The Wonderful Scheme of Mr. Christopher Thorne, page 39
“I believe you,” said Erskine, and peeled off the required eleven dollars, whereupon the janitor, who was evidently janitor and real-estate agent combined, filled out an official receipt for the rent on a dirty pad he took from his back pocket.
“What name’s it rented to?” he asked.
“The Great Lakes Detective Agency,” said Erskine, coolly.
The red-nosed janitor was evidently used to the high-sounding names with which most catch-penny and fly-by-night companies are blessed, for he appeared not in the least surprised. Yet whether or not be personally believed in the existence of such a company, the Great Lakes Detective Agency had been born just a half-hour before on Wells Street, with Phillip Erskine president, secretary, treasurer, chief investigator and office-boy!
CHAPTER XXVIII
Mr. Dee
With the key to his office in his pocket, and its rent for thirty days paid up, Erskine went downstairs again to Dearborn Street where, gazing above him, he caught sight of a signpainter’s shop across the street. Going over to it, he found from the man’s own sign that he specialized in lettering firm names on office doors. The signpainter was in and was very busily engaged in reading “Buck Rogers of the 25th Century” in the previous night’s American. “How much will it cost,” Erskine asked, “to have this lettered on the door of my office across the street?” And he wrote out:
THE GREAT LAKES DETECTIVE AGENCY
The signpainter deposited “Buck Rogers” carefully to one side and looked over the copy. “Three dollars,” was his verdict.
“Can you do it at once?”
“Right away.”
“All right. Put it on Room 1113, the Dearborn Building, across the way. Here’s the key. Leave the door unlocked when you’re done and put the key on the windowsill. I’ll pay you right now if you’ll start it right away.” And he peeled off three dollars.
Scarcely was he out of the door than the man, with black paintpot and brushes, was locking up his little shop and going across the street. And Erskine smiled grimly to himself as he thought how quickly a great detective agency could spring into being!
From here he went to the Illinois Bell Telephone Company skyscraper on West Washington Street, to the service installation department.
“I would like to have immediate service,” he told a girl at one of the various desks, “on a phone already installed. In case some of my business comes into me over the phone—which it likely may.”
“Where is the phone?”
“Room 1113, the Dearborn Building. The office is now vacated. I want the cheapest service available in the downtown region.”
She wrote out a ticket of some sort, evidently an investigation or a query as to the fact of the instrument itself being already installed, and sent it downstairs by a compressed air conveyor. He waited till the ticket came up again, via the same route, from wherever it had been.
“Since the phone is already installed,” she told him, glancing at the ticket, “there will be but $10 deposit on the cheapest service, which will be 2-party business.”
He peeled off the $10. She was already sliding over to him a blue ticket, and a pink slip of paper.
“Fill out the blue ticket,” she told him, “in the exact way you want your phone listed in the directory. Or in the subscriber’s information service. Please print the name—for safety’s sake.”
He did so. She looked at the blue card. And gave him a receipt for $10, made out to “The Great Lakes Detective Agency.” “And now,” she said, with a winning smile, “will you fill out this pink slip also?”
He drew it over, and looked at it curiously. It ran:
NAME OF BUSINESS __________
LOCATION OF BUSINESS __________
SPECIALIZED WORK __________
WHAT DO YOU SELL? __________
DO YOU WISH TO RECEIVE LITERATURE CONNECTED WITH YOUR BUSINESS? __________
ARE YOU WILLING TO RECEIVE CALLERS OR SALESMEN IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR BUSINESS? __________
“What’s this?” he asked, looking up.
“The Chicago Chamber of Commerce form 2-A-39,” she told him. “In case you’re a business not already listed, this form is made available to all firms who make material, or give services, in line with your requirements—and it’s also duplicated, and sent to certain business subscribers all over the U.S.A. who take a certain daily service put out by the C. C. of C. Will you fill it out?”
“Do I have to?” he inquired wearily.
“No—but I get 5 cents commission on each one you do.” She smiled a Pepsodent smile.
“Well, sister,” he said, “I’d rather give you 5 cents—10 cents—even 15 cents—but I can see easily you wouldn’t accept it. So be it.” He filled the form out grimly. “Why not?”
When he finished, it read, so he saw:
NAME OF BUSINESS — The Great Lakes Detective Agency.
LOCATION OF BUSINESS — 539 South Dearborn Street, the Dearborn Building, Room 1113.
SPECIALIZED WORK — Cutting porkchops, and measuring for velvet gowns.
WHAT DO YOU SELL? — Time, service, good and—sometimes—bad will!
DO YOU WISH TO RECEIVE LITERATURE CONNECTED WITH YOUR BUSINESS? — No, but will plenty, no doubt!
ARE YOU WILLING TO RECEIVE CALLERS OR SALESMEN IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR BUSINESS? — My God, no, puh-lease!
“Will that do, sister?” he asked mirthlessly.
She grinned in spite of herself. “It’s the nertziest form I’ve ever seen filled out. However—I have to see—that we get ’em!”
He left the Illinois Bell Telephone Company Building, got his lunch, stopped off at a telegraph office in the block and secured a handful of blank telegraph forms, and went back to his newly acquired office in Printingtown. The signpainter had just finished. The janitor likewise had come and cleaned up the office in the meanwhile. The old chair without any back still stood by the window—and the room looked delightfully empty. After he had closed the door, Erskine drew the four-legged stool over closer to the windowsill and, using this as a desk, he wrote out a telegram. It read:
American Metal Works Co., Toledo, Ohio.
We have clews here to big robbery of money, solution of which depends upon what knowledge we can secure towards tracing down all Wristlocks recently used in making currency carriers. Will you kindly reply at our expense and to Suite 1113 etc., Dearborn Building, Chicago, as to where Wristlocks have been sold during last thirty days? Same will be held strictly confidential.
GREAT LAKES DETECTIVE AGENCY.
He looked it over. “That certainly ought to get ’em,” was his inward comment, “where no inquiry from a private individual might fetch a thing.” Whereupon he closed up shop for a few minutes and, going downstairs again and up the block, he re-entered another telegraph office and sent his telegram, calling their attention to the address to which the reply should be sent, and instructing them also that the phone number—the new phone number, that is, of the Great Lakes Detective Agency!—would be available through “Information.”
He went back to his lonely office, and thereupon began a long vigil which lasted the afternoon through, broken only by the test ring of the installation man who was restoring service on the dead phone, and the latter’s information as to the new number assigned to “The Great Lakes Detective Agency.” There was nothing for Erskine to do, throughout that long afternoon, but to drum on his desk—the window-sill!—and to exercise occasionally along a pathway of 36 feet comprising the four walls that surrounded him. And finally the gray afternoon faded, the black night crept over the city, the lights from the moderate-sized skyscrapers of Printingtown twinkled into being, and when the hands of his watch pointed to the hour of seven, Erskine called it a day and went home to his room in Little Italy.
He was back at the vigil early next day, Saturday, and waited with the greatest impatience. He knew his wire would not be entirely disregarded, that it could not be, but he commenced to make plans to get the information by other means—more expensive ones, to be sure—providing it should be refused him. Thus nine, ten, eleven o’clock and noontime came; then one, two and three in the afternoon. But at three-thirty a knock came on the door, and going to it, he found a dirty-faced telegraph boy with a telegram in his hand.
“’s dis de Great Lakes Detective Agency?” the messenger boy asked.
“It is,” said Erskine. “And how!” He signed for the message. “What are the charges?”
“Pre—paid!” said the youngster, and already he was flagging the lone wheezy elevator.
Erskine stepped to the single tall window and opened the telegram. Office or no office—phone or no phone—perhaps this was the end of the Great Lakes Detective Agency, and a new office would be for rent in the Dearborn Building within another few hours. And perhaps not. He unfolded the blue sheet within. Its contents were voluminous, satisfying, and entirely courteous as well. They ran:
Replying to your wire glad to give information to assist tracing theft down. Sales of Wristlock since January 22nd on orders received by letter and wire run: Jones and Custer, Room 241 Pacific Building, San Francisco, California; Bedell and Company, 13 Valley Street, N.W., Grand Rapids, Michigan; John L. Coningway, 421 West Jefferson Street, Louisville, Kentucky; the First National Bank of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, shipped to Peter N. Grabow, 220 Farmers Trust Building, Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Ricksford Trunk and Bag Company, 451 Westminster Street, Providence, Rhode Island; H. L. Baker, 6002 Pennsylvania Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Tony Falletti, 1312 Farnham Street, Omaha,: Nebraska; Kalling and Son, 320 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York; Chovali Leather Company, 33 Bouvier Street, Dayton, Ohio; Hans Kalbringer, 174 South Front Street, Memphis, Tennessee; Otaka Kiwura, 103 Occidental Street, Seattle, Washington; American Suitcase Manufactory, 31 West Spring Street, Columbus, Ohio; and D. Russ and Brothers, 1013 Houston Street, Ft. Worth, Texas. We have also on file here a telegraphic inquiry sent from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Wednesday, February 17th, concerning purchaser of Wristlock B-1136, all of which are numbered account patent infringement suit now pending. This sale was made to Kalbringer of Memphis at address shown in data preceding. Inquiry may or may not have connection with your case, but same came from John Willetts, Natchitoches Hotel, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and our reply was made to that address. Wire if you wish any further information of any sort.
The American Metal Works Company.
Erskine read the wire through twice. Then he sat down on the edge of the old rickety chair, which was still the only furniture which the Great Lakes Detective Agency had acquired, and his forehead creased up into a series of fine wrinkles. As to the many names involved here on the Wristlock orders, they could all be traced down with considerable effort and time—and particularly, expense! But just what was indicated by the fact that a telegraphic inquiry had already been sent the American Metal Works Company from Louisiana relative to a certain Wristlock, the one sold in Memphis, Tennessee? There was a certain connection between these various factors which he could not fathom; he, himself, had been supposed to be in New Orleans, some time back, on his way to South America. Now an inquiry had come from a town but a short distance—sixty or seventy miles at most—from it concerning a Wristlock. And a Wristlock had been on the satchel in which Ebenezer Sitting-Down-Bear had carried off the stolen money. Erskine stared down at the telegram again. Would it be worth it—to take a chance?
He was far from being penniless, but on the other hand he did not have unlimited funds; and the more he studied the situation, the more he was convinced that somewhere, someway, somebody beside himself was thrusting an inquiry into the very case on which he was embarked, for he knew full well that companies do not get inquiries such as this in the regular course of business. A half hour later, he had fully decided for himself. He would go to Memphis and interview this Hans Kalbringer.
So he closed up “Suite 1113 etc.” occupied by the Great Lakes Detective Agency, and got a time table covering the trains to Memphis at the Polk Street Depot a block to the south of Printingtown. One left, he found, at eight o’clock that night, and he went back to Little Italy to pack up a suitcase in which there were a hat, a regular overcoat, real shirts and a regular suit of clothes to supplant these lumberjack’s clothes that he wore. And that night on the Illinois Central train bound south, a young man with lumberjack’s jacket, blue glasses and striped cap went out from Chicago, and thus attired, closed the curtains of his berth at ten o’clock. A much surprised porter, however, next morning, blinked his eyes as a young man, minus such a thing as glasses, and clad in all the habiliments of civilization, appeared from the curtains of Lower 12 and made his way to the smoking room to shave.
Here in Memphis, after a breakfast in the depot, Erskine strolled along the main street, without having to wear the overcoat he had brought with him. For spring was come to this city of the South, the sun shone warm, churchbells rang from various parts of the city, and people were out in their Sunday best. A few inquiries soon turned his footsteps toward the river, and he was shortly retracing his direction along Front Street, regarding curiously the buildings of this ancient slave mart now degenerated into a commission street as was evidenced by coops and crates piled up from the day before. Down far below him the steamboats rose and fell gently on the swell of the river, and Negroes decked out in their gaudy Sunday colors lolled on warm cobblestones, sang and shot craps.
He had half unconsciously anticipated, when he had rented a room at the Memphis House, close to the depot, a white-fronted, square-windowed brick hostelry that bespoke the South, that he might not find on this day of rest the Teuton about whom he was inquiring. And this realization was fulfilled. He came finally upon No. 174 South Front Street, after he had passed a green parklet on the bluffs high above the river with giant spiked guns pointing down at that great winding sheet of water. He surveyed No. 174 for a moment, seeing by a swinging wooden handbag-shaped sign out in front that it was a leather-worker’s shop, and that its proprietor was named Hans Kalbringer. Above the shop itself, signifying living quarters, was a series of framed windows with shades drawn. He first tried the shop door itself. It was locked. Then he walked up the flight of wooden steps built along the side of the store, surmising that it was no more than likely that Kalbringer himself lived in the quarters above, and he rang the old rusty pullbell which he found. But no answer. The day of rest was to be a day of rest for detectives as well as for leather-workers!
He spent the rest of that day wandering about the Great Capital of the South and sitting in Confederate Park, picturing to himself with little difficulty those dramatic days of the ’60’s when the gunboats of the North had to pass those giant guns at the bend far down below the park in order to reach Vicksburg, 250 miles to the south, and there aid Grant in maintaining his steel ring about the starving, defiant city. He slept impatiently that night in his room in the Memphis House, and promptly after breakfast again repaired to No. 174 South Front Street.
Again he tried the shop door, but again it appeared to be locked, and again there was no answer. He tried it for the second time and then knocked loudly for the second time. It was possible that the proprietor might be deaf. But nothing came to reward him for his persistence. As he knocked for the third time, however, at the old door upon which the dried paint of many years lay like armor-plate, a German woman stuck her head from one of the windows above the shop.
“You vant Kalbringer?” she shrilled.
He looked up. “Yes. The leather-worker.”
“Kalbringer iss by vacation. He iss gone now nearly drei week. He iss back by next Dursday.”
Erskine wrinkled up his forehead. “Back by next Thursday?” he called up. “Is he where I could get a telegram to him?”
“Vait. I come down.” A moment later the fat German woman appeared at the front of the steps that ran up the side of the low building. Erskine repeated his question.
“I want to see Mr. Kalbringer very much. Is he where I can get a telegram to him? You are Mrs. Kalbringer, perhaps?”
“Me, I am Mrs. Kalbringer, ja. But Kalbringer—you cannot reach him. Kalbringer iss on hop, skip unt chump. He iss by his bruders unt cousins in California unt de Vest. He iss maybe now already ge-started for Memphis. He iss not back until next Dursday.”
“Well, possibly you can tell me something I want to know. Do you happen to know if your husband recently made a satchel out of green alligator leather with a lock on it that fastens to the wrist?”
“Ja, Hans hass made chust such satchel—but I don’t know who iss der customer. I know nodding about Hans’ business, unt he keeps his books by her head in. Already iss vun man’ here mit dot same questions—he iss vant to know der name uff der man vot half satchel made. I can not tell.”
At her last statement Erskine’s eyes widened. So the telegraphic answer the American Metal Works Company had sent to the mysterious “John Willetts” at the Natchitoches Hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had sent that individual speeding northward to Memphis. At least this appeared to be a good guess.
“And how did this man take the information that Mr. Kalbringer was out of town and not accessible?” he asked her curiously.
“Ven he find Kalbringer iss on hop, skip unt chump, he chust gif me his name and blace vere iss he in Memphis, unt chust so soon as Hans gets back I iss to call him on telephone. Hans iss maybe here in drei—four—maybe five days yet.”
Erskine regarded the woman reflectively. Then he spoke. “Mrs. Kalbringer, I would like to get the name of that man—if you don’t object. He may be able to give me some light on a certain question. I am head of the Great Lakes Detective Agency in Chicago.”
“A detectif!” she ejaculated, looking at him just a bit fearsomely. “A detectif,” she repeated. “Vell—vell, Hans unt me ve iss openwork unt abuffboard. Der iss noddings about Hans’ vork vich ve iss afraid from any detectors. You vait—unt I get you name uff man.” She paused, about to turn. “You vas here maybe yesterday, vat? Unt you pulled de bell on mein door?”
