Conduct in Question

Chapter 20

What has happened to the Deighton will? 

 Several days later, Harry returned home from hospital. Although painkillers kept the thousands of knives from thrusting between his ribs, they coated his mind in a soft fuzz. Idly, he drifted through the morning, without much thought of anything. The telephone rang.

“Hello?” he muttered.

Miss Giveny’s voice was a high-pitched wail. “Oh, Mr. Jenkins! Something terrible has happened. I knew only trouble would come from it.”

Harry was awake. “What on earth are you talking about? What’s happened?” Only a cataclysmic event could drive his taciturn secretary to such a frantic pitch. “Miss Giveny, tell me what it is.” Harry spoke with as much authority as he was able to muster.

“Mr. Jenkins, the will is gone.” The choking sound continued. “I’ve looked everywhere.” Only loud sniffles could be heard. He hoped she was trying to pull herself together.

“What will? Surely not Marjorie’s?”

An ominous silence followed. “Yes,” said Miss Giveny in a hushed voice. “Marjorie Deighton’s original will is gone.”

Harry sat up. Pain ground into his side so violently that he gasped for breath. At last he said, “But we got it from the vault the day we went to see her. You made two copies, and we took them with us. You must have put it back, because you made more copies after she died.”

But maybe it hadn’t been returned to the vault, he thought. Likely it had been on his desk or hers. Over the next few minutes, Harry ran through a list of places to look. Each suggestion was met with the adamant reply, “It’s not there!”

Things went missing. Invariably they were found later, misfiled or stored in some bizarre place for safekeeping.

Then he remembered. The night the office was ransacked, he had gone directly through the gloomy twilight of the foyer into the bright lights of his office. But only a dim light had been on in the outer office, where the vault had stood slightly ajar. Mesmerized by the knife stabbed into the Chin offers and the petals, he had forgotten the vault. The utter chaos of his own office had completely distracted him.

“I’ll be there right away.”

Harry called a cab and struggled into some clothes. Popping three painkillers into his mouth, he hunted down a glass of water in the bathroom.

Forty-five minutes later, he entered the office to see Miss Giveny with red-rimmed eyes and a Kleenex bunched at her lips.

“Oh, Mr. Jenkins.” She was alarmed at his pallor. “I shouldn’t have gotten you out of bed.”

Harry walked gingerly to the vault. From the Rolodex, he confirmed the number of the will, and then methodically went through each of the twenty-five wills stored in the particular box. Yes, the envelope numbered 2625 was there, but empty. The office rule was to keep the envelope with the will at all times, so someone had taken it. Dizziness forced him into a nearby chair.

“Call the police at 55 Division. I want to speak to Sergeant Welkom.”

Only Suzannah would benefit from the theft of Marjorie’s will. In the previous one, Suzannah got the house outright at age thirty. In the missing one, she had to share it with her brother and sister. Frank’s ugly, leering face rose up in Harry’s mind. He cursed. Frank would stop at nothing.

“I’ve got the sergeant on the line,” Miss Giveny called out.

“Sergeant, Harry Jenkins here. There is something missing, after all.”