Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994

Key for Two by Albert Bashover

Carnow Industries is one of the larger toy manufacturers in the United States. It owns a four story, block square building in Jamaica, New York, and satellite plants in South Carolina and Taiwan. Most outsiders would think that a company this size would be run by a faceless board of directors hidden in paneled offices on the fourth floor of the main plant in Jamaica, but everyone in the toy business knows it is personally owned and personally run by a man named Sacha Carnow. A man who came to this country from Russia, penniless, when he was fourteen years old and quickly found out what luck, brains, hard work, and a bit of guile can do in this land of opportunity.

Sacha, a balding, heavyset bulldog of a man, runs his multimillion dollar toy business as if it is still a five-man operation in a second floor loft in Brooklyn where he started. He rumbles through the corridors of the Carnow building with the grace and subtlety of a rhinoceros overseeing everyone from the vice-president down to the man who sweeps the floor of the tool shop. They all know that at any moment “The Old Man” may be looking over their shoulder, telling them what’s wrong with their work and how to do it better. Nobody likes it, but they produce, and that’s what Sacha wants. Sacha gets what he wants — usually...

Unfortunately, what Sacha really wanted most, he couldn’t have: a son to carry on his business. After the birth of his daughter Miriam, the doctors had told Sacha and his wife that no more children would be possible. It was true that Miriam was almost everything that anyone could have wanted from a child. She was healthy, beautiful, and smart. She was even graduated from college with honors, and from law school at the top of her class, but she was still a girl. How could a man brought up with remnants of old-country culture still sticking leave a business like his to a mere girl? Ridiculous! Well, if he couldn’t have a son, he would have the next best thing, the best son-in-law available.

When Miriam announced on her graduation from law school that instead of going into the family toy business she was going to work for the law firm of Caruso, Kelly and Cohen, Sacha decided he would have to act. Miriam was well into marrying age, and a son-in-law was too important a matter to be left to chance.

That was when he noticed Jerry Solomon.

Jerry seemed to be the answer to Sacha’s prayers. Sacha had watched him ever since Dave Rabb, his vice-president in charge of engineering, had hired Jerry to work in the drafting department. He was the right age. He was single. He was ambitious, and he was smart. Not just smart — brilliant. In the short time Jerry had worked there, he had submitted many clever ideas and designs for toy mechanisms, some of which had become Car-now Industries’ biggest sellers. He was not even bad looking. If he had any fault, it was a streak of young stubbornness. Oh well, Miriam had a bit of that, too. Sacha saw Jerry as himself thirty years earlier.

Sacha had Dave Rabb create a Research and Development department and put Jerry in charge of it. That gave Jerry direct charge over six engineer-draftsmen who used to be his co-workers. It gave him a private glass-walled office, and use of the engineering department secretary. More important, it gave Jerry the status to be invited to Sacha’s Long Island estate, along with Dave Rabb and Henry Kaye, the sales manager, for a weekend of “business discussions.”

Though subtleties usually eluded him, Sacha knew how to get what he wanted.

Jerry felt uncomfortable. The size of the Carnow estate awed him. His past experiences had not included being served very expensive wine in very expensive crystal, in a “library” that had more square feet than Jerry’s whole apartment. Sacha and the two senior company officers were talking together when Jerry arrived. After a brief pause for greetings and introductions, they went right back to their discussion.

It might have been the age difference between Jerry and the other three men, but he thought of himself as “Jerry,” while the others were “Mr. Carnow,” “Mr. Rabb,” and “Mr. Kaye.” He felt like a little kid at a party for grownups even though, because of his promotion, he was supposed to be on a first-name basis with the others. He tried to contribute to the pre-dinner conversation, which was mostly about the upcoming toy show in New York City, but Sacha, Dave, and Harry formed a closed conversational group and kept the ball bouncing among them. Even when Jerry could find something to say, he had little chance to say it.

Jerry found himself focusing on the fifth person in the group, a tall, attractive brunette about Jerry’s age, with intelligent bright black eyes. She had been introduced to him by Sacha as, “My daughter, Miriam — she’s a lawyer.” Sacha had introduced Jerry to her as “our resident mechanical genius.”

Miriam, smiling slightly at Jerry’s obvious discomfort, sat next to him while the three older men talked. When a complaint from Sacha started the three senior men talking loudly and simultaneously, Miriam leaned over to Jerry and half-whispered, “This always happens, Mr. Solomon. Dad only pauses to breathe, and as long as it’s Dave and Harry he wants to talk to, we might as well not be here.”

Her voice was velvet. It seemed unconsciously seductive. It was hard to believe that she shared the same gene pool as the juggernaut Sacha.

“I don’t mind it. It will give me a chance to get to know you better.” Jerry said it first as a polite, flirtatious conversation starter, but he realized with surprise that he really meant it. “By the way, my father is ‘Mr. Solomon.’ My name is Jerry.”

Miriam flashed a smile. “Well, now that we’re on a first-name basis, perhaps you’d like to look over the grounds while those three are determining the future of the toy industry. I could use some fresh air, and the gardens are really beautiful this time of year. They’ll never miss us.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Miriam rose and took Jerry’s arm.

“Dad, I’m going to show Mr. Solomon — Jerry — the grounds. We’ll be back before dinner.”

Sacha was arguing with Dave and had his back towards Jerry. He did not turn around, so Jerry couldn’t see his small, sly smile. “Go... go ahead,” he said.

As Jerry and Miriam strolled through the estate gardens, they talked about the flowers, the last Broadway shows they had seen, a concert and an art show that, coincidentally, they had both gone to, and New York politics.

In the past, Miriam had had trouble with men. She knew she was goodlooking enough, but she had difficulty hiding her intelligence, and that combination of brains and beauty was intimidating to most of the men she met. As the evening wore on, she began to feel that Jerry was not only unfazed by her intellect, but possibly even attracted to it.

The after-dinner conversation was mostly about the upcoming toy show until Harry Kaye brought up the problem of the fishing kit package.

“We’ve put a load of dough into developing it, and still the fishing kit is a lousy seller. What we need is a package that will catch the eye. Jerry, you’ve given us some pretty novel packaging ideas. How about working on something that would give this item a shot in the arm?”

“I’ll look into it, Harry, but I’ll have to admit, I don’t know much about fishing.”

“What kind of an American boy doesn’t know about fishing?” asked Sacha.

“I guess it’s the kind of American boy who never really went fishing.” Jerry tried to put a light english on the conversation.

Kaye was persistent. “I’ll tell you what. You come out with me on my boat next Sunday for some fishing. It’s a great way to relax. I’ll lend you some gear. Try it once and I guarantee you’ll be hooked.”

Harry looked pleased with his pun, but Jerry looked uncomfortable. “Harry, when I was about ten years old, my dad tried to teach me to fish. He took me to the local park in Rochester and showed me how to bait a hook with a live worm. That made me a little sick right then. After a while I caught something. It was only about five inches long, and the hook was caught in its eye. Dad removed the hook for me and threw it back in the water. The little thing flopped around for a while. It was obvious that it wouldn’t live long. I realized that I purposely killed something — and for no particular reason. I still can remember that feeling, and I didn’t like it. I’m sorry, Harry, but I find that the thought of hunting or fishing is a real turn-off for me.”

“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” Kaye asked with just a touch of disdain.

“No, I’m not. But I can’t see going out of my way to hunt something.”

Miriam saw that Jerry was wading into a conversational swamp, and she didn’t like the expression that was forming on her father’s face. She took Jerry by the arm and announced, “Sorry, Harry, Jerry will be busy next Sunday anyway. I’ve already invited him out to play tennis. Fishing is an all right way to relax for some people, but I guess Jerry has found other ways to enjoy himself. After all, there are more ways than one to skin a cat.” She smiled up at Jerry. “See you Sunday?”

Harry remained silent. He knew better than to argue with the boss’s daughter.

Sacha was not happy with what he had heard. The toy industry, more than most, was a rough, dog-eat-dog business. Without a “killer instinct,” a man wouldn’t last a year in that cutthroat environment. Perhaps he had made a mistake with Jerry. He decided he would have to watch him a little more closely before he continued to play marriage broker. What he didn’t know was that he was too late. Miriam had already decided that this young mechanical genius who didn’t like killing had some qualities that might be worth looking into.

Three weeks later, Dave Rabb called Jerry into his office. “Jerry, you’re the only one I’m telling this to now, but I’m sure you’ll understand that I’ve got to let the old man know about it soon. Do you remember that about a year ago Acme Toys came out with a remote control boat that was an almost exact copy of the one you designed for us?”

Jerry thought for a moment. “I remember. At the time you told me you had talked to their sales manager, and you’d decided it was a coincidence. I think I told you at the time that it seemed to me the designs were too close to assume that.”

“Well, it looks like you might have been right,” said Dave. “I just found out from one of our salesmen who has a relative in the Acme plant that they’re tooling up for a talking, walking doll, and from his description, it sounds like an exact duplicate of the doll mechanism you designed six months ago. I’ll take coincidence as an explanation only once. Now I’m beginning to think we have a spy in the engineering or research department.”

Jerry frowned. “The drawings for that doll have never been out of my office, Dave. I know it’s not a steel safe, but the upper right-hand drawer of my desk has a good tumbler lock, and whenever I’m working on a new idea, I make sure it’s kept locked. If that drawer had been tampered with, I would have known.”

“I’m just telling you the facts, Jerry. I know the old man has his eye on you for important things, but you know Sacha. Business comes first. If there’s a leak, you’d better find it and get rid of it quickly. If that leak is from your department and it starts costing the company some really big money, you might find yourself back at the drawing board — or out altogether.”

A troubled Jerry walked through the engineering department to his small office at the end of the corridor. He had to admit that Dave was probably right. There could very well be a leak from his section, probably from one of his own designer-draftsmen. They were the ones most privy to the projects that Jerry worked on.

Industrial espionage was not exactly new in the toy business, but Jerry felt particularly violated. He had worked with these six men for over two years. He knew them, and he knew some of their families. Finding out who the spy was would be one problem. Facing him and firing him would be an even bigger one. He had never done anything like that, and the thought of it gave him a sick feeling. For some reason, his fishing experience with his father flashed through his mind. Jerry knew that Sacha was watching his relationship with Miriam growing warmer, but he also knew that Sacha would expect no less than fast and efficient action to protect his business, no matter who was hurt.

So this is what being a big-shot in a big organization is like, thought Jerry. He didn’t like it.

Jerry was sitting at his desk, deep in thought when the five o’clock exodus of the sales and engineering departments began. He was still sitting there at six o’clock when the engineering department was completely empty.

He stared at the upper right-hand desk drawer. It was securely locked, as it always was whenever he had any important papers in it, but from what Dave Rabb had said, the drawings of the talking, walking doll might as well have been spread out on the top of the desk along with the bunch of other papers piled there.

Who could have seen those drawings? How could they have seen them?

The who might be easier to figure out.

Frank Duval had been with the company for twelve years. He was three years older than Jerry, and though they got along well enough when they were working together, Frank’s attitude noticeably changed when Jerry became head of Research and Development. In many small ways Frank let it be known that the position should have been his.

Yes, it could be — it very probably was — Frank. But how?

Jerry thought back. He couldn’t remember saying anything to Frank about his doll idea. That drawer was locked from the moment Jerry had his first idea and made the first sketches of the basic mechanism for the doll. Yet according to Harry those copies of Acme’s were not just similar, they were basically the same. Frank — or someone — had been getting into his desk drawer undetected.

All the engineers worked overtime occasionally. Sometimes alone, so anyone had an opportunity to get into his drawer if he had a key. Jerry kept copies of all the keys of the Research Department desks and cabinets in a padlocked cabinet in his office, but the key to his special drawer was never there. He kept that one on his personal key ring.

Playing detective was second nature to Jerry. Every mechanical challenge he had been faced with was like a Sherlock Holmes story in miniature. There was the apparently insoluble problem, the locked room, the unbreakable alibi, and then the sudden flash of light as the answer revealed itself with brilliant clarity. This was just another challenge, perhaps a little more important than most but just as susceptible to solution. All he needed was that flash of light.

For a long while Jerry sat expressionless, swaying from left to right in his swivel chair. It often helped to approach a problem from the back door. A different point of view. Suppose Jerry were the thief. How would he have stolen secrets locked in someone else’s desk drawer without ever having access to the key of that lock, and without leaving a clue that anything had been disturbed? For twenty minutes the office was quiet except for the slight squeak as the swivel chair turned back and forth. In time a small smile began to form on Jerry’s face. For a second it stayed there, then his face tightened.

He rose quickly and went across the hall to the now empty experimental machine shop. He picked up a small screwdriver that one of the machinists had left on the workbench and returned to his office. He slid open his special drawer. It was never locked when he had nothing in it. With the drawer open, he could unscrew, from the inside, the two screws that held the cylindrical desk lock in position. When the screws were removed, Jerry pushed the lock into the drawer and picked it up.

Jerry leaned back and lightly tossed the lock cylinder in his hand while he thought back to his childhood. As a youngster, everything mechanical had fascinated him. He had once disassembled a lock of this type from his father’s desk and was fascinated by the cleverness of the design. It would allow only a specially cut key to be inserted into the center barrel, be rotated within the outer barrel, and open the lock. Jerry knew that the center cylindrical barrel that the key slid into would have five holes bored in it, matching five holes in the outer casing. Two brass pins, held against each other by a tiny spring, would fit into each hole. The pins would be of different lengths, so that only a key with the proper depth of cuts could align the separation between the two pins with the separation between the inner and outer cylinders. When that happened, the key could turn the inner cylinder and unlock the drawer. With five pins of various lengths, the number of possible key cuts was astronomical.

Jerry remembered when, as a child, he had disassembled the lock from his father’s desk. He had not been prepared for what was about to happen. When he removed the slip ring that held the unit together, and slid out the center cylinder, all the little brass pins and springs exploded into the air like a bunch of escaping grasshoppers and buried themselves in the depths of the shag carpet. His dad was due home soon, and Jerry was not supposed to be in his den. He had to work fast. He was able to find only enough pins and springs to fill two holes. With luck, he put the lock together again but with only two of the pin sets in the correct holes. Even with three of the locking pin sets missing, the lock acted normally, and his father never found out about Jerry’s intrusion.

Jerry looked at the lock in his hand. If he was right, he would not have to be very careful with this lock.

As he expected, when he disassembled the unit, four of the five holes in the cylinder were empty. Only the last hole held its complement of pins and spring. That one set of pins would make the lock seem to operate properly. The only difference would be that any key with just the last cut of the proper depth — any one of hundreds of keys — could open the lock.

Jerry felt an odd combination of relief and sadness. He had figured out how someone had been getting into his drawer without his knowledge. All that person had to do was remain in the engineering department some evening doing overtime work. Since the drawer would be unlocked when Jerry wasn’t working on something, he could remove the lock from the drawer as Jerry had done. Then he could remove most of the pins so almost any key could open it. From that point on, Jerry wouldn’t notice any breach of security, but the spy would have free access to the drawer with any one of hundreds of keys.

Jerry knew, even before he checked the keys in the key cabinet, that Frank Duval’s key could open the tampered lock, but as he’d feared, so did eight of the other keys in the cabinet. He had solved the how, but he had no proof of the who.

Jerry and Miriam had been going to La Trattoria on 58th Street for only three weeks, but they had come to think of it as “their” place. The restaurant was just two blocks from the offices of Caruso, Kelly and Cohen, where Miriam worked, so as usual she was there before Jerry. She sat at their usual table in the tiny restaurant savoring the smells of cheese and herbs coming from the noisy kitchen. In a little while Jerry would arrive from the Jamaica plant. They would talk about everything except law or the toy business. Mario, without asking, would bring them their meatballs and spaghetti. Later they would stroll for a few blocks down Eighth Avenue, not seeing the grime and seediness of the area; then they would see a show, or say goodbye with a light kiss at the subway station. The time went too quickly. Miriam knew it wouldn’t be long before their evenings would end differently.

This time when Jerry arrived, he looked preoccupied. Usually he was able to wipe the day’s cares from his mind and happily enter a world where only he, Miriam, and the aromas of basil, garlic, and oregano existed. This evening the real world and its cares showed on his face.

Miriam tried to keep the conversation light, but when the spaghetti and meatballs came, she finally said, “You might as well talk about it, Jerry. Whatever is bothering you obviously can’t be ignored.”

“We’ve managed not to talk about our work for so long, I hate to start now.”

“I know something about the toy business, Jerry. Talk to me about it. Perhaps I can help.”

Jerry poured out the story of his meeting with Dave Rabb, the discovery of the tampered desk lock, and his suspicions of Frank Duval.

“So I know how it was done, but I can’t confront Frank and accuse him. I have no proof. I can’t just fire him. Suppose he isn’t the guilty party? I could ruin the man’s reputation. But you know your dad. Sacha would want action, positive action, fast. If it were he in my position, he would probably fire Frank on the spot even if he had to invent a reason, but I can’t do it.”

“You’re right about Dad. Delicacy has never been his strong point, but Dad would be right about one thing. We can’t let this situation go on. You have to take some action, Jerry. Perhaps if—” Miriam stopped with a thoughtful frown. After a while her frown had turned into a slight smile. “I have an idea. It’s a little left-handed, but you might want to try it.”

Jerry was away from the office on business for two days. When he returned, the engineering office was buzzing about how Frank Duval, after being with Carnow Industries all these years, had called the personnel office and quit without notice. He hadn’t even come in to pick up his personal items. It was almost as if he was afraid to face his co-workers.

Jerry entered the office and sat down at the desk. He slid open the now unlocked “idea” drawer and lifted out the folded single sheet of paper lying in it. He dusted off the particles of flour still sticking to the paper and blew out the rest of the flour scattered in the bottom of the drawer.

Jerry smiled as he looked over the letter he had written. “Dear Frank,” it read. “Since the flour sprinkled on this sheet has been disturbed, and you are now reading this note, you may consider this your dismissal notice. You now know why I gave you overtime work before I left. It also should be obvious to you that there will be no more company secrets available to you in this drawer. I hope you will find contentment in your next job, but you realize, of course, I cannot give you an unconditional recommendation.

“In case you think it was just a wild guess that let me know it was you who was selling my ideas to Acme, you will find that your key, and only your key will now fit the lock of this drawer. I put your lock in my desk drawer, and the lock you tampered with in your desk.”

The letter was signed with Jerry’s usual scrawl.

Jerry leaned back in his swivel chair and thought of Sacha. He frowned. Sacha would approve of the results, but he probably wouldn’t appreciate the method very much. He would have preferred that Jerry face Frank and somehow extract a confession from him. Oh well, as Miriam had once said, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. He would let Miriam explain what happened to her father. After all it was her idea. That brought his thoughts around to Miriam, and Jerry started to smile again.