A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

After breakfast Bob took me off to one side and asked me some more about Fischler, wanted to know about how much money he was going to inherit, and about how much I thought he wanted to invest. I told him he was getting two inheritances. He’d already received some small amount, but would get over a hundred thousand before the end of the month. I asked Bob how his company was coming along, and he said, “Fine. Things look better and better every day.”

He dusted out, and Ashbury looked at me over the top of his glasses as though he were getting ready to say something; then he checked himself, cleared his throat a couple of times, and finally said, “Donald, if you need a few thousand more for expenses, don’t hesitate to ask for it.”

“I won’t,” I said.

Alta showed up in a housecoat and made signals that she wanted to see me. I pretended not to notice and told Ashbury that I’d go out as far as the garage with him.

Once out in the garage I told him I didn’t want to talk, which relieved him a lot, but did want to ride up town with him.

He kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut. I could see there were lots of things he wanted to ask — but he couldn’t think of a single question to which he wasn’t afraid to hear the answer. Twice he thought of something he wanted to say, sucked in a quick breath, hesitated with the first word trembling on his lips, exhaled, and settled down to driving the car.

It wasn’t until we were in the business district that he managed to get a question he thought was safe. He said, “Where can I drop you, Donald?”

“Oh, any place along here.”

He started to say something else, changed his mind, turned to the right, went a couple of blocks out of his way, and pulled up in front of the Commons Building. “How will this do?” he asked.

“This,” I said, “will be just swell,” and got out.

Ashbury drove away in a hurry, and I went up to the sixth floor, and took a look at the sign on six-twenty-two. It looked all right. I opened the door and went in. Elsie Brand was hammering away on the typewriter.

I said, “For God’s sake, you’re just a front here. You don’t have to pretend there’s that much business going on.”

She quit typing and looked up at me.

“The people who are coming in,” I said, “think that I’m a chap who inherited money. They don’t think I made it out of the business, so you don’t have to spread it on that thick.”

She said, “Bertha Cool gave me a lot of letters to write, told me I could take them up here, and do the work—”

“On what stationery?” I interrupted, and leaned over her shoulder to take a look at the letter that was in the typewriter.

“On her stationery,” she said. “She told me I could—”

I ripped the letter out of the typewriter, handed it to Elsie, and said, “Put it in the drawer. Keep it out of sight. Keep all of that stationery out of sight. When you go out to lunch, take the damn stuff out of the office and keep it out. Tell Bertha Cool I said so.”

Elsie looked up at me with the twinkle of a smile. She said, “I can remember when you first came to work.”

“What about it?”

“I figured you’d last just about forty-eight hours. I thought Bertha Cool would ride you to death. That’s why all of her other detectives walked out on her — and now, you’re the one who’s giving orders.”

“I’m going to make this order stick,” I said.

“I know you are. That’s what makes it so interesting. You don’t stand up and argue with Bertha. You don’t knuckle under to her. You just go ahead in your own sweet way, and the first thing anyone knows Bertha is muttering and grumbling, but tagging along after you and doing just what you tell her to.”

“Bertha’s all right when you get to understand her.”

“You mean when she gets to understand you. Trying to get friendly with her is like playing tag with a steamroller — the first thing you know, you’re flattened out.”

“Are you,” I asked, “all flattened out?”

She looked at me and said, “Yes.”

“You don’t seem like it.”

She said, “I have one system with Bertha. I do all the work she hands me. When I’ve finished, I leave the office. I don’t try to be friendly with her. I don’t want her to be friendly with me. I’m just as much a part of this typewriter as the keyboard. I’m a machine — and I try to be a good one.”

“What’s all that correspondence you keep hammering away at?” I asked.

“Letters she sends out to lawyers from time to time soliciting business, and correspondence dealing with her investments.”

“Many investments?”

“Lots of them. She goes to two extremes. Most of the time she’s wanting something that’s as safe as a government bond, but paying about twice as much interest. Then there’s another side to her — the plunger. She’s a great gambler.”

I said, “Well, the way this office is going to be run you’re not to be overburdened with work. Go down to the news-stand in the lobby, pick up a couple of motion picture magazines, and a chew of gum. Put a magazine in the top drawer of your desk. Open the drawer, and sit there chewing gum and reading the magazine. When anyone comes in, close the drawer; but not until after they’ve seen what you’re doing.”

She said, “I’ve always wanted a job like that. Other girls seem to get them. I’ve never been able to.”

“This’ll probably not last longer than a couple of days, but it’s the sort of job you’re going to have.”

“Bertha will switch. She’ll get you some girl from an employment office and take me back to the mill.”

“I won’t let her. I’ll tell her that I need someone I can trust. She can get lots of girls to do typing; it might be a good idea to let her see just how hard it is to fill your place.”

She looked up at me for a minute and said, “Donald, I’ve often wondered why it is you get people boosting for you... I guess perhaps it’s because you’re so darn considerate. You—” She quit talking all at once, pushed back her chair, rushed across the office and out the door as though she’d been going to a fire.

I went on into the private office, closed the door, tilted back in a swivel chair, and put my heels up on the top of a desk that had seen lots of hard usage.

After I heard Elsie Brand return to the outer office I picked up the telephone and pushed the button that connected me with her desk.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Make a note of three names, Elsie. They’re Parker Stold, Bernard Carter, and Robert Tindle. Got them?”

“Yes. What about them?”

“If anyone of those people come in, I’m busy, and I’m going to be busy all morning. I can’t see them and I don’t want them to wait. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“If anyone else comes in, try and find out what he wants. Have him sit down and wait. Get him to give you a card if possible. Bring the card in to me.”

“That all?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said, and I heard her telephone click.

I had a lot of thinking to do, and I sat there in the chair, smoking and thinking, trying to figure things out so that they made sense. I wasn’t trying to solve the whole puzzle because I knew I hadn’t enough facts, but I was getting facts. I felt that if I could keep my head and not make any false steps, things would open up.

About eleven I heard the door of the outer office open and close, and the sound of voices. Elsie came in with a card. The card had a man’s name on it, nothing more.

I studied the card. “Gilbert Rich, eh? What does he look like?”

“High pressure,” she said. “Salesman of some kind. Won’t tell me what. I asked him what he wanted to see you about, and he said a sales proposition. He’s forty, and he dresses for twenty-seven. He isn’t exactly what you’d call well dressed. What he’d call a ‘nifty dresser.’ ”