She shrugged languidly, in a way that seems to be unique to speakers of Romance languages, and replied, “Fifteen millions, my Milo, more or less, of course; the figure is now some five months old. Telephone the accountant in New York, on Monday morning; he can give you the exactness. But that does not include certain small properties Jethro acquired here and there over the years, or this farm, either, for that matter.”
“He once told me,” said Milo, “that he owns a villa near Nice.”
Martine frowned and nodded. “Yes. I have ordered it repaired. It is said to have been damaged severely in the war. There is another, presently being leased profitably, in Switzerland. There is the little house he bought in South Carolina before he went to England, a piece of undeveloped beachfront property in North Carolina, his townhouse in New York City, the estate that was his father’s on Long Island, New York, and the home his father and mother used in winter in Miami, Florida. He also inherited his elder brother’s homes, one in Connecticut and one in Cuba, the home of his uncle in Bermuda and the home of his sister somewhere in California.”
“Those are not included in the fifteen million, eh?” he said dryly. “Then, pray tell me just what is included, Martine.”
“Let us see if I can to remember.” She closed her eyes and began to tick her fingers. “There is the ranch in New Mexico and the one in Montana, of course. Various petrol wells in a number of places are owned wholly or in part. There are mines that produce copper or silver or something of those sorts—one is in Utah, one is in Nevada and one is somewhere in South America, I believe ... or is it two? I don’t recall, Milo.
“There are part ownerships in coal mines, in iron ore mines and in some other ore whose name I cannot think but who is used to make the metal called aluminium, I believe. There are part ownerships in some canneries of fish and other things, but I don’t to remember just where they are and . . . oh, yes, one of them is in Argentina, adjacent to the biggest of the ranches of cattle. There is another ranch, almost as big, of sheep, but I cannot thinkof where.
“If you will but to telephone Monsieurs MacLeish and Birnbaum, they can send you papers that will tell you all these things in greater detail.”
Milo did better than that. He packed a bag, drove to the station in Washington and took a train up to New York City, arriving in midafternoon. A taxi driver’s suggestion wound him up in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It was nice, but he found the prices of everything to be outrageous. He telephoned ahead, then took another taxicab to the offices of the Stiles estate’s accountants.
There he was treated like visiting royalty, effusively greeted by a high-grade flunky and ushered immediately into a conference room already occupied by both senior partners, Fergus MacLeish and Bruno Birnbaum, hot coffee, hot tea and an assortment of fine wines and spirits.
After the greeting and congratulatory formulae were spoken, Milo got down to cases. “Gentlemen, I want to know in detail just what are my wife’s holdings relative to the estate of her deceased first husband, Brigadier General Jethro Stiles . Understand, I had known for years that Jethro was personally quite wealthy and came of a very well-to-do family, too, but despite the fact that we were buddies, he never went into his personal financial data with me. And, of course, I never would’ve thought of asking, buddies or not—that was his business.”
“We can . . . and will give you some information, Mr. Moray.” MacLeish replied guardedly, adding, “But perhaps you also should talk with the late General Stiles’ brokers, attorneys and bankers, as well. In that way, you can be assured of having the . . . ahhh, the totality of the holdings.”
“Yes, Mr. Moray,” Birnbaum took up. “You see, our firm only deals with taxes and, therefore, only those assets that fall under the scansion of the Department of the Treasury.”
“That is,” said MacLeish, “domestic incomes, only.”
“Just how much is the total worth of the estate, gentlemen? Do you know?” asked Milo bluntly.
MacLeish looked at Birnbaum and Birnbaum looked at MacLeish, then both began to leaf through the stacks of manila folders. At length, MacLeish held a whispered consultation with Birnbaum, then closed the last folder and answered.
“In the neighborhood of twenty-one million dollars, Mr. Moray. But please understand, the figure only represents domestic holdings, and very little of the figure is fluid. Most of it is in land, buildings and equipment, cattle, sheep, horses and such, crops not yet harvested, fishing boats, machinery, that sort of thing.”
“Of course,” Birnbaum added, “if you and Mrs. Sti—ahhh, Mrs. Moray should be in need of cash just now, it might be wise to speak with the late general’s personal attorney to whom he entrusted, I am given to understand, the keys to certain safety-deposit boxes as well as the numbers to certain Swiss accounts.”
Milo got the same treatment when he mentioned his name to the receptionist of the law firm and assumed that the accountants must have telephoned ahead of him. Although it was a slightly luxurious office rather than a conference room into which a secretary ushered him and although only a single man awaited him, there still was hot coffee, hot tea and a larger selection of booze than the previous offerings.
“So you’re Milo Moray, hey?” said John Bannister, while shaking hands. “Poor Jethro often spoke and wrote about you. God bless you, you were and are the best friend he ever had. Just how and where did he die? Do you know?”
“He died in my arms, Mr. Bannister, shot in the back by a Hitler Youth sniper all of about fourteen years old, on the street of a little town in Germany, at the very tail end of the war, more’s the pity,” said Milo solemnly. “And only a few minutes before, I had been pooh-poohing his presentiments that he soon would be dead.
“And, by the way, he entrusted to me a large sealed envelope to be delivered to his attorneys on his death, but no name was given and the accountants mentioned that you are not the only law firm he retained.”
“No, they were wrong, Mr. Moray. I was Jethro’s only attorney. The other firm represented his late father and the estate, which did not come into Jethro’s sole ownership until his younger sister died in 1934. After he and I weighed and discussed the matter, it was our mutual decision to allow them to continue to manage the bulk of the estate matter, for, after all, they knew it in depth and had more than adequate personnel. At that time, my own staff was not so large, you see.
“But back to Jethro’s presentiment, yes, I saw that several times in my squadron, during the war. I was a Marine Corps fighter pilot. I believe you were an infantry officer. First lieutenant? Or am I wrong?”
Milo nodded. “I was discharged in the rank of major, Mr. Bannister, but, yes, I was an infantry officer . . . and an infantry sergeant, before that, a Regular, like Jethro.”
Bannister’s pale, thin lips twisted into a wry, lop-sided smile. “Did Jethro ever tell you exactly why he chose to virtually entomb himself in the enlisted ranks of a peacetime army, Mr. Moray?”
“No.” Milo shook his head. “Other than to say that that life was his penance for some heinous crime committed long ago, in his youth. He was very close-mouthed when he wanted to be, which was most of the time, about his inherited affairs, that is . Hell, I never even knew that he was married until well after the war had started, when he took me down to Virginia and introduced me to Martine and his kids.”
With a single, slow nod, the attorney said, “Very much against the expressed wishes of his father, his mother and his uncle, Jethro Stiles left Dartmouth and sailed to France in 1915 as a driver with an American ambulance company, but once there, he wrangled his way into a French infantry regiment. Martine’s father was initially his platoon leader and, later, his company commander; her grandfather was the commanding officer of his division. He was, I am told, quite a good combat soldier for the French, garnering a number of awards for valor. Unlike many Americans who started out fighting for the French or the British in that war, he did not transfer over to the U.S. Army when America entered the war, but remained with his regiment until the Armistice.