The Talking Clock

Chapter Thirteen

When they got off the shuttle train at Times Square and climbed up to the street, Sam Cragg said: “Where are we going to hole up?”

“Why,” said Johnny, “right over there is 45th Street. Isn’t there a nice, fourthrate hotel on 45th Street?”

“Ow! The 45th Street Hotel? Peabody isn’t going to welcome us.”

“Nor will he turn us away. It’s against the law. We’ve got the money to pay for a room, so…” They walked over to 45th Street, turned east, and after a moment went into the hotel.

The bell captain started automatically toward them, then suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Mr. Fletcher; and Sam Cragg. Holy Gee!”

“Hiyah, Eddie,” Johnny greeted the bell captain. “How’s things?”

“They been slow… until now. Uh… there’s the boss!”

Mr. Peabody, the manager of the 45th Street Hotel, wearing his neatly pressed afternoon suit, with a white carnation in the buttonhole, descended upon them.

“Mr. Fletcher!” he exclaimed. “How do you do. Isn’t it too bad?”

“What? Your mother-in-law coming to live with you?”

“Ha-ha,” Mr. Peabody laughed, without humor. “Always joking. No, I had reference to the room situation. With the World’s Fair and all — we’re crowded to the roof.”

“Now, you’re kidding, Peabody. I’ll bet you’ve got fifty rooms vacant. Why, I sent you a nice old couple this morning. Mr. and Mrs. Schultz from Iowa. Did you take good care of them?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Peabody frowned. He looked pointedly at the carton dangling from Sam’s hand. “Is that your baggage?”

“For the nonce. The trunks are coming later.”

Peabody pressed his lips together tightly, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I might be able to find a vacant room, but since you have no baggage—”

“Tut-tut, Peabody.” Johnny took a handful of crumpled bills from his pocket. “I’m holding heavy. I don’t mind paying a week’s rent in advance… since the hotel needs the money so badly. Eleven dollars, sir. There you are.”

“Fifteen; our rates have gone up…”

“Eleven,” said Johnny firmly. “You’re not going to raise us just because there’s a World’s Fair in town.”

Mr. Peabody looked darkly at Johnny. “Something tells me I’m going to be sorry for this weakness.”

“Mr. Peabody,” said Sam Cragg, “I’d like to show you a card trick…” He looked at the other’s austere face and scowled. “On the other hand, let’s skip it. You never did have a sense of humor.”

“If I didn’t,” said Mr. Peabody, bitingly, “would I permit you to come back to this hotel, after what you did here last time?…”

Up in Room 821, Johnny took off his coat and rolling up his sleeves went into the bathroom to wash up. With the water running, he yelled to Sam:

“Look in the phone directory for the address of the Quisenberry Clock Company, and see if that Greek, Nicholas Bos, is listed in the book.”

Sam Cragg came into the bathroom. “What’d you say, Johnny?”

“I said to look up the address of the Quisenberry—”

“I heard that. But Johnny, you promised you’d forget that business. Whenever you play detective, we come out the wrong end. Look what almost happened to us up there in Minnesota and we were minding our own business.”

“It’s because of that I’m interested in the Quisenberrys, Sam. You don’t think those John Smith and John Jones alibis are going to hold forever, do you? One of these fine days someone’s going to knock on our door and when we open it a man’ll be standing there and he’ll say: ‘Mr. Smith and Jones? The chief wants to have a word with you!’ ”

“But we don’t have to stick here in New York now. We’ve got a stake and—”

“How much of a stake, Sam? I’ve already paid Peabody eleven bucks. Which leaves us about fifty. And what about poor Mort? You going to let that loan shark work him over?”

Sam winced. “I could beat the hell out of him, but I dunno about his gang. They don’t fight with their fists…”

“Damn right they don’t. We got Mort into it and we’ve got to get him out of it. We’ll have to stick around here long enough to get him out of hock. We owe it to Mort. He’s been a grand guy…”

Sam looked suspiciously at Johnny. Then he shrugged and got the phone directory. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment, “the clock outfit’s over on Tenth Avenue. Let’s see about Bos, now. B-o-s… mm, say, here’s a Nicholas Bos with a ‘b’ after his name. That means business. The address is on West Avenue… What business would he be in? Clocks?”

“No. They’re his hobby. I gathered that the Greek has plenty of what it takes. Did you hear him offer seventy-five G’s for a clock?”

“I heard him and I was thinking that we practically had our mitts on that clock once. All we needed was two hundred bucks.”

Johnny screwed up his mouth. “Wonder why the Kid hocked the clock for two hundred dollars when it was worth so much?”

“Maybe he didn’t know how much it was worth.”

Johnny shrugged and put on his coat. “It’s about four thirty. We’ve just got time to run over to this clock outfit. I’d like to see what it looks like.”

“All right,” Sam sighed.

They left the hotel and walked briskly toward Seventh Avenue. They crossed Times Square and continued westward. When they reached Tenth Avenue they turned north.

Johnny whistled. “There she is! The building covers a whole block. They must have turned out a lot of Simple Simons to build that.”

“Simple Simons?”

“Now, don’t tell me you never saw a Simple Simon alarm clock, Sam. Every drugstore in America sells ’em. One buck per alarm.”

“Oh, those! I threw one at a cat one night and when I went out the next morning there was the clock, ticking away as good as new.”

They went into the building. Opposite the elevators was a receptionist behind a mahogany desk.

Johnny said: “I want to see the boss. The big boss.”

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, “but Mr. Quisenberry was buried only today.”

“I know that. But the company’s still in business, isn’t it? Somebody must be in charge and that’s who I want to see…”

“Why, yes, I think that would be Mr. Tamarack, the sales manager. But… do you have an appointment?”

“Does a fellow need an appointment around here to buy some clocks? Look, Miss, I’m on my vacation. I came to New York to see the World’s Fair. I don’t have to buy any clocks, but I thought as long as I was here I’d look over your line. If it’s as good as the line I’ve been handling, well…”

“Of course, sir. Just a moment…”

“The name is Fletcher. Of Fletcher & Company.” Out of the side of his mouth he said to Sam, “You’re the company.”

The girl spoke into her telephone and looked up at Johnny. “Go right through this door and up the hall to Office Number Three. Mr. Tamarack will be glad to see you.”

The inner hall was nicely carpeted and the walls were of pine paneling. Johnny pushed open a door bearing the gold numeral “3” and entered.

Wilbur Tamarack got up from behind a huge desk. “Mr. Fletcher? I don’t believe we’ve ever had the pleasure of doing business with you.”

He held out his hand and Johnny shook it, nodding when Tamarack returned his grip with interest. “Glad to know you, Mr. Tamarack. This is my friend, Mr. Cragg.”

“How do you do, Mr. Cragg? You’re from out of town, I understand.”

“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?…”

“Simon Quisenberry was worth a lot of money.”

“Guess again. He died broke. All he left was this clock.”

“Nah,” said Partridge. “He had a clock collection worth a million bucks. And a big estate, not to mention the Simple Simon Clock outfit, which isn’t hay in itself.”

“Everything mortgaged. Even the clocks. Except the one — the Talking Clock. He left that to his grandson.”

“Who died before Simon did.”

Johnny looked thoughtfully at the private detective. “How does that figure out? Did the clock revert back to the estate?”

“Depends on the wording of Old Simon’s will. In either case, the clock is worth plenty by itself. I figure the clock can be had.”

“Through your hole card, Bonita?”

Partridge frowned. “You don’t know the old girl. I was married to her. Do you see that brass ash stand there? It’s soft stuff compared to Bonita. She’s out for herself, first, last and all the time.”

“I gathered that. Her present husband, Eric, has about as much chance as a mouse would have in a college of cats. But for the time being, I think Bonita is stymied. Nothing she can do… except leave her husband.”

“She’ll leave him when she’s got his last dollar. Not before. Bonita’s tough, Fletcher, but would you believe that I had her housebroken?”

“Meaning that you’re a tough bozo yourself?”

Partridge smiled modestly. “Remember the Monahan-Royster case four years ago? I pinched Monahan.”

“All right,” agreed Johnny. “You’re tough. So what?”

“So I thought we might play ball. What were you doing over at the Quisenberry Clock Company?”

“I was trying to buy a Simple Simon Clock.”

Partridge’s eyes glittered. “What’s your interest in this, Fletcher? You had the clock once and gave it to the girl. Why do you stick around then?”

“Why?” said Johnny. “A kid I was in jail with got himself murdered and the Minnesota cops seem to think me and Sam here did it. I’m trying to prove we didn’t.”

“That was Minnesota; this is New York.”

“They can extradite you for a murder rap.”

“Yeah,” said Jim Partridge, thoughtfully. “So they can.”

“Don’t go getting ideas, Partridge,” growled Sam Cragg.

“By the way,” said Johnny, “could you prove where you were on September 19th?”

“I wasn’t in Minnesota.”

“Can you prove you weren’t?”

“Can you prove I was?”

“No,” said Johnny, “but Sam and me could swear that the guy who was in jail with us — the one who struck the constable — looked a lot like you, without your face washed. Catch on?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to snitch to the cops about you. I’ve got a stake in this game and I’ll play my cards without cops. But I’m warning you. I play a tough game.”

“Swell,” said Sam Cragg. “So do we. And as long as warnings are in order, let me give you one, Partridge. Next time you see us coming, cross the street.”

Partridge smiled icily. “Can I take my hardware with me? It isn’t loaded, anyway.”

Johnny picked up the automatic from the bed and saw that the magazine was empty. He tossed the gun to Partridge.

“So long, Partridge.”

“Just for a while. I may see you around.” He looked pointedly at Sam Cragg. “Both of you.”

After he had gone out, Sam Cragg shivered. “Something tells me that Partridge is a mean hombre.”

“I remember him now. Monahan was a killer and he had some rough boys with him. Partridge went into his hide-out and killed one of the hoods and beat the hell out of this Monahan.”

“And did you hear what he said about his ex?”

“About having had her housebroken? Did you see her face this morning? She was scared stiff when I mentioned his name. I thought at the time it was because I’d spilled something. I guess maybe it was because she’s afraid of Partridge. Well, how about some food now, Sam?”

“I’m ready. I still haven’t got over those lean days. A nice, thick steak, smothered in onions… and maybe a few pork chops for dessert…”