Charles Ridgeway

In the short story Wireless, Charles Ridgeway is the nephew of Mary Harter. In order to inherit her money and avoid prison for financial misdeeds, he attaches a wire to her radio that allows him to speak to her pretending to be her late husband Patrick, telling her he will be coming for her shortly. He then dresses up as Patrick and scares her into suffering a fatal heart attack. Shortly afterwards, he discovers that she had been revising her will when he arrived and her death had caused her to drop the will in the fire. As no other copy exists, a previous version of the will comes into effect in which Charles inherits nothing. Worse, Mary's doctor tells him she could not have lived more than two months, meaning he need not have bothered with his elaborate stunt.