TYCOONS: The Hughes Will: Is It for Real?

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It also may be a bad potato. The handwriting bore a resemblance to Hughes'. But other features of the will seemed highly suspect. Hughes was a nitpicking perfectionist who spelled out everything in exhaustive detail. Yet the purported will contained vague statements (sample: "the remainder [of the estate] is to be divided among the key men in my company's [sic]." Furthermore, Hughes almost never made spelling errors. Yet the 260-word testament is studded with eleven misspellings, including "cildren" for children and "re-volk" for revoke.

Even more dubious were some of the main features of the will. Melvin Dummar said in interviews that he gave Hughes a lift near Las Vegas in 1968. "I spotted this skinny old man—about 60—alongside the dirt road," he said. "His face was cut up and bleeding. I thought he was a wino. I asked him how he got hurt, but he never replied. When we got to the [Sands] hotel, he asked me to drive him around the back and asked me for some money. I had quite a bit, but I figured he was a bum so I gave him a quarter." After learning that his two-bit handout might bring him a 600 millionfold return, Dummar suffered a nervous collapse and at week's end was heavily sedated under a doctor's care.

Bitter Falling. Even more implausible was the person named as executor of the will—Noah Dietrich, 87, Hughes' longtime lieutenant. The two had a bitter falling out in 1956 and never reconciled. Dietrich said last week, "I have no question that it's his [Hughes'] handwriting and his signature."

In addition, lawyers who worked for Hughes found it inconceivable that he would have relied on a handwritten last testament. He had a deep fear that his handwriting could be forged and even tried to keep his signature secret.

Lawyers and professional investigators continued to press a nationwide search for an authentic will. The best clues so far: a key to a safe-deposit box found among Hughes' belongings in his old Romaine Street office in Hollywood and a 1938 registered letter to the First National Bank in Houston saying he was enclosing a will. Neither discovery has produced results. America's—perhaps the world's—foremost mystery man in life, Howard Hughes may have created his biggest mystery in death.