Chapter Twenty-Three
Sargent walked to Sedgwick Street and stepped into a taxi.
“Fullerton and Clark,” he said.
Ten minutes later he stepped out of the taxi a block from Ben Chapman’s apartment house. When he reached the entrance a man stepped out of the shadows.
“Mr. Sargent!”
“Wilting!” exclaimed Sargent. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Working for you.”
“But I thought you were going to shadow Lew Thayer?”
“Uh-huh, he’s upstairs.”
Sargent whistled softly. At five o’clock Lew Thayer had been bordering on delirium tremens after a prolonged binge. Now, five hours later, he was sober enough to call on Ben Chapman. Well, it was possible, but just about possible.
He said to Wilting, “How long have you been following him?”
“Only an hour; he didn’t show up until about nine.”
“Was he sober then?”
“No, but he stopped at a couple of saloons on the way here and that seemed to sober him up. He was walking pretty steady when he went in, ten minutes ago.”
Sargent nodded. “Well, keep on his tail.”
“Ain’t lost a man in four years.”
Sargent went into the apartment house and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Reaching the door of Chapman’s apartment he listened for a moment. Voices were rumbling inside, but he couldn’t make out any words. He leaned against the door buzzer.
The rumbling inside stopped. Chapman’s voice called, querulously, “Who is it?”
“Frank Sargent.”
He heard Chapman exclaim before the door was opened. Through a haze of cigarette smoke, Sargent looked in on a scene that was not very different from the one he had seen here on his previous visit. There were eight or ten people in the living room.
“Sargent,” Chapman cried, “why didn’t you phone me at the office like I asked?”
“Wasn’t anything to phone about. Lew was drunk as a boiled owl...”
“He’s here!”
Sargent pretended surprise. “Yeah?”
Chapman made an impatient gesture, “Come in. Thayer’s making trouble. Maybe you can talk to him.”
Sargent followed Chapman in to the party. A couple were making violent love in one corner and several guests were seated on the floor. There was a vacant spot in the circle, which Ben O. Chapman had evidently occupied.
From the kitchen came a scream and Ben Chapman, muttering under his breath, headed in that direction. Sargent was close upon his heels.
Eileen Prescott, the beautiful advertising solicitor of Turkey Talk, was wrestling with Lew Thayer and an uncouth individual with coarse, sensuous features and a bald head. It looked like a wrestling bout at first, but when Sargent got closer he saw that Eileen was really trying to prevent Lew Thayer from assaulting the commission house man. Apparently he hadn’t signed the contract yet.
“Lew!” howled Chapman. “Stop that! What are you trying to do, create a scene?” That was a masterpiece of understatement.
“Who, me?” Thayer asked indignantly. “I was only tryin’ to stop this monkey from pawing Eileen. Eileen’s my girl, see, and I don’t let no one paw my girl.”
“She ain’t your girl,” whinnied the commission man. “I brung her here, see. I took her to dinner and I brung her here. She wasn’t complainin’; was you, honey?”
At that moment Eileen spotted Frank Sargent and deserted both Lew Thayer and her advertising prospect. “Frankie,” she cooed, “what a surprise! Where have you be-an?” She pronounced it just like that.
“Up in Minnesota,” Sargent replied. “Duluth.”
Ben Chapman cried out hoarsely, “What’s that, Sargent?”
“Huh? Eileen asked me where I’d be-an, and I told her.”
“You said Duluth, Minnesota!”
“That’s right, that’s where I was yesterday.”
“Why? What were doing up there? You didn’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“You’ll tell me now.”
Eileen cut in, pouting, “No one pays any attention to poor me!”
“I’ll take you somewhere’s else, baby,” said the commission man. “I don’t like this party, anyway.” He advanced, licking his lips. Then Lew Thayer let out a bellow.
“I told you to lay off her!”
Whack! His fist smacked the commission man high on the face and knocked him against a table on which stood a large bottle of ginger ale and a small bottle of whisky. Both were knocked to the floor. The bottle of whisky broke, the ginger ale didn’t.
“Oh, Mr. Maltz!” squealed Eileen.
Sargent threw both arms about Lew Thayer, breaking his fighting stance by pinning his arms to his side. All this seemed like old stuff to Sargent.
“Le’ go me,” snarled Thayer.
“You’re fired, Thayer!” whined Ben Chapman. “I’ve put up with you too long. Not another publisher would take what I’ve taken.”
Sargent’s patience snapped. “Shut up, Chapman!” he cried. “Shut up and get out of here. And take Eileen and Maltz with you.”
Surprisingly, Sargent’s flare-up got results. Eileen gave him a shocked glance and tripped out to the living room. Mr. Maltz scuttled after her and was followed by Ben Chapman. Then Sargent released Lew Thayer.
“Now you and I are going to have a talk,” he said grimly.
Thayer stared at him. “Say, you’re the new man on Turkey Talk. Fella who took Ernie Pelkey’s place.”
“Yes!” snapped Sargent. “I’m also the man whose life was saved by Ernest Pelkey at the cost of his own.”
Thayer winced. “Jeez, that was tough. That’s why I been hittin’ the bottle. Ernie and me was pals.”
“A pal of Ernie’s killed him. Maybe it was you.”
A deep crimson darkened Thayer’s already red face, “Look here, Sargent, I don’t take that from any man.”
“You’ll take it and like it!” Sargent snarled. “If you’re the man who killed Pelkey you’ll take even more. If you didn’t do it, you can stay sober long enough to help me get the man who did. Can you understand that?”
Thayer swallowed hard. “You mean that? You’re on Pelkey’s side? I thought—”
“Never mind what you thought. I’ve taken Chapman’s gaff because it furthered my investigation.”
“You’re a cop!” accused Thayer.
“I am not! I told you why I was doing this. Now listen for a minute. You bought a share of stock of Business Journals from Hanson Hill some time ago.”
“Who, me?”
“You! Don’t lie, because Hill admitted it. You gave him twenty-five dollars for it.”
Thayer seemed to deflate a little. “All right, I thought it would be a joke on Ben Chapman. I was going to use it to keep him in line. Then Ernie...”
“Yes?”
“He wanted it from me.”
“When was this?”
“Last week, after Chapman fired him.”
Sargent looked steadily at Lew Thayer. “And you gave it to him?”
“Well, Ernie promised that I’d get the twelve hundred Ben owed me.”
“So Ernest Pelkey had the two shares of stock. I don’t get it. I have it on good authority that he sold one of those shares to Daniel Sligo for a thousand dollars.”
Lew Thayer’s eyes suddenly evaded Sargent’s. The latter crowded closer to Thayer and took hold of an arm. “This is important, Lew. Damned important. Did you know Ernie sold that single share to Dan Sligo?”
Thayer hesitated a moment, then shrugged in surrender. “Yeah, sure. After all, Ben chucked Ernie out without even a week’s notice. Ernie was a married man and besides he was kinda sick. I didn’t see any thing wrong with him selling that share for a grand especially since...”