Cherry Ames Boxed Set 9-12

by Helen Wells

  “What lovely things you have!” Cherry exclaimed, although she was appalled by the air of loneliness in here. It was an apartment scaled down to the needs of one solitary tenant. One armchair. One reading lamp. One chair drawn up beside the radio.

  “I had many more things which you would have liked,” Mrs. Julian said as she gave Cherry a cup of steaming jasmine tea. “But after my husband died—or rather, during his long illness—I disposed of most of our household.”

  Cherry did not want to dwell on a topic which must be painful for Anna Julian. She changed the subject.

  “Are you from New York originally, Mrs. Julian?”

  “No, my family lived in San Francisco, though we were often in New York en route to Europe. Ralph, my husband, was a San Francisco man. We lived there at first after our marriage. We—we came to New York in search of medical care for him.”

  And now he was dead, and her family was dead. Cherry tried to be tactful. “San Francisco must be a fabulous city. I’ve always wanted to see it.”

  “Yes, it’s wonderful, but I don’t ever want to return there.”

  Too many memories? Cherry tried again, saying that her Middle West was pretty wonderful, too, in its own way. But Mrs. Julian wanted to talk about her husband.

  “You see, Cherry, Ralph had a rare form of cancer which was not operable. For a long time he didn’t even realize he was ill because, though he sometimes complained of not feeling right, he stubbornly refused to have a medical checkup. So busy with business—Ralph had a fine shop which sold musical instruments—and besides, he rather dreaded admitting that he might be ill. Playing ostrich, I used to tell him. He wouldn’t listen. You as a nurse must know—”

  Cherry nodded. “Delay is the most dangerous thing people can do. So many diseases, even cancer, are curable providing the patient comes in the early stages for treatment. If only people would be sensible and have an annual health checkup! They take their cars to the garage periodically, but neglect themselves.”

  Mrs. Julian’s husband had neglected himself to the point where his condition became serious. They exhausted the medical resources of their city, then they were advised to try the foremost cancer research center and hospital in the nation, located in the East. Ralph Julian sold his business, and with these funds and with what Mrs. Julian had inherited from her parents’ mismanaged estate, they moved to New York City.

  “We were cheerful. We thought Ralph would be cured in a year or less, and able to work again. But his condition deteriorated. We had enough to live on for two years and pay medical bills, too.”

  The husband’s illness dragged on for four years. Cherry understood how this must have eaten into their resources. No wonder Mrs. Julian had sold most of their household furnishings at such a time.

  “I nursed him,” Mrs. Julian went on, “and tried to maintain a cheerful home. The hospital was wonderful. Even for Ralph’s rare form of cancer they had techniques. The doctors did everything humanly possible. But he had waited too long.”

  Cherry tried to think of something to say. But what could anyone say? Luckily, Mrs. Julian was much too self-contained and much too well-mannered to indulge in tears or self-pity or too personal confidences. She rose to show Cherry the porcelain clock.

  “Ralph gave me this for our first anniversary present. My mother had told him how I had fallen in love with it at a gallery, and he was wildly extravagant. I’m so glad he was.”

  “And this tea service?”

  “Oh, I gave my husband that for his birthday, one year,” Mrs. Julian said and burst out laughing. “Fortunately I gave him something else that he wanted, too. A pen, I think.”

  “Here’s my proudest possession, Cherry,” and Mrs. Julian lifted from a table an old-fashioned wooden music box, hand-painted with a garland of flowers. It was fairly large and bulky, though it rested comfortably in Cherry’s two outstretched hands. Mrs. Julian wound the handle, lifted the lid, and the notched metal plate began to spin.

  A light and peculiarly touching melody issued from the music box. It was a plaintive minuet, with an odd fall of notes. Cherry listened closely, and when the melody was repeated, she hummed along with it.

  “It’s lovely! Will you play it again?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Julian wound the music box. Cherry listened delightedly again, all the way through, every note speaking to her like a voice.

  A voice from long ago, for Mrs. Julian said the music box had been made a century and a half ago in Germany. “It belonged to a little princess, if you please. There isn’t another music box like it. I checked on that. Willard Dance was quite entranced with it when he visited me.”

  They talked about that endlessly interesting subject, the department store, and were beginning to discuss the missing Ming vase, when at six o’clock the doorbell rang.

  “He’s punctual!” Mrs. Julian exclaimed.

  Cherry did not know whom to expect. She was flabbergasted when Tom Reese walked in, and very pleased.

  “Hello, Cherry. Awfully sweet of you to let me come, Mrs. Julian.” Tom looked too strong and active for this room, full of breakables. He sat down on an antique chair and Cherry prayed that it would hold him. “Cherry, I might as well admit it. When I found out you were coming here this afternoon, I up and asked Mrs. Julian to invite me, too.”

  “Such gallantry,” Cherry murmured, feeling her cheeks burn.

  “Well,” Tom said bluntly, “I don’t know you well enough to ask you for a date, and I’ll never get to know you at work, not in all that rush. So—” He gestured and the chair creaked.

  “As long as we’re being candid,” said Mrs. Julian, “would you mind sitting on the couch, Mr. Reese? It is sturdier.”

  They all laughed, and Tom beamed at Cherry. She hadn’t realized he liked her, particularly; Tom was so friendly to everyone in the store. However, Cherry surmised that there was another reason for his calling on Mrs. Julian today. Tom must be trying to tell her that he, at least, among the store executives, regarded her as above suspicion.

  “I’m sorry you couldn’t come earlier,” Mrs. Julian said to Tom.

  “Thanks, but you know I go away every weekend, right after work on Saturdays.” He said that he went with two other young men to the Connecticut home of the parents of one of them.

  They chatted for a while. Half an hour later Tom stood up and said it was time for him to go. He seemed to be waiting for Cherry to come along, but Cherry did not wish to abandon her hostess. She couldn’t very well suggest dinner; that was up to the man of the party, and Tom was frowning at his wrist watch.

  “What are your plans for this evening, Mrs. Julian?” Cherry asked.

  “I’m going to church, to seven-o’clock service. Then I think I’ll stroll home, and go to bed early for a long night’s rest—Miss Nurse.”

  “Very wise of you. Will you excuse me, then? And thank you so much for the delightful tea party.”

  “I enjoyed having you,” Mrs. Julian said warmly.

  “You’re an angel, Anna Julian,” Tom stated as he followed Cherry out of the apartment.

  He had his car parked downstairs, but Tom confessed that he had to do desk work for most of this evening.

  “Anyway, I can drive you home,” he insisted. “Work, work, work, that’s all we do! During the Christmas shopping season, at any rate. What are you doing Christmas Eve? The rush will be over by then.”

  “It’s a date,” Cherry promised.

  “I’ll see you before that!”

  They had a long, lovely drive home.

  CHAPTER VI

  A Most Ingenious Trick

  “THIS PLACE,” CHERRY DECLARED TO GLADYS ON MONDAY, “looks like a schoolroom! You’d think we were entertaining the first grade.”

  They had their hands full with misplaced and banged-up children. The small boy lying on the cot had a nosebleed, brought on by the excitement of meeting Santa Claus. Cherry had just stanched the flow with a compress of medicated cotton and had sent to the sto
re cafeteria for a little lemon juice for him to drink. The boy’s mother approved the lemon juice, which was an old-fashioned, effective measure, but felt Cherry should summon a doctor.

  “Madam,” said Cherry, trying to be patient, “the bleeding has stopped, you can see for yourself. Let Bobby rest a bit, then if you wish you can take him to a doctor.”

  “I ain’t goin’ to any nasty old doctor,” Bobby growled.

  “Ssh! Nurse, are you sure Bobby is going to be all right?”

  “Yes, he didn’t lose very much blood.”

  “I did, too!” Bobby protested. “I lost as much blood as Tiger Injun in that movie where he nearly gets killed!”

  “Ah, that was probably catsup and not blood at all,” said Cherry. She turned to Bobby’s mother, “I don’t mean to minimize the tiring aftereffects of nosebleed. I’d suggest you take Bobby directly home in a few minutes, and have him rest. He may need a little extra nourishment, too—for example, a chocolate soda before you start on the ride home.”

  “Yippee!” Tiger Injun bounced up on the cot.

  “You’re supposed to be lying down, in ambush,” and Cherry made him lie flat on his back again.

  “I’ll be your lookout scout,” his mother promised, and let Cherry leave.

  In the medical department’s main room, small children of various shapes and sizes were perched here and there, nursing a banged, bandaged finger, or, in the case of two tiny girls, howling for their “lost” mother.

  Cherry was attending to the small girls when all of a sudden the children shouted with glee. “Santa Claus!” they said blissfully, pointing.

  Cherry turned around and there stood the fugitive from the toy department.

  “Headache again?” Cherry inquired.

  “Santa Claus!” Several small voices rose in a clamor and Bobby came running in to see. “Bring me a sled, Santa!” “I want a talking doll, Santy!” “Look-it me, Santa—”

  “Never mind,” said Santa Claus to the nurse. “Just give me an aspirin!”

  After the peak hours of afternoon shopping, the store hospital quieted down. Tuesday was relatively quiet. Cherry was congratulating herself when, Tuesday afternoon, the telephone rang.

  “Medical department, Miss Ames speaking.”

  “Cherry, this is Tom Reese.” He sounded unusually excited. “There’s been a second theft. The highboy has been stolen.”

  “That enormous chest? But that’s fantastic.”

  “Yes, but it’s true. You know Mrs. Julian fairly well, maybe you can be of use to me. Can you come at once?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Cherry hung up, adjusted her crisp white cap straighter on her black curls, and went next door. She had never been in Tom Reese’s private office before. His heaped-up desk interested her, with its roughs of store advertisements, shipping schedules, personnel reports, credit ratings, correspondence.

  “Everything except merchandising,” he said, following her glance, “comes under the jurisdiction of the store manager. Sit down, Cherry. This is bad business.”

  “For Mrs. Julian, too?”

  “Yes. I’ll come right to the point with you. The highboy has just been stolen, and about ten days ago the miniature Ming vase was stolen. The store detectives suspected Anna Julian of taking the vase, so now they figure she may be connected with the second antiques theft. Pierce, in particular, argues that it’s no coincidence both thefts occurred in Mrs. Julian’s department.”

  “Tom, do you think Anna Julian has stolen anything? Though how anyone could steal such an immense, well-known—”

  “Well, listen to this trick. Let’s see what you think.”

  The highboy was sold last Friday, as Cherry already knew. Mr. Dance had released the buyer’s name to the delivery service department, so that the highboy could be delivered at once to a Fifth Avenue address. The highboy was delivered last Saturday, and the store’s deliverymen reported nothing unusual, except that the house was scantily furnished.

  But this morning, Tuesday morning, the credit department reported that a check given in part payment for the highboy, a small deposit, had been returned by the bank as worthless. The highboy was charged to the customer’s account, a perfectly good account. The store detectives immediately sent men to the Fifth Avenue address. They found the house vacant and untenanted. The valuable highboy was gone. What happened, apparently, was that the house was rented temporarily and the highboy was removed to some unknown hiding place.

  “So the Fifth Avenue address was simply a respectable ‘front,’ is that it?” Cherry asked. “Who was the customer who’d do such a thing?”

  “We contacted the customer. He was astounded—said he never ordered the highboy, although Mr. Dance had phoned him it was available.”

  “Is the customer telling the truth?” Cherry asked.

  “Well, he’s a man whose reputation is beyond question. Have you seen the name John Cleveland in the newspapers as one of the President’s dollar-a-year men and heading up Red Cross committees?”

  Cherry nodded. The name was a respected one.

  Although the highboy was charged to Mr. John Cleveland’s long-standing and perfectly sound account, Tom explained, it was done by an agent. Or by a man claiming to represent Mr. Cleveland, with authority to act for him. The so-called agent purchased the highboy and ordered it sent not to Mr. Cleveland’s address but to the Fifth Avenue address, saying Mr. Cleveland was sending it as a gift to his daughter. But Mr. Cleveland declared today that he had no agent, that he had not authorized any such purchase, and that his daughter lived in Virginia.

  “So the agent was an impostor,” Cherry said, “and the Fifth Avenue address was a phony setup. How could Willard Dance have been fooled like that?”

  “Easy enough. We questioned Dance at noon today,” Tom said. “Dance says the agent offered him written credentials with John Cleveland’s signature. Faked and forged, of course, hut Dance says these were good enough to convince him. No, it’s not Dance’s fault. Busy, prominent people like Mr. Cleveland often send an agent to transact business for them. The ‘agent’ was awfully clever, that’s all.”

  Cherry sat staring at Tom Reese as he picked at a knotted string, stubbornly trying to untangle it. She had never before seen him fidgety and angry.

  “About the check that bounced—?”

  “That’s what alerted our bookkeeping and credit departments,” Tom said. “It was the phony agent who gave a rubber check, in part payment for the highboy—to expedite its immediate delivery. He charged the balance to John Cleveland, claiming he was authorized to do so.”

  So in exchange for a worthless check, the unknown man had obtained possession of the highboy.

  “Has the store any idea who the ‘agent’ was?” Cherry asked.

  “No. Dance furnished a detailed description of the man, and detectives are now hunting for him. Dance is contacting other art dealers, including Mr. Otto who knows a lot of people, to see whether they know the ‘agent.’ But locating him or the highboy in a city of this size is—”

  “Like searching for a needle in a haystack,” Cherry said. “What else did Mr. Dance say?”

  Mr. Dance had told store executives and detectives that on Friday morning, when the highboy arrived in the store, he telephoned the John Cleveland residence. Mr. Cleveland did not come to the telephone; Dance spoke to a secretary, presumably. He left a message that the famed highboy was for sale, in case Mr. Cleveland wanted first chance to acquire it. Thus, Willard Dance had said, he was not surprised when a little later on Friday a man claiming to represent Mr. Cleveland came to buy the highboy. When the ‘agent’ said that the prominent Mr. Cleveland wished no publicity about his acquisition just yet, Willard Dance honored the request. It was usual enough—and Cherry recalled Mrs. Julian’s confirming that.

  “I must say,” Tom admitted, “that Mr. Cleveland is being awfully decent. He’s already let our detectives search his New York house, and he’s offered to throw open
his country home for search.”

  “Tom,” said Cherry musingly, “do you think Willard Dance is telling the truth? All we have is his word for what happened.”

  “Yes, I believe him. His story is airtight. And he’s badly worried. Because he’s the one who sustains the loss of the highboy. Dance is the one whom the phony agent victimized—”

  “Not the store? Besides, I thought Dance was insured.”

  “Look, Cherry, it works like this—”

  Tom impatiently flung away the knotted string and explained. Actually there was no money loss to the store. The store could not charge Mr. Cleveland for an article which he neither ordered nor received. The charge for the highboy would simply be deleted from his account. Nor did the “agent’s” bad check cost the store any money. Mr. Dance sustained the loss of the bad check, since his concession—his independent business—accepted it. What was lost, so far as the store was concerned, was the highboy itself, and this was Mr. Dance’s responsibility.

  “Wasn’t it insured?” Cherry asked.

  “Dance had been insured, but after the Ming vase was stolen, his insurance company considered him guilty of carelessness, a poor risk. They paid on the Ming vase, but they canceled his policy on the usual five days’ notice. Dance just told me this.” Tom frowned. “He’s trying to get further insurance from another company.”

  “But the highboy—wasn’t it insured earlier by its owner?”

  Tom explained. When the owner transferred the highboy from his house to Dance’s antiques gallery within the store, he notified his own insurance company of the highboy’s change of location. Once the highboy was on Dance’s premises, Dance was responsible for it. The owner’s insurance company now held Willard Dance responsible to pay back to them the full value of the missing highboy—many thousands of dollars. The insurance company in turn would pay this sum to the highboy’s owner, who had taken out and paid for the insurance policy.