The box from japan, p.9
The Box from Japan, page 9
“As things stood late Monday afternoon, however, I didn’t want to advertise in the Chicago papers and give our hand away—for I still presumed then that Orski really wasn’t on the trail. I perceived that I must work cautiously, that’s all. So I did pepper the papers, beginning with the Monday night editions and scheduling my copy also for the next morning papers as well, with ads put in on a t.f. basis—that means ‘till forbid,’ or canceled—requesting all recent graduates of the University at Wisconsin to communicate immediately with a certain phone number—and that phone happens to be a new phone I’ve had installed in our main office up the corridor—a phone that’s not even listed yet. In addition to that, I threw my copy onto three radio chains to be broadcast not less than three times from each, during each afternoon, and four times from each, during each evening. Thanks to the conveniently fortuitous fact that no product or person was mentioned specifically in it, it came under a sub-ruling which made it possible for me to get immediate local censorship O.K. on it, and it went on the air at once. Mighty expensive that broadcasting too, Carr, let me tell you!
“But yesterday morning, by George, plank against all my ads in the papers, appeared what was undoubtedly Orski’s advertisement, practically the same, but using the word ‘recent alumnae’ instead of my word ‘graduates.’ This other ad asks them to communicate immediately by collect special-delivery mail or collect wire—and gives in each case a newspaper box, Sun, Tribute, or Herald-Examiner as the case may be, to each of which boxes has doubtlessly been appended a cash deposit. And even before I left home yesterday morning, Carr, while I was taking my morning exercise by my own radio, came an announcement similar to my own—it wasn’t mine, I know—asking all recent alumnae of Wisconsin University to communicate with the Tribute box, etc., etc. etc. etc. Now that is undoubtedly Orski. And he too is trying now to land Clifford Hemingway, without, as he thought when he put in his advertising and broadcasting orders, letting us here dream there’s an heir.” Roger Halsey paused. “Well, there’s the whole story, Carr. You’ve got every fact. Now what have you got to offer? There is no clue. No probable place to search. There’s less than a week yet to get that young fellow—and he’s got to be gotten to first, don’t forget that. Now—now what have you got to offer?”
Carr Halsey now sat with chin thoughtfully in tips of fingers. One thing appeared certain indeed: that it would be $90,000 or nothing for him, unless this search found its human objective. And not only that, but that the right parties, as well, found that objective. Also certain was one other thing now: if both sides turned their cards face upward and frankly advertised, as well as broadcast more openly, too, for Clifford Hemingway—he would no doubt be reached at once, wherever in the United States he might be. That meant only a 50-50 chance for each side to win—no, not even an even chance, at that—for perhaps Clifford Hemingway himself, with a sharp lawyer, might proceed to hold up either one or the other side for a huge $100,000 cut for his 2-percent of stock—or his signature. That is, after he should see the ad—or hear a far more specific announcement on the ether—and realize that he was badly wanted by two corporations. And yet—curiously—would he see a few little personal ads?—hear a few words hurled through a radio transmitter?—if he had not even seen the big Sunday newspaper stories about the dramatic death of his uncle in cannibal land, or heard the Sunday news broadcasts, such as Roger Halsey had just described as having appeared and been broadcast the previous Sunday? For, if he had seen these—heard them—would he not most logically have communicated with that banker friend of his uncle’s in Sheridan, Wyoming, to whom Abner Hemingway had once proudly introduced him? Surely he had known there was a little estate, at least, which must doubtlessly come to him, the only relative. Suppose this signified that Clifford Hemingway was himself in the farthest corner of the globe by this time. Would that not then mean that—
His thoughts went scattering as the buzzer sounded sharply on Roger Halsey’s desk. The latter lifted from its dialing base the short one-handed instrument which evidently communicated with Babson’s desk in the outer reception room. “Mrs. Du Fries, you say, Babson? And she’s delivered an option on her 2-percent block of shares to Orski this morning for $500 down and $17,500 payable in 2 months—if he should care to take it up? What on earth did she—what? You say she says that Mr. Du Fries is a salesman who ordinarily covers Mexico and hasn’t had any work for a year? And she needed the money in case Mexico would be closed territory for another year? Good Lord, if she’d waited till Great Britain and Uncle Sam recognize Almedo this coming Friday—only day after tomorrow, yes—why the Revolution will be over in 7 days and Mr. Du Fries will have 24 hours work a day down there. She—yes—tell her of course she can have her stock certificate representing that 2-percent of our stock—sure, the very one that’s deposited in our vaults, but please call her attention to the fact, Babson, that that certificate is plainly endorsed by her over its face that it is signed up irrevocably till August 15th on the sale of the Zell Process and Hextite crystal to—What? Why sure, I’ll be glad to see her, Babson. There’s nothing much I can say, however. Tell her I’ll see her in just a few minutes.” He replaced the instrument. He turned to his nephew. He made a helpless gesture with his two hands. “Well, you heard all that, Carr. Orski is getting ready, one way or the other. He’s gotten Mrs. Du Fries’ stock, 2-percent of the total. That is, just an option on it. No good to him till August 15th—then it’s 100% good! If he can get Clifford Hemingway in the meantime, however, he’ll naturally let Mrs. Du Fries go hang. If neither of us gets Clifford Hemingway’s stock, why in two months you’ll get a check for one dime dividends on a million dollar sale.”
Now his uncle became unnaturally silent for a moment, as though struggling with the idea of revealing something he did not wish to reveal. Then he spoke, a bit reluctantly. “And—and you might as well know the worst, Carr. I—I took it on myself, sometime back, as president here, to discount the last royalty payment due us on the Cebrey shutter—yes, the one due this fall. They discounted it at 10% and a cancellation of the rest of our manufacturing contract. It’s—it’s that money, Carr, that I’ve been using here on my own authority for expenses in this big investigation, lawyers, and what not. And to develop the Zell Process models under Braisted. We’re—we’re done—if we don’t make that sale. It’s all over. There’s nothing left—not a penny for dividends, not even rent to continue the offices in. It’s—well—finis for the old honorable American Projectiscope Company, started in the days of U. S. Grant himself!”
Carr Halsey stroked his chin painfully. At last he spoke. “Well, Uncle, you’ve put up a nice fight and a real fight. Nobody in this outfit can ever claim you haven’t. And your judgment has been as good and better than anybody else’s in the company could have been. As for myself, there’s nothing I can do around here now. I’ve got to think—instead of sitting and chinning.” He reached down and lifted up his heavy Japanese box. “No, Uncle, I can’t offer any suggestion right off hand—I’m too dazed trying to digest all you’ve detailed to me. Nobody in my shoes could offer a suggestion that was worth while. I’ve got to let the problem germinate in my brain at least a couple of hours. Isn’t that the way all bright ideas come? I think so. Now just one question: you haven’t heard a single thing from your ad—or broadcasting—so we can assume Orski hasn’t either?”
Roger Halsey nodded and arose. “So long as we don’t hear by phone, we can be reasonably sure that Orski hasn’t heard by mail or wire. Poor generalship, that box number, on somebody’s part over there.” He shook his head deprecatingly. “On top of all this—Orski wouldn’t have paid Mrs. Du Fries $500 on her stock this morning if he had hold of Clifford Hemingway, even by the longest feather in that young man’s tail. A pretty fair number of University of Wisconsin graduates have called up here, up to midnight last night—I kept a girl on the phone to turn them over to my house phone—but in every case they’re the wrong man.” His face suddenly grew old and haggard and gray. “I—I hope, Carr, you will be able to suggest something. I’m—I’m under a terrific suspense. I—I thought I’d retire with the conclusion of this Zell Process sale—but I can’t retire on 30 percent of $1—thirty cents! For I’ve nothing myself, Carr, but—but my share of this—this melon.”
“Well, don’t go to worrying too much about it—yet,” cautioned his nephew hastily. “Clifford Hemingway doesn’t seem to be responding, that’s true. And there’s six million people in Chicago to be sure, but there’s always a way to comb a haystack for a needle, without counting off a billion straws. How about—how about sticking a huge magnet in the haystack? Yes. Lots of possible things. Give me a couple of hours first. Let me cudgel my brains on it. One of the minor problems now before the house, so far as I see it, is whether, or whether not to, come right out point-blank in our newspaper and radio publicity that we want Clifford Hemingway. For the authors of these other ads and these other announcements are indisputably the Orski crowd. And Orski himself, who must certainly realize now that we’re wise ourselves in some way as to who Abner Hemingway’s heir is, may, by the time the evening papers are issued today, come out flatfooted himself, as rooting for Hemingway, in which case he’ll be a lap ahead of us instead of only neck and neck as he is right now. In fact, I’ll bet you, Uncle, that he’s not just standing on the one piece of known data—that Clifford Hemingway was going to Chicago—I’ll warrant his copy is running in every newspaper in the United States today. Anyway, if he doesn’t come out flatfooted, there’s the question also of whether he will continue to play, using that blind Chicago Tribute box—or whether he’ll substitute a phone number for it. So let me rack my brain. And if there’s any way to assuredly locate Clifford Hemingway in such a manner that Orski won’t have an inkling we even know where he is, or what the way is, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll find it. I’ll stumble on it. I will, I tell you.” He turned with his hand on the square black onyx doorknob. “Confound it, Uncle, I’ve got to find the way if I’m to stick $90,000 in my jeans. I’ve got to—and before it’s too late. Good-by. I’ll phone you some sort of an idea—brilliant or otherwise—very soon.”
And with his box under his arm he left the office, surrendering his uncle to the lady who was, in a sense, on the way to getting her share of a million dollar melon, but yet nevertheless cheating him out of his. He surveyed her frigidly, and unseeingly, as she sat stiff and pompous outside of Babson’s barrier, as he went out. For his thoughts were hard upon the problem in hand.
A man to find, in a city of 6,000,000 people—or, possibly worse, a country of 131,000,000 people!
A man who apparently did not answer when he was beckoned to.
A man wanted more than anything else in the world by a ruthless industrial enemy—an enemy who earned a little matter of nearly $160,000 by finding him—or even merely by keeping him from being found.
A week to go, for the Halsey family side of the chase. That and that alone was certain.
And $90,000—or a dime, for Carr Halsey, minor stockholder of the American Projectiscope Company. That was certain too.
He must think hard in the next two hours. The pay for such thinking would be good pay indeed!
CHAPTER IX
An Oriental Visitor
Outside, in front of the Lindbergh Building, Carr Halsey paused a moment in the sunshine of Clark Street with the heavy box under his arm. Truly, he reflected as he turned southward, Archimedes, with his principle of the lever, was as right in high finance as he had been in mechanics. For not only did a wasted, withered, decrepit company, whose entire stock, now that it had discounted and spent its 17th and last royalty payment on its Cebrey patent, was not worth even $100, control, for a brief few days yet, a million dollar melon—but, alas—just a tiny 2-percent bit of that very stock, worth, in proportion to the whole, no more than $2, and lying in a trust company vault in Wyoming now, in turn itself controlled that very million dollar melon.
And his share of that melon—
$90,000. Or a dime. Whew! He mopped off his brow. He began to understand now why the suspense was beginning to get the better of Roger Halsey.
He was passing one of the orange-and-black checkered stores of the National Hundred-Thousand-Drug-Store chain when he stopped suddenly, and went in. He entered one of the triple-glassed booths, and placing his box in front of him on the shelf, looked up a number and dialed it. He got his connection almost instantaneously—and he made a wry face as he realized that that instantaneity was due to the Orski company’s auto-selector.
“Passport bureau,” came a switchboard girl’s words, following the auto-selector’s decisive click.
“U. S. passport bureau in the Colossus Building?” he queried with care.
“Speaking.”
“Peter Lobdell, please.”
A pause. Then another voice, a pleasant voice of a young man in his early twenties. “P. Lobdell.”
“Carr Halsey, Petey. Say, Petey, are you still grateful for that trick jai-alai twist I pointed out to you that enabled you to beat even Lopelello, the Filipino champion?”
“Grateful’s no word for it, Carr.”
“Then I want a small favor, Petey. I want you to—But first, how long would it take you to get direct information from Washington as to passports that have been issued?”
“We have a long-distance wire connection every hour, Carr, for checking passport data handed in here by fifty percent slickers and fifty percent honest people. In just ten minutes the wire service will be on the Chicago office again.”
“Good. Then, Petey—find out for me, will you, whether any passport out of the U.S.A. has been issued for a Clifford X. Hemingway—or just Clifford Hemingway—or even C. Hemingway—yes, every form of the name—any time within the last few months. No, Petey, make it instead any time during the last 22 years. Yes, they can look the name up on their card index in one minute. Yes, that’s the right spelling, Petey. And Clifford X. is the handle to it.”
“Okay, Carr. Where shall I phone you?”
“I’m on my way to my studio in the Majestic Theatre Building. And I—what’s that? Is that building still standing? Of course, Petey. Did you think it had crumbled into a heap? It’ll be standing for another decade yet, I hope. Yes. Phone me. State 51008. No, it’s not in the phone book, Petey—at least not under the name Halsey. I sub-rented the palatial quarters from a poet who couldn’t quite make the rent—on Pegasus! Yes, State 51008. Thanks.” And hanging up, he went quietly out again.
Reaching Monroe Street, he turned eastward and finally entered the Majestic Theatre Building itself, a structure none too new when he had been a very small boy, but now very much one of the architectural has-beens. There he ascended to the 12th floor in an electric elevator so archaic in operation that the pilot had to maneuver it by his control-lever to a stop at the exact level of the 12th floor corridor, and shortly after the gate clanged in back of him he was inserting his key in the door of an office whose ground-glass panel bore the black letters:
Workshop of
CARR HALSEY
Specialist in Sports
Photographs, Coaching, Special Articles, Statistics Compiled
Sporting Records Furnished
He unlocked the door and entered the once. It was a room perhaps twenty feet square, its walls and ceiling entirely covered with tan burlap paneling, its cherry-finished hardwood floor carrying a single large Oriental rug, and a few generously capacious visitors’ armchairs ranged carelessly about. At a flat desk near the window, which looked out over a vast field of once-upon-a-time skyscrapers, with gracefully camouflaged water tanks and chimneys, stood a telephone, an electric typewriter with cord plugged into a wallsocket, and a jumble of coarse news-copy paper held down under a brass paper weight consisting of a boxer standing with gloved fists outspread in defensive. Near it stood a light swivel chair. A nearby wall was completely covered with shelves containing books, leather, cloth and paper bound, as well as thin pamphlets made up of typewriter paper and sewed with coarse string. A complete set of encyclopedias, with blue bindings marking them as the very latest 1942 edition, rested on a compact lower shelf. On the opposite wall, so close that they nearly covered the tan burlap paneling, were photographs of boxers, canoeists, golfers, baseball players—and even English cricketeers, poloists, jai-alaists, and sportsmen of all kinds, some of the photographs framed, and some unframed, but the majority autographed in ink. On the remaining walls from the floor to the ceiling, were criss-cross arrangements of canoe paddles, baseball bats, curious basket-like curved jai-alai clubs, polo sticks, golf clubs, boxing gloves and other paraphernalia of the sporting world, lending a most distinctive atmosphere to the little “workshop.”
Halsey hung his hat on the curved protruding end of a hockey stick which stood upright in clamps on the wall nearest his desk, and dropped into the swivel chair. He placed the box he was carrying on the floor, and leaning back stared absently out of the window for several moments toward the tangle of disharmonious buildings which marked Chicago’s old “Loop” district. Presently he shook his head and spun around. “Some problem!” he muttered. “But we must work out a solution—and quick—for the old boy’s sake, if not for our own. He looks worried to death.” His eyes fell on the box he had been lugging about with him for the last hour. “And you! Now that we’re threatened with the loss of $90,000 that we don’t exactly own yet, you stand there telling us of our six-dollar expenditure in the dark. Well, while our thoughts ferment, and Petey clears the stage just a bit by giving us a call-back, we’ll have a look, and see how big a spendthrift we’ve been today.”
