The Whispering Master

Chapter Nine

There was a big phonograph store on Seventh Avenue. Johnny and Sam entered and were met by a suave salesman. “Like to see one of your console models,” Johnny said pleasantly.

The salesman led them to a mahogany machine. “Here’s one of the best instruments on the market — it’s a high frequency model with long and short wave bands and the finest tone it has ever been your pleasure to hear.”

“Will it play a phonograph record?” Johnny asked.

The salesman smiled at Johnny’s apparent flippancy. “My dear sir, this is the ultimate — the machine of tomorrow. It sells for twelve hundred dollars.”

“That much? Mmm. Could I hear it?”

“Of course. The same machine is in this booth here. What would you like to hear?”

“Oh, something with violins, Beethoven, or perhaps Rachmaninoff — no, no, Tschaikowsky...”

The salesman smiled vacantly, led them to the booth, then went out. Sam snorted.

“Twelve hundred dollars, Johnny! Please...!”

“I like a good tone with long and short wave bands, Sam.”

The salesman returned with a handful of records. Johnny took them. “Mind if I play them? After all, I’ve got to learn how to operate it myself.”

“If you wish, sir. I’ll be out in the showroom.”

The salesman went out.

Johnny removed the Con Carson recording from between the pages of his magazine and placed it on the twelve hundred dollar machine. He flicked a switch or two and the phonograph arm came down on the record.

Sam seated himself on a leather-covered chair and relaxed to enjoy the latest — and last Con Carson recording. A voice Johnny had heard too many times began moaning about the glorious moon on the desert. The lyrics were silly, the melody moved Johnny not at all and the voice, well, a hundred million people had gone wild over Con Carson, so it was probably Johnny who was wrong.

Sam exclaimed in ecstasy.

“That guy sure sends me!”

“He makes me sick, too,” Johnny said, in disgust. “As an authority on the late, great moaner, Sam, would you say this piece of caterwauling was up to his usual standard?”

“One of the best songs he ever sung,” Sam said, fervently.

“In the groove, eh?”

“And how!”

The song came to an end and the needle began scratching. Johnny stepped to the machine and saw the needle was only halfway down the record. Then the record started playing again — a reprise of Moon on the Desert.

Johnny reached to shut off the machine, then with his finger on the switch, stopped. Carson was warbling Moon on the Desert, but another voice had cut into his song, a voice that spoke a single, harsh sentence in a whisper, a passionate whisper. It said: “Damn you, Seebright!”

In spite of the interruption, Con Carson’s voice continued, full and throaty, to the end. Johnny shut off the machine.

“They must have been practicing the second time,” Sam said.

Johnny put the platter back in the Saturday Evening Post and opened the door of the soundproof booth. Immediately, the suave salesman pounced on him.

“A great instrument,” Johnny said.

“Splendid,” agreed the salesman.

“The best I’ve ever heard,” said Johnny. “But what I really came in for, though, was a package of needles.”

“A package of...” the salesman began, then his jaw fell open.

“Needles. You know, the old-fashioned kind, a hundred for a dime.”

The salesman was attacked by a choleric fit of coughing. “Okay,” said Johnny, “if you don’t want my trade I’ll take it elsewhere.” He headed for the door, Sam dancing along beside him, anxious to get out before the salesman could recover.

Outside, Johnny looked down Seventh Avenue. A big clock on the next corner read four-fifty. On a sudden impulse he thrust the magazine containing the record at Sam. “Guard this with your life, Sam,” he said.

“Where you going?” Sam asked in surprise.

“I’m gonna buy a girl a drink.” He thrust a hand into his pocket, whipped out money and handed a couple of bills to Sam. “I’ll be back in an hour or two. Don’t let that record out of your hands — understand...?”

“Yeah, but...”

Johnny popped across the sidewalk to a taxicab parked at the curb, tore open the door and stepped inside. “Lexington and Forty-second,” he told the driver, “and whip up the horses...”

“This time of the day?” sneered the cabby. “You’d go quicker walking across town.”

Nevertheless he made a fast U turn and scooted into the eastbound one-way crosstown street. He roared through to Sixth Avenue — beg pardon, Avenue of the Americas — and got caught by the lights. Five minutes later he was still stalled at Fifth Avenue. When he finally got through and then became tangled at Madison Avenue, Johnny threw a crumpled dollar bill at the driver and got out of the cab.

It was ten minutes after five when he entered the big building on Forty-second Street. He headed for an elevator, stepped inside, then leaped out again as he saw the receptionist of the Mariota Record Company walk past the elevator, having apparently just come out of the adjoining elevator.

There was a man with her, a sleek, smooth man wearing a two hundred dollar suit. There was a fresh carnation in the lapel buttonhole.

“Darling!” Johnny cried. “I almost missed you.”

The receptionist whirled, started to give Johnny the freeze, then changed her mind. “Well,” she said, “it’s you again!”

“In person, sweetheart. And I’m going to buy you a drink before you crawl down into your cozy little Lexington Avenue local.”

“A drink,” the receptionist said. “But that’s just what I was going to have with Mr. Doniger. Oh — Mr. Doniger, this is Mr... Mr.—” she snapped her fingers as if Johnny’s name was eluding her.

“Fletcher,” Johnny said. “You oughtta do something about that memory of yours...”

Doniger extended a fat, limp, well-manicured hand. “H’arya,” he said, with an utter lack of enthusiasm.

“Mr. Fletcher,” the girl went on pointedly, “is the man I was telling you about, Mr. Doniger... the man who was up to see Mr. Armstrong this morning...”

Under that direct coaching, Doniger suddenly showed a little animation.

“Ah, yes, Fletcher, yes, yes.”

“Yes,” said Johnny. He winked at the girl. “Speaking of memory, damned if mine isn’t playing tricks on me. Don’t tell me, now. It’ll come to me in just a second...”

“Violet Rodgers, spelled with a D, for no particular reason.”

“Violet,” exclaimed Johnny. “I knew I’d get it. Violet Rodgers. And that drink...”

“We’d love to,” said Violet, sweetly. “Right over there in the Commodore.”

They got a little round table at the Commodore and Violet ordered a Scotch and soda and drank the Scotch straight, in one gulp. Mr. Doniger sipped at a martini and Johnny got himself a daiquiri, just to be different.

“That was cute, this morning, Mr. Fletcher,” Violet said, after tossing off her Scotch, “your pretending to be a detective.”

“Call me Johnny,” said Johnny.

“It was still cute, Johnny.” Violet caught the waiter’s eye, made a circular signal with her index finger, indicating another round of the same.

“I thought so,” Johnny said, modestly.

“Just because a girl once works in a place is no reason the police should be around all day,” groused Mr. Doniger. “Kept the office in an uproar all day.”

“A vice-president?” Johnny asked.

“Sales manager,” Doniger replied.

“You look like a vice-president,” Johnny said.

“You ought to see the president,” Violet offered. “He looks like a janitor in his Sunday suit.”

“What’s his name?”

“Seebright, Orville Seebright.”

Damn you, Seebright, the voice had whispered on the Con Carson record.

Johnny said: “Who’s Mariota?”

Doniger blinked. “Mariota?”

“Mariota Record Company...”

Violet snickered. “I told you he was good, Mr. Doniger, didn’t I? ‘Who’s Mariota?’ Ha-ha-ha!”

“There’s no one named Mariota,” Doniger growled. “It’s just a name...”

“It must be somebody’s name — or the name of something,” Johnny persisted.

“It isn’t the name of anybody, or anything.”

“Then why’s the company named Mariota Record Company?”

Doniger scowled. “I never asked.”

Violet shook her head as Johnny looked at her questioningly. “I’ve only been with the company three years.”

“Well, I’d like to know who Mariota is.”

The second round of drinks came. Violet threw her ounce of Scotch at her tonsils, without benefit of the soda. Then she glowered at Johnny.

“Now, look here, Johnny Fletcher, we’ve played along with you, but we can’t stay here all night, listening to you make with the words.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you. Out with it — who the devil are you and what did you want with Mr. Armstrong this morning?”

“Armstrong’s worried?”

Doniger suddenly banged a masterful fist on the little round table, causing Johnny’s second daiquiri to spill out some precious drops. “Cut it out, Fletcher, you’re making me mad.”

“All right,” said Johnny. “I’ll come clean. Marjorie Fan-worked for your company — how long?”

“Just a couple of months.”

“She only took the job because she thought she could get into radio,” Violet said tartly. “And all the time she was in the office she was playing up to someone.”

“Mr. Armstrong, for instance?”

“He was—” Violet caught herself. “You’re at it again — you pretend you’re going to say something and you switch it into a question.”

“For the last time, Fletcher,” Doniger warned through his teeth.

Johnny regarded the sleek one coolly. “When are you releasing the Con Carson record?”

The effect of that simple question was no more than if Johnny had suddenly handed Doniger a hale and hearty masculine rattlesnake.

“Wh-what!” he gasped. “What was that?”

“The Con Carson record — when are you releasing it?”

Doniger’s fat chin trembled a few times more before he was finally able to control it. “How do you know we — we have a Con Carson record?”

“Fella in a record shop.”

“What record shop?” Violet asked.

Johnny shrugged a shoulder expressively. “Oh, somewhere around.” He smiled brightly. “I’m an old Con Carson fan, you know, and I was asking if a new Con Carson platter wasn’t about due...”

“Carson’s dead,” Doniger said flatly. “Every Carson fan in creation knows that.”

“Sure, but he made some recordings before he shoved off, didn’t he?”

“It so happens,” Doniger said slowly, “that Carson signed a deal with Mariota just two days before he took off on that last trip of his. That’s known around the trade — to a certain extent. It isn’t known that Carson actually cut a platter for us—”

“A piece called Moon on the Desert?”

Doniger shuddered again. “H-how do you know the title?”

“I’ll trade you,” said Johnny. “You tell me about Marjorie Fair.”

Doniger shuddered again. “I don’t know anything about Marjorie Fair; she was a girl who worked in our office, a typist. I didn’t know her any better than I know any of the other girls in the office.”

Johnny looked suggestively at Violet. Doniger flushed. “I’m a married man; I’ve got a wife and two children.” Thought of them suddenly caused him to look at his wrist watch. “And I’ve got to run to catch the five-fifty-two.” He got up abruptly. “Thanks for the drink.” He nodded to Violet and headed for the door that led from the Commodore directly into the Grand Central.

“A fella like you,” Violet said, “sometimes gets a bust in the snoot.”

“It’s happened,” said Johnny cheerfully. “How about another drink?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly. I’ve already had two and that’s my limit.” But as Johnny began to shrug, “Well, if you insist!”

She signaled the waiter herself.

“Now,” she said, “we’ll cut out all the nonsense. What’s your interest in Marjorie Fair? Was she your...?”

“Uh-uh, I never even talked to her while she was alive.”

“Then why are you sticking your nose into all this?”

“I know her sister.”

“Oh!” That seemed to rock Violet back. The waiter came with the new drinks and she downed her Scotch, sans soda, in the customary single gulp.

Then she said: “I didn’t know she had a sister.”

“In Iowa.”

“You’re from Iowa?”

“Heaven forbid! Her sister’s here, now. She arrived today in time to find the body... Why did Marjorie quit her job with Mariota?”

Violet groaned. “You’ve sure got a one-track mind, Johnny.”

“So have the cops.”

“The cops have come and gone. Marjorie Fair worked in our place six-eight weeks. She made pitches at some of the men and when that didn’t get her anywhere, she quit her job. I didn’t like her and I don’t want to talk about her.”

Johnny caught the hovering waiter’s eye.

“We’ll change the subject,” he said. “What do you think of Orville Seebright?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Don’t like him?”

“Seebright doesn’t even know I’m alive. I’m a voice on the telephone to him.”

“Who owns Mariota Records?”

“It’s a corporation.”

“Yes, but someone owns the controlling interest. Is it Seebright?”

“He’s the president”

“And Armstrong is vice-president. Or, are there more vice-presidents?”

“Armstrong is one more than we need, since we also have a treasurer and a secretary.”

“Of course. Every corporation has to have a treasurer and a secretary. Who are they?”

“The treasurer’s our bookkeeper, Mr. Farnham, Edward M. — M for Milquetoast — Farnham.”

“And the secretary?”

“Arthur Dorcas — he’s out at the plant”

“The plant?”

“You don’t think we press the records up in the office, do you? We’ve got a big plant over in Newark.”

“I don’t even know what a record’s made of. Wax, or something like that?”

Violet gave him a pitying — and somewhat drunken — glance. “Wax — maybe beeswax...”

“Maybe,” grinned Johnny. “Now, look, about Marjorie Fair...”

It was a tactical error; Johnny had assumed that the fifth and sixth drinks, which had come and gone, would have fogged Violet’s brain — as they had fogged his own so that he had to concentrate terrifically. The way Violet drenched her tonsils with the Scotches should have warned him, but he had never had experience with a real lush.

He got it now. The moment he mentioned the forbidden subject, Violet reacted. She caught one of the half dozen glasses of soda water, untouched until now, and hurled it, glass and all, into Johnny’s face. And she gave him some words, practically all four-letter words.

Their regular waiter and an assistant were hustling Johnny and Violet out of the room while the soda water was still trickling down Johnny’s face. Violet was quite willing to continue her abuse of Johnny in the expanse of the railroad station, but Johnny eased himself adroitly into a hurrying throng of train-bound home-goers and eluded her.

He emerged from the station on Vanderbilt and got into a taxicab. A few minutes later he alighted in front of the Forty-fifth Street Hotel.