The young man at the window of the cage stared inquiringly over a large fortune of securities which he was rapidly counting, entering in a book, and labeling with small pieces of paper pinned to each bundle with a T-headed pin.
“I want to speak to Mr. Ludlow,” Chick said.
The young man tossed $20,000 worth of bonds ten feet down the desk to a fellow worker and said, “There’re two of them.”
It was a moment before Chick realized the youth was addressing him. “Two of what?”
“Two Mr. Ludlows.” The young man grinned. “C. B. and A. B. Take your choice. C. B.’s stocks, and A. B.’s bonds and commodities.”
“I’ll take the stocks, if you don’t mind,” Chick said.
“You’ll lose, either way,” the young man informed him and pushed a button. An office boy appeared and at the young man’s laconic “C. B.” said, “Come along, mister.”
Chick followed, with a definite impression that the custodian of the stocks and bonds in the cage was not much worried whether Ludlow Brothers got business or not. C. B. was a very small, nervous man, with ticker tapes running through his veins. He occupied an office twice too big for him, when he should have been under a glass bowl. His money-minded judgment responded favorably to Chick’s clothes and general appearance. He took another look at the card in his hand and said, “Sit down, Mr. Hartshorn. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Chick took a red leather chair edged with brass tacks and waited a moment to see if Mr. Ludlow would go on. He had a distinct feeling that the broker’s greeting was not one which would be given to a stranger, although there was no real foundation for his conclusion. He might easily be mistaken about the over-zealous glint in C. B.’s hard eyes.
The broker watched him interrogatively, decided Chick was not going to speak, and pushed a box of cigars across the desk. Chick, who disliked cigars intensely, took one, and made a ritual of lighting it to gain time. The luxurious office was pervaded with an air of dire inaction, such as might hang over the scene of a duel when each adversary waited for the other to make the first move.
“Things look better, don’t they?” C. B. opened with a stock remark which experience had proved delightfully noncommittal, and sometimes stimulative to business.
It ran into a dead end with Chick, who agreed quickly and unconditionally. “Yes, they certainly look better.”
C. B., who, at heart, disliked inaction, whether it was in the market or himself, came to an important decision—that it could do no immeasurable harm to ascertain the real cause for Mr. Charles Hartshorn’s visit. It pained him to think that Mr. Hartshorn might be in the office of Ludlow Brothers for the purpose of crying over spilt milk, but C. B. was a busy man. If that was Mr. Hartshorn’s purpose, the sooner he allowed him. to cry it out and leave, the sooner he, C. B., could return to more profitable lines of endeavor.
“Personally,” said C. B., “I would consider the coming six months a much more propitious time to trade than the past half year. Unpredictable market fluctuations have unfortunately caused unforeseen losses to many of our largest operators.”
“So I’ve heard,” Chick said shortly.
“Ha ha!” C. B. glanced obliquely at Chick and favored him with a business laugh. “It’s the men like you, Mr. Hartshorn—men who can take it without squirming—who have helped restore the country to the financial responsibility it enjoys today.”
“That’s right,” said Chick. C. B. wished fervently that his visitor would cease looking like one of the lions in front of the Public Library. He plucked a fountain pen from an onyx holder on his desk and gave it an unneeded filling from the inkwell.
“I presume you came down to reopen your account. Frankly, we’re glad to meet you in person, Mr. Hartshorn. While we have no real control over the wishes of our customers, sometimes if we know them personally we are able to put in a helpful word. The pulse of the market, you know—that’s the thing.”
“I might at that.” Chick regarded the broker through a smoke wreath. “For the fun of it, I’d like to run over my last statement with you. Perhaps you can give me some hints where I went wrong.”
“Certainly,” C. B. agreed. At last his client was running true to form. A push button produced an impersonal young lady, who made a trip to get the statement, giving Broker Ludlow a chance to indirectly recommend one or two favorite stocks. Chick, who had gone to the window to stare out on Broadway, was not much help, and C. B. was relieved when the statement was placed on his desk.
His cordiality became real as his quick mind untangled the intricacies of the yellow sheet. “Ah—ah—there was a short period, Mr. Hartshorn, when we had some slight difficulty getting in touch with you.” Chick turned from the window and bent over the broker’s sheet, noting his name and address stamped at the top of the statement.
“That’s right,” he said. “I was probably out of town. Of course, you might have had better luck if you’d tried my apartment on Park Avenue, where I live.”
C. B. looked up, mirroring commercial grief. “But the addresses of all our customers are checked most carefully, Mr. Hartshorn, before an account is opened, particularly one of this size.”
“Yes, it’s big enough. Quite a wallop to lose $130,000 in a month.”
“Er—yes,” said Mr. Ludlow. “Quite a wallop. Of course, to a man of your standing—”
“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Chick put in. “Not a thing. You see, Mr. Ludlow, I didn’t lose it. I’m Charles Hartshorn, all right, but I never had an office at the address on that statement—and furthermore, I never had an account with you in my life!”
Chapter Thirteen: SHEPHERD VS. POLICE
“Hoefle’s clever,” said District Attorney Dearborn, “and I think he’s back of this. Anyhow, I’m not taking any chances. My secretary took the phone call. I was to be there tonight before the first floor show and bring Maclain with me. The inference was that if too many of us showed up, we’d learn nothing at all.”
“I doubt if it makes any difference,” Maclain declared. “If Hoefle’s mixed up in it, he knows you’re going to have the place watched while you’re in there. If the mysterious information’s coming from someone working in Hoefle’s place, then Hoefle knows about it. However, it’s one of those things we don’t dare pass up. What’s your plan?”
“You and I and Springer will drive down in your Packard and go in together. There’s a small waiting room to the right of the entrance by the coatroom. Springer can wait in there.”
“Inconspicuously?” Spud asked slyly.
Dearborn’s gray eyes twinkled. “It will be less conspicuous than not having him along, and he’ll be handy in case of trouble, although I’m not anticipating any.”
“And the rest of us?” the inspector inquired. “What do we do?”
“Follow about ten minutes later. My big car’s outside, and I’ll give the necessary instructions to Swanson, my chauffeur. He’ll park across Sheridan Square where you can keep an eye on the entrance.”
“I knew there’d be some way of keeping me out of dinner and a floor show if there was an expense account involved,” Spud said sadly. “What do we do—just sit there?” “There’s nothing to stop you coming inside,” the D. A. told him, “but I have a job for Sergeant Archer and the inspector. The Hi-de-Ho has a backyard which connects with a house on West 10th Street, directly in back of the club. I want the sergeant to watch it and tail anyone who comes out.” “If you’re trying to bottle up that club, Mr. Dearborn, you’ll find it’s a rabbit warren,” Inspector Davis announced. “Hoefle owns two houses on each side of it, and I’m sure they connect. What about my getting a few more men ?”
The D. A. shook his head. “I’ll leave it to you and the sergeant to do the best you can. I doubt if anyone is coming out that we’ll find of interest. This whole business may be some sort of trick to throw a dead fish across the trail.”
“Suppose you wait until we get downtown,” Spud suggested, “and we look the place over for ourselves. I think, w
ith Archer and Davis, I can bottle up any five houses in New York City.”
“I agree with Spud,” said Maclain. “Let them follow us and make their own plans.” He reached for and held a finger on one of a long row of pearl buttons set in a frame to his left. The impassive Springer jumped noticeably, for close by his ear a voice spoke from the wall and said, “When you hear the signal, the time will be nine-thirty-two.”
“This place gives me the jeepers,” said Springer truculently and stood up.
Maclain smiled. “I’m sorry if I startled you, but since I can’t see the time, I have to hear it—and the constant striking of a clock annoys me. I have a direct line into a loudspeaker in the telephone company’s time bureau. Shall we go?” He stood up, and Dearborn followed suit.
“Give us about fifteen minutes, Spud,” Maclain said.
Rena came in from the adjoining room carrying a light evening raincoat over her arm. “It’s pouring,” she said. “You’d better take this with you, Captain Maclain.” Her tone toward Duncan Maclain was always most formal when others were present.
Schnucke, alert, with raised ears, circled the captain and came up on his left, sitting down close by his leg. He seized the guide on Schnucke’s back, and followed her from the room. Rena accompanied the three men to the elevator.
Sergeant Archer scratched his round head as he watched the door close behind them. “Sometime that dog’s going to speak to me—and I won’t be half as surprised as I was to hear that voice coming out of the wall telling Maclain the time. Did you ever see anything like her, Inspector—circling around him as if she was walking on eggs, so that he couldn’t possibly take a step and trip over her ?”
“Training,” said Spud. He was always delighted when anyone took notice of Schnucke’s smooth performance of her duties. “It takes three to five months of the most intensive training in the world. The Seeing Eye teaches them to sit, stand, walk, turn right or left, or wait at attention, and they obey each command like a soldier.”
“Well, I never realized what they could do until I saw him downtown this afternoon.”
“Does he take her every place he goes?” the inspector asked.
“Does a nearsighted man forget his glasses?” Spud countered. “With Schnucke, Dunc’s independent. With me leading him around, he’s just another blind man, and she’s trained to do as much as I can. She’ll lead him around ditches, fences or excavations and never jump—but the marvelous part is that she knows when to intelligently disobey. Dunc couldn’t beat that dog into leading him into danger!”
“Well, by God, I’d hate to try doing anything to him with her around,” the inspector declared. “I’ll bet she’d tear me to pieces, or anybody else who’d try to touch him. It’s a pretty good combination when you come to think of it—protection for him along with everything else, and in his business he needs it.”
“Strangely enough,” Spud declared emphatically, “that’s where you’re fifty miles off the track, Inspector. Schnucke just won’t bite, and I doubt if anything any of you could do would make her bite. I’ve seized Dunc, wrestled with him and pushed him around all over the place—and mauled her about, too. I believe you could walk in here and beat Dunc to death, and she wouldn’t attack you.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Davis declared. “She’s a police dog, isn’t she?”
“No.” Spud walked to the desk, lighted a cigarette, and returned to his place on the divan. “Schnucke’s a German shepherd bitch, trained by the Seeing Eye to lead her blind master efficiently and safely. When Dunc walks through the park with her, or down Fifth Avenue, she’s patted on the head and called ‘Nice doggie’ by every kid and old lady within a mile of them. It’s against every instinct that a German shepherd has to bite. Their breed has worked with men in the fields—tended sheep—for over two hundred years. Hundreds of them are now leading blind people in this country and abroad. There’s never been a case on record of a Seeing Eye dog biting anyone.”
“But I tell you, Spud,” Davis said heatedly, “I know a police dog when I see one! When Enright was commissioner, the department had a lot of them, but they died off with some sort of an epidemic!”
“There’re still a few left,” the sergeant argued. “They use ’em out in Brooklyn. Go out and maul one of them about someday—if you think they won’t bite!”
“Good Lord!” Spud got up from the divan and stood looking down at the two officers, his yellow eyes aglow. “I thought two members of the department would know the difference between a trained police dog and a German shepherd. Apparently the same lack of information exists even among people who use them. Some day I’m going to get so mad on this subject I’ll bust a blood vessel.” His voice raised in anger. “Why, there’s one lousy chain of restaurants right here in New York that won’t let Dunc in to eat a meal because they think Schnucke’s going to take a bite out of one of the waitresses’ legs! Let me put you straight, Inspector: There’s no such dog as a police dog. Take a bulldog and train it for police work, and it’s a police dog! Take a Doberman pinscher and train it for trailing and use it in the police department, and it’s a police dog! Take a German shepherd—the gentlest, kindliest, most intelligent dog in the world—and spend week after week in heartbreaking labor training it to obey every command and to bite—if you can train it to bite—and you have a police dog!”
“You’ve got to show me,” said Davis.
“By God,” said Spud, “I’m going to show you!”
He strode across the office to where the soundproof French doors opened onto the penthouse terrace and flung them wide. A breath of scorching air from the streets below drifted into the cooled apartment, carrying with it rain, distant thunder from the storm, and a faint roar of the traffic. The two men sat immobile and watched him as he disappeared through the doors to be swallowed up in the darkness of the terrace.
Sergeant Archer, conscious of the outside heat creeping in, took a big handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. Halfway to returning it to his pocket, he stopped, holding the handkerchief motionless before him.
Standing framed by the door to the terrace was Spud Savage, and beside him, sitting down as he stopped, staring with unwavering gray eyes, was a German shepherd. Cold fingers touched the sergeant at the back of his neck and traveled down his spine.
The dog was but little larger than Schnucke, but there was menace in its every line. Almond-shaped eyes, broad strong jaws and forechest spelt runner and fighter. The set of the white teeth and the stance of the full, erect tail showed the courage and ability to battle to the death.
Spud’s face was grim and stern, and his yellow eyes never left the animal beside him. He held his right arm out stiffly, the flat of his hand facing the floor. “Stand, Dreist, stand.” He took three slow paces into the room and repeated the command, then added most unnecessarily, “This is Dreist, gentlemen—the best police dog in the world. You’re perfectly safe if you stay quite still.”
The sergeant and the inspector both gave Spud’s words the courtesy of unqualified belief. The sergeant shivered slightly as his large handkerchief, still held in front of him, fluttered in the breeze, and Dreist’s eyes moved for a split second from the inspector to him.
Still watching the dog, Spud walked to Maclain’s desk and from the bottom drawer took out a broad flat muzzle which he slipped on over Dreist’s head. He snapped a heavy leather leash onto the dog’s collar and led him first to the inspector and then to the sergeant.
Dreist sniffed them both with grave unconcern. The stolid Archer saw that his handkerchief was trembling in his hand.
Holding tightly to the leash, Spud took a seat on the divan and said, “Lie down.” The dog obediently dropped to the floor at Spud’s feet without taking his gaze from the other two men.
“You wanted to be shown, Inspector,” Spud said in low emphatic tones. “Then look at the dog at my feet. He’s from the same stock as Schnucke, only she’s trained to be safe as a little child—and Dreist’s
trained to be dangerous as a loaded gun. Months of it at Mt. Pelerin in Switzerland. He works only with me and Maclain, and both of us had weeks of special instruction with him in New Jersey under the best trainer in the world before he was released to our custody.
“His first duty is to protect us against assault—and never allow anything to come between him and either of us without our instructions. He’ll stand, lie or sit down instantly, at command, and stay there for hours while we’re away. He’s been taught to bite—but not to tear—and his trailing ability is developed as high as possible, though he’s not by any means among the best.
“He can jump an obstacle eight feet high, and clear ten to twelve feet in width. He’ll carry and fetch over obstacles, or through fire and water, and can find something by nose work which has been thrown away hours before.” Spud’s eyes fixed the inspector. “But most difficult of all, Inspector, was to teach this dog to bite! It took weeks of play with a gunny sack—then a sack-covered pad on the arm of a man. Time and time again it had to be gone through—for Dreist, Inspector, is a German shepherd, despite the fact that he’s a police dog, and while he’ll bite now, he’s doing something that every instinct in him cries out against doing! It was the very fact that Schnucke was no protection which forced us to get him.”
“And now that you’ve got him,” Davis asked rather hoarsely, “what are you going to do with him?”
“I promised the D. A.,” said Spud, “that I’d keep an eye on Hoefle’s place. I’m taking Dreist along to help.”
“If you keep that muzzle on him,” said Archer with a deep sigh, “I’ll go along in the front seat—you and the inspector and the dog can ride in the back!”
Chapter Fourteen: THE MARIHUANA VOICE
Dearborn’s chauffeur, Swanson, proved to be a stocky Swede, possessed of a single joy—to get the big limousine he so efficiently handled from one part of New York to another with a minimum of elapsed time.
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