“If my— Good God, Donald, what are you talking about?”
“About whether it would inconvenience you if your stepson went to jail for crooked promotion.”
“It would be disastrous. It would be—”
“Is it possible,” I asked, “that you have watched him being promoted to the position of president, without realizing that he was simply being pushed out in front?”
“Good God!”
I hung up the telephone.
I paused in the outer office long enough to say to Elsie Brand, “I’m going over to Bertha Cool’s office and tell her she’ll have to get another secretary.”
She smiled. “Bertha will have kittens.”
“That’s fine. In about an hour Mr. Rich will call to tell me that he’s managed to get my proposition through for immediate action, but that he can’t hold it open longer than two or three o’clock this afternoon, that I’ll have to get the money and have it ready in the office, and he’ll be here with contracts to sign. Make an appointment for whatever time he says, and call me at Bertha Cool’s office to let me know.”
“Anything else?” she asked.
“If a Mr. Ashbury should call or come in, tell him Mr. Fischler is busy and you don’t know just when he’ll be back.”
Chapter Eight
I’D BECOME so accustomed to hearing the rapid fire of Elsie Brand’s typewriter when I opened the door of the agency office that the ragged tempo of click—clack—clack—clack—click—clack—clack sounded strange to me as I walked down the corridor, and made me pause to convince myself that I had the right office.
I pushed open the door.
A rather good-looking girl sat over at Elsie Brand’s desk with her arms wrapped around the typewriter, digging away at the paper with a circular rubber eraser.
She looked up with a perfectly blank face.
I jerked my thumb toward the inner office. “Anybody in there?”
“Yes.” She reached for the telephone.
I said, “Never mind. I’ll wait.”
“Won’t you give me your name?”
“It isn’t necessary.”
I walked over to the comer, sat down, and picked up a newspaper. I turned to the sporting section and lit a cigarette as I settled down to reading.
The girl finished her erasure and started at the keyboard again. From time to time she’d look at me. I didn’t look up to meet her eyes, but didn’t need to. She had a habit of stopping the typing whenever she looked across at me.
I could hear voices in Bertha Cool’s office, just a few stray bits of conversation without being able to distinguish words.
After a while the door opened, and a man came out. I had the paper up in front of my face at the time, but I could look under the edges of the paper and see his legs from the knees down, and his feet.
There’s an old exploded theory that detectives wear big square-toed shoes. At one time they may have done it, but the good detectives quit it long before the public ever knew anything about it.
This man had lightweight tan shoes and well-creased trousers, but there was something about the way he handled his feet that made me keep the paper up. He started to walk out, then suddenly paused, turned around, and said something to Bertha Cool. The toes of his shoes were pointing directly at me. I held the paper up, and he kept on standing there.
I put down the paper, looked up with a blank look, and said, “Mrs. Cool?”
She took a quick breath.
The man was about forty-five, tall, and fairly broad across the shoulders. He seemed a quiet, reserved chap, but there was something in his eyes I didn’t like, although I didn’t look at them.
Bertha said, “What do you want? Don’t tell me you’re selling anything. I’ve subscribed to all the magazines and made all the donations I’m going to.”
I smiled and said, “Whenever you’re at liberty,” and returned to my paper.
The man said, “Good morning, Mrs. Cool,” and walked across the office. Bertha Cool stood there until the outer office had clicked shut, then she jerked her thumb, motioning me into the office.
I followed her in and closed the door. She lit a cigarette. Her hand was trembling. “My God, Donald,” she said, “how did you know?”
“What?”
“That he was a detective looking for you?”
“Something in the way his shoes were pointed toward me,” I said. “He acted like a bird dog.”
“Well, God knows it was a lucky hunch,” she said, “but it isn’t going to do you any good.”
“What does he want me for?”
“You should know.”
“What did he say?”
“Said that he was making a routine checkup on some people he wanted to interview in connection with that murder. He wanted to know if I had a man working for me named Lam, and asked if he was doing some work for a Mr. Ashbury.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that I wasn’t at liberty to make any statements about what my employees were doing. That was up to Mr. Ashbury.”
“They’re wise,” I said. “They’re after Alta on another matter, and they’ve found out I’m out at the place.”
She said, “They’ve found out you answer the description of the man they want in connection with that Ringold murder.”
“Probably.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
I said, “I’m going to duck out for a while.”
“Are you making any headway on the case?”
“Some.”
She said, “Donald, you get me into more damn trouble. During the time you’ve been with me I’ve got in hot water on every case I’ve tackled.”
“You’re making ten times as much money, too,” I pointed out.
“Well, what of it? You’re too wild. You take too many chances. Money isn’t any good in jail.”
“Is it my fault that a man chooses the particular moment I’m working on a case to bump someone off?”
She couldn’t think of any answer to that so didn’t make any. She looked at me with hard, glittering eyes and said, “I telephoned Elsie to find out how the work was getting on, and she said you’d told her to stop it.”
“That’s right.”
Her face flushed. “I’m running this office.”
“And I’m running Fischler’s office. What’s the use of going to all the trouble making a plant if a man comes in the door and sees a secretary writing letters on the stationery of B. Cool—Confidential Investigations?”
“Well, I can’t have her sitting over there twiddling her thumbs, doing nothing. I’m paying her a salary. I have work that has to go out.”
“Get another girl,” I said, “and charge it to expenses.”
“Expenses nothing. I’m going to trade with you. You take this girl over there, and I’ll have Elsie come back here.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“Well, I say so.”
“You’re the boss.”
She waited for me to argue, and I didn’t argue.
“Well, what’s wrong with it?” she demanded. “Nothing, if you want it done that way. Of course, the way things are shaping up now, it might make it a little involved if this girl should go home and talk to her mother, or her boy friend about how she’d been switched.”
“I’ll fire her and get another. This one’s no good anyway.”
I said, “All right, be sure you get one who doesn’t have a sweetheart or a family.”
“Why?”
“Because girls talk when they go home. That office over there in the Commons Building— Well, you know how it is. I can’t turn out any work. It’s just a plant. A girl with any sense would know it’s a plant.”
Bertha took a deep drag at her cigarette. “Well, things can’t go on this way.”
“That’s right.”
“Donald, they’re going to get you. They’ll drag you over to that hotel. The people will identify you, and you’ll be
in jail— And don’t think your salary goes on while you’re in jail.”
I said, “I’m going to spend a thousand dollars of expense money this afternoon.”
“A thousand dollars!”
“That’s right.”
Bertha Cool tried the cash drawer to make sure it was locked. It was. “Well, you’ve got another think coming,” she snapped.
I said, “I’ve spent it already.”
“You’ve done what?”
“Spent it already.”
She blinked her eyelids once, then stared steadily. “Where’d you get it?”
“Ashbury.”
“So you went to him direct after getting all that money from me.”
“No. He came to me.”
“How much did you get?”
I waved a hand in an airy gesture. “There’s no limit. He told me whenever I needed a few thousand to call on him.”
She said, “I’m making the business arrangements for this agency.”
“Go ahead and make them, only see that my style isn’t cramped.”
She leaned over and toward me, getting as close to her desk as her figure would permit. “Donald,” she said, “you take in too damn much territory. I’m running this business.”
“No question about that.”
“Well, when I-”
There were hurried steps across the office. I could hear the bleat of the new substitute secretary as she tried to stem the human avalanche which dashed across the office and wrestled with the doorknob. The door jerked open, and Henry Ashbury came puffing in. “There you are,” he said to me. “What were you trying to do, give me heart failure?”
“Simply telling you the truth,” I said.
“Well, you and I are going to talk things over. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Bertha Cool said with dignity, “In the future, Mr. Ashbury, you’ll get reports from me. Donald is going to submit regular typewritten reports. I’ll get the information and pass it on to you. This agency has been getting too damned irregular.”
Ashbury turned to her and said, “What are you talking about?”
“Your arrangements are with me. In the future kindly make all arrangements through me. I’ll give you the information.”
He looked at her over the top of his glasses. His voice was low, well modulated, and exceedingly polite. “I take it,” he said, “that I’ve been getting a little out of hand.”
“Donald has.”
“About the expense money perhaps?”
“That’s part of it.”
Ashbury said, “Come with me, Donald. You and I are going to have a talk.”
Bertha Cool said acidly, “Don’t mind me. I’m just his employer.”
Ashbury looked at her. He said quietly, “My principal concern is for myself, and I happen to be the one who’s paying all the bills.”
That had Bertha falling all over herself. She said, “Why certainly, Mr. Ashbury. We’re representing your interests. The thing we want the most is to do what you want.”
Ashbury took my arm. “All right,” he said. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Downstairs in my car.”
“It might be a good plan to travel,” Bertha Cool said to me.
“I’ve thought of that. Where’s the agency car?”
“In the garage.”
“See you later,” I said.
“When can I have Elsie back?”
“I don’t know.”
Bertha Cool struggled with her temper, and Ashbury took my arm, led me across the office, and down to a parking station where he’d left his big sedan. “All right,” he said, “we talk here.”
He slid in behind the steering wheel. I sat beside him. “What’s all this about Bob?”
I said, “Use your head.”
“I am. I should have done it a long time ago, but that possibility never occurred to me.”
“What other reason could there have been?”
“I thought it was a frame-up to get my money in the business. I thought Bernard Carter was the real brains behind the thing and was making all the money. I thought Mrs. Ashbury wanted to get him in on some easy pickings, and they decided the best approach would be through Bob.”
I said, “Well, it’s a racket. They’re pushing Bob out in front. I don’t think Bernard Carter has much to do with it.”
“Well, he’s mixed up in it.”
“A shrewder mind than Carter’s is back of it, and if Carter’s in it, he’s probably being played for a sucker— From all I can gather, Carter wouldn’t exactly want to have Mrs. Ashbury’s son get into trouble on his account.”
Ashbury gave a low whistle. “What’s the racket?” he asked.
I said, “They bought up some valueless tailings up by Valleydale, and are spreading a line of hooey that they’re rich in gold.”
“Are they?”
“I don’t think so. The dredging company didn’t dredge much where they couldn’t get down to bedrock.”
“That’s the idea back of it?”
“That’s it.”
“What are they doing?”
“Selling stock of a par value of one dollar in a defunct corporation at the modest price of five hundred dollars a share.”
“Good God, how can they do that?”
“Shrewd salesmanship, high-pressure, once-over, glib-talking men who work the rush act and dangle a golden bait in front of a man’s eyes. They set themselves a limited time for their talk. They stick a watch in front of the sucker. The sucker is always so imbued with the idea of being a busy executive that when it comes time for him to ask questions, he taps his fingers on the dial of the watch and sternly reminds the salesman that he’s taken up his allotted share of time.”
“That’s the way they work the rush act?”
“Yes. The customer really rushes himself.”
“It’s a swell idea,” Ashbury said. “Damned good psychology, when you stop to figure it.”
“It seems to be working.”
“So the prospect doesn’t ask any questions?”
“No. Every time he does, the salesman starts in talking as though he was finishing up the sales argument which the prospect interrupted because he’d run over his appointed time. That makes the prospect mad, and he shuts him off.”
“By gosh,” Ashbury said, “if Bob thought of that, he’s a lot cleverer than I gave him credit for.”
“He didn’t.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know—probably an attorney by the name of Crumweather, who also worked out a scheme for beating the Blue Sky Act.”
“Is the scheme legal?”
“Probably not, the way they’re working it. That’s why Bob’s president.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that method of salesmanship?”
“No. It’s damn clever.”
Ashbury drew a handkerchief across his forehead. “And to think that I was so damn dumb—so eager to keep out of the boob’s business confidences—I didn’t see what was happening.”
I didn’t say anything.
After a while he said, “What are you planning to do, Lam?”
“How badly do you want to keep Bob out of jail?”
“No matter what happens,” he said, “we can’t have anything like that.”
“I thought I’d run up to Valleydale for a day or two.”
“Why?”
“That’s where they’re operating.”
“What do you expect to find up there?”
“I might find the records of the old dredging company dealing with a survey of the land they dredged.”
“Then what?”
“If I could get them,” I said, “and they show what I think they’ll show, I’ll make a deal with the lawyer—but I don’t think I can get them.”
“Why not?”
“The brain that thought up that sales canvass and beating the Blue Sky Act has probably taken care of all that.”
/> “What else will you do?”
“Look the ground over and try and find the crooked part of the scheme.”
“And while you’re gone, how about—er—this other matter?”
“This other matter,” I said, “is getting hot, too hot for me to handle right now without getting my fingers burned. I thought I’d stay away for a day or so and let it cool off.”
“I’m not certain I like that. Alta telephoned a little while after you’d left. She said that she thought you were coming back, that you’d just gone to the garage with me. She wants to see you. She’s worried— She’s— Dammit, Donald, we’re all getting so we depend on you.”
“That’s what I’m hired for.”
“I know, but this is different. Alta would be lost if you left.”
“Alta has to leave, too.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You mean go with you?”
“No. Go some place. Visit someone. Spend a few days with some out-of-town friend— And don’t let anyone know where she’s going.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want anyone asking her questions until I know a few more answers.”
“Then why are you going away?”
I said, “Detectives are on my trail right now. They’re checking up— Do you want me to tell you what they’re after?”
“No.”
“All right, then. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, and what you can do.”
He thought for a minute, took a cigar from his pocket, clipped the end off, and struck a match. “When are you going?” he asked.
“Now.”
“Where can I get in touch with you?”
“It’s better that you don’t. If anything comes up, get in touch with Bertha Cool.”
“But you’re going up to Valleydale?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know how long you’ll be gone?”
“No.”
“You’ll be going out to the house to pack up some things and—”
“I won’t be going anywhere to pack up anything. I’m going over to the garage, get the agency car, and get started. I’ll buy what clothes I need.”
“You’re leaving right away?”
“Just one thing I have to attend to.”
“What’s that?”
“Winding up Mr. Fischler’s business transaction.”
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