Frank Gruber - The Talking Clock

“That’s right… Uh, Missouri, Kaycee.”

“Kansas City? Why, I make Kansas City regularly. Where’s your store, Mr. Fletcher?”

“Store? Why, I haven’t got a store.”

“You do a mail-order business?”

“No, of course not.”

Tamarack looked startled. “But Miss Sampson said you were in the clock business!”

“What ever made her say that!” exclaimed Johnny. “I just said I wanted to buy some clocks, that was all.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re not in the clock business…”

“Do I have to be in the clock business to buy a clock, Mr. Tamarack? We’ve always used a Simple Simon clock at home, but I took the last one apart and when I put it together there were some pieces left over. So I thought as long as I was in New York I might as well stop in here and get a new clock. My friend, Mr. Cragg, wants to buy one, too. Uh… do you suppose we could get anything off by buying two and because we came right here to the factory?…”

Tamarack’s face looked as if he had just come out from under an ultra-violet suntan machine. He was breathing hoarsely.

“I place you now,” he said thickly. “The names didn’t penetrate at first. You’re the fellows who were in Minnesota with Tom Quisenberry.”

“Huh!” gasped Sam Cragg.

“Minnesota?” Johnny asked softly.

Tamarack pawed the air. “Don’t get excited. Diana Rusk told me about you two. How you sent her the pawn ticket in Columbus, Ohio… and the rest.”

“Oh,” said Johnny. “You know her?”

Tamarack’s forehead creased. “Miss Rusk is a very good friend of mine. As for the rest — well, the sheriff of that place in Minnesota talked to me on the phone. I passed the information on to Eric Quisenberry.”

“I see. Then you know all about the case.” Johnny drew a deep breath “Well, look, Mr. Tamarack, I’ll lay all my cards on the table. My friend and I are in deep water. We’re fugitives from Minnesota. But we didn’t have to give that pawn ticket to Miss Rusk, in Columbus. That ought to convince you that we didn’t kill Tom Quisenberry…”

“I never thought you did. Diana was convinced of your innocence. But… if it wasn’t you two, it must have been that other occupant of the jail… There was another man, wasn’t there?”

“There was. And he’s the one who stabbed the constable and made the break. We merely lit out after him. And we didn’t catch him, because he had a car waiting around the comer…”

“Diana mentioned that car. But since you were right behind him, you must have seen the license plate…”

“I did. There was a half inch of dust on it. He’d fixed that plate the night before. And I’ll bet a dollar against a Simple Simon he didn’t use that plate for more than two or three miles. There was something damn funny about that tramp. The Kid knew it, too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have slipped me the pawn ticket during the night.”

“They were in jail before you were put in?”

“Yeah. The Kid’d been in two days. The tramp was thrown in just an hour or two before we were…” Johnny cleared his throat. “Tough about the old man passing on right now.”

“Simon? He’s cheated the devil for the last two years.”

“How come?”

Wilbur Tamarack shrugged. “He was a pretty tough old bozo. He gave no quarter and asked none. I don’t think he had a friend in the world.”

“Not even here in the business?”

Tamarack shook his head. “If you mean me, no. I’ve run this business for the last two years, since Simon took to his bed. The least I expected—” He stopped and looked shrewdly at Johnny. “How many millions would you say Simon Quisenberry left?”

“Five or ten,” Johnny guessed glibly.

Tamarack smiled wickedly. “Anybody would have guessed that. Would you be surprised to know that Simon died broke? That even this business was mortgaged to the last dollar?”

Johnny blinked. “You mean he was down to his last million?”

“Last thousand. Simon was broke. He’d mortgaged this business for the last dollar it would bring.”

“I still wouldn’t call him broke. He had that little twenty-room cottage out in the country, and about half a million dollars’ worth of expensive clocks…”

“All mortgaged! He borrowed a half million on the clock collection. Some Greek was stupid enough to give him the money. Well… there’s one consolation, anyway. That dope Eric will have to go to work.”

“Hasn’t he been working here at the plant?”

Tamarack snorted. “He’s warmed a chair here, if that’s what you mean. Simon didn’t even trust him to lick stamps. For that matter, I doubt if he could have performed such a complicated task.”

“From which I gather that you don’t like Eric Quisenberry.”

Tamarack scowled. “I don’t. And he doesn’t like me. Say… what are you, Fletcher? A detective?”

“Me? Gosh, no. I’m a book salesman…”

“Then why the questioning?”

Johnny chuckled and stepped out.

When they left the building Sam Cragg said, “What’d this get you?”

“It got me the information that Old Simon was a hellion. And something else. Tamarack didn’t go out to his funeral. And Tamarack doesn’t like Eric Quisenberry either. Jealous of him.”

“All right, you know that. So what good does it do you?”

“Maybe none.”

They walked back to the 45th Street Hotel and went to their room. A minute after they closed the door, there was a knock on it.

“Peabody,” snorted Sam. “What the hell’s he want now?”

He went to the door and opened it. Jim Partridge grinned at him. “Hello, big fellow.”

Sam Cragg made noises in his throat. Johnny looking over Sam’s shoulder, said: “Come in, Partridge. Just the man we’ve been looking for.”

Partridge came in and closed the door. “I’ll bet you’ve been looking for me.”

“Why, sure. I didn’t want to scare you away on the street, so I let you follow us here.”

“Huh?”

Johnny grunted. “You were hanging around outside the Quisenberry Clock Company. You saw us come out and followed us here.”

“You’re guessing. You didn’t see me.”

“All right, we didn’t. But it had to be that way, because no one knew we’d checked into this hotel. So — what’s on your mind, Partridge?”

Partridge rubbed his jaw. “You didn’t think I’d stay in Columbus, did you?”

Sam Cragg growled. He suddenly pinned Partridge’s arms to his sides. Then releasing one hand he frisked the private detective. The result was an automatic which he tossed to one of the beds.

“If you’d asked me nice I’d have put it there myself,” Partridge said.

“Sure, you would,” said Cragg. “But I’m feeling mean today and I didn’t want to have to break your jaw first.”

“You’re pretty tough,” Partridge commented, reflectively.

“Tough enough.”

“Sit down, Partridge,” said Johnny. “We’ll have a talk. I know more now than I did in Columbus… I’ve seen your ex-wife.”

“Bonita? How is she?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Haven’t seen her in five years.”

“You’re not working with her?”

Partridge chuckled. “I’m working for myself.”

“Nuts!”

“Believe it or not, Fletcher. Talk to Bonita sometime. Bet she’ll tell you she’d rather see a lot of people than me. I know where the body is buried.”

“Where?”

“That’s one of my hole cards. Look, Fletcher, I underestimated you in Ohio. But you pulled a fool stunt by turning over that clock to the Rusk kid. That thing was worth a lot of dough.”

“That’s right. But I did turn it over to the girl. So?…”