The Talking Clock

Chapter Twenty

Diana Rusk tapped on the door a moment later and Johnny let her in. Her face was drawn and there was a rather frightened look in her eyes.

She was carrying a large object wrapped in brown wrapping paper and tied with a stout cord. It seemed heavy.

She set the package on the dresser.

“How do you do, Miss Rusk,” Johnny said. “Won’t you have a seat?”

She shook her head. “I can’t stay. I just dropped in to… to talk to you. First of all, I want to thank you for sparing me the embarrassment of being questioned in public, by the detective.”

Johnny waved magnanimously and waited for her to go on. His eyes went to the package. It was just about large enough to contain the Talking Clock.

Her sharp, white teeth worried her lower lip. Then she took a deep breath.

“It’s about Mr. Quisenberry. The police — seem to suspect him of…”

“Of killing Joe Cornish? That’s natural. But they haven’t arrested him. And they won’t… for a while.”

“No-no, but they questioned him for hours last night and again this morning. Mother is… worried.”

“I know.” He looked thoughtfully at her. It was apparent that she was having a difficult time of it. He focused his eyes on the package and then she plunged.

“Mother is greatly impressed with you. She said you were the only one to guess about — me and Tom. And then, she heard you the other day when you were selling books. She thinks you’re a wonderful salesman and since we haven’t any money to help Mr. Quisenberry, she thought…”

She turned to the package. “Mr. Quisenberry gave me the Talking Clock. He said it was mine and there was no use holding it from me and we thought, Mother and I, that since that man, Mr. Bos…”

“Ah! You want to sell him the clock?” Johnny’s lips twisted. Her approach was naive, to say the least. The plea for sympathy first, then flattery. “You want me to sell the clock for you?”

She bobbed her head up and down. “Yes, Mr. Bos offered… a very large sum… but we’re not sure he really meant it. It didn’t seem possible.”

Johnny walked to the dresser. “The clock is yours. If you want to sell it, that’s your business. Come, I’ll go down with you to see this Mr. Bos. You wait here, Sam.”

Outside, Johnny hailed a taxicab. They were in it, rolling southward before Diana Rusk finally came out with it. “The clock doesn’t… talk any more…”

Johnny wasn’t too surprised. It had been too much trouble for the thief to have a new record made, so he’d returned the clock without any record.

“It’s broken,” Diana went on, “I mean, it’s not really broken, but that voice disc is missing from it. Will it… make much difference?”

“Oh, no,” said Johnny. “It won’t make any difference. Hardly any at all. He can buy a new disc for a dollar… What time is it? I’ve got a watch, but it’s in a pawnshop in Denver, Colorado.”

She looked at her wrist watch. “Ten minutes to twelve.”

Johnny called to the driver. “Take it easy. We don’t want to get there before twelve.”

He grinned at Diana. “So he’ll have to wait until one o’clock to discover the clock don’t talk. Just as well. He’s heard it talk before, anyway.”

They got to Nicholas Bos’ office at two minutes after twelve. “I’m back,” said Johnny brightly to the girl in the reception office. “I bring a gift to a Greek.”

“The quotation,” the girl said, severely, “is, ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’ I’ll see if Mr. Bos is free.”

He was and when his eyes took in the big package, they began to glow. “What do you having here?” he asked eagerly.

Johnny set the clock on Bos’ desk, picked up a pair of shears and deliberately snipped the cord. Then he peeled off the wrapping paper.

“Behold,” he said, “the Talking Clock. She’s yours, Mr. Nicholas Bos, the greatest treasure in the entire clock collecting world. All yours for a mere seventy-five thousand dollars, plus, ten thousand.”

Bos gave a start. “What you meaning? Seventy-five t’ousand plus… how much?”

“Plus ten thousand. The little bonus you said you’d give me when I found the clock. Remember? I’m knocking off the three hundred that’s really due yet on our expense money.”

“You are crazy!” gasped the clock collector. “You don’t finding the clock. She is not lost…”

Johnny smiled at the Greek, but there was a glint in his eyes. “So, you’re going to renege, are you? Very well…” He reached for the wrapping paper and began pulling it up over the clock. He took his time about it, expecting that Bos would stop him.

Bos remained absolutely quiet. Johnny got the pieces of cord together, knotted them into one piece.

“Sorry, old man,” he said, tightly. “We were giving you first chance at it. We’ve got two other offers…”

Nicholas Bos laughed softly. “How much? Three t’ousand dollars? Five?”

“Ha-ha,” Johnny laughed, humorlessly. “Always the kidder, aren’t you? I can get eighty thousand for this little old clock, any day, any time.”

“In that case, my friend, I withdraw. You may sell to other party.”

Johnny’s bluff almost collapsed, but he drew a deep breath and prepared to play it a little further. He twisted the cord about the package. And then, Diana Rusk could stand it no longer.

“How much will you pay, Mr. Bos?”

Johnny groaned. She had lost him the game. Bos wanted that clock and he would have paid for it. He had to pay. “I give you twenty-five thousand dollar,” Bos said.

“The gold in it’s worth more,” John said, caustically.

“You make joke,” Bos said, sharply. “Whole clock don’t weighing ten pound. Gold don’t worth five hundred dollar pound… I give t’irty t’ousand.”

“The other day you talked about seventy-five thousand.”

“Sure, but then we only… talking. Now, money…”

“Fifty thousand!” Johnny cried.

“T’irty-five.”

Diana Rusk started to open her mouth and Johnny roared.

“Forty thousand and not a nickel less!”

Bos pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out a checkbook. Johnny leaned over. “Make it out to cash, then let Miss Rusk endorse it and you okay her signature.”

“Sure,” said Bos, smiling thinly. “And I calling bank, too? You don’t think I got the money?”

“Forty thousand isn’t sponges. We’ll make this all nice and legal. Here — I’ll write out a bill of sale. ‘One clock, known as the Quisenberry Talking Clock, a rare antique… $40,000.’ You sign this, Miss Rusk.”

The details finished, Johnny picked up the check and handed it to Miss Rusk. “Why don’t you run over to the bank with this, Miss Rusk? I’ve got another matter I want to talk to Mr. Bos about.”

“Of course. And — thank you, very much.”

She departed and Nicholas Bos shook his head cynically. “You are too soft, Mr. Fletcher. You don’t getting commission. And — you are poor bluffer. Don’t you know I would not have let you walk out of here with that clock?”

“I knew it, but she didn’t,” Johnny said, grimly. “Now about that bonus…”

The sponge man touched a button under his desk. A door at the side of the office opened and in came Carmella Genualdi, the loan-shark man.

Bos said: “Carmella, this is the wan who squawk to the police…”

Carmella took a gun out of his pocket. “The wise guy, eh? I got a good notion to—”

Bos shook his head. “You were getting tough, Mr. Fletcher?”

“No,” said Johnny. “I was getting out of here. As soon as you made that call to the bank.”

“I make him now.” Bos picked up the phone. “The bank, Miss Dimitrios.”

Johnny waited only long enough to hear the conversation between the bank manager and Bos, then he took his departure. He was glad to get away. Bos might have become impatient and pushed ahead the hands of the clock, to make it talk.

Back at the 45th Street Hotel, Johnny encountered Vivian Dalton stepping into the elevator. She had just come from the beauty parlor and looked like money from home.

“Hi, Johnny Fletcher!” she greeted him. “I was just going to stop in and see you and your pal.”

“The latchstring’s always out to you, Vivian. How’s your old man?”

“Jim? He’s ripping. But then he’s always that way. He and Bonita aren’t talking — again. They’ve always been that way. So everything’s fine.”

They reached the eighth floor and Johnny opened the door of Room 821. Sam Cragg bounced up from one of the beds.

“Vivian!” he cried. “I was just thinking about you.” His grin stretched from ear to ear.

“I hope they were nice thoughts, Sammy.”

“Pardon me,” Johnny said, sarcastically. “You were talking about your parents, Vivian. Why aren’t you broken up about the reconciliation falling through?”

“Reconciliation, hell!” exclaimed Vivian. “Mom had an angle and it didn’t work. She’s a gold digger, you know. Pop used to slap her ears down, but she’s gotten out of hand and he can’t do much with her these days. It’s okay by me.”

Johnny shook his head at the callous casualness of the Dalton girl. He said, “What’s new, otherwise?”

“Why, it’s lunchtime and I thought I’d let you suckers buy it for me.”

“We just had breakfast, but sit down a minute.”

She sat on the bed, took a jeweled cigarette case from her purse and stuck a cigarette between her red lips. She lit it with an expensive Ronson lighter.

Blowing out smoke, she said: “Speaking of angles, what’s yours in all this, Johnny Fletcher?”

“Same as your old man’s. Dough.”

“Uh-uh. Come clean, Fletcher. You two don’t care any more about money than I do for cotton stockings. Jim’s in it for money, yes. But not you two. You’re just as slap-happy without money.”

“Not me,” protested Sam Cragg.

“No? What would you do with money? Buy some magic gimmicks, or blow it on an oat burner?”

“Magic?” said Sam. “Say, I been practicing that cigarette trick—”

“Later, Sam,” Johnny said, quickly. “When you’ve bought a new handkerchief. Okay, Vivian, I’ll talk if you will. Why did you decoy us yesterday?”

She laughed. “I like that word, decoy. How much commission do you think I get on one bottle of beer, at the club?”

“Maybe none. I didn’t mean it that way. You wanted us to come to the club last night for a particular reason. Was it because you wanted to make sure we didn’t go out to Westchester County? Maybe to Hillcrest?”

She turned and flipped her cigarette stub through the open window, more than ten feet away. “Pop said he’d tried to soften up you two and hadn’t made a dent. He still wants to play with you.”

“Since last night?”

“Uh-huh. Bonita couldn’t help him, because she didn’t know anything.”

Johnny looked at her reproachfully. “You wouldn’t be covering up for your mother, would you?”

Vivian Dalton winked at him. “I would… if I wanted to cover up for her. But that’s straight, about her and Dad being on the outs again.”

She got up. “Well, if you won’t buy me that lunch, I’ll have to get it myself.”

“We’ll take a raincheck. Got to earn some money today.”

She nodded. “You won’t throw in with Jim? He says there’d be a nice split.”

“I’ll think about it. He’s waiting downstairs?”

“No. Cops are following him around. But you can call him at his office. He’s listed under the Partridge Detective Agency.”

She went out and Johnny threw himself on his bed. Sam walked up and down, clenching his big hands together and cracking his knuckles.

After a moment Johnny said, “Stop muttering about her. I know she’s got under your skin, but she’s got ice water in her veins.”

“I like ice water,” Sam snapped. “We couldda gone to lunch with her, anyway.”

Johnny sighed. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Sam. I’ll solve this goddam case and collect a big, fat fee from somebody and then you can give the Vivian gal the grand rush. That make you happy? And after she’s gone through your roll, I’ll buy you a nice, strong rope and you can do the old rope trick.”

“A guy doesn’t mind dying after a good time. It’s the slow, starving to death that gets you…”

Johnny got up from the bed. “Well, let’s make the final assault. If this blitzkrieg fails I’m licked.”

“Where to this time?”

“The clock factory. Eric’s my last hope to find out what the Talking Clock said.”

They left the room and rode down to the lobby in the elevator.

As they stepped out, Eddie Miller grabbed Johnny’s arm and whispered. “Duck, quick, the boss just got some bad news.”

“What’s that, Eddie? It isn’t the first of the month.”

“What’s the first got to do with it? Oh, oh, you’re sunk!”

Mr. Peabody came storming out of his office. Over his arm was a pair of trousers; a pair of blue trousers with a white pin stripe.

“Mr. Fletcher!” he cried, in a hysterical voice. “Mr. Fletcher, I want to talk to you.”

“Sorry, Peabody,” Johnny said, hastily. “I’m rushing out to see a man about a big business deal. Talk to me later!…”

“No you don’t!” howled Peabody, springing in front of Johnny and blocking his retreat to the door. “Look at these trousers; they match your suit.”

“So they do. That’s a coincidence…”

“Coincidence! It’s… it’s robbery.”

“You mean they’re my pants and you swiped them?”

Mr. Peabody choked and sputtered. “Your trousers! You… you know what happened? Hagemann’s sent this pair of trousers to me. This pair and another as big as a tent…”

“I resent that,” murmured Sam Cragg.

“And you know what Hagemann’s man said?” Mr. Peabody went on. “He said in their hurry yesterday to deliver these suits to me, they forgot to include the extra pairs of trousers. But I didn’t order any suits from them. Somebody else did that, using my charge account and giving my name.” Mr. Peabody’s voice rose to a righteous shriek.

“You did that, Fletcher. You ordered suits for yourself and that baboon friend of yours and you charged them to me… These trousers match your new suit…”

“Tut-tut, Mr. Peabody,” said Johnny loftily. “I’m sure a mistake has been made. It can easily be straightened out… later. Right now, I’ve got—”

“No, you don’t! I’ve telephoned Hagemann’s and they’re sending their delivery boy right over to make the identification. And then — then, I’m going to have you arrested, for theft and fraud.”

Johnny placed his hand upon Mr. Peabody’s chest and shoved gently, but firmly. “Sorry, old man, but I’m in a frightful hurry.”

He stepped around Peabody, to the door.

“Eddie!” screamed Mr. Peabody. “Stop him. Call the police…”

The last glimpse Johnny had of the lobby, as he looked over his shoulder, was the bell captain walking leisurely to the telephone.

On the street, Sam Cragg trotted beside the swiftly walking Johnny. “Our goose is cooked now. Peabody’s been waiting for something like this to happen. He’ll press the charge against us so hard we’ll be lucky to get off with life.”

“It looks tough,” Johnny admitted. “But I’ll think of something. We’ve never been tossed in jail yet.”

“No? What about Minnesota?”

“That was different. Don’t bother me now for a minute, Sam. I’ve got to think.”

“Think of those extra pairs of pants.”

“You should have thought of that. I can’t keep track of all those minor details.”

They crossed Times Square and headed toward Eighth Avenue. Johnny’s brain raced furiously, as he strode swiftly along. He was in up to his neck and only a miracle would save him, he knew. The miracle was a large piece of money. It had to come from one of the principals of The Affair of The Talking Clock, and the only way Johnny could hope to get it, was by solving the mystery.

The solution, Johnny was sure, would come only after he learned what it was the Talking Clock said at three o’clock.

They reached the building of the Quisenberry Clock Company and Johnny was surprised to find two pickets pacing up and down in front of the building, bearing sandwich signs, which declared the Quisenberry Clock Company to be unfair to Union Labor in general and specifically to Local 87 of the Clock Makers Union.

“Tough on the old boy,” Johnny observed. “He’s only got six months to put the business on a paying basis and this isn’t going to make it easier for him. Well, let’s go in and see how his memory is.”

The receptionist in the outer office sent their names into Eric Quisenberry and a moment later they entered the door bearing numeral “1”.