The Whispering Master

Chapter Thirteen

At twenty minutes to twelve, Johnny descended upon Lexington Avenue and began depositing money in banks.

At the first, the teller gave Johnny a lecture. “It’s a good thing you came in; there were four checks came in this morning, overdrawing your account. You can’t do that on a Ten Plan account...”

“I know,” Johnny said meekly, “but I knew I was getting this money this morning and I thought it wouldn’t matter.”

“It does matter.”

At the second bank, an assistant manager came over to talk to Johnny. “I don’t like this, Mr. Fletcher. You started an account here yesterday with twenty dollars and you immediately wrote out checks for eighty-eight...”

“But here’s the money to cover them.”

The assistant cashier took the money. “Did you know you were going to write out all those checks when you started your account here yesterday?”

“Why, no. Only when I got home my wife took me shopping.” He smiled amiably. “You know how wives are — just can’t pass up a bargain.”

The assistant cashier hesitated. “I know, but don’t do it again, or we’ll have to close out your account.”

Johnny promised to be a good boy and left, hurrying to a third bank. He got by without a lecture there and went across to Fifth Avenue, to deposit a straight check to his day-old account — enough to cover the outstanding checks on it. The deposit check was drawn on the new straight checking account across the street.

At one-thirty, Johnny reeled back to the Forty-fifth Street Hotel, to find Sam Cragg seated in the Morris chair, staring moodily at the beds, piled with junk.

“I bought some more stuff.”

“What the hell for?” Johnny cried.

“Well, I got eighty-seven fifty from the pawnshop...”

“And you spent it?”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing? You buy stuff, hock it and with the money you buy more stuff.”

Johnny groaned. “You took two hundred and forty dollars worth of merchandise, pawned it for eighty-seven fifty. Then you pawn the eighty-seven fifty stuff for twenty dollars, then you buy twenty dollars worth, hock it for two dollars and the two dollar junk for twenty cents. Then you buy a ham sandwich with the twenty cents.”

“Silly, isn’t it?”

“With your flair for high finance, Sam,” Johnny said, “you ought to be holding down a big government job in Washington.”

“I’ve only been doing what you’ve been doing.”

Johnny seated himself on the edge of the bed. “I only got into this thing because of your damn suit.”

“What’d my suit have to do with it?”

“You raised a fuss about it, didn’t you? You had to have it right away...”

“Is it unreasonable for a man to want something to wear, Johnny? Could I sit around in my underwear all day long?”

“You could have waited until I got the money legitimately.”

“Maybe I’m dumb, Johnny, but I don’t see why you couldn’t raise twelve bucks legitimately easier than two hundred and forty dollars like — like this...”

Johnny laughed hollowly. “Two hundred and forty dollars! Do you really want to know how we stand, as of this moment?”

“You mean it’s worse than two hundred and forty?”

Johnny took some scraps of paper from his pocket. He consulted them. “We have on deposit at this moment, in eight different banks, the sum of eight hundred and fifty-five dollars. There are checks outstanding against these deposits — checks that will go to the respective banks tomorrow morning — for two thousand four hundred and sixty dollars. I have cash on hand, three hundred and ninety dollars. Summing it up, we are short one thousand two hundred and twenty-five dollars...”

“But what about all the stuff we hocked?” Sam cried. “And this junk here?”

“What about it?”

“It’s worth a pile of money?”

Johnny exhaled heavily. “We have with Uncle Ben merchandise worth fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars. I haven’t kept track of it all. But I pledged it for three seventy-five. It’ll cost around four hundred dollars to get it out. If I add this stuff to it, and do some good haggling, I can hock it for around five hundred dollars. All right, add that to our assets. Eight fifty-five in the bank, three-ninety in cash and — another hundred that I can squeeze out of the stuff...”

“You said five hundred...”

“Yes, but it’ll take four hundred to get back what’s with Uncle Ben. We’ve got liquid assets of, mmm, roughly, thirteen fifty... and outstanding twenty-four sixty. In short, we’re over eleven hundred dollars in the hole...”

Sam stared at Johnny in astonishment. “What’re you going to do?”

“Raise eleven hundred dollars.”

“But how?”

“The same way — only tomorrow we’ll wind up, owing over two thousand and the day after it’ll be four thousand. It ends when we run out of banks and pawnshops, or when my legs wear out.”

Sam moaned.

Johnny said bitterly: “All because you had to have a suit to wear!”

“Would it help if I gave you back the suit?”

“It’d help twelve dollars’ worth. No, the solution is to liquidate as soon as possible. I can do it today for eleven hundred dollars.” Johnny reached for the telephone book, turned the pages to the m’s and picked up the phone. He gave the operator a number and a moment later said, “Gorgeous, let me talk to Mr. Seebright... Johnny Fletcher, yes, your old pal Johnny...” He winced as Violet Rodgers lit into him. “He’s expecting me to call, precious... Of course he knows me. I talked to him last night... What...? I don’t believe it...” He hung up abruptly and stared at the phone.

Sam sprang to his feet. “Something happen to Seebright?”

Johnny took the receiver off the hook. “Have a boy bring me up a newspaper,” he said into the phone, and put the receiver back. He turned to Sam. “Something happened to Seebright, yes, and all the other people over at Mariota...” He paused. “The company filed a petition for voluntary bankruptcy—”

“You mean the company’s broke?”

“That’s what the switchboard operator said. She may be lying. I’ll know in a minute...”

Eddie Miller brought the paper himself. He came into the room, handed Johnny the newspaper and remained, looking at the merchandise on the beds.

Violet Rodgers had told the truth. The Mariota Company had made the front page. Johnny skimmed through the account. ‘Des Moines Shellac Company, $79,850,’ the biggest creditor. Johnny reread and pondered the line. Des Moines.

He put down the paper and met Eddie Miller’s cynical eye. The bell captain indicated the bed. “Taking on a line of merchandise, Mr. Fletcher?”

Johnny picked up a ukelele. “Ever play one of these, Eddie?” He twanged the strings.

“I ain’t musical.”

“You don’t have to be to play a uke. Simplest musical instrument ever invented. Look...” He strummed a moment “Never took a lesson in my life. Can’t read a note. A man can be the life of any party, he plays one of these.” Deftly he removed the price tag. “Worth fifty bucks, Eddie, but for you, twenty-seven-fifty.”

“Me, twenty-seven-fifty!” exclaimed Eddie Miller.

“All right, I owe you a few tips, from when things were tough. Slip me a twenty and she’s yours.” He thrust the ukelele into Eddie’s hand.

His eye fishily on Johnny’s face, Eddie twanged the strings. He twanged them again. “Make it ten, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Fifteen and I’ll throw in a free lesson, when I get time.”

Eddie hesitated and made the mistake of twanging the strings once more. Then he sighed and took a roll of bills from his pocket. He peeled off a ten and a five.

Johnny took the money, patted Eddie’s shoulder and led him to the door. When he turned back into the room, Sam exclaimed, “I didn’t pay fifteen bucks for that.”

“Nine-ninety-five, the tag says. That’s better’n pawning the thing. If I had time...” He shook his head. “We’ve got to get a client today.”

“Who?”

“Well, who is there to pick from? Charles Armstrong, Esbenshade, Farnham, Dorcas, Doniger and Seebright... Esbenshade would have been my best bet, but Jefferson Todd grabbed him off. I don’t think Seebright likes me very much.”

“Who are the others?”

“Armstrong’s a vice-president and I gather there was something between him and Marjorie Fair. But I don’t think he likes me too much. And Doniger hates me.”

“That only leaves you two, this Farnham and Dorcas.”

“Farnham’s of no consequence.”

“So it’s Dorcas?”

Johnny picked up the phone. “Get me the Mariota Record Company, in Newark, New Jersey,” he said to the operator. “I don’t know the number.”

As he held the phone, someone knocked at the door. Johnny signaled to Sam Cragg, who went to the door and opened it. Doug Esbenshade stood in the doorway.

“Never mind that call,” Johnny told the operator. He hung up. “Well, Mr. Esbenshade, how are you today?”

Esbenshade closed the door and came into the room. “Rotten,” he said sourly. “I had a bad night.”

“So did I,” Johnny said cheerfully. “I was thinking of you in the hands of that fourflushing beanpole who has the nerve to call himself a detective.”

“He speaks well of you, too.”

“Naturally. Did he tell you about the time we were both working on the same case — the Winslow affair?[1] I made a monkey out of him.”

“You solved the case?”

“I got the guy who did it — and Todd got the dough.”

“And you think you can get the man who — who killed Marjorie?”

“It’s a cinch. Right now I know more than Jefferson Todd does about it.”

“Just what do you know?”

“Just how much are you paying Todd?”

“Never mind that. If you know anything I’ll pay you — what it’s worth.”

Sam Cragg crossed the room, went to the far bed and seated himself. For the first time in days he felt relaxed. A man was about to make a deal with Johnny Fletcher. Which to Sam meant that things were going to be all right. He knew Johnny.

Johnny said to Esbenshade, “Charles Armstrong, vice-president of the Mariota Record Company, had a crush on Marjorie.”

Esbenshade took out a wallet, opened it about a half inch and skinned out a nice new bill. A one hundred dollar bill. Johnny took it from his hand.

“Go ahead,” said Esbenshade.

“A man named Doniger thinks himself quite a lad with the girls. He made passes at Marjorie.”

“You’re not making much out of Marjorie,” Esbenshade said morosely.

“Do you want the truth?”

“I want the man who killed Marjorie.”

“Then you’ve got to have the truth.” Johnny picked up the newspaper from the bed. “You know about the Mariota Company going into bankruptcy?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a Des Moines Shellac Company listed as a creditor.”

“I’m the Des Moines Shellac Company.”

Johnny nodded quietly. “I thought you might be. You put the squeeze on them?”

“There’s a man named Dorcas in that company,” said Esbenshade. “He runs their plant. He was out to see me. Wanted to buy a lot of shellac. Naturally, we looked up the company. I didn’t like their financial statement too well.”

“But you sold them the shellac?”

“Dorcas showed me a copy of a contract they had just made with Con Carson, the crooner. He said they were going to make a recording that would sell a million records. I gave them the shellac.”

Johnny looked down at the newspaper. “The Mariota Company gave Marjorie an audition.” He looked up suddenly and met Esbenshade’s eye. “It’s pretty hard for a girl to get an audition with a phonograph record company... especially a girl that the company knows only as a secretary.”

“Yes,” said Esbenshade.

“I guess that’s why you really sold them the shellac.”

Esbenshade hesitated and then took out two more hundred dollar bills. But he closed the wallet and put it into his pocket. “All right,” he said, “you’ve got a job.”

“I ought to have a thousand dollars,” Johnny complained.

Esbenshade snorted. “I’ve given you three hundred. There’ll be another thousand when you hand me the murderer.”

“How much are you paying Todd?”

“Do you want this money, or don’t you?”

Johnny stowed it away in his pocket. “I’ll get in touch with you at the Barbizon-Waldorf.”

“How’d you know where I was staying?”

Johnny smiled. “We’ll walk out with you, Mr. Esbenshade.”

The three left the room together. Outside, Esbenshade got into a taxi, while Johnny and Sam turned left to head for Times Square.

Sam said: “So the guy really fixed it for Marjorie to get her audition — and she didn’t even know about it.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Yeah, but how did you know about it?”

“I didn’t. I guessed. A lucky guess.”

“All right, now guess the murderer.”

“Guesswork’s no good for that. I’ve got to have proof.”

“Yeah, well, where we going now?”

“Newark.”