“What? Oh, you’re joking!”
“Sure. I’m going to laugh at his funeral, too. Ha-ha-ha!”
Then Robertson banged the door of his office. Sargent heard Eileen’s high heels clicking toward his office and got up hastily. He met her at the doorway.
“It’s true, Eileen,” he said. “Ernest Pelkey was shot, yesterday. He had this job before me.”
Eileen gasped. She started to sway, but when Sargent made no move to catch her, she merely leaned against the doorjamb for support. “Why, that’s horrible!”
“Frank!” called Mildred O’Kelly. “Telephone. It’s... the boss!”
Sargent brushed past Eileen and, walking to the switchboard, picked up the hand set.
“Sargent,” he said.
“You’re fired,” Ben O. Chapman snapped, without preamble. “I don’t want you around the office when I get there.”
“I was just leaving,” Sargent snarled. He banged the set on the prongs and strode out of the office. He almost collided with Mrs. Sligo, just emerging from the elevator.
“Well!” she exclaimed. “You’re starting early today... leaving the office.”
“Mrs. Sligo,” Sargent said, “go sit on a tack. A big one!” He stepped into the elevator. “Going down!”
In front of the building a man hastily raised a newspaper before his face, but not quickly enough to prevent Sargent from seeing his face. It was the police detective who had followed him and Jim Robertson a couple of days ago.
Sargent said, “Look, I’m going to take a taxicab to my hotel. Why don’t we split the meter? We’ll both save money.”
The detective grinned sheepishly. “That’s against the rules. Lieutenant Fanning wouldn’t like it.”
“All right, then, I hope you lose me.” Sargent signaled to a cruising taxi, then watched the detective scramble toward another parked a half block away.
Sargent stepped into his own cab. “Around the corner as fast as you can make it, then stop. Here’s a half buck.”
“Huh?” exclaimed the startled cabby. Then he scowled and shifted into second gear. The car leaped away so swiftly that Sargent was hurled back against the cushions.
Before he could regain his balance the cab was careening around the corner and squealing to a stop. Sargent tumbled out and plunged for the door of a department store. As he leaped through the doors he shot a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the detective’s cab skidding to a halt beside the one he had just vacated.
Grimly he entered the store and headed for the first counter, which happened to be the ladies’ hosiery. He admired a pair of nylon stockings for a moment, then when the detective failed to appear he went back to the door.
As he had expected, the detective was out of sight. He’d guessed that Sargent would enter one door and depart by another, on the adjoining street, and to save time had immediately headed for the far door.
Sargent popped out and quickly crossed the street. He entered a second-run theater and remained inside for a half hour. When he finally came out he boarded a streetcar and rode to North Avenue. There he transferred to a westbound car and a few minutes later swung off at Larrabee Street.
A few doors west of Larrabee he entered a bank and approached the Savings window. “How much have I got in my account?” he asked.
The teller went off to look it up, returning in a moment. “Ninety-two-fifty.”
That was all the money Sargent had been able to save in the last year. He said, “I want to draw out eighty-seven-fifty.”
“Very well, Mr. Sargent. If you’ll just fill out this form...”
With the money in his pocket he walked back to Larrabee and, crossing the diagonal Ogden Avenue, entered the elevated station.
Fifteen minutes later he descended to the street on Wells and Randolph and walking eastward to Michigan, entered the tall building opposite the public library. A sign outside the building read: John Crerar Library.
The building directory told him that trade journals were on the eighth floor and he rode up the elevator. He entered the trade journal room and scouted the rack containing Sugar Beet Review. He found it to be a nine-by-twelve, 32-page magazine.
Chapter Seventeen
The masthead gave the publishing address as Superior Street, Duluth, Minnesota, and the publisher as Louis J. Suttles. Mr. Suttles was also listed as editor.
The volume number was 16, which told Sargent that the magazine was sixteen years old. There were four full pages of advertising in the issue and enough small ads to make up a total of nine pages.
Approaching the desk to ask a question pertaining to Sugar Beet Review, Sargent saw a thick paperbound volume, entitled Standard Rate & Data Service. The name was familiar from the book on Journalism as a Career that Sargent had read only a few days ago and he opened it and looked up Sugar Beet Review. The listing gave complete advertising information regarding the magazine, and Sargent learned that the page rate was sixty dollars, on a yearly contract, or eighty dollars for a single insertion. Circulation was given as “3,000 circulation guaranteed.” Doing a bit of quick mental arithmetic Sargent estimated that the gross advertising revenue of Sugar Beet Review was in the vicinity of $630, figuring the rate at an average of $70 per page.
He didn’t know a great deal about printing costs, but judged that the printing of 3,000 copies of such a paper would total at least half the advertising revenue. He frowned. Would a man publish a trade journal with so small a margin of profit?
An attendant behind the desk interrupted his thoughts. “Anything I can do for you?”
“Why, yes, I was wondering if you have any back numbers of the Sugar Beet Review?”
“How far back?”
“As far back as the magazine goes — sixteen years.”
“That’s pretty far back,” said the attendant; “we usually only keep them that long for the important magazines.”
“Sugar Beet Review isn’t considered an important journal? I’m just curious to know how it rates with other trade journals.”
“It doesn’t. It’s one of the cats and dogs. The important trade journals are Traffic World, Hardware Age, Progressive Grocer, and magazines like that.”
“How does Business Journals, Incorporated, rate as a trade journal publisher?”
“Never heard of them; who are they?”
“Skating Rink, Creep & Crawl, Turkey Talk—”
“Oh, that outfit!” The attendant made a grimace that was eloquent enough? Then he went off to check up on Sugar Beet Review. He returned after almost five minutes.
“Strangely enough,” he said, “we have bound volumes of the really old issues, but none between two and eight years ago. I’m having the old ones sent down. It’ll take a few minutes.”
Sargent whiled away the time looking up Chapman’s journals in the Standard Rate & Data Service. He discovered that Turkey Talk had a guaranteed circulation of 3,000. Oddly enough, the same circulation figure was given for Creep & Crawl, The Skating Rink and The Slot Machine. He wondered if 3,000 was a figure used by trade journal publishers in lieu of actual figures that might be much lower.
A boy came up panting under a double armload of bound volumes. “Here’re your copies of Sugar Beet Review,” said the librarian.
Sargent took the books to a table and opened up Volume 1. It was dated June, 1925. The masthead gave the publisher as the Sugar Beet Publishing Company, Sebewaing, Michigan. The editor’s name was Julian Herlands. The magazine was a poorly printed 16-page affair, with but four pages of advertising.