“I understand, but please remember that I am here offering you a sincere service. The minutes which you have so generously given me will bear you golden dividends out of all proportion—”
“You have my proposition. The quicker you get it to your board of directors, the quicker you can give me an answer.”
I walked over and held the door open.
He looked at me curiously for a minute, then shot out his hand. “Mr. Fischler,” he said, “permit me to congratulate you on having made one of the most momentous decisions of your entire business career — and also upon having put across the shrewdest, most far-sighted financial deal of any prospect upon whom I have called. I’ll give you a ring this afternoon.”
I stood in the door and watched him cross the outer office and leave through the entrance door.
Elsie Brand looked up. “Gosh, what a line,” she said.
“Could you hear it?”
“Not the words, but you could hear his voice pouring out through the cracks around the office door.”
I said, “Get me Henry C. Ashbury on the line. You’ll find him listed in the telephone book. Don’t try his residence. Get his office.”
I went back and sat down at the desk. Ashbury came on the phone in about thirty seconds, and I said, “Hello, Ashbury. You know who this is talking?”
“No.” His voice was close-clipped and decisive as though he didn’t like riddles over the telephone, and was ready to hang up.
“Your physical instructor.”
“Oh, yes.” His voice changed.
“Would it inconvenience you,” I asked, “if your stepson went to jail for crooked promotion?”
“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 realising 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 to 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 corner, 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, turning 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, looking 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 door 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 check-up 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.”