Banking on Death

by Emma Lathen

  At five o’clock that afternoon Thatcher hugged the wall of the Stock Exchange as he forced his way along Wall Street against the tidal wave of humanity that was racing for the subway. He was always surprised and a little dismayed by the number of white-collar workers in the financial district. This was the only hour of the day when you saw the real order of magnitude involved. He inched along to the eastern end of the street and entered The Antlers. A stocky smooth-faced man of about forty rose immediately from a booth and held out his hand.

  “I’m Ed Fitzgerald, Mr. Thatcher. Tom Robichaux told me that I could give you some information about Buffalo Industrial Products.”

  “Very kind of you to come, Fitzgerald.” The two men shook hands and Thatcher told the waiter to bring them martinis. While they waited for their drinks, they took covert stock of each other. Fitzgerald was obviously watchful, and Thatcher cursed Robichaux who clearly had instilled his subordinate with the fear that the Sloan might be trying to pull a fast one. He spent five minutes allaying these fears as best he could before going on to ask Fitzgerald what he knew about the people at Buffalo Industrial.

  “I spent about a week there before we decided to bring out the issue. The management’s quite small, you know—really consists of Michaels, Schneider and Novak.”

  “And what’s Schneider like?”

  “Well,” said Fitzgerald looking infinitely suspicious, “Schneider is the real production hot shot. Michaels started the firm and ran it in a small way. Then, he took in his son-in-law, Roy Novak, who takes care of the financial details and the selling. Novak’s a good man in his own field, but he doesn’t touch the production end of things. They hired Schneider five years ago and he’s come up a long way since. Is that the kind of thing you wanted to know?”

  Thatcher watched the waiter put the drinks down and nodded in silence. Fitzgerald sipped his martini, and continued to look dubious. “Well,” he proceeded, “Schneider talked Michaels into putting a little money into some experiments and ultimately developed this new process of theirs for the mass production of felts. They used to be hand-fitted every eight days or so. He’s got a lot of bright ideas for technical breakthroughs and he teamed up with Novak to persuade Michaels into going public. It’s obviously the right thing for them to do now that they’ve reached their present size and can look forward to an immense expansion.”

  “Michaels didn’t like the idea?”

  “No, Michaels—who’s a stubborn ox of a Pole—has run the show single-handed for a long time. He obviously isn’t crazy about going public. But he’s not unreasonable. He realizes that it’s the best thing to do in the long run. Novak handles him very well and Michaels’ daughter had helped to persuade him into agreeing.”

  “Isn’t Schneider much good at handling Michaels?”

  “Well, I would guess that getting people to do things isn’t Schneider’s strong point. He’s pretty cocky and too apt to talk to Michaels—or anyone else for that matter—as if they can’t see the nose in front of their face. But,” Fitzgerald added hastily, “there’s no danger of losing Schneider. Michaels knows his defects all too well by now and has learned to live with them. He’s put up with him for five years because his ideas pay off and he’ll go on putting up with him. Besides, Schneider owns 10 per cent of the business now.”

  Reflecting that there were other ways of losing Schneider than through firing him, Thatcher asked Fitzgerald what Schneider was like personally.

  “Personally?” Fitzgerald looked puzzled. “Well, just the same I’d imagine. Maybe a little pushy. Are you thinking of employee relations? Schneider doesn’t have much to do with the employees personally. They’ve got a first-rate foreman who doesn’t seem to mind Schneider. Mostly I suppose, because he looks as if he could take Schneider apart with one hand and wouldn’t mind doing it.”

  “Well, really,” Thatcher said cautiously, “I meant what was Schneider like in his personal life. Did you see him at all away from the plant when you were there? Do you know if he was married, for instance?”

  Fitzgerald now looked thoroughly mystified. It had probably not occurred to him to wonder if Schneider had a personal life. But, consulting his conscience and deciding that Robichaux and Devane could have no objection to his placing at Thatcher’s disposal his meager store of facts in this area, he obligingly marshaled his thoughts.

  “I don’t know too much about that, of course. I got the impression that people out there didn’t like him too much ....”

  “Did you?” Thatcher interrupted.

  Fitzgerald, who had obviously not considered this before, paused before he answered. “Well, no, I guess not. Of course I didn’t see much of him ... but he’s a sort of loudmouth. Know the type?”

  Thatcher agreed that he did. Fitzgerald scratched his jaw reflectively. He had been asked to bring back information about many companies, but nobody had ever asked if he liked the personnel. “I know that Novak tried to get him to join a local golf club once so he’d meet some of the finance people around Buffalo. He didn’t want to and Novak gave up when he came to know him better. Probably decided it was just as well if people didn’t meet Schneider. I did the town with him one night when I was up there. He’s a pretty heavy drinker, but he stayed sober enough to talk shop all evening. He didn’t say anything about being married and he didn’t act married. By and large, I’d guess, he’s one of the world’s natural workers. Is that the kind of thing you wanted to know?”

  “Yes,” said Thatcher, “that’s what I wanted to know. He doesn’t sound very attractive. Did you get the impression that he expects to come into money?”

  Fitzgerald had decided to humor Thatcher; he weighed the question. “What kind of money? He expects to get to the top in Buffalo Industrial and step into Stan Michaels’ shoes, I should say. With the way that company is going, that may easily amount to $80,000 a year in a little while. In fact,” he added leaning across the table and waxing enthusiastic, “with this new process that they’re planning, they can easily look forward to capturing 60 to 80 per cent of the market in industrial felts. Now, if you take into consideration normal industrial expansion in the next years, this would produce a yearly gross of about—”

  But Thatcher had not come out for this drink in order to listen to yet another monologue on the subject of the felt industry and its future. The remedy was in his hands. Reaching for the check and his coat, he benignly let fall his bombshell.

  “I’m afraid they may have to do a little recalculating, if all this depends on Schneider. He was murdered two weeks ago. You may want to do a little recalculating too. Thanks for having this drink with me. I’ve enjoyed our talk, and you’ve given me a lot of information.”

  Feeling rather pleased with his exit line he left Fitzgerald looking totally bemused. A good deal later Thatcher was to realize that this was his first serious mistake in the case.

  Chapter 5

  Withholding Statement

  “Send Nicolls in, will you, Miss Corsa?” John Thatcher said the following morning. Early sunlight still dappled his office, but he was confident that Ken Nicolls, like Miss Corsa, would be assiduously at work, having arrived with grim punctuality. Miss Corsa in fact, had been at her desk, faintly reproving, when he arrived a half-hour earlier, at eight-thirty.

  “Ah, there you are, Nicolls. I hope you are feeling better today. Sit down.”

  Ken, a good deal less limp than he had been the day before, decided that no response was called for. He waited uneasily, while Thatcher cast a benevolent eye on him, and then said, “Well, have you thought about our next step?”

  “Our next step, sir?” Ken echoed.

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you, Nicolls,” Thatcher said with some asperity “that the murder of the heir to $100,000 imposes some obligations upon the trustees.”

  “Frankly, I am at a loss as to what we do,” Ken replied.

  “So it seems. You young men are chained to your desks buying and selling. Acting as a trust officer is a far mor
e demanding profession than that,” Thatcher said severely. “And interesting.”

  Ken Nicolls was stung with the injustice of this. For two years at the Sloan, he thought with indignation, all he had been asked to do was to sit at his desk, buying and selling. It was not an unreasonable inference that this was what a trust officer did.

  Thatcher, however, had not waited for a reply to his remarks, but was continuing: “... so that this Schneider who has been murdered was the heir to $100,000. Obviously this is a matter of some interest if the Buffalo authorities are in difficulties about finding a motive for his murder. It’s our duty to communicate this fact with them. Although, of course, they may already know it.”

  With lightning rapidity, Ken Nicolls discarded his vision of himself as a rising young executive in a citadel of conservative respectability. To hell with it, he thought, as, metaphorically speaking, he blinked his eyes, and shook his head.

  “I think we can assume,” he heard himself saying in a tone of voice he had never before allowed himself to use with his superiors, “that the Buffalo people don’t know anything at all about the trust. I’ve been assuming that Robert Schneider himself had more or less forgotten about it; he didn’t realize the sum involved and we certainly haven’t turned up any signs of interest on his part while we were searching for him.”

  Unaware that he had been midwife to a spiritual rebirth, Thatcher nodded his agreement. “I think that’s a safe assumption to work on,” he said as he rang for Miss Corsa. “At any rate, we certainly should get in touch with the police ... Miss Corsa, I want you to drop whatever you’re doing right now and put through a call to the Buffalo Police.” He exchanged a mildly conspiratorial look with the young man sitting opposite him, but Miss Corsa did not rise to the bait. She acknowledged his request by nodding in silence.

  “And,” he added, “we want to talk to the officer in charge of the investigation of the murder of Robert Schneider. Tell him we have some important information for him.”

  A fleeting look of satisfaction crossed Miss Corsa’s face.

  “Oh, is he dead?” she asked.

  Thatcher raised his eyebrows, “Yes, he’s been killed ... oh, no, Miss Corsa. Not your Schneider. His cousin.”

  Miss Corsa, losing interest, withdrew.

  Thatcher swiveled around to Nicolls. The boy, he thought was beginning to look a little more alive. “Now Nicolls,” he said crisply, “for the moment I want you to hand over your other accounts to Charlie Trinkam. He’ll have to reassign them. You will concentrate on this Schneider trust. There are some questions that we are going to want answered in the fairly near future.” He thought for a moment then inquired, “How is Mrs. Henderson, by the way?”

  “Sinking rapidly,” Ken answered.

  “But still afloat,” Thatcher said. “Why do the Schneiders bring out the worst in all of us? At any rate, you haven’t been bothered by the rest of them lately, have you?”

  “No,” said Ken. He amended the statement, “At any rate, not yet. We sent out a letter to all of them saying that we were studying the possibility of a partial distribution just about a week before Christmas.”

  “Well, we have better news for them now,” Thatcher said. “I take it we can look upon the death of this man as good news for them. That is, if there are no children.”

  Ken looked at him with interest. “You really do think there are children, don’t you?” he commented.

  Thatcher turned to study the pattern of shadows that the sun left behind as it rose. “Just extrapolation,” he said with a brief smile. “Everybody seems to have children these days.”

  You old fraud, thought Nicolls. But he listened attentively, as Thatcher outlined what he had learned about Robert Schneider from Fitzgerald. “... a moderately disagreeable, but not an uncommon type. It’s remotely possible that he did lie low out of malice.”

  Ken rubbed his chin dubiously, but whatever comments he had intended to offer were interrupted when the phone rang.

  Thatcher answered. “Yes, Miss Corsa. Good. What did you say the name ... Captain Self? Well, put him on, if you will?"

  "Good morning, Captain Self. This is John Thatcher, Sloan Guaranty Trust.” A brief crackling. Then, “Yes ... if our facts are right ... yes, if it is, then your man is the Robert Schneider for whom we’ve been searching.”

  Again the line crackled. Ken began to feel the awkwardness common to third persons to a phone conversation, when Thatcher waved him to the extension in the corner. As he picked up the phone the crackling turned into a deep, calm voice asking, “... can you tell?”

  “Our Robert Schneider,” Thatcher said, “was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, in ...” as he looked to Nicolls. “1918,” said Nicolls. “My associate, Mr. Nicolls,” Thatcher explained to Self. “His father was Carl Schneider and his mother was ...”

  “No, that fits,” said the voice of Self without any audible excitement. “Stan Michaels called us up last night. Said you’d called. Told us you were looking for him.” He stopped talking and the line buzzed faintly; then he added, “What did you want him for?”

  “He was the heir—or rather one of the heirs—of a trust that we administer,” Thatcher said carefully. “We are going to be distributing the trust in the fairly near future.”

  Again there was silence on the line. Captain Self was not a man to plunge into conversation, thought Nicolls. “How much did he stand to get?” Self asked.

  “$100,000,” Thatcher replied, matching his brevity.

  Self apparently whistled, because the telephone emitted a sibilant squeak.

  “What kind of trust is this?”

  As Thatcher explained the trust, Self remained silent. Then, in a completely detached voice, he asked for the names and addresses of the other heirs.

  Replying that Mr. Nicolls could supply these, Thatcher listened with amusement as Ken spelled the names and addresses, while Self said nothing.

  “Is there anything you can tell us about the circumstances of Schneider’s death?” he asked the laconic policeman.

  “Not much. He got hit on the head, but the body wasn’t discovered until two or three days later.”

  “Do you have any idea of whom ... or any suspects?” Thatcher asked.

  “Plenty of them,” Self said shortly. “Trouble is, that weekend was one of our big snowstorms. Having a hell of a time checking on who was where. Everything was pretty much disrupted. Now,” he said, clearly checking a list, “now we’ll have to run a routine check on Arthur Schneider, Grace Walworth, and Martin Henderson.” He sounded resigned.

  “What we were wondering about here,” Thatcher said, conscious of Nicolls eyeing him, “was something about Schneider. We’ve lost track of what he’s been doing since 1945.”

  “What did you want to know?” Self asked.

  “Marriage and children,” Thatcher said concisely. “You see, any children of his would stand to inherit their father’s share of the money.”

  Again there was silence on the line. Then Self’s voice, more detached and calm than ever: “Schneider had a wife and two children. Two boys, seven and nine.”

  “Good Lord!” said Nicolls distinctly, but Self continued. “They lived apart: separated but not divorced. Mrs. Schneider has the boys.”

  “Do you happen to have the address available, Captain Self? We’ll have to get in touch with her.”

  “Mrs. Kathryn Schneider lives at 204 Sycamore Street, Batavia,” Self said promptly and without expression. He paused. Then, apparently feeling that he should be more forthcoming he added, “She’s a schoolteacher.”

  As it became apparent that Self was going to volunteer nothing more, Thatcher thanked him for the information and assured him of further contact, rang off, and said to Nicolls, “A man of few words, but sensible, don’t you think?”

  “Do you take it that he becomes even more terse when it comes to the wife?”

  Thatcher was thoughtful as he replied, “Yes, but I was interested in those suspects.
He sounded sincere, didn’t he?”

  “Of course he may just have meant that there were a lot of people who didn’t like Schneider.”

  “I wish,” Thatcher said, “we could find somebody who did like him. It would restore my faith in human nature. Family, business associates ...”

  “And an estranged wife,” interrupted Nicolls.

  “Yes indeed. Do you see what this means?” Thatcher asked, looking with narrowed eyes at Nicolls, “It means,” he said, without giving the younger man a chance to reply, “it means that the bank is now trustee for two minors whose mother is possibly a murderess.” There was a moment of silence in the office, broken only by the distant chatter of Miss Corsa’s typewriter. Ken, startled by Thatcher’s seriousness, was suddenly uneasy. “And,” Thatcher added authoritatively, “this means we have a mandate, an absolute duty to inquire into the whole affair. Those boys are a responsibility of the Sloan.”

  “Inquire into a murder?” Ken said, frankly incredulous.

  With no visible sign of distaste, Thatcher answered, “Certainly. Now let’s get down to business. I expect that the police will contact the Schneiders quite rapidly. Certainly over this weekend. Self sounds like a competent man.” This represented, Ken knew, an accolade. Somewhat bemused, he watched Thatcher open a drawer, then look up to add, “I think that you had better take a trip and look into the whole thing.”