“What difference does it make?”
“None — now! But I’d have known why Pelkey had such a hatred for you. It would have explained Pelkey.”
“But it didn’t really amount to much,” Chapman whined. “Hester... I mean Mrs. Pelkey — used to come down to the office to see her husband and sometimes he wouldn’t be there. I... I took her to lunch a couple of times.”
“And filled her with your wealth and power and success. And all the time her husband was working for you for a measly forty dollars a week.”
“Forty-five!”
Sargent pushed Chapman away from him. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, Chapman,” he said. “If you’re still controlling Business Journals you can fire me at noon; if you’re out, I’ll quit to spare Mrs. Sligo from firing me. Until then...”
He walked out on Chapman. Heading through the living room he shot a quick glance around and failed to see Lew Thayer. Reaching the street he looked for Wilting the detective, but he was gone. So he assumed that Thayer had left and Wilting was on his trail.
It was after midnight when he reached his room at the Ajax Hotel that he hadn’t occupied for three nights. There were two letters and a postcard under his door. The postcard contained an announcement that the Beagles of the Holy Rollers were giving a dance at the Mozart Hall on Clybourn Avenue on August 10, Admission 75 cents. The first letter was from the Small Loans Finance Company urging him to borrow money from them. Sargent tossed it in the wastebasket after the postcard and turned to the second letter.
Dear Sargent:
I have just learned from the papers the reason why we have not been receiving our usual quota of reports. It seems that you have left our fold and strayed into more active fields. Yet we have not received your resignation. Are you attempting to devote the major portion of your time to mayhem and violence, intending to give us such few moments as you may be able to spare some Thursday evening?
Important issues are at stake in this country and now, more than ever, the public must be informed. I had been keeping my eye on you and was on the verge of summoning you to the home office and putting you in charge of our Public Relations Department. But now, alas, I must seek elsewhere among our field workers. And I must, also, appoint a new man in your territory. For that reason, I shall be in Chicago on Saturday, next, at which time I hope to see you and receive the return of your credentials and whatever supplies you still have on hand. Until then,
Regretfully yours,
Sargent tossed the letter into the wastebasket. “Nuts to you, Horace,” he said; “you’re the man picked Willkie to beat Roosevelt!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frank Sargent was up at six-thirty in the morning. By seven he had grabbed a quick breakfast at a near-by restaurant and was walking toward the Halsted-North El Station.
He got off at Wells and Adams and walked east on Adams toward the big post-office building. It was twenty-five minutes after seven when he entered; only a few people were moving about in the public halls and rooms.
In the lock-box room, Sargent located Box 2629 and peered in. There were two or three letters in the box. He could not make out the name on the top letter, but sticking out just below it was the corner of a pink card. He nodded in satisfaction.
When a package was too large to put into a box, the mail clerk dropped in a pink card, which on presentation at the package window produced the package. That was Sargent’s scheme. He’d been afraid in the rush and bustle that he could not spot the person opening Box 2629, so he had mailed a large, cumbersome package that he could identify. Now all he had to do was watch the package window and when someone claimed a brilliant red package...
Men and boys with leather pouches began to come into the room about a quarter to eight. They generally went to the large-sized boxes and emptied them of their contents, putting the mail in the leather pouches. By eight o’clock there was a crowd of fifty or more persons in the room and Sargent was glad that he had thought of the red package ruse. He would never have been able to spot the holder of Box 2629.
Sargent took up a position by a stand on which were money order blanks, inkstands and pens. At eight o’clock the package window was opened and he watched it continuously, although toying with a pen and making marks on a money order blank.
Packages were passed through the window, small packages, large, long fiat ones and short thick ones. But the big cube-shaped red package did not make its appearance. At a quarter after eight the crowds thinned, but toward quarter to nine they became heavier again and by nine o’clock the crush was so thick that Sargent could hardly see the package window. He deserted the writing stand then and joined the press about the window, letting himself be swirled here and there, but always keeping an eye on the window.
It was well that he did, for suddenly the big red package was passed through. Sargent looked at the recipient and gasped in astonishment. He would never have spotted this woman. She was forty, at least, dark complexioned and fat. She weighed close to two hundred pounds.
Yet she had his package. She brushed past him on her way out and he even glimpsed the name on the address tag.
Surely, this could not be the former wife of Ben O. Chapman. Ben could pick them. Witness Eileen Prescott, Mildred O’Kelly... and Hester Pelkey. Of course, it was eight years or more since he had been married to Ruth Reese, but still no woman could go down that fast.
He followed the fat woman out of the mail-box room, through a corridor and out the Dearborn Street door. Never more than twenty feet behind her, he kept his eyes glued on the package. If it should change hands, he would spot it.
The package turned east at Adams, crossed Dearborn and headed toward State. It still went east, past State to Wabash and then south. And suddenly it turned into a shabby building. Sargent almost went past the door, but wheeled in time to see the red package and its conveyer heading for the elevator.
“Up!” he cried, and rushed forward.
He squeezed in even as the doors were closing and jostled the fat woman. She glared at him. He tried to worm his way into the rear of the car and someone jabbed him in the back.
“Floors, please!” the elevator operator sang out.
“Six,” the fat woman said.
She swung the red package high as she left the elevator and a corner of it gouged Sargent’s face. “Sorry,” she apologized in a tone that indicated plainly enough that she didn’t really care.
Sargent stepped after her and she shot a glance over her shoulder. He pretended to be searching for an office number.
And then she took hold of a doorknob and pushed open a door. Sargent passed, went ten feet and turned back. On the ground-glass door was the room number, 616, and the name of the tenant: Watson Mail Service.
He exhaled wearily. Damn it all, couldn’t anything come easy? This was a mailing address, where for $2.50 a month small businessmen and individuals could receive mail. Evidently Ruth Reese had her mail picked up at the post office. Then she came for it here — or sent someone.
For a moment Sargent toyed with the idea of going into the office and trying to pump Ruth Reese’s address from the fat woman. But he didn’t think that would be successful.
Yet — it was twenty minutes after nine. He had only an hour and forty minutes before Ruth Reese sold her share of stock to Ben O. Chapman. He wondered how that would be arranged. In a manner that would protect her, no doubt. Ruth Reese was very, very cautious.
He approached Room 616, but with his hand touching the knob, turned away. He rang for the “down” elevator and when it came rode down to the lobby.