by Jerry eBooks
“Scram,” White Pants said. “No agents allowed.”
Bill Boone’s lips twitched involuntarily. He was filled with a large yen to wrap the tennis bat around its owner’s neck. He tried not to show it, of course.
“Mr. Depew?” he asked levelly. “Huh?”
“Forrest Depew,” Bill Boone said. “Isn’t this where he lives?”
“No.” White Pants retorted curtly, contemptuously.
Bill Boone mumbled something, jerking his shoulders around, digging into the glove compartment for the note-sized letter there. It was addressed to Mr. William Boone at his Los Angeles office address, and its one scrawled sentence read:
Could you call on me Thursday, the 15th, relative to a bond matter?
F. Depew.
The engraved letterhead script said:
FORREST DEPEW
The Knoll Soledad Calif.
Bill Boone swung around with the letter in his fist.
“Look here,” he demanded. “Isn’t this the Knoll?”
A girl was coming from the far side of the tennis net. A sun-tanned, slim-legged blond girl in the scantiest of shorts-and-halter attire. Boone instantly wondered how White Pants managed to keep his eye on the ball.
“You must be Mr. Boone,” she said, and tossed a breeze-blown nod toward the glowering youth. “It’s okay, Pem. He has an appointment.”
Her grin became elfish as she approached Boone.
“It’s the Knoll, all right, but this is only the gardener’s cottage. You want to drive on back to the big house.”
“Oh-h,” Boone said.
“I’ll catch a ride and show you the way,” the blonde volunteered.
White Pants made an unhappy sound to Bill Boone’s delight. White Pants, it seemed, was very willing to drive the girl to the big house himself.
“No, Pem,” she interrupted, “save your rubber. We can’t be wasting tires nowadays.”
She flipped her racquet into the roadster seat, and followed it almost as lightly herself—a bare-limbed, golden-tressed daughter of the sun.
“I’m Helen Crane—Mr. Depew’s niece,” she volunteered.
Helen Crane studied Boone’s profile as he got the roadster under way.
“Well, you’re not a bit what I expected,” she announced frankly.
Bill Boone felt jarred. He took no especial pride in his profile as such, for he had little to be proud of, in fact. His face was useful rather than ornamental—useful for scaring people, among other things. His face had been around, and showed it. It had been punched around on a few occasions, and it showed that, too.
But for his work—a private detective’s work—his profile had always served okay. It was not sufficiently scarred and soured to inspire distrust among his clients; but it was not so smooth and soft as to suggest incompetence, either.
Bill Boone narrowly missed crashing into a cypress.
“Yeah?” he said. “What’d you expect?”
“Well,” Helen Crane said, “brokers usually have more chins and less jaw.”
Boone had been called many thing’s; never a broker, though. He laughed, and made the laugh sound admiring.
“Now, how’d you figure out that’s what I was?” he asked.
“Easy. Nobody ever comes to see Uncle Forrest except brokers and doctors, and you couldn’t be a doctor.”
The winding, tree-shaded driveway widened into a vista of lawn and shrubbery. Boone suppressed a whistle as the big house loomed into view. Its porticoed front had more white columns than a Greek temple. There was enough statuary sprinkled around the grounds to equip a modest museum. Indeed, the big house looked much as if it had been copied from a museum. Boone hastily revised his estimate.
“Half a million if it cost a cent,” he thought.
He parked in front of steps wide enough for a dozen Goerings abreast.
“Come on, I’ll take you to Uncle Forrest,” said Helen Crane. She waved in aside a man-servant at the twin doors. “Just follow me. I’ve explored all through here, blazing trails with a hatchet.”
She led Boone along the main hallway, up a corkscrew stairs, to a mezzanine hall above. She stopped, opened a door an inch, and nodded.
“I’ve got to run and change,” she told Boone and then said into the doorway: “Uncle, Mr. Boone is here.”
Boone stepped inside.
It was a large room with large windows looking out over the cypresses toward the gray flanks of ash-bare California mountains. In front of the windows a red-haired nurse was busy arranging medicinal-appearing bottles on a rubber-tired tray. If she had not been a nurse, she could have done all right in a chorus line. She had that kind of face and figure.
Boone removed his eyes from the redhaired nurse upon hearing a dry, papery chuckle from the corner of the room.
“You’re late, Boone,” the papery, oldman’s voice said. “You missed it. Ty Cobb just hit a three-bagger.”
Bill Boone opened startled gray eyes. The corner of the room contained a baldheaded, blanket-bundled ancient in a Wheel-chair. The wheel-chair was drawn up to a wooden deal table.
The occupant of the wheel-chair waved a jack-knife at Boone.
“Tris Speaker is at bat now,” he said. “Maybe Diz Dean will strike him out, though.”
The red-haired nurse had been studying Bill Boone’s six-foot physique. She came toward him, a professional smile on her full, crimson lips. But there was nothing professional about the impact of her eyes meeting Boone’s. Her eyes were sense-stirring and agleam with interest.
“Mr. Depew is playing baseball mumblety-peg,” she said. “He has Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker and Honus Wagner on one team, and Nap Lajoie and Babe Ruth and Dean on the other.” She used the soft, smooth, patient tone a person uses when speaking of a child’s unreasonable pranks. “It’s all very real to him,” she added.
Forrest Depew sighed. “I don’t know.” He cradled his long, thin jaw in a skinny palm. His fingers drummed against a sunken cheek. “I don’t know about Speaker,” he worried. “Tris has been in a slump lately. Might be the spot for a pinch-hitter.”
His eyes came up, suddenly, to fix on Boone’s face. His eyes were bright, beady, and wary. He stared at Boone with the concentration of a victim trying to identify a suspect in a police lineup.
“Here,” Forrest Depew said. “You bat for Speaker.”
Boone’s face wore a what-do-I-care expression. The red-haired nurse flicked him a delicate wink.
“Humor him,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can get a hit off Diz Dean or not,” Bill Boone said.
The old man’s fingers were coldly shaky, pressing the jack-knife into Bill Boone’s hand. There was something else. Boone felt the springy elasticity of a folded paper under the knife.
“You understand?” Forrest Depew asked. He had a hundred and ten volts in his voice. “You know what to do?”
“Yeah,” Bill Boone said, “I’m an old hand at the game.”
He transferred the knife to his other hand—flipped it. The knife came down quivering on its toad-stabber blade point in the middle of the scarred table-top.
“Homer!” the man ‘in the wheel-chair half shrieked. “What’d I tell you, Miss Radnew? It was the spot, wasn’t it?”
He fumbled feverishly among papers at the corner of the table. A metal pencil fell off, fell at his blanket-bundled feet.
“Mr. Depew is the official scorer,” the redhaired Miss Radnew said. “He keeps track of the scores and the team percentages and the batting averages—everything.”
Miss Radnew’s downward glide after the pencil strained her white garb into enticing revelations, but they were lost on Bill Boone. He shot a glance at the scrap of paper in his palm.
It said:
I don’t trust her. Later. Say nothing now.
The knife spun through the air and fell noisily on its side.
“Struck out,” Forrest Depew announced. “End of the game.” He clutched the wheels of his chair and pulled back from the
table. “All right, Boone, now we’ll talk business. Miss Radnew, run down and tell Charles to give you the Amalgamated Gas portfolio.”
Miss Radnew exited, and Forrest Depew waited for the door to close.
“All right, Boone,” he repeated. “I couldn’t tell you anything in a letter. ‘They open my mail, coming and going. Besides, I didn’t want to tell you anything—until I had a look at you.”
Boone eyed the old man intently. “Who opens your mail?” he asked. “All of ’em. My relatives. They’re all against me.” He cackled dryly. “You think I’m crazy, Boone?”
“My clients are never crazy,” Bill Boone replied with equal dryness. “If you’re my client, I’m on your side. Of course, you’re not a client yet.” He rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers.
“I’ll write you a check,” Forrest Depew promised.
“Will it be any good?” Boone asked.
The old man stared at him unwinkingly. “That’s up to you,” he said. “If you do your job right, you won’t have any trouble cashing my check. If you fail, you’ll probably be out of luck. I understand that legally a lunatic’s signature isn’t worth a hoot, so the bank wouldn’t honor my draft.”
Bill Boone thought briefly. “Your relatives are trying to prove that you’re nuts,” he said. “You want me to stop them. Is that it?”
“Yes,” Forrest Depew said. “They’re plotting to have me declared mentally incompetent. They want to get control of my money. Want to break my new will, too.”
“What kind of a will?”
“I’m putting most of my fortune into a trust fund,” Forrest Depew said. “It’s a kind of Foundation. It’d be used to educate the children of the Navy men who were murdered at Pearl Harbor.”
Bill Boone’s jaw sagged. He peered through wrinkle-knit eyes at the shrunken figure in the wheel-chair. Hitting him out of the blue, it took a moment to digest this.
“Why, man,” he said, “now I know you’re not crazy.” He swallowed. “That’s one of the finest things I ever heard in my life.”
He was genuinely moved—a rare thing in a hard-boiled private “op’s” life. “My relatives don’t agree.” The old man grunted. “They think I’m insane to let all that wealth get out of the family clutches. The scheme is to go in front of a judge and have me declared incompetent. They’ve been bribing the servants; collecting a lot of lying affidavits. Fred Crane has the local political machine under his thumb, so the sanity hearing would be a farce, anyhow.”
Boone’s gray eyes became alert. “Who’s Fred Crane?” he asked.
“My brother-in-law. My wife’s brother.”
“Your wife is alive?”
“Dead. Years ago.” Forrest Depew sighed. “I wouldn’t be in this jam if she’d lived.”
Boone tried to hurry matters along before the red-head nurse returned.
“Who are the other relatives?”
“Just the kids—Fred Crane’s two kids, Steve and Helen. Watch out for Steve. He looks soft and fat, but don’t ever let him get behind you on a dark night.” The old man’s hands toyed with the mumblety-peg knife in his lap. “Helen doesn’t count. She’s just an empty-headed schoolgirl.”
“She’s growing up to be quite a girl, though,” mused Boone. “Okay, that’s the family. Now, who’s this Charley you speak of?”
“Charley Howland. My secretary. I think he’s sold out to them.”
Bill Boone nodded. “And what about those bonds—the Amalgamated Gas ones?”
“Merely a blind.” The old man shrugged. “You’re supposed to be an investment counselor. In other words, an expert on bonds. You’re here to give me some financial advice, and that’s your excuse for snooping around for the next few days.”
He broke off as the door opened.
The red-haired Miss Radnew smiled at them.
“Time for your nap, Mr. Depew,” she said, as to a child. “Mr. Boone, you can do down to the library and examine the portfolio.”
“I told you to bring it up here!” Forrest Depew protested.
She smiled superiorly. “Now, don’t get excited. Remember the doctor’s orders. Mr. Howland can tell Mr. Boone all he needs to know about those bonds. Run along to the library, Mr. Boone.”
“Where in this mausoleum,” asked Bill Boone, “is that . . .?”
“It’s the room under us,” replied the nurse. “You turn right at the foot of the stairs. The end door.”
She started wheeling her patient toward the inner bedroom, ignoring Depew’s protest that he was not a bit sleepy.
CHAPTER II
DEATH ON WHEELS
It was a family conclave downstairs, Bill Boone realized as he entered the library. He received his welcome in the form of a flabby handshake administered by a lank, eye-glassed man who murmured:
“I’m Charley Howland.”
Charley Howland reminded Boone of a fugitive from a coffin. The arm he waved about the book-lined room was practically a skeleton’s.
“Mr. Frederick Crane—Mr. Stephen Crane,” introduced the secretary.
Both Cranes eyed Boone’s athletic figure as if he were a parachutist who had dropped out of the skies clad in the wrong uniform.
Fred Crane was a ruddy, overweight oldster with a smile he had probably practiced in front of a mirror. Steve Crane was a ruddy, overweight youth without any smile at all.
Bill Boone took an instant and fervent dislike to all three men.
“The portfolio, sir,” Charley Howland was enunciating delicately.
He extended a manila folder. Boone flipped it open and found several sheets of typewritten paper. The typed columns supplied a listing of Amalgamated Gas 5s, 1947s and 1955s.
“Very neat,” Boone said. “But where are the bonds?”
The secretary looked surprised. “Why, in the vault, of course.”
“Okay, get ’em.”
Howland wrinkled a disapproving eyebrow. “You’re sure that’s necessary?”
“I’m an investment counselor, not a fortune teller,” Bill Boone said. “I’m not going to appraise these bonds without even seeing them.”
Charley Howland swallowed. “I assure you, they’re quite in order. Mr. Depew and I checked them over together, only Monday.”
“Bonds can be forged,” Boone said flatly. “I’ll look at them.”
“Yes, sir. No trouble at all. I’ll just step into the study.”
The secretary effaced himself through a door at the library’s upper end, with the silent efficiency of a well-trained ghost.
Boone grinned inwardly. He knew that he was as welcome in this house as an American bomber over Tokyo. If he was going to stay several days, he had to get—and keep—the upper hand.
His gray eyes turned a deliberately insolent glance toward the two Cranes.
“You fellows waiting to see me?” he asked loftily.
“We thought a conference would be in order,” responded the elder, Fred Crane, in cold tones.
“Why?”
“Well, the purpose of your visit is to—ah—advise Forrest Depew with respect to—ah, er—selling some of these bonds.”
“Yeah?”
“Surely you—er—appreciate the difficulties in the way of his transacting business?” Fred Crane rumbled.
“What difficulties?” inquired Bill Boone innocently.
“You saw him, didn’t you?” the younger man, Steve Crane, blurted. “Playing mumblety-peg with Ty Cobb and Dizzy Dean!”
Bill Boone shrugged wide, muscled shoulders.
“So what?”
The Cranes stared at him.
“Why—ah—his mental and physical condition precludes his engaging in active business,” Fred Crane mumbled.
“Rats!” erupted Steve Crane, hotly impatient. “He’s nuts! He’s cuckoo! And get this straight, Boone! We’re not going to let that crazy old fool play mumblety-peg with the family fortune!”
Charley Howland reentered from the study door, bearing a green metal box
in his skeletal hands.
“Here we are,” he announced.
But as he spoke, a knock jarred against the main hallway door. It was repeated, more lightly.
“Pardon me,” murmured the secretary, crossing the room and opening the door.
He sprang back with a horrified outcry. “Mr. Depew! What have you done to yourself?”
“He didn’t cut himself shaving!” exploded Bill Boone, springing forward and brushing the lank secretary aside.
Forrest Depew’s figure sat silently in its wheel-chair, head bowed down. The old man seemed to be staring glassily at the mumbletypeg knife. He didn’t really see it, of course. Its handle stuck straight out from his reddened shirt front, the toad-stabber blade plunged deep in the home-run position—and its home plate was his heart.
Somebody wearing noisy heels was running a race up the stairs above Bill Boone’s head.
Boone leaped past the blanket-wrapped victim in the wheel-chair, dashed twenty paces along the big hallway, and whirled about to pound up the stairs in pursuit of the noisy heels. Or rather, in pursuit of the recent sound of the heels. For all was quiet overhead now.
He shot a look up and down the upper hallway, and picked out the room he had already visited as his best bet.
Miss Radnew was in the same position in which he had first seen her, monkeying around with the medicinal bottles on the rubber-tired tray. She was unchanged, except for the flaming color in her cheeks.
“Forget something?” she asked, intently stirring a spoon inside a glassful of milky liquid.
Boone stared at the tall tumbler in her hand.
“What the devil’s that?” he demanded. “Why, Mr. Depew’s sleeping potion.”
“You don’t think he’s going to drink that now, do you?” inquired Boone.
“Why not?” she pretended.
Boone laughed without mirth. “You were downstairs and saw for yourself, didn’t you?”
The spoon continued its rhythmical clinking inside the tumbler.
“Downstairs?” the red-haired nurse A parroted. “Why, no. I wheeled Mr. Depew into his bedroom after you left, but he insisted he wasn’t sleepy enough to take his nap. So I came back here and mixed up this draught. That’s all I’ve done.”