"The reason I had to see you, I understand you were your brother's only heir. He left everything to you?"
"Yes." She moved back in her chair a little. "That's how we bought this place. It's all paid for, cash, no mortgage."
"That's fine. Or it will be when it stops raining and the sun comes out. The idea is this, Mrs. Potter, since you were the sole legatee under your brother's will everything he had belongs to you. And I'm interested in something that I think he had-no, don't be alarmed, it's nothing that you've already used. Possibly you've never even heard of it. When did you last see your brother?"
"Why, six years ago. I never saw him after nineteen forty-five, when I got married and came to California." She flushed a little. "I didn't go back when he died, to the funeral, because we couldn't afford it. I would have gone if I had known he had left me all that money and bonds, but I didn't know that until afterwards."
"Did you correspond? Did you get letters from him?"
She nodded. "We always wrote once a month, sometimes oftener."
"Did he ever mention that he had written a book, a novel? Or that he was writing one?"
"Why, no." Suddenly she frowned. "Wait a minute, now maybe he did." She hesitated. "You see, Len was always thinking he was going to do something important, but I don't think he ever told anyone but me. After father and mother died I was all he had, and I was younger than him. He didn't want me to get married, and for a while he didn't write, he didn't answer my letters, but then he did, and he wrote long letters, pages and pages. Why, did he write a book?"
"Have you kept his letters?"
"Yes, I-I kept them."
"Have you still got them?"
"Yes. But I think you ought to tell me what you want."
"So do I." I folded my arms and regarded her, her round little honest face. In out of the rain, I was feeling a qualm, and this was the moment when I had to decide whether to trick her or let her in on it-a vital point, which Wolfe had left to my own judgment after meeting her. I looked at her face, with the twinkle gone from her eyes, and decided. If it came out wrong I could kick myself back to New York instead of taking a plane.
"Listen, Mrs. Potter. Will you listen carefully, please?"
"Of course I will."
