Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 3, February 1961

The Price of Silence by Herbert Harris

Blackmail Strikes a Snag.

The bookseller was squat and flabby, and when he smiled his ugly smile, the eyelids were little rolls of white fat and the lips like thick wet rubber.

“My name is Audenhaupt.” He gave the clergyman a small deferential bow, removing the crumpled gray snapbrim from a head almost hairless.

The Reverend Saul Wayland frowned at him for a moment. Then he said inhospitably, “Come in.”

Audenhaupt, holding his hat against his chest with short fat fingers, followed his host into the latter’s study, and watched with furtive eyes as the Reverend Way-land sat at his desk.

“Sit down, Mr. Audenhaupt,” the clergyman said in a quiet voice. Then he locked his hands as if in prayer and gazed levelly at the bookseller. “Well?”

“You got my letter?” Audenhaupt drew back his lips to display yellow teeth. “About your father?”

“Yes, I received it.”

“I said, as you may remember, that I’d call in person on the tenth if I didn’t hear from you. So you were expecting me, I take it?”

“Yes,” the clergyman said. “And I’m glad you came. I was very curious to see what sort of person would want to tarnish the reputation of a dead man.”

Audenhaupt spread his pudgy hands. “Business is business, Reverend. Your father left quite a lot of money, I understand, and the money has now become yours. Not that I begrudge you a cent of it. I really don’t at all.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m quite sure, however, you wouldn’t want any of your father’s debts to be left unpaid. The amount — twenty-five dollars, wasn’t it? I keep a careful record, of course. The titles of the books he had...” Audenhaupt laid his large bald head on one side, spreading his loose lips in an unctuous smile, as if in apology for approaching so delicate a matter in half-completed sentences.

The Reverend Wayland didn’t return his visitor’s smile. “I gathered from your letter, Mr. Audenhaupt, that you were coming to claim not the small cost of some books but the price of your silence.”

The bookseller pursed his lips. “Let me put it this way, Reverend. The gentlemen who come to my bookshop — along Fourth Avenue in Manhattan — can buy a Bible or a collection of Shakespeare, if that’s what they want. But a lot of them like something else. A little reading matter to — how shall I put it — relieve their inhibitions?

“Your father, Heaven rest his soul, was only human, like you and me. If he got a little happiness from the sort of books which I keep in a small back room... graphically written, but earthy, you know—” Audenhaupt broke off, and waited.

The clergyman, calm and dispassionate, said: “The only books which my father ever bought from your shop were books for his boys’ clubs.”

“Oh, there were some of those — quite a good many, Reverend. But he didn’t mention the other sort? No, of course, he wouldn’t. Probably he got rid of them after he’d read them.

“I mean, it wouldn’t do, would it? A very respected man, a pillar of the Church, a philanthropist, founder of boys’ clubs. Almost a legend in his time, I believe.”

The Reverend Wayland gripped his interlocked fingers so tightly that the knuckles showed white, but there was no emotion showing in his face.

“He made quite a national reputation, you might say, Reverend! Television and all that. And that big house and farm of his where he held his youth rallies. Quite an interesting man. But a lot of people would think differently if they knew he liked to read what I call my ‘special books,’ wouldn’t they? Your own bishop, for example! He’d be really shocked, I expect, if he found the name of John Wayland in my sales ledger — the one with the special book listings. Not that I like to betray confidences, of course.”

“When you’re paid not to betray them — no.”

Audenhaupt moistioned his lips, and regarded the clergyman steadily, his eyes like black slits. “There’s not such a lot of money in books,” he said. “Even if you sell them at a special price in a small back room. So you have to look around for what little extra you can pick up. Me, I’m very reluctant to spread filth about a grand old man who’s left a good name.”

Audenhaupt leaned forward, his head tilted slightly. “What can smother the harmful whispers?”

The Reverend Wayland studied his blotter for a moment, then looked up. “How much are you asking?”

“Well, I did say in my letter, I think that your father owed me twenty-five dollars.” Audenhaupt gazed reflectively at his shapeless hat. “I mean I may have been mistaken as to the exact sum. It could have amounted to as much as a couple of hundred dollars?”

Pursing his lips, the clergyman said softly, “Two or three hundred dollars would be quite a lot of money, Mr. Audenhaupt — even for the kind of filth you claim to have sold to my father. But I’m very grateful we’ve had this chat.”

“I thought you’d be reasonable, Reverend.”

“I’m very grateful because my good friend Inspector Gleason has been able to make a note of it, I’m quite sure.” The Reverend Way-land looked across his visitor’s shoulders towards the drapes in front of the french windows.

The bookseller, his fat face creased and noticeably paler, sat very still for a moment. Then he turned the large bald head slowly.

Detective Inspector Gleason had moved as soundlessly as a cat, and stood only a few feet behind Audenhaupt. His eyes clashing with those of the man in the chair, were hard and unyielding.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” Gleason said. “One of your biggest crimes is that you are such a fool.”

Curiosity mingled with the fear in Audenhaupt’s face. He sat silent, his cheek muscles twitching nervously.

“Your victim is dead, so he can’t defend himself,” Inspector Gleason said. “But you made one small mistake, Audenhaupt. You didn’t know enough about Mr. John Wayland. You see, Mr. Way-land began his industrious life by working on a farm at the age of eleven — almost seventy years ago.

“Because of the noble work he did, people forgave him when he boasted that he had never learned to read.”