Эрл Гарднер - The Amazing Adventures of Lester Leith

The door opened. The valet appeared with a list of addresses.

“Got them all, Scuttle?”

“All five of them, sir.”

“Pass them over. And you might help Mrs. Crane out of the chair.”

The undercover man approached the chair, heaved and tugged. Slowly the inertia of the thickly folded flesh was overcome and the woman got her thick legs under the fat body. Her eyes and lips were smiling.

“Cheer up, big boy, you’re goin’ to have lots of this to do.”

“Show Mrs. Crane into the adjoining apartment, Scuttle — and arrange to have half a gallon of whipping cream delivered every day. And order a twenty-five pound case of assorted chocolates.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then I’ll want a social secretary, Scuttle. I think I’ll go into the side-show business — not in a commercial way, but as a social activity.”

“That’ll be great,” beamed Sadie Crane. “Gimme a week an’ I can put on twenty pounds. It’ll seem good to get back into the game. You goin’ to get a human skeleton?”

“Perhaps. Have you any suggestions?”

“I’d like to help pick’m. Poor Jim was sort of sandy complexioned. If you could find another like him—”

Lester Leith nodded. “You shall have the sole selection.”

The woman waddled slowly from the room.

The valet escorted her to the corridor. As he closed the door and indicated her apartment entrance, he leaned forward and lowered his voice.

“Find out just what he wanted?”

The fat woman’s lips mouthed a succession of words, but no sound came from the throat.

The police spy puckered his forehead.

“Huh?” he said.

The puffy lips again went through the motions of speaking — silent words that conveyed no intelligence.

“What’s the idea?” he asked.

She gurgled a laugh that rippled the folds of her loose garments.

“Clam-talk,” she said.

And with ponderous dignity she opened the door of the apartment and side-swayed herself through the entrance.

Lester Leith, stretched before the wide open windows, listened to the distant voice of the city as it droned through the hot afternoon.

“I think, Scuttle, that we’ll give Miss Louise Huntington a position. I regard her discharge as being rather an unwarranted act on the part of Mrs. De Lee Demarest. The salary, Scuttle, will be twice her former one. I have asked her to call, in a telegram which I dispatched in your absence.”

The valet gulped.

“Think she can tell you anything about the robbery?”

Lester Leith regarded the man with cold eyes.

“I should hardly ask her, Scuttle. There’s a knock at the door. You might answer it. I believe Miss Huntington is answering the telegram in person.”

The police spy regarded his employer with smoldering eyes.

“You’ve got some clue on that Demarest affair. I believe that slick mind of yours has doped out a solution. You’re just sittin’ back an’ laughin’ at the police, and getting ready to hijack the swag—”

“The door, Scuttle!”

The big valet caught himself, gulped, turned and pussyfooted to the outer door.

“Mr. Lester Leith?” asked a remarkably sweet voice.

Lester Leith himself came to the entrance hall and greeted the young woman.

“Miss Huntington?”

“Yes. I received your telegram. I’d like a position most awfully right now, but it’s only fair to tell you the police are hounding my footsteps. There was even a shadow following me here.”

She was beautiful, both of face and figure, but there was a sad-eyed expression to the face which spoke of recent worries.

Lester Leith smiled. “Please sit down. A police shadow is rather annoying, but not the least bit of an impediment to such activities as you’d have in my employ. Tell me, do you know anything about side shows?”

“Side shows?”

“Yes.”

“My gracious! No!”

“That’s fine. I always like a social secretary to start with no preconceived notions. Have you, perhaps, a good memory for names?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could you recall the names of the invited guests to Mrs. De Lee Demarest’s reception?”

“I think so.”

“That will be fine. I’d like to have engraved announcements of the side show sent to the same list of names — and there’ll be some cards to have printed. Fattest Human in the World. And Skelo, the Human Match. You understand, Miss Huntington, that the side show would be educational, but quite entertaining. And then I’d want to exhibit the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city.”

The late social secretary of Mrs. De Lee Demarest regarded Lester Leith with eyes that were pools of suspicion.

“Are you trying to kid me?”

“No. I am serious.”

“Is this job on the level?”

“You are to be the sole judge of that. I shall give you a week’s salary in advance. You may quit at any time.”

The girl settled back in the chair and crossed her knees in the position in which the newspaper photographer had snapped her. She was beautiful, judged by any standards, and something about Lester Leith’s tone caused the sadness of her eyes to vanish into a twinkle of humor.

“If you’re on the up-and-up I’m going to like this job,” she said. “Maybe, after you get to know me better, you’ll tell me what it’s about.”

Leith nodded gravely.

“I am telling you now. I think the Garland Printery will do excellent work on the invitations.”

The police spy bent forward, his eyes lighting up.

“The same company that engraved the Demarest invitations!” he blurted.

“The same, Scuttle. Miss Huntington, does the Garland Printery do hand lettering as well as printing and engraving?”

The girl was studying his eyes with eyes that were singularly searching.

“So I understand.”

“Very well. You might get in touch with Mr. Garland. You placed your order with him personally in the Demarest affair?”

She nodded assent.

“Your salary is twice what it was in your former position. I’d like to have you take one of the vacant apartments in this building, so you’ll be available. I have already made arrangements with the owner. The rent is paid. It’s only necessary to select your apartment.”

Her voice was tonelessly level.

“There’ll be only one key?”

Lester Leith smiled. “At the end of a week you may know me better.”

The puzzled eyes swept his face.

“That still won’t be very well — a side show, a human skeleton, a fat woman, the most perfectly matched diamond necklace in the city — are you crazy?”

And then something in the lazy drawl of Lester Leith’s voice and in the idea of a side show brought laughter to the lips of the girl.

“I think,” she said at length, “I’m beginning to get the idea.”

A hot week of dreary monotony passed.

Sadie Crane, attired in vivid silk shorts and a scanty jacket, practiced fainting. She did it with perspiring good nature, the valet looking on, tugging at her arms as she arose from each fall.

Double mattresses were placed in the corner to cushion her falls. The eager eyes of the valet followed her every motion.

Louise Huntington tapped at a typewriter, addressing envelopes. Lester Leith came and went, his comings marked by casual comments of appreciation, his goings marked by police surveillance.

The police found out nothing. The strange routine of the apartment proceeded uninterrupted. The human skeleton, picked by Mrs. Crane, flitted in and out, surveying the tumbling performance with mournful eyes. He spent his evenings squiring the fat woman. Between the two was a fast friendship. He was a chronic pessimist. The woman preserved the unruffled calm of a jovial disposition and an indestructible optimism.