The Limping Goose

2

The Chesterton catered to the same kind of clientele as the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel, rack-track touts, chorus girls, would-be actors and actresses and the usual miscellany of Broadway characters and sharpshooters. Plus a few out-of-town people who came to New York now and then and sought cheap accommodations.

There were eight or ten people in the lobby, but Johnny found a couple of vacant chairs. He sat down in one and gestured to Sam to take the other chair.

“Why don’t we go in the dining room and eat?” Sam asked anxiously. “I’m so hungry I could put salt on these leather chairs and eat them.”

“In a minute, Sam, in a minute. Ah...”

A bellboy turned away from the desk, glanced at a slip of paper in his hand and called out, “Paging Mr. Malkin. Mr. Paul Malkin, please.”

Mr. Malkin did not respond and the bellboy entered the adjoining dining room and called out a couple of times, then he returned and delivered the slip to the desk, where it was put into Mr. Malkin’s key slot.

“Now let’s eat,” said Johnny.

Sam sprang to his feet and they entered the dining room.

They had a nice lunch of soup, salad, New York cut steak, coffee and pie. Then the waiter brought the check. Johnny took the pencil and scribbled on it: Paul Malkin.

“Your room number too, please,” said the waiter.

“Of course.” Johnny wrote down 821, then reached into a pocket. He fished around for a moment, smiled and shook his head. “Don’t seem to have any change. Here” — He picked up the pencil again and wrote on the check — “Tip, $1.00.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the waiter. “I hope you enjoyed your lunch.”

“It was delicious!”

“You said it,” exclaimed Sam, smacking his lips.

As they walked out of the dining room, Sam whispered nervously, “Let’s get out of here fast!”

“Why? Mr. Malkin’s out of the hotel at the moment. And he isn’t a regular here, or the bellboy wouldn’t have had to page him. He’d have known him by sight. Relax, we’ve had a nice lunch, so now we get to work.”

He took the skip tracer’s card from his pocket. “Miss Alice Cummings. Nice name. Well, let’s see.”

He stepped up to the desk and accosted the clerk. “I’m from the Hotel Credit Bureau,” he said. “I want to ask you about a guest who stayed here, mm, four years ago.”

“That’s a long time ago,” said the clerk. “What’s the name?”

“Miss Alice Cummings.”

A gleam came into the clerk’s eyes, but he shook his head. “I don’t remember her, but I’ll see...” He went to the rear of his compartment and took down a ledger. Blowing dust off it, he returned and opened it on the desk.

“Alice Cummings, eh? Let’s see, now.” He ran his finger down a page. “Ah, yes, Room seven fifteen. She lived here quite a while. Ah-hah, I thought so. The name did seem a little familiar—”

“You knew her personally?” Johnny asked.

“Vaguely. A blonde, I believe. Or possibly a brunette.”

“Or maybe even a redhead?”

“Could be. What hotel has she swindled now?”

“She owed money here?”

“Forty-six dollars, it says here.”

“At how much a week?”

“Oh, her room was only ten dollars, but she ran up six dollars’ worth of extras.”

“You mean you let her stay four weeks without getting any money from her?”

“That’s what it looks like. Of course, I don’t remember the details now. In fact, I scarcely remember the young lady.”

“You know she was young.”

“All our female guests are young. Ha ha!”

“But Miss Cummings was young?”

“I seem to recall that, yes. I scarcely remember her, but I do somehow recall that she was, yes, quite young. In her early twenties. Some people might even call her attractive.”

“She didn’t leave a forwarding address?”

“Don’t be ridic. I just told you she skipped without paying her bill.”

“How long had she stayed here altogether?”

“Oh, quite a while. Four, no, almost five months. She paid for a while, then began to fall behind. She paid up, then finally got into us for forty-six, and that’s the last we saw of her.”

“You held her luggage?”

“What luggage?”

“Trunk — bags?”

The clerk grimaced. “A trunk worth two dollars. Full of newspapers.”

“What about her fur coat?”

“Fur coat? What — how do you know she had a fur coat?”

“It says so here on this card. She bought a fur coat from the Arctic Fur Company, on which she still owes a little tab of seventy-four dollars.”

The old clerk looked sharply at Johnny. “How would you know that? You said you were with the Hotel Credit Bureau.”

“Me? Naw, what I said was that you were probably a member of the Hotel Credit Bureau. Me, I’m just a little old skip tracer.”

“A skip tracer! You’ve got a nerve trying to pump me for information.”

“Ain’t I, though?” chuckled Johnny. He winked at the clerk and strode away.

Sam trotted beside him. “This is fun,” Johnny said.

“Fun?” exclaimed Sam. “I couldn’t hardly eat I was so nervous.” He looked nervously over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Just a minute.”

Johnny accosted a bellboy near the door. “Nice hotel you’ve got here, laddie.”

“What’s nice about it?” asked the bellboy sourly.

“Been working here long?”

“Just a few months. Why?”

“I’m making a survey on how long hotel employees keep their jobs. Who, besides the clerk, for instance, do you know that’s been here for, say, four years or more?”

“The doorman. He’s got a sweet racket and he can take the guff.”

“Thank you, laddie. He’s the man I want to talk to.”

The doorman stood outside the hotel, sneaking a quiet smoke. He would take a quick puff or two, then palm the cigarette as he held it behind his back.

Johnny stepped up to him. “Mister,” he said, “I’ve come to New York from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to find my sister who ran away from home five years ago, come Candlemas Day.”

“I’ll bet,” said the doorman cynically.

“Her name,” Johnny went on, “was Alice Cummings and this was the last address we had of her.”

“Alice Cummings,” mused the doorman. “Yeah, sure, I remember her. A good-looking babe—”

“Naturally. You wouldn’t have remembered her if she hadn’t been.”

“Oh, I remember her, all right. She had a little hard luck, I hear, and couldn’t pay her room rent. Although you’d have never known it.”

“Poor Alice,” sighed Johnny. “Alone in the great city, no money, only a cheap mink-dyed alley-cat fur coat to keep her warm.”

“She was wearing a real mink the last time I saw her,” retorted the doorman.

“When was that?”

“The last time? Only a month ago.”

“You’ve seen her more than this once?”

“Oh, sure. Standing out here, you’re bound to see everyone you ever knew. I see this babe two-three-four times a year. Doin’ all right, too, I guess. She was with young Carmichael six-eight months ago. Come out of the theatre there and it was rainin’ so cabs was scarce and they came over here to grab one. I helped her in.”

“Carmichael,” said Johnny, “that wouldn’t be Billy Carmichael, would it?”

“Naw. Young Jess — you know, son of old Jess Carmichael who made a potful in the grocery business.”

“Oh, him. Well, well! Sis is doing all right. Thanks a million.”

“Not a million. A buck’d be all right.”

“If I had a buck, which I haven’t,” retorted Johnny, “I’d invest it in the Carmichael Grocery Stores.”

“Yah!” said the doorman disgustedly.

“Yah to you.”

Johnny signaled to Sam and they walked toward Seventh Avenue. “I’m glad to know the kid ain’t starvin’,” Sam said. “Wouldn’t it be swell if she’d marry a fellow like this rich Mr. Carmichael?”

“It would help to distribute the wealth,” said Johnny, “but it seems to me I’ve seen this Carmichael lad’s name in the gossip columns. He gets around. Mm, let’s take a little walk to settle our lunch.”

At Forty-eighth they turned right and walked to Fifty-second, then cut across to Fifth Avenue. Just beyond was the Beau Jester Club where you could get a nice hamburger steak luncheon for two for around $18.50.

The velvet rope was up at the door. “Sorry, sir,” a head-waiter told Johnny, “we won’t have any tables until around three o’clock.”

“Jess Carmichael said he’d meet us here today for lunch.”

“Mr. Carmichael? There must be some mistake. He never eats here on Tuesdays.”

“This is the Beau Jester Club, isn’t it?”

“Of course, sir, but on Tuesdays Mr. Carmichael always has lunch at the Harover Club.”

“He must have meant me to come over to the Harover Club, then. Let’s see, that’s on Thirty-eighth, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, Forty-sixth, just east of Fifth Avenue.”

“Well, thank you.”

They walked back to Fifth Avenue and turned south. A few minutes later they entered the grimy building that had housed the Harover Club since the turn of the century.

Inside, an assistant doorman who kept the record of the club members who were in the building at the time faced them “Yes, gentlemen?”

“Mr. Jess Carmichael. He’s expecting us.”

“Your names?”

“Fletcher and Cragg. But it’s all right, we’re having lunch with him. We’ll look for him in the dining room.”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s against the club rules. Mr. Carmichael will have to pass you. I’ll have him paged for you.” He scribbled on a pad, banged a bell and called out, “Front!”

A bellboy came forward smartly and the attendant handed him a slip of paper. “Page Mr. Carmichael.”

The bellboy went off and was gone a good five minutes while Johnny and Sam waited in front of the assistant door man’s desk. Finally, the boy came back, accompanied by a red-faced, dissipated-looking man of about thirty. The bellboy indicated Johnny and Sam, and Jess Carmichael regarded them vaguely.

“Do I know you chaps?”

“Not yet,” said Johnny. “My name’s Fletcher and this is my partner, Sam Cragg.”

Carmichael nodded briefly. He did not offer to shake hands.

“If you’re selling insurance—”

“We’re not,” said Johnny. “In fact, we’re not selling a thing I came to see you for one reason only. To tell you how grateful I am.”

“For what?” asked Carmichael, still suspicious.

“My sister. You’ve been awfully good to her.”

Carmichael winced. “Fletcher, you said? Uh, I, ah, don’t believe I know—”

“Oh, she doesn’t use our name any more. When she ran away from home she changed it.” Johnny paused for effect. “To Alice Cummings.”

And now Carmichael really winced. “Uh, ah, Alice, uh, Cummings.”

“No, no, just Alice Cummings. Not uh, ah, or mm. She’s told you about me, hasn’t she?”

“No!” exploded young Carmichael. “She never mentioned a brother. And I don’t believe you are her brother.”

Johnny made a clucking sound with his tongue. He appealed to Sam. “Tell the man, Sam, am I, or am I not, little Alice’s brother?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Sam. “She’s our sister — I mean, your sister...”

“Blackmail!” exclaimed Carmichael. “You’re trying to blackmail me.”

“I’ve got nothing against blackmail,” Johnny said. “A man does something he hadn’t ought to do, he ought to pay for it?”

“H-how much?” gulped Carmichael.

“Shall we talk about it?”

“Shall we go in and talk about it?”

“No! Tell me how much, that’s all I want to know.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. A better deal than you deserve. I’ll let you go your crummy way, on just one little condition. Alice’s address. Right now — fast.”

“That’s all you want? You’re sure?”

“That’s all. Nothing more. Absolutely.”

“Chateau Pelham — Fifth Avenue.”

“Mr. Carmichael,” Johnny said, “you’re a scholar and a gentleman. I thank you.”

He started to turn away. A shudder ran through Jess Carmichael and he suddenly reached out and grabbed Johnny’s arm. “I... I don’t get it.”

“You will,” said Johnny and walked out of the club.

Outside, Sam Cragg let out a roar. “Holy smoke, Johnny. That was raw!”

“I didn’t do a thing. I didn’t say anything I couldn’t repeat in a court. It’s his conscience. He read a different meaning into everything. That’s what a guilty conscience does to a man.”

“Where we going now?”

“The Chateau Pelham, where else? And I hope she’s in. I’m getting tired of walking. We’ll ride back.”