorite) and a note: Love and kisses, Jake. "What do you mean, how come? Can't I send candy to my wife without getting the third degree? I thought you were looking on the thin side, okay?" Grace made him eat the first piece. The next day Grace received a larger box. In it the bomb squad found one dozen long-stemmed roses and a note: For no reason at all, just love, Jake. The bomb squad was called again when Turtle ran after her partner through the lobby shouting "Mrs. BAUM-bach, Mrs. BAUM-bach!" Someone thought she had shouted "Bomb! Bomb!" A hollow wind wailed through damp Tuesday. In the morning the stock market rose three points. "Bullish," said Flora Baumbach. In the afternoon the market dropped five points. "Bearish," said Flora Baumbach. Those were the only two trading terms she had learned. Madame Hoo, a quicker student than the dressmaker, had learned more words: partner, money, house, tree, road, pots, pans, okay, football, good, rain, spareribs. Her teacher, Jake Wexler, visited her in the kitchen before he sat down to his daily lunch in the Chinese restaurant. Today his wife and Jimmy Hoo agreed to eat with their only customer on the promise that he would help them with their clues and not take a share of the inheritance if they won. Grace laid their five words on the table. "These are clues?" Jake looked down on purple waves for fruited sea. He switched two squares of Westing Superstrength Towels. "Purple fruited makes more sense. How about grapes or plums?" Grace was about to insist on purple waves, but plums reminded her of something. "Plum," she said aloud. "Plum. Wasn't the lawyer's name Plum?" "You're right, Grace," Mr. Hoo said excitedly. "You're absolutely right." He tore one of the clues in two: fruit/ed. "Ed Purple-fruit. Ed Plum!" "We got it, we got it," Grace cried, leaping up to embrace her partner. "I never did trust lawyers," Mr. Hoo shouted gleefully. "What about the other clues: for sea waves?" Jake asked, but the happy, hugging and dancing, celebrating pair did not hear him. "Boom!" said Madame Hoo, placing a plate of spareribs on the table. That word she had learned from Otis Amber. Sandy was proud of the notebook he bought, with its glossy cover photograph of a bald eagle in flight (sort of appropriate, he explained to the judge; fits in with Uncle Sam and all that). In it he painstakingly entered the information culled from reports the private detective delivered each day to Judge Ford's office: photostats of birth certificates, death notices, marriage licenses, drivers' licenses, vehicular accident reports, criminal records, hospital records, school records. To these the doorman added the results of his own snooping. "My investigator is having a difficult time getting into the not-so-public records of Westingtown," the judge said. "We'll have to put the Westings aside and begin with the heirs." "Since we're feasting on chicken with water chestnuts," Sandy said, "I'll start off with the Hoos." (Doug had delivered down.) He read aloud from his entry:

♦ HOO JAMES SHIN HOO. Born: James Hoo in Chicago. Age: 50. Added Shin to his name when he went into the restaurant business because it sounded more Chinese. First wife died of cancer five years ago. Married again last year. Has one son: Douglas. SUN LIN HOO. Age: 28. Born in China. Immigrated from Hong Kong two years ago. Gossip: James Hoo married her for her 100- year-old sauce. DOUGLAS HOO (called Doug). Age: 18. High-school track star. Is competing in Saturday's track meet against college milers. Westing connection: Hoo sued Sam Westing over the invention of the disposable paper diaper. Case never came to court (Westing disappeared). Settled with the company last year for $25,000. Thinks he was cheated. Latest invention: paper innersoles. "I can take some credit for those paper innersoles," Sandy bragged. "My feet were killing me, standing at the door all day, so I said to Jimmy: 'Jimmy, if only somebody would invent a good innersole that didn't take up so much room like those foam-rubber things.' And sure enough, he did it. They're great, I got a pair in my shoes now, wanna see?" "No, thank you." The judge was eating. It was past midnight when Theo finished his homework in the dim light of the study lamp. The wind was still howling, and something (a word? a phrase?) was still eluding him. He had been studying solutions in chemistry. Solutions—that was it! The solution is simple, the will said. He was sure of it. By changing for and thee to the numbers four and three, Theo was able to arrange the clues into a formula (whether or not it was a chemical solution, let alone the Westing solution, was another matter). N H(IS) FOR NO THEE (TO) = NH4NO3 But four clue letters were left out: isto, osit, itso, otis. OTIS! He had it: a formula for an explosive, and the name of the murderer! He had to tell Doug. "Where g-g-gogin?" "Shhh!" Theo smoothed the blanket over his sleepy brother in the next bed, struggled into his bathrobe and stumbled over the wheelchair as he tiptoed out of the room. The elevator made too much noise, use the stairs. The cement was cold, he had forgotten his slippers. Two unmarked doors, which one? Tap, tap. Tap. A grunting voice, dragging footsteps. Please, let it be Doug, not Mr. Hoo or Judge Ford. It was Crow. Clutching a robe about her gaunt frame, her unknotted hair hanging long and limp, she tried to focus her dulled eyes on the shocked face of her visitor. "Theo! Theo! The wind, I heard the wind. I knew you would come." "Me?" Grasping his hand she pulled him into the maid's apartment between 4C and 4D and shut the door. "We are sinners, yet shall we be saved. Let us pray for deliverance, then you must go to your angel, take her away." Theo found himself kneeling on the bare floor next to the praying Crow. He must be dreaming. "Amen."