“Yes, that’s the big if,” Cash said. “But there’s a chance—an outside one, I’ll admit—but still a chance. Have you ever heard of the Andrews Foundation?”
“Isn’t it a medical-research setup?”
“Yes. It was established by Horace Andrews. He was one of the two founders of Andscott—Andrews and Scott—that’s where the name came from.”
“I know,” Gil said, vaguely recalling something he had read or heard.
“Andrews left all of his Andscott stock to the Foundation. At that time—’49—they had a majority interest. Since then there’ve been other stock issues so the Foundation doesn’t have a majority now, but Lockwood and his boys have been working on it all night and they’re certain that if we could add a Foundation proxy to our own half million shares, it would mean control.”
“Then it would all depend on lining up the Foundation’s support?”
“Right,” Cash said crisply. “The Foundation is dependent on Andscott dividends for its financial support and, with no dividends, they must be feeling the pinch. They should be interested in getting a new management into Andscott that would put the company back on a profitable basis again. But whether the pressure is strong enough yet to force Bergmann into a break with Danvers—well, that’s the question.”
“Bergmann is the head of the Foundation?”
“Yes, Dr. Martin Bergmann. As far as we’re concerned, he is the Foundation. There’s a board of governors, but they’re all research scientists—so’s Bergmann for that matter—but he’s the administrative head and, according to Lockwood’s information, the board invariably rides with him on financial matters.”
“Then it all depends on Bergmann?”
“And getting his support may prove difficult,” Cash admitted. “Bergmann was very close to Horace Andrews and putting in General Danvers as the president of Andscott was the old man’s last move. There’d be a sentimental tug there—tossing out Andrews’ choice—plus the fact that apparently Danvers has done a good job of buttering up Bergmann. He’s put him on the Andscott board, entertained him socially, had him down in Nassau last winter—so it doesn’t look as if the odds were in favor of Bergmann breaking with Danvers. Still there’s a chance.”
“But if he doesn’t, won’t the Foundation fold up—I mean, if they’re dependent on Andscott dividends?”
“Eventually, yes—but it’s a question of timing. I don’t know how much of a businessman Bergmann is. It’s possible he may not realize how bad the situation really is.”
“But couldn’t we make him realize it—get to him some way—make him see how hopeless it is as long as Danvers stays in control?”
Cash shook his head. “If Bergmann is still in the Danvers camp, the minute we tried to talk to him the word would get back that we were out to get control.”
“I guess that’s right,” Gil mumbled, feeling himself chastised for stupidity.
“Our only hope is that Bergmann has already made up his mind to break,” Cash supplied. “That’s what we have to find out.”
“But how can we?”
“And even if he has,” Cash went on, brushing aside the question, “there’s no assurance that he’d give me his support. That’s question number two—Bergmann’s attitude toward being tied up with Cash McCall.”
“You mean that he—?” Gil found his voice choked off by the memory of how he himself would have reacted to the name of Cash McCall only a few days ago.
“I’ve crossed Bergmann’s path before,” Cash went on. “At the time I got control of the Cox-Farrington Company, he was there as the head of their research laboratories.”
“Cox-Farrington? That’s the X-ray company, isn’t it?”
Cash nodded. “The company was badly overexpanded after the war and I had to ride a little roughshod to get it down to earth again. As soon as I got rid of the old Farrington crowd and brought in a new president, Bergmann resigned. I didn’t talk to him myself—in fact I’ve never seen the man—but I’m reasonably certain that he felt extremely resentful toward me. Possibly he’s changed his mind. What’s happened at Cox-Farrington since proves that the moves I made were what saved the company—but Bergmann may not know that. Even if he does, he may still be harboring a prejudice. That’s what you have to find out.”
“Me?” Gil asked, stunned.
“I called George Lockwood as soon as Danvers left my apartment. His boys have been digging for dope all night. They’ll have a report on Bergmann ready for you at Conway’s office at ten o’clock—every scrap of information that they’ve been able to pull together. Soak it up—get all the background on Bergmann you can—then go out and have a talk with him.”
“But what if I muff the ball—”
“Then the deal’s off, that’s all.”
“And you lose a chance to make two or three million dollars,” Gil said, dry-mouthed at the enormousness of his responsibility.
Cash grinned, “This isn’t worm fishing, Gil.”
“I’ll say not!”
“I know it’s a gamble—a long one. But if we could pull it off—well, it would be the biggest one yet. You don’t get a break like this very often.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Gil said weakly.
“Funny how the breaks come,” Cash mused. “I’d almost convinced myself that buying Suffolk had been a mistake—and then, right out of the blue, in walks General Danvers and tosses this in my lap. I’ve had a lot of breaks but this tops them all.”
Half listening, Gil waited for a chance to say, “Are you sure that I’m the right person to talk to Bergmann?”
Cash’s face clouded. “Would you rather not?”
“No, I want to do it,” Gil said hurriedly. “If you think I can handle it.”
“You’ve got the best chance of anyone. You’re managing the Suffolk plant. You have the responsibility of advising your principals as to whether or not they should sell and take Andscott stock in payment. What would be more logical than for you to go to Andscott’s largest stockholder for an opinion as to the soundness of Andscott’s management? You ask a lot of questions and that gives you a chance to see where Bergmann stands. If you decide that he might ride along, then you can raise the possibility of our getting together to force a reorganization.”
“But won’t Bergmann know that you’re behind it? You say he’s a director of Andscott. Danvers must have talked to his directors to get approval of the offer. Wouldn’t he have told them that they were buying Suffolk from you?”
“Apparently not,” Cash said. “Lockwood has a pipeline to one director and all he’d been told was that Suffolk was being bought from the Gammer Corporation—nothing beyond that.”
“But Bergmann might know—or guess.”
“Of course,” Cash acknowledged. “In that case, there’s only one thing to do, obviously—tell him the truth. He’ll have to know in the end, anyway.”
“And if he—?”
“If the old prejudice is still there, the deal’s off—unless, of course, you can convince him that I’m not quite as unsavory a character as he imagines.” He glanced out through the porthole, suddenly alerted. “There are the Austens. If you have any more questions, talk them over with Winston Conway.”
Gil rose. “When will I see you?”
Cash was still looking out through the porthole and his answer was slow in coming, astoundingly casual when it did. “Oh, call me at the hotel about five o’clock. I should be back by then. You have my number, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have it.”
There were no more instructions and Gil Clark went down the plane’s steps, breaking into a run as he headed for the gate. He caught a glimpse of Lory Austen and her mother, but they were looking out toward the plane and, with no time to spare, he ran on toward his car. He was away from the fence, making the turn into the lane, when he saw Grant Austen standing at the back of the Cadillac, the half-raised trunk lid in his hands, plainly watching him. But in the moment that it took Gil to
get his arm out of the window, Austen looked away and did not see him wave.
4
The glimpse that Grant Austen caught of Gil Clark seemed strangely irrelevant, the intrusion of something oddly misplaced, the fleeting memory of a world long lost. During those first few days after he had stopped going to the plant, he had worried about the stupid blunders that Gil was undoubtedly committing, plowing ahead on his own without even showing the good sense to telephone for advice and counsel when he found he was in over his head. But as the days had gone by that concern had melted away. All that remained now was a vague resentment that arose with the thought of Gil occupying his private office and using his private washroom. Even that reaction, weak as it was, was further dulled by the difficulty of resurrecting a sharply detailed memory of what his office had looked like. Astoundingly, the mental image had already bleached to a fuzzy blur. It was hard to believe that it was only nine days since he had first met Cash McCall … and now here he was coming down the steps of his B-26, smiling and just as friendly as he could be! And this was friendship, nothing else. The company didn’t have anything to do with this. Suffolk Moulding was water over the dam. This was personal. Cash McCall could have given him the brush-off, too … just as Will Atherson and Harrison Glenn had done. But he hadn’t. Winston Conway had been right the other night when he’d said that Cash McCall was a really big man … and there was another fine man, that Winston Conway!
Out of the corner of his eye, Grant Austen watched McCall walk in from the plane, timing himself so that he would finish taking out the luggage just as Cash got to the car. Then he would walk around and greet him without making a scene of it … casually … the way it was done at The Wharf … and in Washington.
But Miriam ruined everything, calling out and making Cash stop up there at the front of the car.
Grant Austen hung back, pretending an intent examination of a scratch on his two-suiter.
“Did you hear that, Grant?” Miriam called back to him. “Mr. McCall has asked Lory if she doesn’t want to come along with us, just down and back for the ride?”
He had no choice now except to step around the fender and face Cash McCall.
“Isn’t that nice of him, dear?” Miriam insisted.
“Sure, you bet—that is, if it isn’t too much trouble,” he felt himself forced to say, even before he had a chance to shake hands.
And it was easy to see that Mr. McCall, too, felt how clumsy the situation was, fumbling his explanation that it was no trouble at all, that he had to come back this way, anyway. Only after all that was out of the way could they shake hands … and now it had come too late, awkwardly formal, pleasureless.
“That’s quite a plane you’ve got there,” Grant Austen said, finally back on a straight course.
“It’s an old B-26 that I picked up and had converted,” Cash said modestly … the way a really big man always said things like that.
“Well, I’ll just say that the gang down at Moon Beach is going to get a kick out of seeing something like that come in,” Grant Austen said, attempting to generate the hearty warmth that he wanted the moment to have. “Harv Bannon has his own plane—Cavalier Chemical, you know? Nice plane but it can’t hold a candle to yours.”
Mr. McCall just smiled, signaling to the gateman who came over to pick up the bags, and Grant Austen turned to his daughter, ready to urge her to accept Mr. McCall’s invitation to go along for the ride.
Lory was already snapping the buttons to lock the doors.
Surprised, he said, “Sure, the car will be all right until you get back, Lory. Just see that it’s locked.”
Getting out, locking the last door, she forgot that you didn’t have to use the key … excited … but you couldn’t blame her for that. It wasn’t every day she had a chance to go down to Moon Beach in a private B-26.
They walked together, the four of them, out through the gate and across the black-topped apron, he and Cash stepping aside as they reached the plane, Miriam and Lory going up the steps to the cabin. He was startled to hear Lory say to her mother, even before she had looked inside, “You’re going to love this, it’s such a beautiful plane,” surprised at her implication that she had seen it before. But then he recalled that Lory had driven Mr. McCall out here to the airport yesterday … he’d probably invited her aboard, just to be nice to her. He was the kind of man who’d do a thing like that … thoughtful. That was one way you could always tell a really big man … always thoughtful. There was a good point there, something to remember in Washington.
5
Goaded by the fast-circling minute hand of his watch, Gil Clark had driven from the Suffolk airport to downtown Philadelphia in one hour flat. It was nine fifty-five when he pulled into the parking lot on Sansom Street. Cash McCall had not made it a matter of any special urgency that he be at Conway’s office at precisely ten o’clock, but he had accepted that necessity as a tangible first objective, mind-filling enough to keep himself from being overwhelmed by apprehension.
Out of the car, the full weight of his assignment pressed down. Hurrying, his anxious fingers tore a page in the telephone book as he searched out the location of Conway’s office, his preoccupation so complete that he was a half block away from the parking lot before he realized that the offices of Jamison, Conway & Slythe were in the same building as those of Corporation Associates.
Proximity aroused the anticipation of offices similar in character, an expectation immediately canceled as he stepped from the elevator. The reception room in which the clients of Jamison, Conway & Slythe were received was, except in minor detail, indistinguishable from the center hall of one of the finer old eighteenth century manor houses. Winston Conway’s private office, to which Gil was immediately escorted, might well have been the library of that same aristocratic home and Winston Conway, rising from the beautifully inlaid table that served him as a desk, was every inch the lord of the manor, arousing in Gil’s mind not only a sharp consciousness of his junior status but also the memory of Conway having said, when they had breakfasted together in Suffolk, that he had many reasons for being grateful to Cash McCall. One was undoubtedly financial.
“Lockwood called to say that he would be a few minutes late,” Conway explained as he led the way to a grouping of Philadelphia stick chairs around an antique butterfly table. “You may recall, Mr. Clark, that yesterday morning I offered an observation on the futility of attempting to outguess our Mr. McCall.”
“You were sure right,” Gil said, grateful that Conway had opened the subject with no time-wasting preliminaries. “It looks like a terrific deal, doesn’t it?”
“Terrific?” Conway asked, weighing the word. “In what sense—tremendous or terrifying? Forgive me for sounding captious, but it’s a professional habit—rather deeply ingrained, I fear—and I do want to be certain of your precise meaning.”
Winston Conway was playing his word game again and Gil felt a prickle of annoyance, recognized too late to keep him from reaching back to the memory of his meeting with Cash McCall for the quick retort, “Well, it’s not worm fishing.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he realized, unhappily, that he was getting off to the worst possible start. He needed Conway’s help and support and now, foolishly, he had let nervous tension destroy his poise.
Surprisingly, the lawyer’s face did not harden. There was a perceptible softening, almost a crumbling, as he leaned forward, palms flat to the table. “Sorry, Gil. I deserved that. Nerves are a little on edge. Not enough sleep. Cash called me about midnight and I haven’t been able to get this thing off my mind. You’re quite right—it’s a terrific deal.”
Gil exhaled slowly, consciously giving his voice a deference that was a clear acceptance of Conway’s apology. “Something worrying you, sir?”
The lawyer used a weary sigh as an affirmative acknowledgment. “But don’t let that concern you too much. I’ve been wrong before, I can be wrong again. Actually, it’s probably a good omen. It often wo
rks that way with Mr. McCall’s deals—the ones that most frighten me usually come off best.”
“Well, I’m a little concerned about one thing myself,” Gil admitted. “This Bergmann business—”
“Then that’s still the plan—for you to talk to Dr. Bergmann? I’ve been hoping Mr. McCall had changed his mind about that. When did you talk to him?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Then he’s still in town?”
“No, I saw him at the Suffolk airport. He came in there to pick up the Austens. He’s flying them down to Moon Beach this morning.”
“The girl too?”
Gil hesitated at the unexpected question. “At least she was out there at the airport.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday—the fact that they must have known each other before. I still find myself unable to give it any significance.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that it had any, sir,” Gil said quickly. “It was just something that I mentioned because—”
“I know,” Conway cut in as if suddenly aware of having wandered down a sidetrack. “So he still wants you to see Bergmann?”
“Yes, that’s the plan.”
Winston Conway fingered the pewter inkwell that stood on the table. “Do you have any background on Mr. McCall’s prior relationship with Dr. Bergmann?”
“If you mean the Cox-Farrington story—yes, he told me that.”
There was a moment of silence broken only by the metronome beat of Conway’s forefinger tapping the inkstand. “I still can’t bring myself to like the idea.”
“But there’s no alternative,” Gil protested. “At least I can’t see one. Cash would be crazy to sink two million dollars in Andscott if he weren’t certain of getting control.”
“Two million?” Conway questioned.
“Yes, I know,” Gil said. “It’s really more than that. There’s the stock he got in the Padua Furniture deal, too.”
“Do you know that he’s planning to buy even more?”
Gil hesitated. “Well, yes—yes, he did say there was some more he might get his hands on.”
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