“Huh?” Henry’s eyes seemed to bulge as if they were about to depart from their orbits. “Five grand for them ringers? The guy’s nuts. They cost two C’s, you said. Bugs completely is what the guy is. Five grand? Why, for five grand I could buy me enough phony pearls to cover an elephant’s caboose.”
I could see that Henry seemed puzzled. He refilled our glasses silently and we stared at each other over them. “Well, what the heck can you do with that, Walter?” he asked after a long silence.
“Henry,” I said firmly, “there is only one thing to do. It is true that Ellen Macintosh spoke to me in confidence, and as she did not have Mrs. Penruddock’s express permission to tell me about the pearls, I suppose I should respect that confidence. But Ellen is now angry with me and does not wish to speak to me, for the reason that I am drinking whiskey in considerable quantities, although my speech and brain are still reasonably clear. This last is a very strange development and I think, in spite of everything, some close friend of the family should be consulted. Preferably of course, a man, someone of large business experience, and in addition to that a man who understands about jewels. There is such a man, Henry, and tomorrow morning I shall call upon him.”
“Geez,” Henry said. “You coulda said all that in nine words, bo. Who is this guy?”
“His name is Mr. Lansing Gallemore, and he is president of the Gallemore Jewelry Company on Seventh Street. He is a very old friend of Mrs. Penruddock—Ellen has often mentioned him—and is, in fact, the very man who procured for her the imitation pearls.”
“But this guy will tip the bulls,” Henry objected.
“I do not think so, Henry. I do not think he will do anything to embarrass Mrs. Penruddock in any way.”
Henry shrugged. “Phonies are phonies,” he said. “You can’t make nothing else outa them. Not even no president of no jewlery store can’t.”
“Nevertheless, there must be a reason why so large a sum is demanded, Henry. The only reason that occurs to me is blackmail and, frankly, that is a little too much for me to handle alone, because I do not know enough about the background of the Penruddock family.”
“Okey,” Henry said, sighing. “If that’s your hunch, you better follow it, Walter. And I better breeze on home and flop so as to be in good shape for the rough work, if any.”
“You would not care to pass the night here, Henry?”
“Thanks, pal, but I’m O.K. back at the hotel. I’ll just take this spare bottle of the tiger sweat to put me to sleep. I might happen to get a call from the agency in the A.M. and would have to brush my teeth and go after it. And I guess I better change my duds back to where I can mix with the common people.”
So saying he went into the bathroom and in a short time emerged wearing his own blue serge suite. I urged him to take my car, but he said it would not be safe in his neighborhood. He did, however, consent to use the topcoat he had been wearing and, placing in it carefully the unopened quart of whiskey, he shook me warmly by the hand.
“One moment, Henry,” I said and took out my wallet. I extended a twenty-dollar bill to him.
“What’s that in favor of?” he growled.
“You are temporarily out of employment, Henry, and you have done a noble piece of work this evening, puzzling as are the results. You should be rewarded and I can well afford this small token.”
“Well, thanks, pal,” Henry said. “But it’s just a loan.” His voice was gruff with emotion. “Should I give you a buzz in the A.M.?”
“By all means. And there is one thing more that has occurred to me. Would it not be advisable for you to change your hotel? Suppose, through no fault of mine, the police learn of this theft. Would they not at least suspect you?”
“Hell, they’d bounce me up and down for hours,” Henry said. “But what’ll it get them? I ain’t no ripe peach.”
“It is for you to decide, of course, Henry.”
“Yeah. Good night, pal, and don’t have no nightmares.”
He left me then and I felt suddenly very depressed and lonely. Henry’s company had been very stimulating to me, in spite of his rough way of talking. He was very much of a man. I poured myself a rather large drink of whiskey from the remaining bottle and drank it quickly but gloomily.
The effect was such that I had an overmastering desire to speak to Ellen Macintosh at all costs. I went to the telephone and called her number. After a long wait a sleepy maid answered. But Ellen, upon hearing my name, refused to come to the telephone. That depressed me still further and I finished the rest of the whiskey almost without noticing what I was doing. I then lay down on the bed and fell into fitful slumber.
SIX
The busy ringing of the telephone awoke me and I saw that the morning sunlight was streaming into the room. It was nine o’clock and all the lamps were still burning. I arose feeling a little stiff and dissipated, for I was still wearing my dinner suit. But I am a healthy man with very steady nerves and I did not feel as badly as I expected. I went to the telephone and answered it.
Henry’s voice said: “How you feel, pal? I got a hangover like twelve Swedes.”
“Not too badly, Henry.”
“I got a call from the agency about a job. I better go down and take a gander at it. Should I drop around later?”
“Yes, Henry, by all means do that. By eleven o’clock I should be back from the errand about which I spoke to you last night.”
“Any more calls from you know?”
“Not yet, Henry.”
“Check. Abyssinia.” He hung up and I took a cold shower and shaved and dressed. I donned a quiet brown business suit and had some coffee sent up from the coffee shop downstairs. I also had the waiter remove the empty bottles from my apartment and gave him a dollar for his trouble. After drinking two cups of black coffee I felt my own man once more and drove downtown to the Gallemore Jewelry Company’s large and brilliant store on West Seventh Street.
It was another bright, golden morning and it seemed that somehow things should adjust themselves on so pleasant a day.
Mr. Lansing Gallemore proved to be a little difficult to see, so that I was compelled to tell his secretary that it was a matter concerning Mrs. Penruddock and of a confidential nature. Upon this message being carried in to him I was at once ushered into a long paneled office, at the far end of which Mr. Gallemore stood behind a massive desk. He extended a thin pink hand to me.
“Mr. Gage? I don’t believe we have met, have we?”
“No, Mr. Gallemore, I do not believe we have. I am the fiancé—or was until last night—of Miss Ellen Macintosh, who, as you probably know, is Mrs. Penruddock’s nurse. I am come to you upon a very delicate matter and it is necessary that I ask for your confidence before I speak.”
He was a man of perhaps seventy-five years of age, and very thin and tall and correct and well preserved. He had cold blue eyes but a warming smile. He was attired youthfully enough in a gray flannel suit with a red carnation at his lapel.
“That is something I make it a rule never to promise, Mr. Gage,” he said. “I think it is almost always a very unfair request. But if you assure me the matter concerns Mrs. Penruddock and is really of a delicate and confidential nature, I will make an exception.”
“It is indeed, Mr. Gallemore,” I said, and thereupon told him the entire story, concealing nothing, not even the fact that I had consumed far too much whiskey the day before.
He stared at me curiously at the end of my story. His finely shaped hand picked up an old-fashioned white quill pen and he slowly tickled his right ear with the feather of it.
“Mr. Gage,” he said, “can’t you guess why they ask five thousand dollars for that string of pearls?”
“If you permit me to guess, in a matter of so personal a nature, I could perhaps hazard an explanation, Mr. Gallemore.”
He moved the white feather around to his left ear and nodded. “Go ahead, son.”
“The pearls are in fact real, Mr. Gallemore. You are a very old friend of Mr
s. Penruddock—perhaps even a childhood sweetheart. When she gave you her pearls, her golden wedding present, to sell because she was in sore need of money for a generous purpose, you did not sell them, Mr. Gallemore. You only pretended to sell them. You gave her twenty thousand dollars of your own money, and you returned the real pearls to her, pretending that they were an imitation made in Czechoslovakia.”
“Son, you think a lot smarter than you talk,” Mr. Gallemore said. He arose and walked to a window, pulled aside a fine net curtain and looked down on the bustle of Seventh Street. He came back to his desk and seated himself and smiled a little wistfully.
“You are almost embarrassingly correct, Mr. Gage,” he said, and sighed. “Mrs. Penruddock is a very proud woman, or I should simply have offered her the twenty thousand dollars as an unsecured loan. I happened to be the coadministrator of Mr. Penruddock’s estate and I knew that in the condition of the financial market at that time it would be out of the question to raise enough cash, without damaging the corpus of the estate beyond reason, to care for all those relatives and pensioners. So Mrs. Penruddock sold her pearls—as she thought—but she insisted that no one should know about it. And I did what you have guessed. It was unimportant. I could afford the gesture. I have never married, Gage, and I am rated a wealthy man. As a matter of fact, at that time, the pearls would not have fetched more than half of what I gave her, or of what they should bring today.”
I lowered my eyes for fear this kindly old gentleman might be troubled by my direct gaze.
“So I think we had better raise that five thousand, son,” Mr. Gallemore at once added in a brisk voice. “The price is pretty low, although stolen pearls are a great deal more difficult to deal in than cut stones. If I should care to trust you that far on your face, do you think you could handle the assignment?”
“Mr. Gallemore,” I said firmly but quietly, “I am a total stranger to you and I am only flesh and blood. But I promise you by the memories of my dead and revered parents that there will be no cowardice.”
“Well, there is a good deal of the flesh and blood, son,” Mr. Gallemore said kindly. “And I am not afraid of your stealing the money, because possibly I know a little more about Miss Ellen Macintosh and her boy friend than you might suspect. Furthermore, the pearls are insured, in my name, of course, and the insurance company should really handle this affair. But you and your funny friend seem to have got along very nicely so far, and I believe in playing out a hand. This Henry must be quite a man.”
“I have grown very attached to him, in spite of his uncouth ways,” I said.
Mr. Gallemore played with his white quill pen a little longer and then he brought out a large checkbook and wrote a check, which he carefully blotted and passed across the desk.
“If you get the pearls, I’ll see that the insurance people refund this to me,” he said. “If they like my business, there will be no difficulty about that. The bank is down at the corner and I will be waiting for their call. They won’t cash the check without telephoning me, probably. Be careful, son, and don’t get hurt.”
He shook hands with me once more and I hesitated. “Mr. Gallemore, you are placing a greater trust in me than any man ever has,” I said. “With the exception, of course, of my own father.”
“I am acting like a damn fool,” he said with a peculiar smile. “It is so long since I heard anyone talk the way Jane Austen writes that it is making a sucker out of me.”
“Thank you, sir. I know my language is a bit stilted. Dare I ask you to do me a small favor, sir?”
“What is it, Gage?”
“To telephone Miss Ellen Macintosh, from whom I am now a little estranged, and tell her that I am not drinking today, and that you have entrusted me with a very delicate mission.”
He laughed aloud. “I’ll be glad to, Walter. And as I know she can be trusted, I’ll give her an idea of what’s going on.”
I left him then and went down to the bank with the check, and the teller, after looking at me suspiciously, then absenting himself from his cage for a long time, finally counted out the money in hundred-dollar bills with the reluctance one might have expected, if it had been his own money.
I placed the flat packet of bills in my pocket and said: “Now give me a roll of quarters, please.”
“A roll of quarters, sir?” His eyebrows lifted.
“Exactly. I use them for tips. And naturally I should prefer to carry them home in the wrappings.”
“Oh, I see. Ten dollars, please.”
I took the fat hard roll of coins and dropped it into my pocket and drove back to Hollywood.
Henry was waiting for me in the lobby of the Chateau Moraine, twirling his hat between his rough hard hands. His face looked a little more deeply lined than it had the day before and I noticed that his breath smelled of whiskey. We went up to my apartment and he turned to me eagerly.
“Any luck, pal?”
“Henry,” I said, “before we proceed further into this day I wish it clearly understood that I am not drinking. I see that already you have been at the bottle.”
“Just a pick-up, Walter,” he said a little contritely. “That job I went out for was gone before I got there. What’s the good word?”
I sat down and lit a cigarette and stared at him evenly. “Well, Henry, I don’t really know whether I should tell you or not. But it seems a little petty not to do so after all you did last night to Gandesi.” I hesitated a moment longer while Henry stared at me and pinched the muscles of his left arm. “The pearls are real, Henry. And I have instructions to proceed with the business and I have five thousand dollars in cash in my pocket at this moment.”
I told him briefly what had happened.
He was more amazed than words could tell. “Cripes!” he exclaimed, his mouth hanging wide open. “You mean you got the five grand from this Gallemore—just like that?”
“Precisely that, Henry.”
“Kid,” he said earnestly, “You got something with that daisy pan and that fluff talk that a lot of guys would give important dough to cop. Five grand—out of a business guy—just like that. Why, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’ll be a snake’s daddy. I’ll be a mickey finn at a woman’s-club lunch.”
At that exact moment, as if my entrance to the building had been observed, the telephone rang again and I sprang to answer it.
It was one of the voices I was awaiting, but not the one I wanted to hear with the greater longing. “How’s it looking to you this morning, Gage?”
“It is looking better,” I said. “If I can have any assurance of honorable treatment, I am prepared to go through with it.”
“You mean you got the dough?”
“In my pocket at this exact moment.”
The voice seemed to exhale a slow breath. “You’ll get your marbles O.K.—if we get the price, Gage. We’re in this business for a long time and we don’t welsh. If we did, it would soon get around and nobody would play with us any more.”
“Yes, I can readily understand that,” I said. “Proceed with your instructions,” I added coldly.
“Listen close, Gage. Tonight at eight sharp you be in Pacific Palisades. Know where that is?”
“Certainly. It is a small residential section west of the polo fields on Sunset Boulevard.”
“Right. Sunset goes slap through it. There’s one drugstore there—open till nine. Be there waiting a call at eight sharp tonight. Alone. And I mean alone, Gage. No cops and no strong-arm guys. It’s rough country down there and we got a way to get you to where we want you and know if you’re alone. Get all this?”
“I am not entirely an idiot,” I retorted.
“No dummy packages, Gage. The dough will be checked. No guns. You’ll be searched and there’s enough of us to cover you from all angles. We know your car. No funny business, no smart work, no slip-up and nobody hurt. That’s the way we do business. How’s the dough fixed?”
“One-hundred-dollar bills,” I said. “And only a few of them are new.”
“Attaboy. Eight o’clock then. Be smart, Gage.”
The phone clicked in my ear and I hung up. It rang again almost instantly. This time it was the one voice.
“Oh, Walter,” Ellen cried, “I was so mean to you! Please forgive me, Walter. Mr. Gallemore has told me everything and I’m so frightened.”
“There is nothing of which to be frightened,” I told her warmly. “Does Mrs. Penruddock know, darling?”
“No, darling. Mr. Gallemore told me not to tell her. I am phoning from a store down on Sixth Street. Oh, Walter, I really am frightened. Will Henry go with you?”
“I am afraid not, darling. The arrangements are all made and they will not permit it. I must go alone.”
“Oh, Walter! I’m terrified. I can’t bear the suspense.”
“There is nothing to fear,” I assured her. “It is a simple business transaction. And I am not exactly a midget.”
“But, Walter—oh, I will try to be brave, Walter. Will you promise me just one teensy-weensy little thing?”
“Not a drop, darling,” I said firmly. “Not a single solitary drop.”
“Oh, Walter!”
There was a little more of that sort of thing, very pleasant to me in the circumstances, although possibly not of great interest to others. We finally parted with my promise to telephone as soon as the meeting between the crooks and myself had been consummated.
I turned from the telephone to find Henry drinking deeply from a bottle he had taken from his hip pocket.
“Henry!” I cried sharply.
He looked at me over the bottle with a shaggy determined look. “Listen, pal,” he said in a low hard voice. “I got enough of your end of the talk to figure the set-up. Some place out in the tall weeds and you go alone and they feed you the old sap poison and take your dough and leave you lying—with the marbles still in their kitty. Nothing doing, pal. I said—nothing doing!” He almost shouted the last words.
“Henry, it is my duty and I must do it,” I said quietly.
“Haw!” Henry snorted. “I say no. You’re a nut, but you’re a sweet guy on the side. I say no. Henry Eichelberger of the Wisconsin Eichelbergers—in fact, I might just as leave say of the Milwaukee Eichelbergers—says no. And he says it with both hands working.” He drank again from his bottle.