CHAPTER TWO
I
SAT
in the outer office, waiting. I could hear the low hum of voices coming from Bertha Cool’s private office. Bertha never liked to have me listen in while financial arrangements were being made. She paid me a monthly guarantee, which she kept as low as possible, and sold my services for as much as she could get.
After about twenty minutes she called me in. I knew from the expression on her face the financial arrangements had gone to suit her.
Ashbury was sitting in the client’s chair, touching it at only two points—the base of his neck and his hip pockets. That posture caved his chest in and pushed his neck forward. Looking at him, I knew where his watermelon stomach came from.
Bertha oozed sweetness and good will. “Sit down, Donald.” I sat.
Bertha’s jeweled hand glittered as she scooped a check off the top of the desk and dropped it into the cash drawer before I could even get a glimpse of the figures. “Shall I tell him,” she asked Ashbury, “or will you?”
Ashbury had a fresh cigar in his mouth. His head was bent forward so that he had to look at me over the tops of his glasses. Ashes from the old cigar had dribbled over his vest. The new one was just getting started. “You tell him,” he said.
“Henry Ashbury,” Bertha Cool said with the precision of one compressing facts into a concise statement, “married within the last year. Carlotta Ashbury is his second wife. Mr. Ashbury has a daughter by his first wife. Her name is Alta. On the death of Ashbury’s first wife, half of her property was left to our client, Mr. Ashbury,” and Bertha indicated him with a nod of the head, like a schoolteacher pointing out a figure on a blackboard, “and one half to their daughter, Alta.”
She looked at Ashbury. “I believe,” she said, “you didn’t give me even the approximate amount.”
Ashbury rolled his eyes over the top of the glasses from me to her. “I didn’t,” he said without taking the cigar from his mouth, and the motion dribbled more ashes down on his necktie.
Bertha covered up that one with fast conversation. “The present Mrs. Ashbury had also been married before—to a man named Tindle. She has a son by that marriage. His name is Robert. Just to give you the whole picture, Donald, Robert was inclined to take life a little too easy, following his mother’s second marriage. Is that right, Mr. Ashbury?”
“Right.”
“Mr. Ashbury made him go to work,” Bertha went on, “and he has shown a remarkable aptitude. Because of his winning personality and—”
“He hasn’t any personality,” Ashbury interrupted. “He didn’t have any experience. Some of his mother’s friends took him in on a corporation because of his connection with me. The boys hope to stick me one of these days. They never will.”
“Perhaps
you’d
better tell Donald about that,” Bertha said.
Ashbury took the cigar from his mouth.
“Couple of chaps,” he said, “Parker Stold and Bernard Carter, control a corporation, the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company. My wife has known Carter for some time—before her marriage to me. They gave Bob a job. At the end of ninety days, they made him sales manager. Two months later, the directors made him president. Figure it out for yourself.
I’m
the one they’re after.”
“Foreclosed Farms?” I asked.
“That’s the name of the concern.”
“What does it handle?”
“Mines and mining.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me. Bertha asked the question. “What in the world would a Foreclosed Farm Underwriters Company have to do with mines and mining?”
Ashbury slumped lower in his seat. “How the hell should I know? I can’t imagine anything which causes me less concern. I don’t want to know Bob’s business, and I don’t want him to know mine. If I ask him any questions, he’ll start trying to sell me stock.”
I took out my notebook, jotted down the names Ashbury had mentioned, and added a note to look up Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.
Ashbury didn’t look at all like he had up at the gymnasium. He rolled his eyes over his glasses to look at me again, and reminded me of a chained mastiff. His eyes seemed to say that if he could get a couple more feet of chain, he’d snap my leg off.
“What do you want
me
to do?” I asked.
“Among other things, you’re going to be my trainer.”
“Your
what
?”
“Trainer.”
Bertha Cool flexed her big arms. “Build him up, Donald. You know—sparring work, jujitsu lessons, wrestling, boxing, road work.”
I stared at her. I’d be useless in a gymnasium; I couldn’t chin myself with a block and tackle.
“Mr. Ashbury wants you to be in the house with him,” Bertha went on to explain. “No one must suspect you’re a detective. The family have known for a long time that lie’s intending to do something about getting in shape. He wanted to arrange with Hashita to come to the house and give him lessons. And he’d been thinking about hiring a good detective. As soon as he saw your work in the gymnasium, he realized that if he could plant you as his trainer, that would solve his problem.”
“What,” I asked Ashbury, “do you want detected?”
“I want to find out what my daughter’s doing with her money. Find out who’s getting chunks of her dough—and why.”
“Is she being blackmailed?”
“I don’t know. If she is, I want you to find out about it.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“Find out what’s happening to her dough. She’s either being blackmailed, is gambling, or Bob has inveigled her into financing him. Any of them are dangerous to her and distasteful to me. Not only do I have her welfare to consider, but I’m in a very delicate position myself. The first breath of financial scandal in my family would raise merry hell with me. And I’m talking too damn much. I don’t like it. Let’s get this over with.”
Bertha said, “He took a fancy to you as soon as he saw you throw that Jap around, Donald. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ashbury?”
“No.”
“Why, I thought-”
“I liked the way he acted while the Jap was throwing
him
around. We’re
all
talking too damn much. Let’s get to work.”
I asked, “Why do you think your daughter is being—”
“Two checks in the last thirty days,” he interrupted, “each payable to cash. Each in the sum of ten thousand dollars, and each deposited by the Atlee Amusement Corporation. That’s a gambling outfit—restaurants downstairs for a blind, gambling upstairs for profit.”
“Did she lose the money gambling in those places?” I asked.
“No. She hasn’t been in either place. I found that out.”
“When,” I asked, “do you want me to go out to the house with you?”
“Now. I don’t want any snooping. Win Alta’s friendship. Get her to confide in you—capable—dependable—athletic—aggressive.”
“She’d hardly pick on a physical culture trainer as one in whom to confide.”
“Wrong. That’s just what she
would
do. She isn’t a snob, and she hates snobs. Try to cultivate her, and she’ll snub you. You’re wrong— No, wait a minute. Maybe you’re right— All right, let me think. ... Tell you what. You aren’t a professional trainer. You’re an amateur—but a topnotch amateur. I’m figuring on backing you in a business proposition. I’m figuring on opening a string of private, exclusive gymnasiums where businessmen who are out of shape can be put in first-class condition at so much per. You’re going to manage the whole string for me, salary and bonus. You’re not a trainer. You’re a business partner who knows the game. Putting me in shape will be incidental. Leave it to me.”
“All right. That end of it’s up to you. Now I’m only supposed to find out about your daughter’s financial drain. Is that all?”
“All! Hell’s fire, that’s the biggest job you ever tackled. She’s steel spring and dynamite, that girl. If she ever finds out you’re a detective, I’m sunk and you’re fired. Get that?”
“But how about your stepson? Why did you want to tell me about his business and—”
“So you can keep out of his way, and keep Alta out of his damn business. He’s a stuffed shirt with a wilted collar. His mother thinks he’s a genius. He thinks so, too. Don’t get fooled. If he’s inveigled Alta into putting dough into his business—Well, I’ll fix
that.
I want the facts, that’s all. I told him, and I told his mother, I’d be damned if I gave him another cent. If he’s getting it through Alta, it’s the same as though he were getting it through me. I won’t have it. And I’m talking altogether too damned much. I’m finished. When’ll you be out?”
“Within an hour,” Bertha answered for me.
Ashbury rippled his back in a contortion which enabled him to get his hands on the arms of the chair. Using his arms, he pushed himself up and to his feet. “All right, come in a taxicab. Mrs. Cool has the address. I’ll go out and pave the way. Now remember, Lam. No one’s to know you’re a detective. The minute anyone finds
that
out, your goose is cooked.” He spun to Bertha Cool, and said,
“You
remember that, too. Don’t make any false moves. Alta’s nobody’s damn fool. She’ll find out if you make a single stumble. One boob play, and you’ve kicked a hundred dollars a day out the window.”
So Bertha was getting a hundred dollars a day, plus expenses. She was paying me eight when I worked, with a monthly guarantee of seventy-five bucks.
Ashbury said, “Get there in an hour, Lam, and you can meet the family tonight—all except Alta. She’ll be out somewhere, won’t get in before two or three o’clock in the morning. We have our workout at seven-thirty, breakfast at eight-thirty. And I’m not kidding about having you show me some of that jujitsu stuff. I want to get my muscles built up. I’m too flabby.’’
He wiggled his narrow shoulders inside the padded coat, and it was surprising to see, when the tips of his shoulders touched the cloth, how much the tailor had been able to do with padding.
“Donald will be there,” Bertha Cool said.
After he went out, Bertha said, “Sit down.”
I sat on the arm of the chair.
She said, “There’s a lot of expenses in connection with running this business that you don’t know a damn thing about: rent, secretarial salaries, social security, income tax, occupation tax, stationery, bookkeeping, lights.”
“Janitor service,” I suggested.
“That’s right. Janitor service.”
“So what?”
“Well, this is a pretty good job, Donald, and I’ve decided to raise your wages to ten dollars a day while you’re working on it.”
“That’ll be ten dollars,” I said.
“What will?”
“One day.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s as long as I’ll last. How can I teach anyone physical culture?”
“Now don’t be like that, Donald. I’ve got it all worked out. We’ll make arrangements with Hashita to give you your lessons every afternoon. I told Mr. Ashjbury you’d have to get off every afternoon between two and four in order to come up here and make reports. What you’ll really do is go to Hashita and get lessons in jujitsu. Then you’ll give Mr. Ashbury a rehash of those lessons. Don’t let him develop too fast.”
“He won’t,” I said. “What’s more, I won’t.”
“Oh, you’ll take to it like a duck to water, Donald.”
“How do I get back and forth? How far is it?”
“It’s too far to go on a streetcar, but because he thinks you’re coming up to the office to make reports, I’ve made him agree to pay taxi fare.”
“How much?”
“You don’t need to bother,” Bertha Cool said. “We aren’t going to spend all our profits on taxicabs. I’ll drive you out to within a block of the place tonight. You can walk the rest of the way. I’ll be waiting every day at two o’clock with my car. We may just as well have that extra profit as not.”
“It’s a foolish chance to take, just to knock down a taxi fare, but it’s your funeral,” I said, and went out to pack my suitcase.
CHAPTER THREE
B
ERTHA
C
OOL DROPPED ME
within a block of Ashbury’s place at ten twenty-five. It was drizzling a bit. I walked the block with my suitcase banging against my legs. It was a big place out in millionaire row with a gravel driveway, ornamental trees, roomy architecture, and servants.
The butler hadn’t heard any taxicab drive up. He looked at the rain which had fallen on the brim of my hat and asked if I was Mr. Lam. I told him I was.
He said he’d take my suitcase up to my room, that Mr. Ashbury wanted to see me right away in the library.
I went in. Ashbury shook hands and started performing introductions. Mrs. Ashbury was considerably younger than her husband. She had the big-breasted, big-hipped, voluptuous type of beauty. She was carrying about fifteen pounds too much weight to make the curves smooth and voluptuous. Here and there the contours broke into bulges. Apparently she couldn’t keep still. Her body was always in motion, little undulations, swayings and swingings. Her eyes sparkled with animal vitality. She looked me over, and I felt as though she’d rubbed her hands over me. She gave me her hand and started pouring out words. “I think it’s the most wonderful idea Henry has ever had. I suppose
I
should do something like that, too. I’ve really been putting on far too much weight the last two years. I wasn’t like that until this high blood pressure came along, spells of dizziness, and a pain over my heart. The doctor told me I shouldn’t exercise. But if the doctors can ever get this condition cleared up, I’ll exercise, and I lose weight very rapidly. You seem to be in marvelous shape, Mr. Lam. You don’t have any weight at all.”
She stopped talking long enough to let Ashbury introduce a man named Bernard Carter. He was a fat, jovial chan in the middle forties. He had fish eyes which were badly filmed, fat, pudgy hands, and a back-slapping manner. He was nicely tailored and was the sort of salesman who would show a customer a sample, tell him a smutty story, show him another sample, tell him another story, and get the order. Keep them laughing was his motto. He had three chins, and when he laughed they all quivered with mirth. The fat on his cheeks would push up under his eyes so that you could only see narrow slits when he was laughing, but if you watched those slits closely, you saw that the eyes behind them hadn’t changed expression a bit. They were filmed and watchful and fishy. Mrs. Ashbury watched him with beaming approval. He was very attentive to her.
I gathered Carter must be related to Mrs. Ashbury in some way. They seemed to have a lot in common—a pair who liked the good things in life, who lived to enjoy themselves.
Mrs. Ashbury couldn’t seem to take her eyes off me. She said, “You don’t seem to have an ounce of fat on you. You’re little, but you must have a wonderful body.”
“I try to keep in shape,” I said.
Carter said thoughtfully, “Henry, I guess I’ll have to become one of your first clients. I weighed myself the other day—wouldn’t believe how much weight I’d put on.”
Mrs. Ashbury said, “You’re all right, Bernard. Of course, a little exercise would tone you up a bit. Yes, it’s a splendid idea, and as soon as my blood pressure goes down, I’m going to exercise. It must be wonderful to be slim and hard like Mr. Lam—only you’re rather light for a professional wrestler, aren’t you?”
“Instructor,” I corrected.
“I know, but you must be good. Henry tells me you took on a Japanese jujitsu wrestler and made him look like thirty cents.”
Henry Ashbury stared steadily at me.
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be modest for me to comment,” I said.
Her throat, shoulders, and diaphragm rippled as she gave a high-pitched, delighted laugh. “Oh, I think that’s priceless. That’s just absolutely priceless! Bob would get an awful kick out of that. Bob’s modest, too. Did Mr. Ashbury tell you about Robert?”
“Your son?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s a wonderful boy. I’m so proud of him. He started in right at the bottom, and through diligent application and hard work, he’s been made president of the corporation.”
I said, “That certainly
is
remarkable!” Ashbury’s eyes stared at me over the tops of his glasses.
Bernard Carter said, “I’m not just throwing any bouquets when I say that Bob’s a business genius. I’ve never seen a man who could grasp things as quickly.”
“Doing all right, is he?” Henry Ashbury asked noncommittally.
“All right!” Carter exclaimed. “My God, he’s—” He looked across at Mrs. Ashbury, became silent, spread his palms in a little gesture, as much as to say, “Oh, what’s the use,” and exhaled his breath slowly.
“Glad to hear it,” Ashbury said without any show of enthusiasm.
Mrs. Ashbury had a low-pitched, throaty, seductive voice, but when she became excited, it jumped up an octave and bounced off the roof of her mouth as easily as hail off a tin roof.
“I think it’s absolutely marvelous, and, with it all, he’s just as modest as he can be. He hardly
ever
talks about his work. He feels that Henry isn’t interested in it. I’ll bet you don’t even know about their latest strike, Henry, or what Bob—”
“I have enough business at the office,” Henry interrupted.
“But you should get together more with Bob. You know, after all, in his position as president of the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company, Bob has opportunities to learn a lot of what’s going on in the business world. Some of that knowledge might prove very valuable to you, Henry.”
“Yes, my love, but I’m too tired when I get home to talk business.”
She sighed. “Oh, you businessmen! Bob is the same way. You just can’t get a word out of him.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Down in the billiard room with his sales manager, Parker Stold.”
Ashbury nodded to me. “Come on, Lam. We’ll go meet Bob and Stold.”
I said conventional things to Mrs. Ashbury, and she took my hand and held it for a minute. When I got away, Henry Ashbury led the way down a long corridor, down a flight of stairs, and into another corridor. I could see a playroom on one side, with a long Ping-pong table. On the other side was a room from which came the click of balls and a mumble of conversation.
Ashbury opened the door. A man who had been getting ready to make a shot, with one hip on the table, climbed down and said “Hello, Governor,” to Ashbury.
This was Robert Tindle, a chap with a sloping forehead, long, straight nose, and eyes the color of cheap glass marbles—a watery green, covered with a film that was like scum. You felt that if you looked at those eyes closely, you’d see lots of little air bubbles. His face didn’t have any particular expression, and all I could think of when I looked at him was the ad for the contented cows.
He wore a dinner jacket and shook hands without enthusiasm.
Parker Stold evidently had something on his mind. He regarded our visit as an interruption, and acknowledged the introduction to me with a quick “Please’-t’-meetcha” and didn’t offer to shake hands. His eyes were a little too close together, but his hair was wavy, and he had a nice mouth. I figured he was a little older than Bob.
The butler got me up at seven o’clock the next morning. I shaved, dressed, and went down to the gymnasium. It was a big, bare room on the basement floor just back of the billiard room. It had the smell of never having been used. There were a punching bag, horizontal bars, Indian clubs, dumbbells, weight-lifting machines, a canvas wrestling mat, and, at the far end, a squared ring for boxing. There were boxing gloves hanging on a rack. I went over and looked at them. The price tags, which had turned yellow with age, were still tied by a faded-green string to the laces.
I was wearing a pair of tennis shoes, slacks, and an athletic undershirt. When Henry Ashbury came in, he was bundled up in a bathrobe. He slipped it off and stood with nothing on but some boxer’s tights.
He looked like hell.
“Well,” he said, “here we are.”
He looked down at his watermelon paunch. “I suppose I’ve
got
to do something about this.” He walked over to the weight-lifting machine and began tugging away at the weights and puffing and blowing. After a minute he stepped aside and nodded toward them. “Do you want a workout?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Neither do I, but I’ve got to.”
“Why don’t you try sitting up straighter—get a better posture?”
“I sit down because I want to be comfortable. I’m most comfortable when I’m slumped down in a chair.”
“Go ahead and exercise, then,” I said.
He flashed me a quick glance and acted as though he was going to say something, but didn’t. He went back to the weight-lifting machine and did some more work. Then he went over and weighed himself on the scales.
He walked over to the canvas mat and said, “Do you think you could show me some of that stuff the Jap was showing you last night?”
I met his eyes and said, “No.”
He laughed and put on the bathrobe. After that we sat down and talked politics until it was time to take a shower and dress for breakfast.
After breakfast Ashbury went to the office. Along about eleven o’clock I met Alta, who had just got up for breakfast. She’d evidently heard all about me. “Come on in and keep me company while I eat,” she said. “I want to talk with you.”
It looked like a good chance to get acquainted. I went in and went through the routine of seating her at the table. I sat opposite her, and had a cup of coffee with cream and sugar while she had black coffee, three pieces of Ry-Krisp, and a cigarette. If I could have had a figure like hers by eating that sort of breakfast, I’d have done it myself. “Well?” she asked.
I remembered what Henry Ashbury had said about being myself, and not trying to force things. “Well, what?”
She laughed. “You’re the new physical instructor?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t look as though you were much of a boxer.” I didn’t say anything.
“My stepmother tells me it’s not weight but speed. She says you’re so fast that you’re like a streak of lightning. I must see you work out some day.”
“I’m training your father. He isn’t doing any boxing.” She eyed me critically and said, “I can see why you go in for jujitsu. That must be interesting.”
“It is.”
“They say you’re so good that it takes the best of the Japanese to give you any sort of a match.”
“That’s not exactly true.”
“But you do wrestle with the Japanese?”
“Some.”
“Didn’t Dad see you throwing a big Japanese wrestler last night?”
I said, “Can’t we talk about something else besides me?”
“What, for instance?”
“You.”
She shook her head. “I’m never an interesting subject of conversation at this time in the morning. Do you like to walk?”
“No.”
“I do. I’m going to take a long brisk walk.”
Instructions had been most explicit. I was to get acquainted with Alta Ashbury, win her confidence, let her feel that I was capable of whipping my weight in wildcats, and get her to open up and tell me what was bothering her. In order to do that, I had to make hay while the sun was shining.
I took a long brisk walk.
I didn’t learn anything on the first part of the walk except that she certainly had a swell figure, that her eyes were warm and brown and had a trick of laughing every time her lips smiled. She had the endurance of a marathon runner, a love of fresh air, and a scorn for most of the conventions. After a while, we sat under some trees. I didn’t talk. She did. She hated fortune hunters and men who “had a line.” She was inclined to think marriage was the bunk, and that her father was a fool for letting himself get roped into it, that she hated her stepmother, that her stepbrother was the apple of Mrs. Ashbury’s eyes, and that she thought the apple was full of wormholes.
I felt that was pretty good for one afternoon. I got back in time to ditch her and duck around the corner to where Bertha Cool was waiting. She took me up to the Jap. Hashita showed me a few more grips and holds, and made me do a lot more practicing. By the time I got done with him, the walk, the exercise of the day before, and the tumbles I’d taken made me feel as though I’d just lost a ten-round bout to a steam roller.
I explained to Bertha that Ashbury was wise, so it wasn’t going to be necessary to keep up the jujitsu lessons. Bertha said she’d paid for them, and I’d take them or she’d know the reason why. I warned her about continuing to take me back and forth to the house, and told her since Ashbury was paying for it, I’d better get a cab. She told me she was fully capable of running the business end of things, and got me back in time for dinner.
It was a lousy dinner. The food was good, but there was too much service. I had to sit straight as a ramrod and pretend to be interested in a lot of things Mrs. Ashbury was saying. Robert Tindle posed as the tired businessman. Henry Ashbury shoved in grub with the preoccupied manner of one who hadn’t the slightest idea of what he’s eating.
Alta Ashbury was going out to a dance about ten o’clock.
She took an hour after dinner to sit out on a glassed-in sunporch and talk.
There was a half-moon. The air was warm and balmy, and something was worrying her. She didn’t say what it was, but I could see she wanted companionship.
I didn’t want to talk. So I just sat there and kept quiet. Once when I saw her hand tighten into a little fist, and she seemed all tense and nervous, I reached my hand out, put it over hers, gave it a little squeeze, said, “Take it easy,” and then, as she relaxed, took my hand away.
She looked up at me quickly, as though she weren’t accustomed to having men remove their hands from hers.
I didn’t say anything more.
A little before ten she went up to dress for the dance. I’d found out that she liked tennis and horseback riding, that she didn’t care for badminton, that she liked swimming, that if it weren’t for good old dad she’d pull out and leave the house flat on its foundations, that she thought her stepmother was poisoning her father’s disposition, and that someone should give her stepbrother back to the Indians. I hadn’t said anything one way or another.