“Against what?”
“Anything you want. I’m betting on a cinch.”
I said, “It’s a bet. I want to see what’s in the letter. I have to have a residence address, you know, or I can’t fill orders.”
She smiled. “I know. Watch your step in Shreveport”
Chapter Fifteen
It was around eight o’clock in the evening when I rang the buzzer on the apartment at the address given me in Edna Cutler’s letter.
A feminine voice came drifting down through the little telephone set. “Who is it, please?”
I placed the transmitter to my lips. “A representative of the Silkwear Importation Company.”
“I thought you were in New Orleans.”
“We have branches all over the country — special field representatives.”
“Couldn’t you come tomorrow?”
“No. I’m making a swing through this section of the state.”
“Well, I can’t see you tonight.”
“Sorry,” I said in a tone of finality.
“Wait a minute. When can I see you?”
“When I make my next trip through here.”
“When will that be?”
“Three or four months.”
There was an exclamation of dismay. “Oh, hang it — I’m dressing. Wait a minute. I’ll throw something on and open the door. Come on up.”
The buzzer sounded, and I climbed a flight of stairs and walked down a long corridor, looking at door numbers.
Edna Cutler, attired in a blue dressing-gown, stood in the doorway waiting for me. She said, “I thought you shipped by mail.”
“We do.”
“Well, come on in. Let’s get it over with. Why did you come personally?”
I said, “We have to conform with the regulations of the F.I.C.”
“What’s the F.I.C.?”
“Federal Importing Commission.”
“Oh. I don’t see why.”
I smiled and said, “My dear young woman, we’d be subject to a fine of ten thousand dollars and imprisonment for twelve months if we sold to other than private individuals. We aren’t allowed to sell to any dealers, or to any person who intends to resell our merchandise.”
“I see,” she said, somewhat mollified.
She was dark, although not so dark as Roberta Fenn. She was expensive. Her hair, her eyebrows, the curl of her long lashes, the enamel on her nails showed the sort of care which costs both time and money. Women lavish that type of care on themselves only when they are property which is well worth the investment. I looked her over carefully.
“Well?” she asked, smiling tolerantly as she noticed the excursions made by my eyes.
I said, “You still haven’t convinced me.”
“I haven’t convinced you?”
She looked like a young woman who knew her way around. Sitting there in her apartment wearing a negligee, which showed enough bare leg to demonstrate clearly that she was entitled to an AAA1 priority on stockings, she was neither forward nor in the slightest degree embarrassed. So far as she was concerned, I wasn’t a human being. I was simply six pair of stockings at a bargain price.
“I’ll want to see samples,” she observed abruptly.
“The guarantee protects you.”
“How do I know it does?”
“Because you don’t pay anything until you’ve not only received the stockings, but have worn them for a full thirty days.”
She said, “I shouldn’t think you could afford to do that.”
“The only way we can is by having a very select mailing list. However, we want to get down to business. I have half a dozen other calls to make. Your name’s Edna Cutler. You want these stockings exclusively for your own use?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Now, I understand that you aren’t in business. I’m taking your assurance that none of these stockings will be offered for sale again?”
“Why, certainly. I want them for myself.”
“And perhaps some friends?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“We’d have to have the names of the friends. That’s the only way we can keep our import permit from the Federal government.”
She studied me curiously. “That sounds just a little fishy to me.”
I laughed and said, “You should try doing business now — even an ordinary business is bad enough. But try doing something where you have to import merchandise from a foreign country and see what happens.”
“How did you get hold of these stockings down in Mexico?”
I laughed. “That’s a secret.”
“I think I’d like to find out more about it just the same.”
I said, “A Japanese ship was carrying a load of hosiery. The Japs raided Pearl Harbor. The ship, like nearly all Japanese ships, was intended for commerce in time of peace, but in time of war it had a certain military mission to perform. The captain put ashore in Mexico on the coast of Lower California, picked a sandy place, dug a long trench, and buried the bulk of the silk goods from his hold. My partner happened to own the tract of land where the stuff was buried. He also happened to have some pull in Mexico City. As a result — well, you can gather—”
She said, “You mean this stuff is highjacked?”
“The Supreme Court of Mexico has given us title to it. We can get you a copy of the decision if you want.”
“But if you have any quantity of silk goods that you received under circumstances such as that, why don’t you bring them up, take them across the border, then sell them to some of the big department stores and—”
I explained patiently, “We can’t do that. Under our license with the government, we have to sell the stockings to individual customers.”
“Your letter didn’t say so.”
“No. It’s a ruling of the F.I.C. We couldn’t bring them into the country otherwise.”
I took a pencil and notebook from my pocket. “Now if you’ll kindly give me the names of any intimate friends to whom you’ll deliver any of these—”
“I want those stockings for my own use. However, I might refer you to a friend who’d take some.”
“That would be fine. Now did you—”
The door from the bedroom opened, and Roberta Fenn came breezing into the room. She’d evidently just finished dressing.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you the stocking man? I was just telling my friend that—”
She stood perfectly still. Her eyes widened, her mouth fell slightly open.
Edna Cutler whirled around quickly, caught the expression on her face, jumped to her feet with alarm, and cried, “Why, Rob, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Roberta Fenn said after taking a deep breath. “He’s a detective, Edna, that’s all.”
Edna Cutler whirled back to me with indignation and perhaps a trace of fear in her manner. It was the instinctive fight which a frightened animal puts up when it’s driven into a corner.
“How dare you come in here in this way? I could have you arrested.”
“And I could have you arrested for sheltering a person who’s accused of murder.”
The two women exchanged glances. Roberta said, “I think he’s really clever, Edna. I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with that approach.”
She sat down.
Edna Cutler hesitated for a long moment; then she, too, sat down.
Roberta said, “It was a clever trick all right. Edna and I wondered how anyone had got that address; then we decided that the post office probably took addresses from letters and sold mailing lists.”
I said, “No need to talk about that. That’s water over the dam.”
“It was a clever trick,” Roberta repeated, glancing significantly at Edna Cutler.
I said, “Any one of half a dozen tricks would have accomplished the same purpose. If I found you, the police can find you. The wonder of it is they haven’t found you sooner.”