Crows Can't Count Read online

  Sharples crossed his legs, cleared his throat.

  “Go on,” Bertha said, almost breathlessly.

  “Nuttall showed it to me,” Sharples went on. “It was a pendant I’d seen before—although I hadn’t seen it for some time. I’d have known it anywhere. It had been the property of Cora Hendricks and was one of the specific articles she had given to Shirley Bruce.”

  “Nuttall had this piece for repair and redesigning, or for sale?”

  “For sale. The redesigning and the new setting were his own idea.”

  “And so?”

  “And so,” Sharples said, “I want to find out why Shirley took that in there and pawned it. If she needs money, I want to know how much and why.”

  “Why not ask her?”

  “I can’t do it. If she didn’t come to me and tell me of her own accord—well, I just can’t do it, that’s all. And then there’s one other possibility.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone may have used—well—er—pressure to get this pendant from her.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Oh, definitely not that, Mr. Lam! Blackmail’s an ugly word. I much prefer to think of it merely as pressure.” “In my dictionary it amounts to the same thing.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Just what do you want us to do?” Bertha asked.

  “One,” he said, “try to find out who took it in to Nuttall. I don’t think you’ll be able to get anywhere with that—these big jewelers protect their customers too carefully. Two, find out what’s making it necessary for Shirley to raise funds and how much she needs.”

  “How will I contact Miss Bruce?” I asked.

  “I’ll introduce you,” Sharples said.

  “How will I contact Nuttall?”

  “I’m damned if I know the answer to that one. I’m afraid there isn’t any.”

  Bertha asked cautiously, “Could I go to Nuttall’s place, tell him that I was interested in an emerald pendant of a certain type, and—”

  “Don’t be silly I” Sharples interrupted. “There’s one chance in a hundred Nuttall would show you the pendant. If he did, he’d price it to you and he’d guarantee title. He wouldn’t discuss with you how it happened to be in his possession. I can assure you, Mrs. Cool, there isn’t any easy way of getting the information I want.”

  Bertha cleared her throat. “We usually charge something in the nature of a retainer,” she said and looked at me.

  “I don’t pay in advance,” Sharples said.

  “And we don’t work without a retainer,” I told him. “Make out a check for five hundred bucks and draw me a rough sketch of that pendant.”

  He sat very still, looking at me.

  Bertha pushed her fountain pen across the desk.

  “No, thanks,” Sharples said to her, “in sketching jewelry, one can always do a better job with a pencil. You have more facility with high lights and shadows—”

  I said, “The fountain pen is for the check.”

  Chapter Two:—A SWELL DOUBLE-CROSS

  GOING INTO NUTTALL’S PLACE was like entering a walk-in icebox. Swinging doors actuated by invisible light snapped open as I approached. I knew that all one had to do was to throw a switch somewhere on the inside and those doors would be as immovable as granite.

  Dapper, deferential young men with pleasing personalities and gimlet eyes moved quietly about behind the counters. A floor manager came toward me and there was a certain vague uneasiness in his manner as he sized me up.

  “Nuttall in?” I asked.

  “I’m not certain. He may be in. I haven’t seen him this morning. In case he is in, who shall I say is calling?”

  “Donald Lam.”

  “And your business, Mr. Lam?”

  I looked him in the eye. “I’m a detective.”

  “I thought you were,” he said, smiling coldly.

  “I thought you did,” I said, and smiled back just as coldly.

  “Could you,” he asked, “tell me something of the nature of your business with Mr. Nuttall?”

  “It will be brief,” I told him.

  “It will have to be.”

  I said, “I’m on the trail of a piece of jewelry that’s been hocked. I think you have it.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s hot.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “Not to you.”

  “Just a minute,” he said. “Wait right here.”

  The way he said “right here” showed that he meant right where I was standing.

  I lit a cigarette. The floor manager moved quickly over to a telephone, picked it up, said something, then after a few seconds’ conversation, vanished through a door at the back of the store. Two minutes later he returned to me. “Mr. Nuttall will see you—briefly.”

  I followed him up a wide staircase, across a short corridor, through an outer office, where a girl was doing some typing, and into an inner room flooded with illumination from tube lights in the ceiling. Soft rugs on the floor and deep chairs gave an atmosphere of quiet luxury.

  The man who sat behind the mahogany desk glared at me as though I were a bill collector with leprosy. “I’m Nuttall,” he said.

  “I’m Lam.”

  “Got your credentials with you?”

  I showed him my license.

  “What do you want?”

  “An emerald pendant,” I said.

  He was poker-faced. “Describe it.”

  I took from a pocket the sketch that Sharples had made and put it on his desk.

  He picked it up, looked at it, raised his gaze to me, said, “Matters such as this are usually handled by the police in a routine procedure.”

  I said, “This isn’t routine.”

  He kept looking at the sketch. After a moment he said, “I have nothing like this anywhere in the house. Why did you come to me?”

  “I thought you specialized in emeralds.”

  “To a certain extent I do. But I haven’t anything like this. I haven’t seen anything like this.”

  I reached for the sketch.

  He hesitated a moment, then handed it back to me. “You say it’s hot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps you can tell me something more about it.”

  “If you haven’t seen it, I don’t see any reason why I should.”

  “It might show up.”

  “If it does, call the cops.”

  “On my own responsibility?”

  “On mine, if you’d prefer.”

  “I’d prefer to keep out of it—until the police notify me in the usual way. I presume you have notified them, Mr. Lam.”

  I folded the sketch and put it in my billfold. My client isn’t calling the police-yet.”

  “Perhaps, Mr. Lam, if you’d be a little more frank with me-if you’d tell me all the circumstances-I might be able to make a more intelligent appraisal of the situation.”

  “If you don’t have the emerald pendant, I said, “there’s no situation to appraise.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Nuttall.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Lam.”

  I left the office and went downstairs. The beam of invisible light snapped the sidewalk doors open for me. I went out, followed by the hostile glances of every salesman in the place.

  Bertha was waiting around the corner. She was all dolled up in her best furs and diamonds, and she was a little nervous. “Okay,” I said after we’d waited a while, “here’s where you take over, Bertha. Remember to give me the sign whenever anyone goes upstairs.”

  Bertha heaved herself out of the agency automobile.

  “And above all,” I warned, “don’t give the impression of stalling. You’re just hard to please, that’s all. Remember, those clerks are experts. At the very first slip they’ll have you spotted.”

  “They won’t have me spotted,” Bertha snapped. “If they get fresh with me, I’ll flatten them.”

  S
he strode off in the direction of the jewelry store. I drove the agency car up to where I could get a good view of the store entrance, then sat in the automobile and waited.

  Bertha had been gone more than ten minutes when the man entered the store. I had been looking for a woman, but this man tagged himself as such a definite possibility that I moved up.

  A few minutes later Bertha came out. She took a handkerchief from her purse, blew her nose.

  I started the motor in the agency car.

  I had to wait a good ten minutes more before my man came out. He was apparently pretty much disturbed. He tried for a taxicab, couldn’t find one, and decided to walk. It never occurred to him to look back. I tagged him to his office. He was Peter Jarratt. The sign on his door said he was an investment broker.

  I took up my station in the corridor and waited. Twenty minutes passed before a prosperous-looking chap in the late fifties came in. He was distinguished in appearance and he radiated a certain amount of calm confidence. When he left, I followed him back down to his automobile. It was a two-tone job, a big blue Buick. The license number was 4E4704. I probably could have followed him but I didn’t want to take the chance and I didn’t think it was necessary. He wasn’t a man who would be driving a stolen automobile. I went back to the office and looked up the license number.

  The car was registered under the name of Robert Cameron, 2904 Griswell Drive. I’d heard that name before. He was the other trustee.

  No matter which way you figured it, it was a swell double-cross.

  Chapter Three:—UTTERLY COCKEYED

  THE COURTHOUSE FURNISHED A LITTLE INFORMATION on the estate of Cora Hendricks. A probate trust had been created. Harry Sharples and Robert Cameron were the two trustees. The trust was just about as Sharples had outlined it except for one point. Inasmuch as the trust itself was predicated upon the discretion of the two trustees, the trust would terminate in the event of the death of both trustees prior to the twenty-fifth birthday of the youngest of the beneficiaries.

  I gave that some thought as I drove back to the office. Elsie Brand, pounding away at the typewriter, stopped work long enough to flash me a smile.

  “Bertha in?” I asked, indicating the door of the private office with a jerk of my head.

  Elsie nodded.

  “Anyone with her?”

  “The new client.”

  “Sharples?”

  “Yes.”

  “What brought him back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He showed up about twenty minutes ago. Bertha was still at lunch. He waited.”

  “Something on his mind?”

  “Could be.”

  I said, “Guess I’ll go on in. Don’t take that job too seriously, Elsie.”

  She laughed. “Since you put through that raise in wages, Bertha glowers at me every time she sees me take time out to powder my nose.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to her,” I told Elsie. “She has a heart of gold under a protective shell of concrete.”

  I opened the door of the private office and went in.

  Now that Bertha had obtained the fee, she no longer smiled. Her talk with Harry Sharples seemed straight and to the point. I could see his face was a little flushed.

  Bertha paused in the middle of a sentence as I opened the door.

  She said, “Here he is now. Ask him.”

  “I will,” Sharples said.

  I kicked the door shut and said, “Go ahead.”

  “What the hell have you been saying to Nuttall?” Sharples demanded.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “Nuttall rang me up and was much upset. He wanted to know if I’d mentioned to anyone the emerald pendant he’d shown me.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him definitely that I had not.”

  “That’s all right, then.”

  Sharples said, “I felt something you had done had made him ask the question.”

  I said, “I found out who sold him the pendant.” Sharples looked at me and his forehead puckered in a frown. “You did what?”

  “Found out who sold him the pendant.”

  “You couldn’t have. That’s impossible in a store of that nature—”

  I said, “The man’s name is Robert Cameron.”

  “Good lord, man, have you gone crazy?”

  I said, “Cameron worked through an investment broker. His name is Peter Jarratt.”

  “My heavens, man, how did you get all that?” Sharples demanded.

  Bertha Cool said crisply. “What the hell did you suppose we were going to do? Sit around and twiddle our thumbs?”

  Sharples said, “But look here. All this is utterly, absolutely cockeyed. In the first place, I know Nuttall’s ability and reputation. I know his creed, his business code. He would never betray the name of the man who sold him that pendant. Of course, a high-class store like Nuttall’s wouldn’t admit it, but really it’s in something the same position as a high-class pawnshop in relation to that ultra-expensive stuff. In the second place, Bob Cameron is my co-trustee. I’ve known him intimately for years. He wouldn’t do anything like that without consulting me. In the third place, Shirley Bruce is fond of me. She confides in me. I’m like a relative of hers. She calls me Uncle Harry, and if I were her own uncle I couldn’t be any closer. She is not particularly fond of Bob Cameron—not that she dislikes him at all, but there isn’t the same feeling of mutual understanding and affection. If Shirley had been going to confide in anyone, she would have confided in me.”

  I said, “You were going to introduce me to her. When will that be?”

  “Not until after I’ve seen Bob. I’m going to put it right up to him, going to—Dammit, I’m going to prove to you that you’re making a big mistake.”

  I said, “His address is 2904 Griswell Drive. When do you want to go?”

  Sharples looked at his watch, then pushed back his chair.

  “Now,” he said, grimly, “and if you’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest over this thing and are mistaken, as I know you are, I’m going to stop payment on my check.”

  Bertha started to say something, then checked herself. I knew she’d rushed that check of Sharples down to the bank almost before the ink got dry.

  I said, “I’m ready to start any time you are, Mr. Sharples.”

  Chapter Four: A CROW AND A CORPSE

  IN THE AUTOMOBILE I SAID TO SHARPLES, “Don’t you think Shirley Bruce would be the logical one to answer questions about that pendant—if it’s her property?”

  He shook his head. “Not until later.”

  I waited for him to explain but he didn’t.

  We drove along in silence. Then abruptly Sharples Said, “It has, of course, never occurred to me that there was any possibility Bob would do anything without communicating with me.”

  It was my turn to keep quiet.

  “Shirley is a nice girl,” Sharples said, “a very nice girl, and I don’t want to bother her unless it’s absolutely necessary. Above all, I don’t want to seem to pry into her private affairs.”

  “I thought you wanted to find out why she hocked the pendant.”

  “I do.”

  “Isn’t that somewhat invading the lady’s private affairs?”

  “That’s for you to do. That’s what I’ve got you for.”

  “I see,” I said dryly.

  “I feel like a damn Peeping Tom!” he exclaimed irritably.

  I waited for a few blocks, then said, “After all, if she’s gone to Cameron, she’s in good hands.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. “It must be something pretty bad if she doesn’t want me to know about it. As compared to me, Bob Cameron is a virtual stranger to Shirley. That is—I mean—well, she would more naturally turn to me if the going got tough.”

  I didn’t say anything for another eight or ten blocks. Then I asked, “Is there anything I should know about Cameron before I talk with him?”

  “I prefer to let you be just a w
itness. I’ll talk with him.”

  “In that way,” I pointed out, “if you say anything that causes him to take offense, you have no way of backing up. If I do the talking, all you need to do is listen. If I go too far, I don’t drag you in with me.”

  “To hell with this business of being diplomatic,” he said. “It never got me anywhere yet. If I have a job to do, I want to do it and get it over with.”

  “Provided doing it does get it over with,” I said. “Sometimes it doesn’t. Anyhow, I’d like to know a little something about Cameron.”

  He said, “Bob Cameron is fifty-seven. He had some mining experience in the Klondike, lived for a while in the desert as a prospector, drifted down to Yucatan, Guatemala, Panama, and then hit Colombia. He met Cora Hendricks in Medellín. You ever been there?”

  I said, “I’m a detective, not a globe-trotter.”

  “Nice place,” Sharples said. “A climate you wouldn’t believe possible. It never varies more than five or six degrees, day or night, winter or summer. Right around seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit all the time. The people are hospitable, friendly, intelligent, and cultured. They sit around in huge patios and magnificent houses and—”

  “And you were there too?” I interrupted.

  “Yes. We were all there together. That’s where we got to know Cora Hendricks. Not in Medellín, but at the mine on the river.”

  “And Shirley Bruce?”

  “Yes, of course. It seems only yesterday although it was—let me see—yes, it must have been twenty-two years ago. Cora had gone to the States for a visit. Her cousin was killed in an automobile accident. The husband—Shirley’s father—had died of a heart attack only a few months earlier. Cora had never married—an old maid. She just picked up the little waif, lock, stock, and barrel, and brought her back to Colombia. She and the wife of the mining superintendent waited on the baby hand and foot. We all became attached to the kid.”

  “You all worked in the same mine?” I asked.

  “Well, yes and no. Bob Cameron and I had properties that were adjacent—largely hydraulic mining down there, you know—quite an interesting country.”

  “And Cora Hendricks died shortly after bringing this child back?”

  “Within three or four months. Yes.”