The Oblivious Heiress: A Jane Carter Historical Cozy (Book Four) (Jane Carter Historical Cozy Mysteries 4)

by Alice Simpson

  “Clever? Didn’t he mismanage the paper so that it had to close?”

  “Not that anyone ever learned. No, I never could figure out why Roberts quit. The Press had a large circulation and plenty of advertisers.”

  “What became of the building?”

  “It’s still there.”

  “No, I mean who owns it,” I explained. “Not Mr. Roberts?”

  “The building was taken over a few months ago by a man named George Vaughn. Come to think of it, I once brought him home with me. You should remember him, Jane.”

  “I do. He was rather nice. I wonder what he plans to do with the Press building and its equipment.”

  “Hold it for speculation, I assume. In my opinion, he’ll have it empty for a long while.”

  “I rather doubt it,” I told my father. “He has a prospective tenant now, only he doesn’t know it.”

  “Indeed? Who?”

  “You’re looking at her.”

  “You!” Dad smiled broadly.

  “I have it all planned,” I announced with quiet finality. “What this town needs is a good, weekly story magazine, and an imaginative editress to run it.”

  “Oh, I see.” Dad seemed to be having difficulty keeping a straight face. “And where do you propose to establish your weekly story magazine? In the old Press building?”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth, Dad. Everything is there, awaiting the touch of my magic wand.”

  “There is the little matter of rent. I fear the going rate for a building that size would be nearly a thousand a month.”

  “I have a solution for that problem.”

  “Your staff?”

  “I’ll gather it as I prosper.”

  “The necessary capital?”

  “A mere detail,” I said. “I meet only one obstacle at a time. Tomorrow, I shall accost Mr. Vaughn with an attractive proposition. If he falls into my net, Greenville’s newest commercial concern, Carter’s Weekly All-Story Magazine, makes its bow to the public.”

  Chapter Six

  “My dear lady, do I understand you correctly? You are asking for the use of the Morning Press building without any payment of rent.”

  Mr. Vaughn, slightly bald and with a bulging waistline, gazed at me in disbelief across his polished mahogany desk. Upon arriving at his office that morning, he had found me awaiting him. For the past ten minutes, I had stunned him with my remarkable figures and plans.

  “Yes, that’s about the size of it,” I acknowledged. “What this nation needs are more literary magazines unhampered by the conservatism of over-aged minds and the narrow viewpoint of the purely male perspective. Now you have a fine building and equipment which is standing idle, fast falling into decay—”

  “Decay?” Mr. Vaughn inquired.

  “Expensive machinery soon rusts and becomes practically worthless unless kept in use,” I declared with authority. “If you’ll agree to my proposition, I’ll publish a weekly story paper there, see that your property is kept in good condition, and turn the plant back to you whenever you can find a prosperous renter.”

  “Your father sent you here?”

  “Oh, goodness, no! Dad thinks it’s all a great joke. But it isn’t. I am confident I can make a success of a weekly story magazine if only I have a chance to test my ideas.”

  “I wish I could help you start your magazine,” Mr. Vaughn said. “However, I doubt if you comprehend the cost of such a venture. Even should I permit the use of my building rent free, how would you meet such expenses as light, water and heat?”

  “Oh, I have a plan for everything,” I insisted. “All I need is the use of the building. I’ll have the windows washed for you and do a good job of house cleaning. With me in charge, you’ll be able to dismiss your watchman.”

  “I haven’t any watchman.”

  “No watchman?” I said with feigned incredulity. “Last night when I drove past the building I saw a light on the third floor. Evidently, someone is prowling about there, Mr. Vaughn.”

  “You’re certain you saw a light?” Mr. Vaughn appeared disturbed.

  “Oh, yes, indeed. Excuse me for advising you, Mr. Vaughn, but you really should have someone to guard your property.”

  Mr. Vaughn smiled broadly. “You are a very convincing young lady. While I realize it is a foolish thing to do, I am tempted to let you have the key.”

  “Oh, Mr. Vaughn, that’s wonderful! You’ll never regret it!”

  “I’ll allow you the use of the building for a month,” resumed Mr. Vaughn. “At the end of that time, we’ll discuss the future.”

  I was thrown into such a frenzy of excitement that I could scarcely remain outwardly serene until I had left the office. Once on the street, I ran the entire distance to the Examiner building and dashed into my father’s suite with all the sound effects of a laboring steam engine.

  “Dad!” I cried dramatically. “I have it. The key to the Morning Press plant. Now I’m on my way to withdraw my savings from the bank.”

  “What’s that? Don’t tell me Mr. Vaughn listened to your crazy scheme.”

  “He’s heartily in favor of it,” I informed my father. “Now I must rush off to the bank.”

  “Come back here,” Dad ordered, “It would be foolhardy to withdraw Timothy’s life insurance money. That’s earmarked for your old age. You know you’ll never be capable of growing much of a nest egg on what you can make from writing serials. I fully intend to leave you everything I’ve got when I go, but life is unpredictable. The time may come when you’ll have to rely upon the money Timothy left you.”

  “That’s just my point,” I insisted. “I yearn to be fully self-sufficient, but how can I ever become self-sufficient on the pittance I’m paid for writing serials for other people. No, I intend to cut out the middle-men and publish directly to the masses. That’s why I want to start my own magazine, but how can I launch Carter’s All-Story Weekly without capital?”

  “You’re really determined to try it?”

  “Of course.”

  Dad reached for his check book.

  “How much will you need?”

  “Oh, just sign your name at the bottom and leave the amount blank.”

  “Sorry, I prefer not to financially cripple myself for life. One hundred dollars is my limit. I’m throwing it down a sink-hole, but the lessons you’ll learn may be worth the cost.”

  “I can do a lot with a hundred dollars,” I said. “Thanks, Dad.”

  I picked up the check before the ink was dry and, dropping a kiss lightly on my father’s cheek, was gone.

  I telephoned Florence from the corner drugstore and told her the news. I asked her to come downtown at once. Fifteen minutes later Flo met me at the entrance to the Morning Press building.

  “Just think, Flo!” I said as I unlocked the front door. “This huge plant is all mine! I’m a publisher at last.”

  “You’re completely insane if you ask me. This place is a dreadful mess. You’ll never be able to clean it up, let alone get out an issue of a story magazine. Do you honestly intend to write all the stories yourself?”

  “I do not,” I said, “but I do have almost enough material laid by—previously rejected by Pittman and other editors of old-fashioned and narrowminded inclinations—to make up the bulk of the serials for months to come. Where I have a bit of a deficit is short stories, but haven’t you heard the saying that every educated woman of taste and intelligence has a secret ambition to be a lady novelist?”

  “Whose saying is that?”

  “Mine.”

  “Supposing you succeed in locating this group of educated women of taste and intelligence, all yearning to become lady novelists, how do you propose to pay them? Every penny of that hundred dollars your father gave you will have to go to plant expenses.”

  “I know that,” I said. “Perhaps, you’ve heard this saying: ‘Write without pay until someone offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as a sign that sa
wing wood is what he was intended for’.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s yours, too?”

  “No, I borrowed it from Mark Twain. My point is, if I can just get through the first year, later on, I can begin to pay out handsomely and will richly reward all those loyal would-be lady novelists I plan to enlist as cadets in the service of Carter’s All-story Weekly.”

  “I think,” said Flo. “Any educated woman of taste and intelligence might be better advised to going straight to sawing wood.”

  We had passed through the vestibule to the lower floor room which once had served as the Press’ circulation department. Behind the high service counter, desks and chairs remained untouched, covered by a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling light fixtures and festooned the walls.

  We climbed the stairs, glanced briefly into the newsroom and then wandered on to the composing room. My gaze roved over long rows of linotype machines and steel trucks which were used to hold page forms. There were bins of type, Cheltenham, Goudy, Century—more varieties than I had ever seen before.

  Passing by the stereotyping department, we entered the press room where slumbered ten giant double-decked rotary presses. Lying on the roller of one was a torn strip of newspaper, the last issue of the Morning Press ever printed.

  “It gives one an odd feeling to see all this,” said Florence. “Why do you suppose Roberts closed the plant when it was prosperous?”

  “No one seems to know the answer,” I replied, stooping to peer into an empty ink pot. “But it doesn’t seem possible a man would give up his business and throw so many people out of work without a good reason.”

  “His bad luck seems to be your good fortune,” Florence said. “Well, since you’ve fallen heir to all this, what will you do with it? It will take a sizeable chunk of your hundred dollars just to get the place cleaned.”

  “Not according to my calculations,” I said. “Let’s choose our offices, and then we’ll discuss business.”

  “Our offices?” echoed Florence. “I’m not in on this brainstorm of yours. I may be an educated woman of taste and intelligence, but I assure you that I’ve never yearned to become a lady novelist.”

  “Don’t worry, Flo. You won’t have to write any stories yourself. You’ll be the editor.”

  “But I thought you were the editor!”

  “I’ll be the managing editor,” I explained. “You’ll have your office and oodles of authority. Of course, you’ll have to work hard keeping our staff in line.”

  “What staff?”

  “Oh, they don’t know it yet, but the ladies of the League of Women Voters have found a solution for their advertising problems.”

  “But what does that have to do with your nonexistent staff?” Flo asked.

  “The LWV is undoubtedly rife with educated women of taste and intelligence. Who would be better fitting to staff a story magazine dedicated to the portrayal of strong, capable heroines than the ladies of the League of Women Voters?” I asked.

  “You’ve not met Mrs. Dunst, have you?”

  “No, but I fully intend to. This afternoon, if possible,” I said. “Would you happen to know what Mrs. Dunst is in the habit of doing on a Friday afternoon?”

  “No, but I do know she’ll be at the Greenville Garden Circle’s annual tea tomorrow,” said Flo. “I’m supposed to accompany Mother there and help hand round the sandwiches while listening politely to the old dears’ sundry medical complaints.”

  “I’m a veritable expert at dispensing noodle-juice,” I said. “And you know I always bend a sympathetic ear when any person brings up their ailments.”

  “Is that your way of asking to come along?” Flo said. “Well, alright. But it won’t do you any good. There’s no denying that you have a way with words, but I think you’ll find Mrs. Dunst is a force to be reckoned with.”

  “I’ll shall look forward to it,” I said. “I’ll even get gussied up in my most respectable frock and find a pair of stockings without a single hole in them.”

  “See that you do,” said Flo. “And don’t you dare do anything that might embarrass mother.”

  Florence glanced around at the dusty machinery.

  “I don’t see how you expect to get these presses running.”

  “We’ll only need one.”

  “True, but you can’t recruit pressmen or linotype operators from the Greenville Examiner. They’re all union.”

  “Unfortunately, no. The first issue of Carter’s All-Story Weekly Magazine will be printed at the Examiner plant. Dad doesn’t know it, yet. After that—well, I’ll think of something.”

  “How do you propose to get this place cleaned?”

  “Every person who works on our paper must wield a broom.”

  Returning to the second floor, we inspected the offices adjoining the newsroom. I selected for myself the one which previously had been occupied by Marcus Roberts. His name was still on the frosted-glass door, and the walls were hung with etchings and paintings of considerable value.

  An assortment of pens, erasers, thumbtacks, and small articles remained in the top drawer of the flat-top desk. All letters and personal papers appeared to have been removed.

  “Mr. Roberts apparently left here in a great hurry,” I said to Flo. “For some reason, he never returned for the paintings.”

  Florence chose an office adjoining my new quarters. We both were admiring the view from the window when I stiffened and grabbed Flo by the hand.

  “What’s wrong?” Flo demanded.

  “I thought I heard someone moving about,” I whispered.

  We remained motionless and listened. A board creaked.

  I darted to the door and flung it open. The newsroom was deserted, but I heard footsteps retreating swiftly down the hall.

  “Flo, we’re not alone in this building!”

  “I thought I heard someone, too.”

  We ran through the newsroom to the hall and down the stairway. Three steps from the bottom, I halted. A man’s grimy felt hat lay on the service counter of the advertising department.

  “Look at that,” I said to Flo. “Someone was upstairs!”

  “He may still be here, too. Jane, did you leave the entrance door unlocked?”

  “I guess so. I don’t remember.”

  “A loiterer may have wandered into the building, and then left when we gave chase.”

  “Without his hat?”

  “Probably, he forgot it.”

  “I intend to look carefully about,” I said. “After all, I am responsible for this place now.”

  I immediately went down and locked the entrance, then Flo and I wandered warily from room to room. We even ventured into the basement where a battalion of rats had taken refuge, but the building appeared deserted.

  “We’re only wasting precious time,” I said at last. “Whoever the intruder was, he’s gone now.”

  Retracing our way to the advertising department, we stopped short. The hat, which had been laying on the counter only a few minutes before, had vanished.

  Chapter Seven

  Flo and I stared at the counter. I knew that we had not touched the hat. It must have been removed by the man who had abandoned it there.

  “The hat’s gone,” whispered Florence nervously. “That means someone is still inside the building!”

  “He could have slipped out the front door while we were in the basement.”

  Once more, we made a complete tour of the building, entering every room. We found no one and finally decided to give up the futile search.

  “After this, I’ll take more care to lock the entrance door,” I said as we prepared to leave the building.

  Saturday afternoon I put on a quietly-respectable flowered frock, a pair of stockings in pristine condition—I had to borrow those from Mrs. Timms—and a pair of shoes which were only slightly run down at the heel.

  I spent the first half hour of the Gardening Circle Tea listening to Mrs. McCall, one of Reverend Radcliff’s most elderly parishi
oners, catalog the progress of her lumbago. Periodically, I scanned the room, alert for the arrival of Mrs. Dunst.

  When she finally arrived, I detached myself from Mrs. McCall, who had forsaken her lecture on lumbago and had gone on to describe in exquisite detail the trouble she’d been having with her glass eye. I suggested that perhaps Florence might pop round and give her eye a good scrubbing, before slipping away. It was a mean trick to play on old Flo, but it wouldn’t be the first time that Reverend Radcliff’s daughter had been recruited to launder a parishioner’s accessory parts.

  “How do you do,” I said to Mrs. Dunst and stuck out my hand. “I’m Jane Carter.”

  Mrs. Dunst slowly extended the gloved hand not containing the plate loaded with an assortment of shortbread, scones and pimento cheese tea sandwiches.

  “You’re Anthony Fielding’s daughter, aren’t you?” Her voice was a trifle frosty.

  “I am,” I said. Since she already knew who I was, I decided on a frontal assault. “I heard my father has been less than receptive to your requests to place advertisements on behalf of the LWV in his newspaper.”

  “He has been less than receptive,” Mrs. Dunst replied with only a trifle less frost in her voice. “As has every other reputable news establishment in Greenville. I confess I never expected to encounter such a unified resistance to the cause of the LWV.”

  “I have very little influence with my father,” I said—this was more or less a lie, but it was the unvarnished truth when it came to putting pressure to bear on his choice of advertisers. “Hounding him to accept your account would be fruitless, but I may have a unique solution to your problem which would be mutually beneficial to us both.”

  I spent the next ten minutes regaling Mrs. Dunst with my successes as Miss Hortencia Higgins—my nom de plume—authoress of such well-received serials as “Under Sentence of Marriage: What Came of Miss Amhurst’s Trip to New York,” and “Marcia Makes Good: A Vamp Finds Her Soul”. I left out “Evangeline: The Horse Thief’s Unwilling Fiancée”. I did not think Mr. Pittman’s butchered ending would please her—had Mrs. Dunst chanced to read it—it certainly had not pleased me.