“Yes,” she says quickly and begins to fumble with nervously clumsy fingers at her handbag.
Richmond looks interestedly at her fumbling fingers.
She brings out two letters of recommendation of the typical to-whom-it-may-concern sort, one on the letterhead of Wheeler & Nicholson, Chemicals, the other The Tidewater Manufacturing Corp., and gives them to Richmond.
He does not read the letters, but leans forward to snap on his desk lamp, lays the letters on the desk so the signatures are close together, and bends over them to scrutinize the signatures closely. The signatures are John G. Hart and Lewis Melville.
The girl looks at him with frightened eyes.
After studying the signatures briefly Richmond turns to her, smiling sardonically, tapping the letters contemptuously with the back of one hand.
She tries to banish the fear from her face.
“A pair of phoneys,” he says. “You signed them yourself and made a bum job of it.”
“Why, Mr. Richmond,” she exclaims with all the indignation she can assume, “that—”
He interrupts her carelessly. “Come here and I’ll show you, Miss Crane—so you can do it better next time.”
Divided between the indignation she thinks it policy to assume and curiosity as to how he discovered what she had done, she slowly rises and moves nearer.
Richmond picks up a pencil and bends over the letters again. His manner is that of an expert good-naturedly pointing out the mistakes of a novice. “First,” he says, touching the Hart signature with the point of his pencil, “this is written with a fine point, the letters slant forward, and the end letters”—he touches points A and B on the insert—“end with an upward stroke. This”—he indicates the Melville signature—“written with a heavy point, the letters slant backwards, and the final letters”—touching points C and D on the insert—“end bluntly. See what I mean? Everything just opposite. Another funny thing—none of the letters in the Hart signature appear in the Melville signature—the sort of thing you’d do if you weren’t sure you could make the same letter different enough in each.” He leans back in his chair and grins at her. “An amateur job—all those things too decidedly different.”
He returns his attention to the signatures, saying: “Now let me show you something else.” His pencil touches points E and F. “See those spaces. They’re exactly the same as this,” touching point G. “See the end of this W and the I”—touching point H—“and the end of the v and the i”—touching point I—“well, if you forget the dots they make r’s that are exactly like this one”—touching point J—“except they are written backhand instead of sloping forward.”
He drops his pencil on the letters and rocks back in his chair, turning his derisive grin on her again. “Now isn’t that funny? All the things an amateur would be likely to think about are different. All the others are alike.”
She stares at him as if trying to make up her mind what attitude to take. He watches her amusedly for a moment, then asks: “Well, shall I call up the Messrs. Hart and Melville and ask them about it?”
She bites her lip, then lowers her head, her shoulders droop a little, and she says in a defeated tone: “There isn’t any Hart, any Melville.”
“You surprise me,” he says with good-natured mockery. He regards her lowered face for a moment, then, indicating the letters, asks curtly: “Why these, sister? Too lousy a stenographer to get real ones?”
She raises her head indignantly, but immediately becomes spiritless again. “No,” she says in a dull, hopeless voice, but speaking very deliberately, “but the only real ones I could give for the last five years would be no good. I’ve been in prison.”
Richmond blows out cigarette smoke and nods slowly in the manner of one whose guess has been confirmed. “I thought I recognized the prison look,” he says. Then he chuckles. “What’d you do? Stick up the Mint singlehanded? Anybody in your fix with nerve enough to walk into a detective’s office—”
She interrupts him fiercely: “Nerve? It wasn’t nerve, it was desperation. I’d try any—”
Now he interrupts her, and his smile is a sneer: “I know! I know, sister! Trying to go straight—your record against you—hounded by the police—I’ve heard it all before.”
She, still fiercely: “Go straight? I’m reaching a point where I don’t care what I do so I do something, don’t care whether I go straight or—” Her voice is becoming shrill with hysteria.
He flutters fingers at her and interrupts her once more, in a half-serious soothing manner: “Sh-h-h! You’ll wake up the office boy next door.” Then his face and voice become altogether serious. “Sit down,” he says, “and let’s talk reasonably.”
She sits down slowly, face and manner lifeless again.
He rocks comfortably back in his chair and asks in a friendly tone: “What’d they send you over for?”
She replies: “I was working for the president of an investment trust named Queeble. He was using the trust funds for his own speculations. I was his secretary and knew what he was doing, helped him. Both of us thought he was smart enough to get away with it. Well, he wasn’t, and when he got fifteen years I got what I got. Maybe you remember it. My name was Helen Crewe then. It’s Helen Crane now.” She recites all this with no emotion at all except some weariness, and when she has finished she sits looking expressionlessly at Richmond, as if expecting nothing, fearing nothing.
Richmond lights a fresh cigarette, leans back in his chair, and smokes and stares thoughtfully at the ceiling for a considerable while. Then he faces the girl again and says casually: “You can take your hat and coat off and go to work.”
Her eyes widen. She stares at him in uncomprehending surprise.
He says: “I can use a secretary whose record shows she can do what she’s told and keep her mouth shut. You say you want a job. Want this one?”
She rises eagerly. “Yes, sir! I don’t know how to—”
He cuts her thanks short by handing her the two letters of recommendation and saying: “Bury these and make yourself at home in the outer office.”
She takes the letters as if dazed and goes out.
Richmond watches her until she has shut the door, then makes a brief nod of satisfaction at the door, picks up a newspaper from his desk, squirms a little more comfortably into his chair, and begins to read. He looks up when Helen—without hat or coat now—opens the door.
“The man has finished lettering the door,” she says. “He says it’s five dollars.”
He says carelessly: “Tell him we’ll mail him a check.”
“Yes, sir,” she says and goes out, but returns almost immediately to say: “He says he wants it now, Mr. Richmond.”
Richmond starts to frown, clears his face, and replies: “Oh, all right, send him in.”
He puts his hand in his right-hand trouser pocket and brings out three crumpled paper bills and some silver, counting it surreptitiously in the shelter of the desk. When he has counted out five dollars there are only a few pieces of silver left. He shrugs philosophically and puts them back in his pocket.
The sign-painter comes in.
Richmond says cheerfully: “Five dollars? Here it is,” and hands the man the three bills and some silver. Then, as the man says, “Thank you, sir,” and turns away, Richmond says, “Wait—buy yourself a cigar,” and gives the man a coin from the scanty remainder in his pocket.
The man grins, says, “Thank you, sir,” again, touches his cap, and goes out, shutting the door behind him.
Richmond takes his few remaining coins from his pocket, looks ruefully at them, takes a deep breath, returns them to the pocket, and with a determined movement picks up the newspaper again. He turns briskly to the Personal column, runs his gaze down it, pausing momentarily at a couple of items having to do with missing persons, and then turns back to the news section of the paper. He skip
s all out-of-town items, reading only those having to do with local divorces, suits, crimes, scandals, etc. These he reads carefully, and spends a moment in thought after each before going on to the next.
He comes to one very small item tucked away in a lower corner of the page.
CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLE STILL MISSING
The valuable Chinese snuff-bottle
stolen last week from the residence
of Sidney F. Bachman, wealthy collector,
3661 Rennert Avenue, has not yet
been recovered. The police are working
on the theory that it may have been
stolen by a former Chinese servant.
Richmond stares thoughtfully at this item, pursing his lips, then his face lights up, he rises from his chair, thrusts his hands in his pockets, and walks twice up and down the floor, swiftly, smiling to himself. Then he snaps his fingers as if the idea he wanted had come to him, sits down again, and reaches for the telephone book. He finds Bachman’s number and calls it.
“I should like to speak to Mr. Bachman,” he says into the phone after a little pause. “It is about the Chinese snuff-bottle….Thanks.” He drums cheerfully on the desk with his fingers while waiting for Bachman. Then: “Hello. Mr. Bachman?”
The other end of the wire. An extremely tall and bony old man with a tremendously bushy growth of white whiskers and no hair at all on his head. “Yes,” he says excitedly. What is it? What is it?”
Richmond, very suavely: “This is Gene Richmond speaking. You probably know my detective agency by reputation—possibly we’ve—”
Bachman, impatiently: “Yes, yes! But what is it about the bottle? Have you found it?”
Richmond smiles at the preposterous. “Yes-yeses” and continues in the same tone as before: “Certain information that may lead to its recovery has come into my possession during the course of certain other investigations we are making, and I—”
Bachman: “Yes, yes! Where is it?”
Richmond: “I’m sorry I can’t tell you that, Mr. Bachman, and even the information I have may be worthless, but if I can see you I’ll be only too glad to give it to you. I can’t very well tell you over the phone. Shall I come out to your house?”
Bachman: “Yes, by all means, but what—?”
Richmond: “I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hangs up, pushes the phone aside, and rises. He puts on his hat and goes into the outer office.
Helen is standing looking out a window. She turns toward him.
He takes off his hat and makes a courtly bow. “Our first client,” he says, “is a gentleman named Bachman, Sidney F., who’s lost a bottle of snuff. You may open an account for him whilst I’m out gathering the sordid details.” He bows again and goes out, leaving her staring after him.
He goes downstairs in an elevator and out to the street. A taxicab is standing a little distance from the office building entrance. He starts toward it briskly, puts a hand to the pocket his few coins are in, makes a rueful grimace, and runs for a passing street-car.
* * *
—
The front of a pretentious suburban home. Richmond goes up the steps and rings the doorbell. The door is opened by a stout manservant.
Richmond says: “Mr. Richmond. Mr. Bachman is expecting me.”
The servant bows and stands aside for him to enter.
A room in Bachman’s house. Richmond is seated. Bachman is standing in front of him, close, his bony shoulders high, his bearded face thrust down toward Richmond, his body bent into a question mark. He is demanding excitedly: “But what, exactly, is it you have learned?”
Richmond looks steadily into the tall man’s eyes for a moment, then gravely replies: “Mr. Bachman, before I speak I must have your promise that you will divulge nothing of what I tell you to the police until I give you permission.”
“But why?”
“I have my clients’ interests to protect,” Richmond explains smoothly. “As I told you, this information came to me while working on another matter. To have the police rush in with their usual clumsiness might spoil this other matter for my client. I cannot risk that.”
Bachman becomes apoplectic with rage. “I am to suffer for your client!” he shouts. “I am to lose my most valued possession forever so some other man’s—what was it?—interests are protected! What about my interests? I won’t do it. I don’t know your other man! I don’t care about him! I want my bottle! You’ll tell me or I’ll call the police now and have them with their usual clumsiness force you to tell.”
Richmond, who has been calmly looking at the angry man from under raised eyebrows, says coolly: “Go ahead—and then you and the police can try to guess whether what I tell is true or phoney.”
An alarmed look comes into Bachman’s face. “No, no,” he says hastily, “I didn’t mean that, Mr. Richmond. I was excited. I—”
“That’s all right,” Richmond says carelessly. “Now how about that promise?”
“How long—how long will it be before I can tell the police?” the collector asks in a wheedling voice.
Richmond’s shoulders move in a little shrug. “I don’t know. It depends on—” He breaks off with an impatient gesture. “Here’s what happened, Mr. Bachman. I have an operative in—in an eastern city trying to locate some stolen property. It too is decidedly valuable. In the course of his investigation he had traced it to—a buyer of rarities, we’ll say, but it developed that what had been offered to this buyer was not our article. My man, of course, paid little attention to the other article then—all he learned was that it was small, old, and Chinese.”
“That is it!” Bachman cries. “That is certainly it! Who is this buyer?”
Richmond raises a protesting hand and shakes his head slowly. “As I told you, Mr. Bachman, I can’t jeopardize my own client’s interests by allowing the police or anyone else to come charging in, stirring things up, frightening—”
Bachman: “But you said this man hadn’t bought your client’s property. What difference does it make then?”
Richmond: “I said the thing we traced to him wasn’t my client’s. Because a false trail led to him doesn’t necessarily mean that the true one won’t.”
Bachman, despairingly: “But, Mr. Richmond, you can’t make me wait and wait and risk—” He breaks off as a thought comes to him. He holds out his hands in a pleading gesture and begs: “Suppose I too become your client. Suppose I engage you to recover it. Then you can handle it in your own way without fear of spoiling your other client’s—”
Richmond, staring levelly at the collector: “I didn’t come here to sell you my services. I came to give you what information I had.”
Bachman, wheedling: “But you will handle it for me, Mr. Richmond? I’ll pay you well. I’ll—”
Richmond: “Besides, we’ve no assurance that the Chinese thing offered was your snuff-bottle; no assurance that we can find it anyhow. I don’t know whether this person I mentioned actually bought it or not.”
Bachman: “But you can find out. Will you, Mr. Richmond?”
Richmond, a bit reluctantly: “Well, if you wish.”
Bachman grasps one of Richmond’s hands and shakes it warmly: “Thank you, sir,” he says. “You won’t regret it.”
Richmond, politely: “Oh, that’s all right. Let’s see, you’d better give me a check for, say, two hundred and fifty dollars to cover initial expenses.”
Bachman eagerly: “Splendid! Come downstairs and I’ll make it out now.”
Richmond rises. They leave the room together, one of the collector’s long thin arms affectionately across the detective’s shoulders.
Richmond’s outer office. Helen Crane is sewing the seam of a glove. She puts it down as Richmond comes in from the corridor. He is all smiling cheerfulness.
“Did you open Mr. Bachman’s account?” he a
sks.
Looking curiously at him, she replies: “There are no books to open it in.”
“Tut, tut!” he says humorously. “We must get you huge stacks of books. Is there a piece of paper to jot things down on?”
“Yes, sir.” She finds a sheet of paper and a pencil.
“Credit him with two hundred and fifty dollars on account,” he dictates as she writes, “and charge him first with my taxi fare to his house and back, say a dollar thirty-five each way; then a telegram to New York, say three dollars and twenty cents—it should be a long one; and then a wire from New York, say a dollar thirty; and fifteen dollars a day from now on for the salary of an operative in New York. I’ll let you know from day to day what the operative’s expenses are.” He starts toward his private office.
She clears her throat and says: “There’s no typewriter, Mr. Richmond.”
He halts and turns. “Tut, tut!” he says again. “We must get you one for each hand. Rent one this afternoon and we’ll get what books you need and stationery and things.” He goes into his office and shuts the door.
She stares thoughtfully after him.
Richmond’s private office two months later. It is expensively furnished now, with thick carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, etc. He, at an immense shiny mahogany desk, is writing a letter:
Dear Babe:
My first couple of months here have
Been prosperous enough to make me
Think I picked the right spot.
Maybe you’d better put your other
Pair of stockings in a bag and come
On down to get your share of the
Pickings. There are a couple of
Jobs I could use you on right now
And—
He stops and looks up as the door opens. It is Helen Crane with a newspaper in her hand. “Did you see this?” she asks, advancing to his desk.
He turns the letter to Babe face-down on his desk and looks at the portion of the paper she indicates with a finger. The headlines are:
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 134