2
“The Kings Were in the Counting-House”
It was eleven o’clock when Inspector Queen left his apartment on West 87th Street in the company of Sampson, Cronin and Fiorelli, bound for the Criminal Courts Building.
At precisely the same moment, some miles to the south, a man stood quietly at the library dormer-window of a private apartment. The apartment was situated on the sixth floor of French’s, the Fifth Avenue department store. The man at the window was Cyrus French, chief stock-holder of French’s and president of its Board of Directors.
French was watching the swirling traffic at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 39th Street with unseeing eyes. He was a dour-visaged man of sixty-five, stocky, corpulent, iron-grey. He was dressed in a dark business suit. A white flower gleamed on his lapel.
He said: “I hope you made it clear that the meeting was for this morning at eleven, Westley,” and turned sharply to eye a man seated beside a glass-topped desk before the window.
Westley Weaver nodded. He was a fresh-faced young man, clean-shaven and alert, in the early thirties.
“Quite clear,” he replied pleasantly. He looked up from a stenographic notebook in which he had been writing. “As a matter of fact, here is a carbon copy of the memorandum I typed yesterday afternoon. I left one copy for each director, besides this one which you found on the desk this morning.” He indicated a slip of blue-tinted paper lying beside the desk telephone. Except for five books standing between cylindrical onyx book-ends at the extreme right of the desk, a telephone, and the memorandum, the glass top was bare. “I followed up the memos to the directors with telephone calls about a half-hour ago. They all promised to be here on time.”
French grunted and turned again to look down upon the maze of morning traffic. Hands clasped behind his back, he began to dictate store business in his slightly grating voice.
They were interrupted five minutes later by a knock on the outer door, beyond an anteroom. French irritably called, “Come!” and there was the sound of a hand fumbling with the invisible knob. French said, “Oh, yes, the door’s shut, of course; open it, Westley.”
Weaver went quickly through the anteroom and flung open the heavy door. He admitted a weazened little old man who showed pale gums in a grin, and with an amazing celerity for a man of his years tripped into the room.
“Never seem to remember that locked door of yours, Cyrus,” he piped, shaking hands with Westley and French. “Am I the first?”
“That you are, John,” said French with a vague smile. “The others should be here any moment now.”
Weaver offered the old man a chair. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Gray?”
Gray’s seventy years sat lightly on his thin shoulders. He had a birdlike head covered with thin white hair. His face was the indeterminate color of parchment; it was constantly wreathed in smiles which lifted his white mustache above thin red lips. He wore a wing collar and an ascot tie.
He accepted the chair and sat down with a preposterously lithe movement.
“How was your trip, Cyrus?” he asked. “Did you find Whitney amenable?”
“Quite, quite!” returned French, resuming his pacing. “In fact, I should say that if we officially come to a complete agreement this morning, we can consummate the merger in less than a month.”
“Fine! Good stroke of business!” John Gray rubbed his hands in a curious gesture; they rasped together.
There was a second knock at the door. Weaver again went into the anteroom.
“Mr. Trask and Mr. Marchbanks,” he announced. “And if I’m not mistaken, there comes Mr. Zorn from the elevator.” Two men passed into the room, and a moment later a third; whereupon Weaver hurried back to his chair by the desk. The door swung shut with a click.
The newcomers shook hand all around and dropped into chairs at a long conference table in the middle of the room. They made a peculiar group. Trask — A. Melville Trask in the Social Register — fell into a habitually drooping attitude, sprawling in his chair and playing idly with a pencil on the table before him. His associates paid little attention to him. Hubert Marchbanks sat down heavily. He was a fleshy man of forty-five, florid and clumsy-handed. At regular intervals his loud voice broke in an asthmatic wheeze. Cornelius Zorn regarded his fellow directors from behind old-fashioned gold-rimmed eyeglasses. His head was bald and square, his fingers were thick, and he wore a reddish mustache. His short figure completely filled the chair. He looked startlingly like a prosperous butcher.
French took a seat at the head of the table and regarded the others solemnly.
“Gentlemen — this is a meeting which will go down in the history of department store merchandising.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Westley, will you see that a man is posted at the door so that we may continue absolutely undisturbed?”
“Yes, sir.” Weaver picked up the telephone on the desk and said. “Mr. Crouther’s office, please.” A moment later he said, “Crouther? Who? Oh, yes... Never mind looking for him; you can take care of it. Send one of the store detectives up to the door of Mr. French’s private apartment. He is to see that no one disturbs Mr. French while the Board meeting is going on... He is not to interrupt us — merely station himself at the door... Whom will you send?... Oh! Jones? Good enough. Tell Crouther about it when he comes in... Oh, he’s been in since nine? Well, tell him for me when you see him; I’m very busy just now.” He hung up and returned quickly to a chair at French’s right. He snatched his pencil and poised it over his notebook.
The five directors were poring over a sheaf of papers. French sat staring at the blue May sky outside while they familiarized themselves with the details of the documents, his heavy hands restless on the table top.
Suddenly he turned to Weaver and said in an undertone, “I’d almost forgotten, Westley. Get the house on the wire. Let’s see — it’s eleven-fifteen. They should be up by this time. Mrs. French may be anxious about me — I haven’t communicated with her since I left for Great Neck yesterday.”
Weaver gave the number of the French house to the operator, and a moment later spoke incisively into the mouthpiece.
“Hortense? Is Mrs. French up yet?... Well, is Marion there, then? Or Bernice?... Very well, let me speak with Marion...”
He shifted his body away from French, who was talking in a low tone to old John Gray. Weaver’s eyes were bright and his face suddenly flushed.
“Hello, hello! Marion?” he breathed into the telephone. “This is Wes. I’m sorry — you know — I’m calling from the apartment — your father would like to speak to you...”
A woman’s low voice answered. “Westley dear! I understand... Oh, I’m so sorry, darling, but if Father’s there we can’t talk very long. You love me? Say it!”
“Oh, but I can’t,” whispered Weaver fiercely, his back rigid and formal. But his face, turned away from French, was eloquent.
“I know you can’t, silly boy.” The girl laughed. “I just said it to make you wriggle. But you do, don’t you?” She laughed again.
“Yes. Yes. Oh, YES!”
“Then let me talk to Father, darling.”
Weaver cleared his throat hastily and turned to French.
“Here’s Marion at last, sir,” he said, handing the instrument to the old man. “Hortense Underhill says that neither Mrs. French nor Bernice has come down yet.”
French hurriedly took the telephone from Weavers hands. “Marion, this is Father. I’ve just arrived from Great Neck and I’m feeling fine. Everything all right?... What’s the matter? You seem a little tired... All right, dear. I merely wanted to let you know that I’m back safely. You might tell Mother for me — I’ll be too busy to call again this morning. Good-bye, dear.”