A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“Fine,” I said.

The butler brought us cocktails in a little cubbyhole fixed up with guns hung on the walls, a few shooting trophies, a pipe rack, and a couple of easy-chairs. It was one place in the house where no one was allowed to go without a special invitation from Ashbury, his one hideaway from the continual whine of his wife’s voice.

We sipped the cocktails and talked generalities for a minute, then Ashbury said, “You’re getting along pretty well with Alta.”

“I was supposed to win her confidence, wasn’t I?”

“Yes. You’ve done more than that. She keeps looking at you whenever you’re in the room.”

I took another sip of my cocktail.

He said, “Alta’s first cheque was on the first. The second one was on the tenth. If there was to have been a third one, it would have been on the twentieth. That was yesterday.”

I said, very casually, “Then the fourth one would be due on the thirtieth.”

He looked me over. “Alta was out last night.”

“Yes. She went to a movie.”

“You were out.”

“Yes. I was doing a little work.”

“Did you follow Alta?”

“If you want to know, yes.”

“Where?”

“To the movie.”

He gulped the rest of his cocktail quickly and exhaled a sigh of relief. He picked up the cocktail shaker, refilled my glass, and poured his own full to the brim. “You impress me as being a young man who has sense.”

“Thanks.”

He fidgeted around a minute, and I said, “You don’t need to make any build-up with me. Just go ahead and get it off your chest.”

That seemed to relieve him. He said, “Bernard Carter saw Alta last night.”

“About what time?”

“Shortly after the — well, shortly after the shooting took place.”

“Where was she?”

“Within a block of the hotel where Ringold was killed. She was carrying an envelope in her hand and walking very rapidly.”

“Carter told you?”

“Well, no. He told Mrs. Ashbury, and she told me.”

“Carter didn’t speak to her?”

“No.”

“She didn’t see him?”

“No.”

I said, “Carter is mistaken. I was following her all the time. She put her car in the parking lot near the hotel where Ringold was killed, but she didn’t go to the hotel. She went to a picture show. I followed her.”

“And after the picture show?”

“She wasn’t there very long,” I said. “She came out and went back to the car. And I believe she stopped to mail a letter at a mailbox along the way.”

Ashbury kept looking at me, but didn’t say anything.

I said, “I think she had a date to meet someone at the picture show, and that someone didn’t show up.”

“Could that someone have been Ringold?” he asked.

I let my face show surprise. “What gave you that idea?”

“I don’t know. I was just wondering.”

“Quit wondering, then.”

“But it could have been Ringold?”

“If he didn’t show up, what difference does it make?”

“But it could have been Ringold?”

I said, “Hell, it could have been anybody. I’m telling you she was at a movie.”

He was silent for a minute, and I took advantage of that silence to ask him, “Do you know anything about your stepson’s company — the one of which he’s president... what it’s doing?”

“Some sort of a gold dredging proposition. I understand they have a potential bonanza, but I don’t want to know about it.”

“Who does the actual peddling of the stock?”

He said, “I wish you wouldn’t call it that. It sounds — well, it sounds crooked.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know, but I don’t like it referred to in those terms.”

“All right, fix the terms to suit yourself, then tell me who’s peddling the stuff.”

He looked me over thoughtfully. “At times, Lam,” he said, “that restless disposition of yours makes you say things which border on insolence.”

“I still don’t know who peddles it.”

“Neither do I. They have a crew of salesmen, very highly trained men, I understand.”

“The partners don’t sell?”

“No.”

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

“It isn’t all I wanted to know.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Seen the evening paper?”

I shook my head.

“There are some finger-prints in there. They’ve developed a pretty good set from the door and doorknob in that room in the hotel — I thought that the man they’re looking for resembles you somewhat.”

“Lots of people resemble me,” I said. “They’re mostly clerks in dry goods stores.”

He laughed. “If that brain of yours had a body to go with it, you’d be invincible.”

“Is that a compliment or a slam?”

“A compliment.”

“Thanks.”

I finished my cocktail and refused another. Ashbury had two after I quit.

Ashbury said, “You know a man in my position has an opportunity to pick up financial information which might not be available to an ordinary man.”

I accepted one of his cigarettes, and listened for more.

“That’s particularly true in banking circles.”

“Go ahead. What is it?”

“Perhaps you are wondering how I found out about Alta’s ten-thousand-dollar cheques.”

“I was able to make a pretty good guess.”

“You mean through the bank?”

“Yes.”

“Well, not exactly through the bank, but through a friendly official in the bank.”

“Is there any difference?” I asked.

He grinned. “The bank seems to think there is.”

“Go ahead.”

“I got some more information from the bank this afternoon.”

“You mean from the friendly official in the bank, don’t you?”

He chuckled and said, “Yes.”

When he saw I wasn’t going to ask him what it was, he said impressively, “The Atlee Amusement Corporation called up the bank and said a check had been stolen from its cash drawer, that it was a check payable to cash, and signed by Alta Ashbury in an amount of ten thousand dollars. They wanted to be notified if anyone should present that check; said they’d sign a complaint, on a charge of theft.”

“What did the bank tell them?”

“Told them to ring up Alta and have her stop payment on the check.”

“That was a telephone call?”

“Yes.”

“The person at the other end of the line said it was the Atlee Amusement Corporation?”

“Yes.”

“Man’s voice or woman’s?”

“A woman’s. She said she was the book-keeper, and secretary to the manager.”

“Any woman can say that into any telephone. It only costs five cents, and it sounds the same at the receiving end of the line.”

He thought that over, then slowly nodded.

The cocktails began to take effect. He got in an expansive mood. He leaned over and put a fatherly hand on my knee. “Lam, my boy,” he said. “I like you. There’s a certain inherent competency about you which breeds confidence. I think Alta feels the same way.”

“I’m glad I’m doing a satisfactory job.”

“I thought you weren’t going to for a while. I thought it would be bungled. Alta’s rather smart, you know.”

“She’s nobody’s fool,” I said, and then, because he expected it, and because he was a cash customer, I added, “A chip off the old block.”

He beamed at me, then his face became worried. He’ said, “I have an idea you know what you’re doing, Lam, but if a ten-thousand-dollar check payable to cash has beer stolen, and if the person who presented it for payment should get into a jam and make certain statements and—”

“Quit worrying about it. Nothing will happen.”

He said significantly, “If you had read the papers, you’d have noticed that the witnesses had given a somewhat contradictory description of this mysterious John Smith. The very contradictions of that description are significant to a man who knows human nature — the young woman sketches John Smith in a much more attractive light.”