Curtis Cluff - Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 31, No. 1 — January, 1948)

It had been a busy day. Even for a shamus.

I had hoped that whoever checked the California-bound Clipper might be tempted to pay a later visit to my cottage when he found I wasn’t aboard. But nobody had come to see me and it was almost ten A.M. when I pulled into a parking space across from the post office. I pocketed the keys and walked down King Street.

The Bookshop was air-conditioned, quiet and a little on the arty side. There were no other customers. An attractive young Japanese clerk approached me.

I said: “I’d like to see Mr. Walter Kent, if he’s around.”

She flashed me a smile. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Kent just stepped out.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know. Would you like to speak to the manager, Miss Seccombe?”

I said I would like to speak to Miss Seccombe.

She led the way to the rear of the store where a slender, dark-haired girl in the late twenties sat at an executive-type desk. The sign on the top of the desk said: “Miss Anne Seccombe, Mgr.” The clerk explained that I would like to see Mr. Kent. Miss Seccombe gave me a flat, appraising glance. It was supposed to be an impersonal look but it had something of the stock-breeder in it and it reminded me sadly that some women, like some men, ruin a swell avocation by making a vocation out of it. I kept my face a blank and when Miss Seccombe’s voice came out, it was crisp and businesslike.

“I’m not sure that Mr. Kent will be back this morning. Is there something I can do?”

“I wanted to see Kent personally. Mind if I wait around for a while?”

“Not at all. Perhaps you’d like to look at some books.” She waved a hand around the store.

I thanked her and said I’d look around. I moved away and picked out a spot beside a table of best sellers. The two girl clerks chatted in low voices as they dusted off the shelves and rearranged books. Occasionally they threw a covert glance at Anne Seccombe. I gathered that they weren’t talking about her but were just a little afraid of her disapproval. Then I learned something else about Miss Seccombe.

It was costing her a great deal of effort to look cool, calm and efficient. She initialled some invoices, made notes in a little cloth-bound ledger and apparently she had finished her work for the day. She stacked the invoices neatly, put them to one side on her desk. As she placed a paperweight on top of the pile, I saw that her hands trembled involuntarily as though she had the palsy. This puzzled me. I was sure she had never seen me before and reasonably sure that I had never been described to her. I have looked into enough faces to be able to tag a look of recognition when I see it. I decided she had a hangover.

I moved along the wall to a section of shelves labelled “Rental Library.” I was closer and could see that beneath her make-up her eyes were slightly red-rimmed and gave the impression of being on the verge of tears though her features remained glacially calm. She sneezed. She sneezed again. I pulled a book down at random, turned and peered over it as she sneezed a third time. It could have been hay fever or the dust the clerks were stirring up. But I knew it wasn’t dust or hay fever and she didn’t have a hangover. Miss Seccombe was a junky. She needed a shot and she was trying desperately to control herself. She opened a book on her desk and tried to read. She held the book in both hands and twice, as the minutes ticked by, I saw the book tilt slowly downward only to be snapped back into position. The third time it happened, she put the book down with a show of briskness, open the top drawer of her desk and took out her bag. She opened it, peered inside and darted a look at the clock on the wall. With an air of reassurance she closed the bag, placed it on the corner of the desk and picked up her book. She could have been peering at the mirror in her bag, but I had an idea that the look of reassurance came from the sight of a small packet of white powder that she was going to permit herself to take as soon as the hand of the clock reached a certain position. Her self-control was winning a small victory over her craving and she was pleased with herself. Then we began to get a flurry of trade.

A young sailor came in and made for the shelves of Modern Library books. One of the clerks joined him. Then three girls came in together, hatless and chattering. The other clerk joined them. Next came an old gentleman wearing a white Van Dyke, and Anne Seccombe rose to wait on him. She greeted him with a smile and apparently knew him. They chatted for a few moments and moved over to the biography section. Aside from the way in which she rid her palms of excess moisture with a casual, skirt-smoothing gesture, I would never have known that she was about to jump out of her skin. The old gentleman selected a book, Anne took it back to the rear of the store, wrapped it, rang up the sale on the cash register and the old man bowed and departed.

Anne cast an indifferent glance around the store, looked at the clock, picked up her bag and started back toward the closed door of Kent’s private office. She was stopped by a woman who had just entered the store, forced a smile, dropped her bag back on her desk and led the way into Kent’s office and closed the door. The newcomer had been about forty, with a hard flat voice and smug-looking pug face. I was sure Anne’s face had held ill-concealed dislike of the older woman.

Almost at the same moment they disappeared into the office, the two clerks headed for the wrapping room with books under their arms. It was too good a chance to miss. The only other occupants of the main part of the store were the three girls at the opposite end and the sailor who was squatting with his back to me, examining books on the bottom shelf. I moved over to Anne Seccombe’s desk, fumbled her bag open, reached inside with my middle and index fingers, got tangled up in a handkerchief, got free again and came out with the little envelope. I snapped the bag shut and pocketed the envelope. The whole operation had taken about forty seconds. I was getting slow. I moved back to the rental shelves and picked up the mimeographed catalog of rental books and thumbed through it idly. By the time the girls had returned from the wrapping room and made the correct change, more customers had drifted in.

The door to Kent’s office opened and the hard-faced woman came out, followed by Anne Seccombe. Her mouth was slack and her eyes were warm, blank obscenities. I saw the book in the plain wrapper under her arm and the twenty dollar bill she handed Anne Seccombe. There was no change. As she hurried out, she cast a fleeting sly look about the store. I buried my face in the catalog — and read the secret of The Bookshop’s financial success. It was on the last page of the catalog and the notice read: “Qualified customers are invited to inspect our rental collection of valuable technical works. Ask for Mr. Kent.”

When “technical” volumes rent for twenty bucks a throw and go out in a plain wrapper under the arm of a woman like the one who just left, it is a fairly safe bet that the owner of the store keeps his head above the water by renting a particular kind of book. I caught Miss Seccombe as she almost escaped again into the privacy of Kent’s office with her precious bag under her arm.

“Oh, Miss Seccombe!” She turned with a slightly wild-eyed look of frustration. I said: “I don’t think I’ll wait any longer for Mr. Kent. Just tell him that Mr. Ford called and will call back later.”

She nodded and hurried into the office almost before I had finished speaking. I felt sorry for her. I went out of The Bookshop, crossed the street, bought a paper and entered the drug store. I selected a seat at the end of the fountain where I could watch the book store and sat down to wait. I ordered a coke and unfolded the paper.