The Case of the Spurious Spinster

Chapter 1

Sue Fisher had to sign the register in the office-building elevator because it was Saturday morning and all of the offices were closed.

Sue had been looking forward to a restful weekend, but a wire announcing that Amelia Corning was due to arrive from South America on Monday morning necessitated a lot of last-minute statements and reports which she had been unable to get together by quitting time Friday night. So she had promised Endicott Campbell, manager of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company, that she would come in Saturday morning, finish typing the reports, and have everything on his desk so that the statements would be available the first thing Monday morning.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that in addition to an arthritic condition which confined her to a wheelchair, Amelia Corning was rapidly losing her eyesight. In fact, there were rumors from South America that she had already lost her vision to such an extent that she could only tell the difference between light and dark, and people were hazy, blurred figures whose features were indistinguishable.

Susan Fisher had been with the firm for more than a year and knew Amelia Corning only by her stiff, cramped signature which from time to time appeared at the bottom of irascible letters of brief instructions.

By ten-thirty, when Sue Fisher was well immersed in her work, she heard the patter of running feet, then the sound of knuckles on the door and a childish treble saying, “Oh, Miss Sue, Miss Sue.”

For a moment, Sue Fisher’s face softened. Then she frowned with annoyance. Carleton Campbell, the boss’s seven-year-old son, worshipped the ground she walked on and Sue, in turn, was strangely drawn to the youngster. But Elizabeth Dow, the governess, was, Sue felt, more and more inclined to wish off some of her responsibilities and disciplinary problems on Sue’s shoulders.

Sue shut off the motor on the electric typewriter, crossed her secretarial office, entered the reception room, and opened the door.

Carleton Campbell, his eyes shining with eagerness, held up a shoe box for her inspection.

“Hello, Miss Sue. Hello, Miss Sue,” he said.

Elizabeth Dow, moving steadily and deliberately on her low-heeled heavy walking shoes, came marching down the corridor.

Sue put her arm around the boy, lifted him up, kissed him, then stood waiting for Elizabeth Dow, who very typically refrained from quickening her pace in the slightest, nor would she deign to exchange a greeting until she was close enough so there was no necessity to raising her voice in the slightest.

“Good morning, Susan,” she said, formally.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

“I dropped in because they told me you were going to be here this morning.”

“Yes,” Sue said. “I have work to do.” And then, after a properly impressive pause, added, “A very important job. We’re working against a deadline.”

“I see,” Elizabeth Dow said, her voice showing her utter indifference to the urgency of the matter. Elizabeth Dow was affected only by problems which were important to Elizabeth Dow. Other persons’ problems made not the slightest difference to her.

“Sue,” she said, “would you be a dear and watch Carleton for thirty minutes? I have a very important personal appointment and I just can’t take him with me... and you know you’re the only one he’ll stay with.”

Sue glanced at her wristwatch. She knew the thirty minutes could be at least forty-five and might well be an hour.

“Well...” She hesitated and again looked at the watch.

“I wouldn’t ask it of you for myself,” Elizabeth Dow said, “but Carleton has some things he wants to talk over with you and he’s been rather upset this morning. I know if I left him with the housekeeper in his present state he’d be a nervous wreck by the time I got back, and she would, too.”

“Oh, please, Miss Sue,” Carleton pleaded. “Let me stay here with you. I want to talk.”

“All right,” Susan said, “but you’re going to have to be a good boy, Carleton. You’re going to have to sit in a chair and watch Sue work. I have some very important statements to get out.”

“I’ll be good,” Carleton promised, climbing into a chair and seating himself with his hands folded on the shoe box.

Elizabeth Dow, apparently fearful that something would happen to change Sue’s mind, headed for the door. “It will be only a few minutes,” she promised, and was gone.

Sue smiled at Carleton. “What’s in the box?” she asked.

“Treasure,” he said.

Sue regarded the box with sudden apprehension. “Now look here, Carleton,” she said, “you haven’t any toads or anything alive in that box?”

He smiled and shook his head. “This isn’t my treasure box,” he said, “it’s Daddy’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“Daddy keeps his treasure box upstairs. Last night he let me put my treasure in his closet. He said he’d trade treasures with me any time I wanted. So this morning I took his treasure.”

The words poured out with Carleton’s childish accent and were spoken so rapidly that one word seemed literally to tread on the heels of another as they left the child’s lips.

Susan regarded the box thoughtfully. “Did I understand you right, Carleton?” she asked. “This is Daddy’s treasure?”

“It’s my treasure now,” Carleton said. “Daddy said we could trade treasures, but he’d want his back and he’d give me mine back.”

“What about your treasure box? What kind of a box was it?”

“Just like this,” Carleton said. “Daddy doesn’t buy shoes in stores. Daddy buys shoes by mail. When they come, my daddy takes the shoes out of the boxes and puts the shoes in the closet.”

“Yes, I know,” Susan said, smiling. “I make out the orders for his shoes. He has a particular brand of shoes that he likes and he has rather an odd size. Does your daddy know that you have his treasure box?”

“He said we could trade,” Carleton said.

“When?”

“Oh, a while back.”

“I thought your daddy was going to go out on the golf course this morning.”

“He said we could trade,” Carleton repeated.

Susan said, “I’d better look in your daddy’s treasure box, Carleton, just to see.”

He made a convulsive grasping gesture, pressing the box into his stomach and bending over. “No!” he screamed. “That was the trouble with Miss Dow.”

“How did that make trouble, Carleton?”

“She wanted to take it away.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not talking about taking it away,” Susan said. “I just thought we ought to look in it. Don’t you think we should?”

He said nothing, but clung to the box.

“You don’t know what’s in it, do you?”

“Treasure,” he said.

“What was in your treasure box, Carleton?”

“Lots of things.”

“I wonder if your daddy has as many treasures as you do. Do you think he does?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?” she said, her voice containing an invitation to adventure.

“It’s tied up,” Carleton said.

Susan smiled at him. “I’m awfully good at knots,” she said, and then frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps, though, those knots would be too much for us. Let’s take a look at them, just to see.”

Carleton let her inspect the twine around the box.

As soon as she saw the neat square knot she knew that this had not been tied by childish fingers. Whether or not his explanation of the exchange of treasure boxes was correct, there seemed to be no doubt that this was an adult treasure box.

“Let’s see how heavy,” she said.

He hesitated for a moment, then let her take the box. She moved it up and down in her two hands, estimating the weight, then handed it back to him. “My,” she said, “that’s heavy.”

He nodded.

The fact that she had returned the box to him without trying to open it did much to reassure him.

“I wonder what makes it so heavy,” Susan said. And then added, “If your daddy has business papers in there, Carleton, we’d have to keep them from getting lost.”

He nodded gravely, hanging on to the box. “I won’t lose it.”

“Do you know the difference between a square knot and a granny knot?” Susan asked.

“My granny is dead,” he said.

“No, no, not your grandmother, but the knot they call the granny. Look, this is tied with a square knot. See? Here, let me show you.”

Having engaged his attention with the box still on the child’s lap, Susan worked away at the knot until it was untied. “See how easy it is to untie that kind of a knot?” she said. “Now, a granny is the name of another knot. It’s the kind of a knot you would be very apt to tie if you didn’t know knots.”

Pretending to show Carleton the different methods of tying the string, Susan managed to get the knotted fish twine off the box. She left the box in Carleton’s lap but surreptitiously raised a corner of the cover as she got to her knees in order to readjust the string.

What Susan saw stopped her cold. The box was well filled with green currency and the bills Susan saw in that first peek into the box were in amounts of one hundred dollars.

Carleton seemed concerned that someone was going to try to take the box from him.

“Does Miss Dow know this is your daddy’s treasure box?” Sue asked.

“Of course. She tried to take that box. She wants my treasure. I don’t like her. She’s bad.”

“She was just trying to help,” Sue said. “She probably thought that your daddy didn’t want you to take his treasure.”

“Daddy said we could trade.”

“I wonder,” Sue said thoughtfully, “if your treasure is safe with your daddy. Do you suppose he might lose it?”

The boy’s face clouded with the idea.

“I think,” Sue said, “that we should find your daddy and tell him that if he takes your treasure he has to be very careful. Perhaps we could give him his back and take yours, and then yours wouldn’t get lost. A golf course is a very big place.”

“I don’t know where my daddy is. He went out in a car.”

“I think he was going to play golf this morning,” Sue said. “You don’t want to lose your treasure, do you?”

“I’m going to keep Daddy’s treasure,” the child said, his hands gripping the box tightly

Sue let her face light up with the inspiration of a sudden idea. “Wouldn’t it be fine,” she said, “to open the safe, the big safe, and put the treasure box in there?”

Carleton seemed dubious.

“Then we’d close the safe,” Sue said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone, “and Miss Dow couldn’t get in there. Nobody could get in. We’d lock it up and the treasure would be safe, and then we could get it again whenever we wanted it.”

Carleton’s eyes lit up. “Okay,” he said in almost an eager whisper, “let’s open the safe.”

Sue crossed over to the big safe, twisted the dials on the two combinations and finally flung the doors open. She unlocked the inner steel door and then rearranged some papers so as to make room for the box.

“All right,” she whispered, “let’s hurry. We’ll put it in there before Miss Dow gets back.”

Carleton was dancing with excitement. “We’ll close it and we won’t tell her where it is.”

“Oh, we can tell her where it is,” Sue said, “but it won’t do her any good. She can’t get the safe open. Nobody except your daddy and I can get this safe open.”

“Gee, that’s swell,” Carleton said.

Sue reached for the box. For a moment Carleton hesitated at parting company with it. But then he shoved it into her hands.

“Now we’ll get it fitted right in this compartment here,” Sue said.

She turned for a moment so that her body hid the box from Carleton, and during that moment lifted the cover.

There were literally thousands of dollars in that box — hundred-dollar bills which had been stacked neatly and snapped with rubber bands. Evidently, Sue thought in her hurried survey, in lots of five thousand dollars each.

Sue fumbled around getting the cover back on the box, said, “We’ll have to tie this string again,” and carefully tied the fish cord around the box, knotting it in a square knot as she had found it and then pushing the box into the safe.

She hurriedly closed the inner door, twisted the key, then closed the heavy outer doors, pulled the nickeled levers which shot the bolts into place, and spun the combinations.

“Now,” she said triumphantly, “we’ve got it where nobody can get it away from you.”

Carleton was enthusiastic with childish excitement. “We won’t even tell her where it is.”

“Oh, if she asks I think we’d better tell her,” Sue said. “But... you know, we have to keep an attitude of proper respect for Miss Dow, Carleton. She’s trying to help you.”

“She’s mean,” Carleton said, pushing out his lips in a pout. “She doesn’t like me.”

“Oh, yes, she likes you. She likes you a lot,” Sue said. “But, you know, she has work to do and she has to make you do things that you don’t like to do sometimes. But they’re the things that are good for you.”

Sue let her face become suddenly thoughtful. “You know,” she said, “I think we ought to try and find your daddy and see if he took your treasure box.”

“I don’t know where Daddy went,” Carleton said.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Susan said. “We’ll ring up the country club. I think we can find him there. I know he was intending to play golf this morning and he’s out on the links someplace.”

“Can we put my treasure in the safe too?” Carleton asked.

“I think so. I think your daddy will let us. Let’s see if we can find him.”

“He’s coming home tonight.”

“I know,” Sue said, “but he’s playing golf and you know he can’t carry a box with him while he’s playing golf. If he traded treasures, he’s probably left your box in the car or somewhere and you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your treasure, would you?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s try and find him.”

Sue connected up the switchboard and put through a call to the country club.

“Is Mr. Endicott Campbell on the links?” she asked.

“I’ll have to connect you with the office of the pro,” the operator said. “Just a moment.”

After a few moments a masculine voice said gruffly, “Golf shop.”

“Is Mr. Endicott Campbell on the links this morning?” Sue asked. “I’d like to speak with him, and it’s quite important. This is his office calling and if you—”

“But he isn’t here,” the voice interrupted.

“Not there?” Sue asked, disappointment in her voice.

“That’s right, ma’am, he isn’t here. Hasn’t been here all morning. There was a reservation for him as a member of a foursome, but they canceled out... Sorry.”

“Thank you,” Sue said, and hung up the telephone.

For a long moment she sat thinking while Carleton watched her, his eyes wide with childish curiosity.

Then abruptly the switchboard buzzed with an incoming call and a red light flashed on the trunk line.

Sue hesitated a moment, then almost automatically plugged in the line. “Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company,” she said.

A woman’s voice, sharply strident, said, “Why isn’t anyone here to meet me?”

“I’m sorry,” Sue said in her most dulcet voice. “Can you tell me who you are and where you are and—?”

“This is Amelia Corning. I’m at the airport.”

“What!” Sue exclaimed.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“I... yes... why... We weren’t expecting you until Monday, Miss Corning.”

“Monday my foot!” the voice snapped. “I sent you a wire. You should have met me. This is an imposition. I had to get someone to wheel me up to a phone booth and dial the phone for me. Now, you get out here! Who are you? Who’s talking?”

“This is Susan Fisher, the confidential secretary of Mr. Endicott Campbell,” Sue said.

“Where’s Mr. Campbell?”

“He isn’t here this morning. This is Saturday morning, you know.”

“I know what day it is. Don’t tell me what day it is!” the woman snapped. “All right, get out here. I’ll wait. I’ve had a lot of problems with baggage and all the rest of it and I’m tired.”

The receiver was slammed at the other end of the line.

Susan hung up in a daze, turned to Carleton, said, “Carleton, do you know where Miss Dow was going?”

“I think to the bank,” Carleton said.

“To the bank!” Susan exclaimed.

“I think the bank.”

“On Saturday morning?” Susan said. “The banks aren’t open on Saturday... oh, wait a minute. There’s one branch that is open.”

She picked up the telephone book and was looking up the number of the bank when she heard the sound of steady, deliberate steps in the corridor outside; then the door to the entrance room opened and Elizabeth Dow stood on the threshold. “Was he much trouble?” she asked.

“He’s a dear,” Sue said. “Just a darling. But I’ve got to run — and I’ve simply got to find Mr. Campbell. Do you know where he is?”

“Playing golf, I think. You better try the country club — that is, if it’s really important. I don’t think he’d want to be disturbed—”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sue interrupted somewhat shortly. “I’ve tried the country club. I can’t locate him there. I simply have to know where he is.”

The governess shook her head.

“Do you know the names of the people he was going to be playing with?”

Again she shook her head.

“Well, I haven’t time to mess with it now,” Sue said. “Come on, I’m closing up the office. Let’s go.”

“Where are you going?” the governess asked.

“I have a business matter to attend to, a very important business matter. It’s an emergency. If you see Mr. Campbell, tell him that he must get in touch with me at once. At once, do you understand? It’s a major emergency.”

Elizabeth Dow looked at her curiously. “I think I should know more than that if I’m to give him a message that will make any sense to him.”

“Tell him to get in touch with me immediately on a matter of the greatest importance. Tell him it’s a major emergency,” Sue said. “Come on now, let’s get out of here.”

Elizabeth Dow didn’t wish to be hurried. She collected Carleton in a leisurely manner and said, “Where’s your box, Carleton?”

Carleton started to say something, then checked himself and looked at Susan Fisher. “We’ve hid it,” he said.

Miss Dow said, “I don’t think you should be hiding things like that. We’ll need to keep your treasure with us. Where is it?”

“It’s safe for the time being,” Sue said. “I’ll get it later.”

Sue all but pushed the governess out of the door. She pulled the door closed, bent down to give Carleton a hug, then literally flew down the corridor to the elevator, and rang the bell.

“The box,” Miss Dow called after her. “He’ll want it and—”

The cage slid smoothly up to the floor. The operator smiled and said, “All finished, Miss Fisher?”

Sue could hear Miss Dow’s steps around the bend in the corridor, prayed that the attendant would not hear them. “Yes,” she said, “and I’ve got to get a cab in a hurry.”

“All right,” the attendant said, “let’s go.” The door slid shut just as Elizabeth Dow, holding Carleton Campbell firmly by the hand, rounded the bend in the corridor. The assistant janitor who was operating the elevator didn’t see them, but for a swift moment Elizabeth Dow’s eyes locked with those of Sue Fisher. And, as the door started to close, an expression of angry indignation flooded the face of the governess; then Sue saw only the lights marking the floor numbers as the elevator descended.

She hurried across the lobby and found a taxi at the cab stand near the corner. She jumped into it and said, “I’ve got to get to the airport. Please get me there as quickly as possible.”

After she had started, Sue looked in her purse, wondering if she would have enough money to pay the cab.

It was, she decided, going to be touch and go. She pulled out four one-dollar bills and then removed keys, lipstick, and compact so that she could count out the silver change in her purse.

Having decided she could just about make it, she settled back against the cushions, closed her eyes, and tried her best to get the situation clarified.

Miss Corning was an irascible but exceedingly clever businesswoman. If she could be stalled off until Endicott Campbell could be located, she would ask her questions of the manager. But Sue had a sinking feeling that Amelia Corning was going to ask questions of her; questions that it might be very difficult indeed to answer. In fact, Sue had been asking herself questions during the last few days while they had been getting statements ready in anticipation of Miss Corning’s arrival.

There was, for instance, the question of the Mojave mine known as the Mojave Monarch. The company books certainly showed the Mojave Monarch was operating on a twenty-four-hour basis, three eight-hour shifts a day. But a week ago Sunday, when Susan had taken a drive out by Mojave, she had seen an old weather-beaten sign on a dirt road which said simply: MOJAVE MONARCH. Sue had followed this road out to a place where unpainted buildings were sprawled in the sunlight on the side of a mountain.

Not only did the buildings seem unoccupied but they had about them an unmistakable aura of abandonment: the peculiar atmosphere which surrounds buildings in the desert that have not known human occupancy for some time. Only the manager’s cabin seemed occupied, but no one had answered her knock.

Puzzled, Sue had driven back to Mojave and asked at a service station about the Mojave Monarch. The man she had asked had no personal information, but had relayed the question on to a grizzled miner who had driven up to the station.

The miner had told her there was only one Monarch mine in the vicinity as far as he knew, and that hadn’t been worked for more than two years.

At the time, Susan had felt certain there was some mistake, that there must be a Monarch mine the old miner didn’t know about, and the mine she had found was simply another mine bearing the same name. After all, Monarch was a name which could easily be duplicated simply through coincidence.

During the past week, Sue had taken occasion to consult the records on the Monarch mine. There was an office in Mojave where the business affairs were administered. The Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company simply made regular checks covering expenses.

There were reports from the mine in the files. These reports indicated that engineers felt they were due to break into a big body of high-grade ore. The technical terms meant little or nothing to Sue Fisher when she had given them a hasty perusal. She barely knew the difference between a hanging wall and a foot wall. She did know that the main vein had “faulted out” and at the time the fault had been encountered, the vein was fabulously rich and getting wider.

Sue knew that there had been something in Amelia Corning’s correspondence about the Mojave Monarch records. Geological reports had been forwarded to her in South America. That, however, was only one of several matters that had caused Amelia Corning, after a five-year absence from the country, to return to make a personal check on the affairs of the company.

Sue dreaded the barrage of questions which might be asked. She decided to refer everything to Mr. Campbell and play it just as dumb as she knew how.

At the airport Sue paid off the cab. It took every cent she had in her purse to pay the driver and leave him a thirty-five-cent tip.

“I’m sorry about the tip,” she apologized. “I had an emergency matter and... this is every cent I’ve got.”

“Forget it, lady,” the cab driver said with a smile, handing her back the thirty-five cents. “Here, I’ll bet you’ve got some telephoning to do and... you take it.”

She looked at his rugged face, the kindly smiling eyes, and abruptly gave him her hand. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “I feel so... so cheap. Actually, I can put this on an expense account, but... well, I don’t have the cash money with me, that’s all.”

“Forget it,” he told her. “It’s a pleasure to carry a lady like you.”

Then he was gone and Sue was hurrying towards the waiting room, searching for Amelia Corning, fearful lest she shouldn’t find her yet dreading the encounter.

Susan saw Amelia Corning as soon as she entered the waiting room at the airport. It would, in fact, have been impossible to miss her. She sat in a collapsible wheelchair facing the door. Two suitcases and a bag were parked beside the wheelchair. The bags were generously plastered with labels of various South American hotels and resorts. The face was far from prepossessing, being set in grim lines with a long bony chin, a firm, straight nose, high cheekbones, and glasses with huge dark-blue lenses which completely concealed the eyes.

Susan approached the figure in the chair.

The woman sat completely motionless. If she saw Susan Fisher approaching, she gave no sign.

“Miss Corning?” Susan asked, trying to keep a quaver out of her voice.

The bony face slowly tilted upward. Susan had the feeling that back of the heavy dark glasses, weak eyes were trying to appraise her.

“Yes.”

“I’m Susan Fisher, Mr. Campbell’s secretary, the one you talked with over the phone when I was in the office.”

Susan expected some criticism and was surprised when the woman said, in a voice which had suddenly lost its truculence, “You’re a dear, Susan, to get out here so soon.”

“I came as soon as I could.”

“I know you did. Of course, it seemed like a long time to me waiting here, but I realize you had a long way to travel and you must have started at once. Thank you.”

Susan said, “You’re... you’re very welcome. Now, do we take a cab?”

“Of course we take a cab.”

“I’ll have to carry your baggage out and—”

“Call the porter.”

“Yes, Miss Corning. I... I’m sorry, I—”

“Well, what is it?” the woman snapped, suddenly losing her gracious manner. “I hate people who stumble around and try to put a sugar coating on bad news. What’s the trouble?”

“I haven’t a cent,” Sue said. “I used up all of my meager store of pocket money paying the cab fare out here.”

“Don’t you have a petty-cash fund at the office available for emergencies? Why isn’t there a fund available to trusted employees?”

“I... I don’t know. There just isn’t.”

“There’s a safe?”

“Yes... of course.”

“You have the combination to it?”

“Yes.”

“Who else has the combination?”

“Mr. Campbell and the bookkeeper.”

“There should be a fund of several hundred dollars kept available for emergency trips. How do you know when I might call on you to take a plane at once for South America?”

Sue Fisher stood in something of a quandary, hardly knowing how to reply to that.

“When you get hold of Mr. Campbell, see that such a fund is available. I may want you to come to South America. You’re a good girl, Susan. You’re frightened to death. After you get to know me better you won’t be so frightened, but you will learn to respect my judgment, you will carry out my orders unhesitatingly. Do you understand? Unhesitatingly.”

“Yes, Miss Corning.”

“Very well,” she said, opening her bag, taking out a billfold and extracting five bills.

“My eyes aren’t good. I can’t see well in this light. I never know how much money I have with me, but I make it a point to have enough. Here, my dear, are five ten-dollar bills. Charge yourself with fifty dollars expense money.”

Susan Fisher said in an odd voice, “Miss Corning, those aren’t ten-dollar bills, they’re hundred-dollar bills.”

“Thank you. I try to keep the hundreds in one side and the tens in the other. I guess my billfold must have got turned around.”

Her bony fingers moved to the other side of the thick sheaf of bills, counted out five bills.

“These are tens, Sue?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right, that’s fifty dollars. That’s expense money. Deduct what you paid for the taxicab and now get me a porter and a cab and we’ll get started. You have reservations for me?”

“The reservations were for Monday, but... we can probably get in.”

“My wire wasn’t received?”

“No, ma’am.”

“It should have been.”

“It’s probably on the way someplace.”

“On the way nothing! I left earlier than I intended to on the spur of the moment. That no-good attendant at the airport to whom I gave a big bill so he could pay for the wire tore up the telegram, put the money in his pocket, and went out and got drunk. That’s the way with the world these days. No responsibility, no moral stamina, no real downright honesty. All right, Susan, we’ll go to the hotel.”

Susan secured a porter, a cab, and found herself answering intimate searching questions about the business of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company during the ride in the taxicab.

At one point, Susan ventured to say, “I do wish you’d save these questions to ask of Mr. Campbell, Miss Corning.”

“You’re in my employ, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But I’m directly under Mr. Campbell.”

“I don’t care whom you’re directly under, you’re in my employ. You’re working for me. You’re drawing wages that come out of my pocket. I want loyalty, I want efficiency, and I want cooperation. You’ll answer my questions, my child, and we won’t have any more of this ‘Ask Mr. Campbell’ stuff.

“I’m going to the hotel just long enough to check in and get my bags put in my room, then we’re going up to the office and you’re going to put in the rest of the day answering questions.”

“I am?” Sue exclaimed, despair in her voice.

“Yes, my child, you are. And you’re going to answer them right. I don’t want any attempt to shield anyone, you understand. Yourself or anyone else.”

“Yes, Miss Corning.”

“Now, for your information,” she said, “the reason I arrived on Saturday morning instead of Monday is that I knew good and well Endicott Campbell would be out playing golf or doing something of that sort, and I wanted to descend on the office and get some records before he was expecting me. I gave a wire to an attendant but I felt sure he wouldn’t send it. You said that you had the combination to the safe. We’re going to open it and we’re going to take a look. It’s going to be a strain on my eyes and I’ll have to use a big reading-glass, but I’m going to check some of the figures and you’re going to give me the information I want.

“Now then, I’m going to ask you a straight question. Have you any reason to believe that Endicott Campbell is dishonest?”

“I... why, no.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You hesitated after you started to answer the question. I don’t want hesitation, I want straightforward answers. Have you any reason to believe Endicott Campbell is dishonest?”

“I don’t know.”

“Certainly. You don’t know that he’s dishonest, but do you have any reason to believe that he may be dishonest? Yes or no.”

“Well,” Susan said, “there’s one matter that’s been bothering me — the Mojave Monarch.”

“And that’s been bothering me. I think we’re going to get along together pretty well, Susan, once you’ve learned to answer questions promptly, frankly, and honestly.”

At Miss Corning’s insistence Susan not only went to the hotel with her but also signed Miss Corning’s name on the hotel register for her, then went up to the suite of rooms which had been reserved for Monday, the fifth, yet which the clerk said was presently available and which he had been able to assign for immediate occupancy.

Then, after the briefest of intervals, Sue escorted Miss Corning to the office.

“Now then, my child,” Miss Corning said, “I want to see the vouchers in the Mojave Monarch mine. As you probably know, I instructed Mr. Campbell to have everything ready for me.”

Sue said, “The books are in the safe, but all the detailed information seems to be in Mojave.”

“All right, the books show generally the expenses of the mine. What has been received from it by way of returns from ore shipments?”

“I can’t find those records. I think they are in Mojave. There are reports showing the main vein faulted out, but I know from oral reports Mr. Campbell has made to me there has been quite a quantity of milling ore brought out of the ground.”

“What was done with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Open up the safe. Let’s see what the books show.”

Susan opened the safe, unlocked the inner steel door, and pulled out the books pertaining to the Mojave Monarch Gold Mining & Exploration Company.

Miss Corning sent her wheelchair up to within a few inches of the safe, leaned forward to peer from behind those dark glasses. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing a long bony finger towards the shoe box which Susan had taken from Carleton Campbell.

For a moment Sue was embarrassed. “Why that...” she said, “that’s... something private, something of my own that I’ve put in the safe for a few hours because I didn’t want to take it with me when I went to the airport and—”

“What is it?” Miss Corning insisted.

“Something personal.”

“Love letters?”

“Not exactly.”

“All right, what is it? It’s in the company safe. You shouldn’t be putting your private things in here.”

“I wouldn’t have put it in there, Miss Corning, if it hadn’t been for the fact that you telephoned and your telephone call upset my entire schedule. After all, you know, I’m not supposed to be working today. This is something of a purely private nature.”

Miss Corning tilted her head so that the big opaque lenses of her dark glasses were turned directly towards Sue. Then she said, “Humph,” and spun the chair around and sent it speeding across the office to the desk where Sue had spread out the books and the statements.

Sue was beginning to hold this woman in awe. Miss Corning had an uncanny ability to read her mind, to interpret the faintest nuance of voice. Her long, big-jointed fingers could wrap around the wheels of the chair and send the vehicle darting about with dazzling speed.

“Now, my dear, my eyes aren’t what they should be. I can only read with this big reading-glass and it tires my eyes. I’m going to have to rely on you. Where’s the sheet showing the summary of expenses?”

Susan got it for her.

“Read me the figures,” Miss Corning said.

Sue read off the figures slowly, impressively.

The woman frowned and shook her head. “Don’t dawdle along so much. Read them right out. I’ll remember them. Just get them out.”

Sue read the figures.

When she had finished, Miss Corning cross-examined her on them, recalling figure after figure accurately down to the last penny, as though she had the balance sheet right in front of her.

Then suddenly she had changed the subject. “What about this Oklahoma Royal property?” she asked.

Sue went over to the safe and brought out a statement. At Miss Corning’s insistence she read that statement also.

Abruptly Miss Corning said, “I think Endicott Campbell is a crook.”

Sue was shocked into frozen silence.

“Get me a suitcase,” Miss Corning commanded. “I’m going to take all those papers with me. I want a handwriting expert to look over those. I think most of those checks are phonies. I think they’ve all been endorsed by Endicott Campbell.”

“Why, Miss Corning!” Sue exclaimed. “That... that would be—”

“Exactly,” Miss Corning snapped as Sue finished. “That would be forgery or embezzlement, or both. Now then, I want something that will hold those records. I want a suitcase — two strong suitcases. Here...”

Miss Corning again picked up her bag, opened it, pulled out the billfold, extracted two one-hundred-dollar bills, said, “You’ll find a luggage store open around here someplace, probably not a good one, but you’ll find one that sells baggage. Those places seem to stay open somehow at ungodly hours. Go down and get me two very strong suitcases. I don’t want them fancy, I want them strong. Get back here just as fast as you can.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sue said.

“Hurry along now. I know a handwriting expert here in the city who will go into these things for me. I’m not satisfied with the way things have been going and you’re not either.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“You know good and well what I mean. You’re down here working on your Saturday trying to get things straightened up. You’ve been wondering what you were going to say to me when I showed up. You were hoping you wouldn’t have to answer any questions, that Endicott Campbell would be the one to do it.”

“I... I... I don’t think I should discuss Mr. Campbell with you, Miss Corning. After all, I work for—”

“Shut up that magpie chatter,” the woman snapped, “and go down and get me those suitcases! I want to get started on this. I want to have this thing all at my fingertips by Monday morning and I want to know how to approach Endicott Campbell. I’m not going to lay myself wide open to a lawsuit by accusing him of anything I can’t prove. If I make an accusation I want to be able to prove it. The way things look now I am going to make an accusation and I want the facts to back it up. Now, get started.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sue said, feeling very small and insignificant and at the same time very much alarmed.

She went down in the elevator and after a couple of fruitless attempts to find a luggage store open on a Saturday afternoon, enlisted the aid of a cab driver who took her to a rather small but well-stocked store, waited while she hurriedly selected the two strong suitcases, and then drove back to the office.

Sue, carrying the empty suitcases, found Miss Corning in her wheelchair by the window holding some canceled checks up to the bright afternoon light. A thick-lensed reading-glass was held above the checks.

Miss Corning looked up as Sue entered and said, “Humph, just as I thought. This whole deal is completely phony. You got the suitcases, child?”

“Yes.”

“Put them out on that table. Start putting these checks in them. Now, I want that book and all of these statements. I’m going over them in the hotel tonight.

“Now then, just where is Endicott Campbell? I mean, where is he supposed to be?”

“I don’t know. I called the golf club this morning trying to locate him. He was part of a foursome that had a reservation there but it had been canceled out.”

“I want to see him,” Miss Corning said, “and I want to see him tonight, at my hotel. Now don’t let him come up here. I don’t want to see him now, I don’t want to see him at his convenience, I want to see him at mine! Get on the telephone and get him located.”

“I’ll have to go to the switchboard,” Sue said, “and... and—”

“I don’t care where you have to go,” Miss Corning snapped, throwing a bundle of canceled checks into one of the suitcases. “Get on the telephone and get him located. Ring up his golf club. If he isn’t there, find out the names of the people who were in the foursome. Ring each one of them up. Get Campbell located. What about his house... he wouldn’t be there?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know where he is, Miss Corning.”

“He’s a widower?”

“His wife has left him. There’s a daughter, Eve, with her. A younger son, Carleton, is with Mr. Campbell. He has a governess for him.”

“Who’s the governess?”

“An Englishwoman.”

“Who is she? What’s her name?”

“Elizabeth Dow.”

“All right,” Miss Corning said, “get hold of her. Get her on the phone. Dig up some information. I want Endicott Campbell at my suite at the hotel tonight at eight forty-five. Right on the dot, you understand... and tell him that I don’t like people who are late for appointments. When I say eight forty-five, I mean eight forty-five on the dot.

“Now you get busy on that telephone and I’ll put the things I want in these suitcases.”

At the end of a full fifteen minutes spent on the telephone Sue knew no more than she had earlier in the day. The foursome at the golf club had been canceled out. Two of the parties to the foursome had joined another pair to make a foursome. They had been advised earlier in the day by Endicott Campbell that he couldn’t make it. The other party to the foursome, Harvey Benedict, was an attorney. There was no way that Sue could reach him over the weekend. No residence number was given for him in the telephone book. The phone operator advised her that he had no listed residence telephone number.

A telephone call to the Campbell residence brought the information from Elizabeth Dow that the housekeeper had not heard from Endicott Campbell all day; that he was supposed to be home at six-thirty; that he had asked to have dinner served promptly at seven o’clock.

When Sue Fisher reported to Miss Corning, the woman sat for nearly thirty seconds motionless in the wheelchair. Her bony face with the high cheekbones, the lantern jaw, and the long nose, seemed almost grotesque with the immobility of concentration. Then she said, “Very well. These suitcases are quite heavy for you. Go down and give the man who runs the elevator a couple of dollars to come and take these down to the sidewalk. We’ll get a cab there and go to the hotel.”

Sue went to the elevator, explained their predicament to the assistant janitor, who promptly came and picked up the suitcases. Then Sue closed up the office and she and Miss Corning went to the elevator and down to the sidewalk. Sue hailed a cab.

“What’s your address, my child?” Miss Corning asked.

Sue gave her the address.

“Very well,” Miss Corning said to the cab driver, “we’ll drive by there first and leave this young woman at her apartment. Then you can take me to the Arthenium Hotel. Now help me fold up this wheelchair.”

There was something about the way Miss Corning gave orders which caused cab drivers instinctively to touch their caps. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Miss Corning, with deft skill, whipped the wheelchair alongside the open door of the cab. She could, Sue noticed, use her legs enough to be of some assistance as the driver helped her into the cab, but at one period she leaned heavily on Sue’s shoulder and it was at that moment Sue got the impression of enormous strength in the long fingers which seemed to dig into her shoulder. Then Miss Corning was in the cab, the wheelchair was being folded and put up in front with the two suitcases. Sue got in the other side of the cab.

“Oh, by the way,” Sue said, “I neglected to give you the change from the two-hundred dollars. The two suitcases amounted to seventy-six dollars and thirty cents with taxes. And there’s the expense money you gave me at the airport.”

Sue gave her the receipt, opened her purse to take out the rest of the money.

“Never mind, my child. Forget it,” Miss Corning said. “You’ve had a hard day today. You did nobly and I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to find loyalty in employees. That’s a very precious commodity. I don’t often find it. You’re honest. Did you think I didn’t know those first five bills I showed you were hundred-dollar bills? I was testing your honesty. If you’d told me they were tens I’d have fired you on the spot. You are honest; you’re loyal; you’re a nice girl.”

“Why... why... thank you,” Sue said, completely overwhelmed.

“Not at a ll,” Miss Corning said.

“I don’t see how you stand it,” Sue said. “You must have had a terrific trip flying up from South America and with all the strain of packing and getting away, and the work you’ve done in the office, and—”

“Bosh!” Miss Corning interrupted curtly. “It was nothing. Don’t you worry about me. I stopped over in Miami and had a good hot tub. I’m fresh as a daisy.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go to the hotel with you and—”

“What for?” Miss Corning snapped. “I’m perfectly at home there now. I don’t like to be babied, young woman. I get along by myself and as you get to know me better you’ll find I’m very self-reliant.

“Now, sit back and relax. I want to do some thinking and I don’t want to have any chatter. If I want you to say anything I’ll ask a question. If I don’t ask a question, keep quiet.”

“Yes, Miss Corning,” Sue said.

They rode in silence until the cab reached Sue’s apartment.

“This has been terribly out of your way,” Sue said apologetically.

“Not at all. If I’d gone directly to the hotel you wouldn’t have taken the cab home. You’d have got out and gone on a bus and been completely exhausted by the time you arrived. As it is now, you can go get into a hot tub and relax. I’m leaving it to you to get in touch with Mr. Campbell and tell him I want to see him at eight forty-five tonight.”

“What shall I tell him if he asks about what happened today?”

“Tell him the truth. Never lie to anybody. I don’t ask my employees to lie and I don’t lie myself. If he asks you questions, answer them.”

“But... suppose he asks me if you’re satisfied? If—”

“Tell him,” Miss Corning snapped, “that I said I thought he was a crook. That’s what I said and that’s what I meant. He’s going to have some explaining to do. Good afternoon, Sue.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Corning.”

Sue got out and stood at the curb, watching the cab drive away with Amelia Corning sitting straight as an arrow in the back seat, her face completely without expression, the dark glasses pointed straight ahead.

Then Sue sighed and took out the latchkey which opened the outer door of the apartment house.