A Most Immoral Murder

by Harriette Ashbrook

  “Let me have a look at it,” he said.

  Fairleigh continued to fold. “But really there’s nothing to see. As I explained, it is a very simple will, and I’ve given you a complete if somewhat informal paraphrase of the whole thing.” He thrust the will back into his brief case and started to adjust the buckles. The district attorney bridled.

  “Just the same, Mr. Fairleigh,” he said, “I think I would like to see it for myself.”

  Fairleigh seemed to hesitate. Then he handed it over. For several moments there was silence in the library as the district attorney with the inspector looking over his shoulder read the document. When he had finished it, he laid it out on the table, smoothing the creases carefully.

  “There’s just one thing you didn’t mention,” he said to Fairleigh. “This paragraph here.” His finger indicated the line and he read it aloud. “ ‘And on my friend and adviser, John Fairleigh, I lay the heavy burden of the guidance of my granddaughter, Linda Crossley. Guidance not only in her financial and legal affairs, but in her personal life. To him I bequeath the onerous task of saving her, if possible, from the consequences of her own indiscretions, and to him also I bequeath $50,000 in recognition of his steadfast refusal to betray the trust which I have had in him.’ ”

  The district attorney paused. When he spoke again his voice was icy with sarcasm. “Do you consider $50,000 a ‘small bequest’ Mr. Fairleigh?”

  “Small in proportion to the balance.”

  “It seems to me that this paragraph that I have just read indicates a much greater degree of intimacy with Crossley and with his granddaughter than you have led us to believe.”

  Fairleigh nodded. “Yes, it does look that way.”

  “Just what does it mean, then? Have you been deliberately mis-stating the—”

  “No,” Fairleigh interrupted sharply, “I have misstated nothing.”

  “Then what does this mean?” The district attorney persisted, “…in recognition of his steadfast refusal to betray the trust which I have had in him.’ ”

  “I have managed Mr. Crossley’s business interest for the last fifteen years, as I told you. I have held a power of attorney. I have never misused that power.”

  But the district attorney was not satisfied. He pointed again to the paragraph in question “ ‘…the onerous task of saving her if possible from the consequences of her own indiscretion.’ What does that mean?”

  The hard blue eyes of Fairleigh met the direct gaze of the district attorney.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he replied quietly.

  CHAPTER VIII - 50,000,000,000 M = 2c

  IN THE HALL outside the library Patrolman Finney did his best to be entertaining, but in this he was not altogether successful. Two of the three visitors— the tall thin one and the tall fat one—sat stiffly in their chairs ranged against the wall and looked very solemn and bored.

  But the short round one, the one with the slight German accent and the elegant, dandyish haberdashery, and the blue eyes that crinkled up at the corners, wasn’t at all solemn. He actually chuckled when Finney related the story of the versatile gentleman of British Guiana in the year 1856. The other two frowned at this unsuitable levity, but the short round one seemed not to notice their disapproval.

  “Thirty-two thousand, five hundred dollars,” he repeated at the conclusion of Finney’s story. “But, my friend, that is nothing, nothing.” His fat little hands with dimples where there should have been knuckles brushed aside the $32,500 as one would brush aside a fly. Then his airy manner changed suddenly.

  “You want to see something?” he asked in a low, conspiratorial tone.

  Finney nodded. Cautiously the short round man looked up and down the hall to make sure that there were no spies lurking in the shadows of stair and wall. He cocked his ear as if listening for the approach of stealthy footsteps. Then he reached inside his coat and slowly drew forth a wallet and extracted therefrom a tiny bit of paper.

  “There! Look!” he half whispered.

  Finney looked. His eyes popped. He stared at the little round man. His glance jerked apprehensively to the two on the other side of the hall. Then he looked again at the tiny bit of paper.

  “Holy Mother o’ Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” He bent forward and examined it more closely. Blue against white. “Deutsches Reich.” Simple circular design. But it was the overprint in a deeper blue that held his gaze. “50,000,000,000 M.”

  “Fifty billion marks!” he repeated in awe. “How much is that in American money?”

  “Well, if you use the pre-war valuation of the mark at 23.8 cents it amounts to $11,900,000,000.”

  “Holy Mother!” The sheer magnitude of the sum reduced even blasphemy to its simplest terms.

  “But aren’t you afraid to carry it around with you, just loose like that?”

  The little round man struck a brave attitude.

  “No,” he said, “I’m not afraid. In fact—” He paused, peering into the depths of his wallet. “In fact I carry three or four of them with me usually—as souvenirs—for my friends. Permit me.”

  With a ceremonious bow he presented his open palm. On it reposed four of the little blue bits of paper with the deeper blue overprinting. He selected one, pressed it upon the patrolman. “With my compliments, my friend, I beg of you.” The crinkles around the blue eyes deepened.

  Finney grinned uncertainly. “Say, what the hell?”

  The little round man laughed aloud this time, the merry laugh of one who is enjoying his gentle joke. Then he explained. “You see, my friend, in Germany after the war, they had inflation, very dreadful inflation. First the value of the stamps was doubled, then trebled, then on up, up, up into the millions, the billions. This one here was the highest they issued. A monstrosity! A curiosity! You can buy all you want of them these days at my shop for two cents each.”

  “Well, I’ll be—” Finney laughed at the memory of his recent awe before a mere two-cents’ worth. “Say, listen here, who are you and these two birds over there? The D. A. told me he was expectin’ three men and to let ’em in and keep ’em here until he called for ’em, but he didn’t tell me the names.”

  The little round man performed the introductions. The tall thin one was Homer Watson, a private collector, and the tall fat one was Jason Fream of the Acme Stamp Company, and he himself was Kurt Koenig.

  “Well, is my face red?” Finney inquired rhetorically. “Here I’m tellin’ you all about your own business, and you the guys that the D. A. is havin’ in to give the lowdown on Crossley’s stamps.”

  “Not quite all,” Koenig corrected. “There are, you know, a few more stamps in the world beside the British Guiana, one cent, 1856.”

  “Yeah, and I understand Crossley had ’em.”

  “He had many of them, very valuable ones, too.”

  “Like for instance?”

  “Well, there are the Mauritius, if you’re interested in stories.”

  Finney indicated that he was, and Koenig was about to launch into the tale when the door from the library was opened.

  As the three stamps experts entered at Herschman’s summons, the sleepy young man in the easy chair roused slightly, shifted his weary weight, and then settled once more into a doze, his head sunk on his chest, his face shielded by his hand.

  In the strained, quiet atmosphere of the room, there were few words of greeting exchanged. Fairleigh, knowing what was expected of him, went immediately to the safe and set to work. The safe was not a large one—it stood about three feet high—but apparently the combination was complicated. It was almost five minutes before he swung the door open.

  Herschman moved the reading lamp closer to the edge of the glass-topped desk and switched on the light so that its rays shone full on the front of the open safe. Rows of squat, thick, leather-bound books with names embossed on the back in gold: “United States”— “France”— “British Empire”— “Air Mail.” In the upper right hand corner there was an inner steel compartment. />
  “These are the stamp albums,” Fairleigh explained, pointing to the books. “The more valuable stamps were kept in here.” He indicated the inner compartment. “It has a combination, too.”

  The lawyer reached for the tiny knob on the inner compartment, but the rough hand of the inspector restrained him before he could touch it.

  “Just a minute,” Herschman said. He went to the door of the library, opened it and called to Patrolman Finney in the hall.

  “Get Morris. I left him out on the front steps.”

  Morris, the fingerprint man from Headquarters, brought his apparatus into the library and set to work on the inner surfaces of the safe, dusting with powder, blowing, searching. When he had completed his task and withdrawn, Herschman motioned Fairleigh to proceed.

  The lawyer knelt before the safe, twiddled the tiny knob and in a few moments it was open. He rose from his stooping posture and stood back away from the safe.

  The district attorney nodded to the three stamp men—the tall thin one, and the tall fat one and the little round one. They gathered round the safe, lifted out the squat, thick books, drew forth from the inner compartment, trays containing tiny square steel boxes, placed them on the glass-topped desk. Fairleigh, the district attorney and the inspector withdrew to the far end of the room to allow the three experts to work without interruption.

  The quiet of the room was broken only by the hum of traffic on Fifth Avenue at the front, and by the occasional domestic sound that drifted in through the windows at the back from neighboring apartment houses.

  Presently the lazy young man slowly lifted his head from his chest and yawned, stretched slightly, blinked sleepily as he looked about him. He lit a cigarette. His eyes wandered casually around the room. Once he encountered the disapproving glance of the district attorney and he hastily looked the other way. He picked up a slim red volume which lay on the table beside his easy chair and turned the pages idly.

  It was the wife of the Governor-General of the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean who was really responsible for them for she…

  Spike’s eyes wandered down the page.

  …the first issue of postage stamps in England in 1840. By 1847 the news of this innovation had penetrated to far off Mauritius, but not the stamps themselves.

  It was about this time that the wife of the Governor-General took it into her head to give a ball. It was decided that Mauritius would celebrate the occasion with its first postage stamps. J. Barnard, a local watchmaker, was commissioned to engrave the dies—one for a penny stamp and one for a two penny. They were to be very like the stamps of the mother country—the good Queen’s head in the center, “postage” across the top, the valuation at the bottom, “postpaid” on the left and “Mauritius” on the right.

  Accordingly the watchmaker set to work with enthusiasm. His memory, however, was not commensurate with his zeal. In the wee small hours of the morning he suddenly realized that he had forgotten the words to be engraved on the left side of the Queen’s head. “Post” was one of them. But what was the other? Perhaps, he argued, if he were to go out for a little walk the night air might clear his head.

  So he donned his hat and set forth. His stroll took him past the post office. Still trying to recall the elusive word, he happened to look up. Suddenly he smiled. Of course! There it was! “Office!”

  “Post Office.” He returned to his workship and finished the dies before morning.

  The stamps were printed and the first panes delivered with much ceremony to the residence of the Governor-General for the Governor-General’s lady. They were affixed to the invitations to the ball and sent on their way. It was not until some time later that the engraver’s mistake in substituting “office” for “paid” was discovered.

  Through chance alone twenty-two of these Mauritius one-and two-penny stamps still survive. One of them recently sold for $12,500. They are among the greatest stamp rarities in the world, and only collectors of…”

  The three experts put away their tiny glasses, laid down their tweezers, flexed the cramped muscles of their backs, bent for more than an hour over the glass-topped desk. The district attorney, the inspector and Fairleigh rose and joined them. The lazy young man in the easy chair slipped the slim red volume into his pocket.

  It was Fream who acted as spokesman. His voice was shaken as one mindful of his painful duty in breaking bad news, but at the same time conscious of the drama of his disclosure and making the most of it.

  “The Crossley collection,” he said, “has been looted of its finest treasures. It is impossible just now in so short a time to check the entire collection, to give a total estimate of the loss. But we have been able to ascertain this morning that more than $85,000 worth of stamps are missing.”

  He picked up a sheet of paper on which he had made some notes. “There are missing the following: the Mauritius two-penny ‘post office’ valued at $17,500; a thirteen-cent Hawaiian ‘missionary’ catalogued at $2,500; the nine-kreuzer Baden, 1861, with the color error worth $11,000; the six-real Spanish, 1851, also with a color error worth $12.500; the French 1849, one-franc, ‘tête-bêche’ catalogued at $10,000, and—”

  He paused.

  “And the British Guiana, one-cent, 1856, the most valuable stamp in the world, worth $32,500.”

  CHAPTER IX - “Haven’t I Met You Somewhere Before?”

  THE BUICK sedan streaked through the green and white-tiled Holland tunnel hundreds of feet below the surface of the Hudson River. Close behind—but not too close—followed the Cadillac roadster.

  Across the lush, dank green of the salt marshes of Jersey, through the back streets of Newark, into the open country west of Irvington. It was more than an hour before the lead car slowed up, turned off the main street of a quiet little village on the western edge of the New Jersey Forestry Reservation and bumped over a rutted, unpaved road. It stopped finally before a small farm bungalow set in several acres of truck garden.

  The driver got out and went into the house. The second car drove on by, turned down a side road and parked behind a low shelter of trees and bushes.

  Through the lattice of the protecting shrubbery Spike could see the bungalow with Fairleigh’s car parked in front of it. He waited for five minutes.

  Then Fairleigh came out and got into his car and started off. Spike switched on his engine. He followed well in the rear, until it was apparent that the lawyer was merely retracing the route he had come. Spike turned and went roaring back to the little town on the edge of the Reservation.

  As his car turned down the rough, rutted street, it bucked, backfired, gave several convulsive jerks, died—directly in front of the little farm bungalow. He got out and raised the hood, took a wrench from the tool box, and gave a few desultory pokes at the ailing engine. Then he scowled and flung the wrench from him in disgust. He looked about, scanned the horizon. As his eye fell upon the bungalow he seemed to have an idea. He opened the front gate, repelled the advances of a too-affectionate dog and knocked on the door. A pleasant, comfortable gray-haired woman opened it and listened sympathetically to the story of his misfortunes.

  “Why sure, Mister,” she said, “you’re welcome to a wrench if we got one. My husband ain’t here just now, but Eddy mebby could help you out. He’s right handy around machinery. He’s round by the barn now.”

  She came out onto the tiny stoop and called, and presently the boy appeared, a stocky well-built lad with a pleasant, grinning face.

  “Eddy, the gentleman’s car’s broke and his wrench is too big. See if you can fetch one of those smaller ones we used to carry in the back of the Ford.”

  The boy disappeared in the direction of the barn. He returned in a few minutes with a wrench and followed Spike out to the car. He watched with interest while Spike set to work, peering, poking under the engine hood.

  “What’s wrong?” he inquired, “fuel pump?”

  Spike looked up, a smudge of grease on his nose. “No—ah—I don’t think so. It’s—it
’s the steering gear.”

  The lad giggled. “Then you’re a-lookin’ on the wrong side, Mister. Steering gear’s over here.” He indicated the opposite side of the engine.

  “Oh—ah—yes, so it is.” Spike strove valiantly to cover his confusion, as he raised the opposite side of the hood, and engaged in more desultory pokings under the inquisitive gaze of the boy.

  “How do you like these new syncro-mesh transmission gears Cadillac’s got this year?” the boy inquired as he stood off and admired the stream lines of the car. “They make the shift any easier?”

  “Oh—much easier, much, very much easier.”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think with a two-plate clutch Spike held up an admonitory hand and straightened his bent back. “Listen, sonny,” he said, “just what are you? A professional…”

  Fairleigh arrived at his Nassau street address at three o’clock and immediately called his secretary into his private office.

  It was a bit after four when a young man of lazy well being slouched into the outer office of Schwab, Fairleigh & Morrison and cast an enchanting smile at the telephone operator.

  “I want to see Mr. Morrison,” he said.

  “Mr. Morrison’s out of town. He’s gone to Europe.” She smiled.

  “In that case,” he said, “I won’t wait.” He sat down, inched his chair a bit closer to the switchboard, gazed in quizzical speculation at the operator. She was pretty and she was paying more attention to the audacious stranger than to the lights flashing on the board.

  “You know,” he said, and his voice had a low, confidential tone, “your face seems awfully familiar. Haven’t I seen you some place before?”