Crows Can't Count Read online

  He laughed. “I’ll say it’s independent. Perhaps if I had been a girl with silk stockings and cute little negligees and embroidered silk panties, I could have had an independent income too. If you want to know about that income, ask Sharples, ask Cameron.”

  “I can’t ask Cameron. He’s dead.”

  “Ask Sharples then.”

  “I take it he’s been asked before.”

  “Damn right he has. And he’ll be asked again.”

  “Shirley Bruce related to you?” I asked.

  He looked at me in surprise. “Say, you’re mixed up in this thing and you don’t know who Shirley is?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Dear little Shirley,” he said in a mocking voice. “The orphan daughter of some distant relative in the States, you know. Cora Hendricks went to the States. She was gone about seven or eight months, as nearly as I can put the time together. She came back with a little baby, the daughter of her distant relatives who both died so unexpectedly. Figure it out for yourself.”

  “You mean Cora Hendricks went to the States and had a baby?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “In that case,” I asked, “who is Shirley’s father?”

  “Yes,” he leered, “who is Shirley’s father?”

  “Do you know?”

  “I know enough to know I’m talking too damn much,” he said. “You just happened to rub me on a sore spot. What about Cameron?”

  I said, “Cameron died. He had a pet crow that was flying around the room.”

  “Yes, I know all about the crow.”

  “And an emerald pendant,” I said, watching him closely. “What do you know about the emerald pendant?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well,” I said, “one thing you’ll have to admit. The boys are pretty good businessmen. They’ve managed to pay all the expenses of carrying on the trust and still seem to have it getting bigger and bigger.”

  He looked at me queerly. Then he got up and walked over to the other side of the room. A wall telephone hung there. He picked up the receiver, dialed a number, and, when he had his party on the other end of the line, said, “Jim, this is Bob Hockley. I’ve just got a tip that Robert Cameron was croaked sometime today. Better check up on it. If it’s true, let’s check back on how much money Bob Cameron had when he was appointed trustee and how much he had when he croaked. Also let’s see if we can’t get into his private vouchers and find where Shirley Bruce’s independent income comes from. Do you get me?”

  He was silent for a moment while the receiver made noises. Then he said. “It’s a tip I’ve got. A guy’s here talking with me now. He says the cops are going to check up on the whole works, trying to find some motive....Sure....Sure, I’ll be careful....Why the hell should I pretend that I liked the old buzzard? Personally, I’m glad he’s croaked....All right, I’ll be careful... Check into it. Call me back, will you?”

  He hung up the telephone, looked at me as though he were really seeing me for the first time. “You’re a damn good listener,” he said. “I guess perhaps I talked too much. Get the hell out of here.”

  I said, “I thought perhaps I could—”

  “You heard me. Get the hell out of here.”

  He came limping toward me.

  “Okay by me,” I told him. “No hard feelings. I just dropped in.”

  “You may be all right,” he said. “I’ll know more after my lawyer calls me back. Hey, you got a card?”

  I gave him one of my cards. “It would suit me just as well if the police didn’t know I’d been here.”

  “I’m not making any promises,” he said, looking at the card. “Which one are you? Cool or Lam?”

  “I’m Lam. Cool is a woman.”

  “You may be okay,” Hockley said. “If you are, I’ll maybe talk with you again. You said you’d been doing some work on the case. Who hired you? It wasn’t Sharples, was it?”

  I edged out of the door and grinned.

  “Damn you!” Hockley said. “If I find out it was Sharples, I’ll break your damn neck. And that’s not just a figure of speech. I mean I’ll break your damn neck.”

  He started hobbling out through the door and down the corridor after me.

  I started for the stairs. At the head of the stairs I paused. “One thing about that trust your lawyer may have overlooked.”

  “My lawyer hasn’t overlooked a damn thing.”

  “When both of the trustees die, or in case the trust terminates sooner, then the property must necessarily be divided fifty-fifty.”

  He was standing frowning at me with no vestige of expression whatever on his face. “You know a lot, and you talk a lot,” he said.

  I said, “One of them’s dead,” and turned and walked downstairs.

  Chapter Eleven:—CANDY FROM A KILLER

  WHEN I ENTERED THE OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING, Bertha Cool was waiting for me with eager eyes. “Donald, darling, you’ve made a hit! You’ve done a swell job. Bertha knew we’d be riding the gravy train.”

  “What is it now?” I asked, dropping into the chair.

  “Harry Sharples,” she said. “You’ve made a big hit with him.”

  “Oh, him.”

  “Look, Donald, he telephoned in just a short time ago. Five hundred dollars a week. He wants you steady.” “How steady?”

  “All of your time. He wants you for sort of a bodyguard.”

  “How long?”

  “He’ll guarantee six weeks.”

  “Tell him to go to hell.”

  Bertha’s chair emitted a startled sque-e-e-e-k as she jerked herself erect. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sharples. Tell him to go jump in the lake. We don’t want it.”

  “What do you mean, we don’t want it?” Bertha screamed at me. “What the hell do you mean, getting a prima donna attitude like that? Five hundred smackers a week. You’re crazy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You take the job.”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  “He doesn’t want me. He wants you.”

  I said, “Bosh! He wants a bodyguard. I’m no good as a bodyguard. You’d make a peach.”

  She glared at me.

  I said, “I’m going out for a while and do a little snooping. You don’t know what happened to that crow Bob Cameron had, do you?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t give a damn,” Bertha said. “If you think you’re going to turn your back on a job that will net us more than two thousand dollars a month, you’re crazy. That’s better than sixty-five dollars a day. Think of that.”

  “I’m thinking of it.”

  Abruptly she changed her tactics. “Donald, darling, you always were a great joker. You’re kidding Bertha, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  She smiled coyly. “Bertha should have known you better. Bertha can always depend on you, Donald. When the going gets tough, you come in and carry more than your share of the load.”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  After a while she went on: “I can remember the day you came in here looking for work. Jobs weren’t easy to find in those days and you were hungry, Donald. You were really starving. A job at the smallest, most minute fraction of this Sharples figure meant a great deal to you in those days. Didn’t it, Donald?”

  “That’s right.”

  She beamed at me. “I never will forget how weak and wan you looked, Donald. How starved and hungry you were and how grateful you were for the job. Good heavens, how you worked! Anything that I’d tell you to do, you’d do and do well. And then Bertha gradually began to give you more important assignments. And then we organized the partnership. And it’s been nice, hasn’t it, Donald?”

  “It’s been very nice.”

  “I know that you feel grateful to me, Donald, though you aren’t the type to say much.”

  I said, “When I first got a job with you, you were hanging around on the outskirts of the business puddle, getting the mud
, soliciting all kinds of work and getting only the kind of dirty work other agencies wouldn’t take. You handled all the nasty little divorce cases the shyster lawyers were willing to dump in your lap. You did ambulance chasing and you never knew what it was to make over five hundred dollars in the course of a month. You—”

  “That’s a lie!” she screamed.

  “After I joined you,” I said, “you started going places. Your income taxes in a month are more than your total earnings in a year used to be. Sure, I’m grateful to you. How do you feel about me?”

  She rocked slightly back and forth in the swivel chair, her indignation making the lines about her mouth grim and hard. She said, “If you pass up this five hundred bucks a week, I’ll dissolve the partnership and handle the thing alone.”

  “That suits me,” I said and got up and walked out.

  Bertha let me get as far as the outer door. Then I heard her chair give one terrific squeak and Bertha was standing in the doorway of the private office. “Donald, don’t let’s have any words.”

  “You’re the one that’s having the words.”

  Bertha crossed the outer office. Elsie Brand, sensing that something critical was taking place, stopped typing.

  Bertha said, “Why don’t you want to work for him, Donald?”

  I said, “I don’t know what he wants with me.”

  “He wants you as a bodyguard, Donald. He thinks he’s in danger. Do you suppose he’s really in danger?”

  I said, “A trust of two hundred thousand bucks. As long as he lives, he can divide it any damn way he pleases. When he croaks, the trust terminates. His co-trustee got slapped in the middle of the back with a carving-knife. Figure it out for yourself. If you were running a life-insurance agency, would you like to take him on at standard rates?”

  She said, “Donald, you’re saying that but your tongue is in your cheek while you’re saying it. You still don’t believe it.”

  I said, “Sharples believes it.”

  “Donald, why do you act that way toward him? What’s wrong with him?”

  I said, “I don’t feel like working today. I want to take time out to study.”

  “To study what?”

  “The habits of crows,” I said and closed the door.

  The last glimpse I had of Bertha was that sudden flare-up in color which denoted an almost apoplectic rise in blood pressure. From the way Elsie Brand began hammering at the keyboard of the typewriter, as soon as the door closed, I sensed that Bertha had swung around on Elsie to give her the full benefit of her rage.

  I opened the door again.

  Bertha had walked over and was glaring down at the girl. She was saying as I opened the door, “... and what’s more, I don’t want you snooping around here and listening to business conferences. You’re here to type. You’ve got enough work to do to keep busy—if you haven’t, I’ll see that you do have. Now you just get your fingers on that keyboard and keep them there and—”

  “And another thing,” I said to Bertha, “I’ve made up my mind that Elsie needs an assistant. The assistant can be your secretary. Elsie’s going to be mine. Ring up the employment agency and see what you can do. I’ve spoken to the manager of the building about taking over that adjoining office as my private office. He’s going to put a communicating door through for us.”

  Bertha turned and started toward me. “Why, you—you—”

  “Go on,” I said.

  Bertha’s lips slowly twisted into a hard smile. “Just who in hell do you think you are?” she demanded ominously.

  “The engineer on the gravy train. Look at your ticket and see just how far it entitles you to travel,” I said and closed the door once more.

  This time I didn’t hear any more hammering on the keyboard of Elsie’s typewriter.

  I started out to locate Dona Grafton, the girl who also had a cage for the crow.

  The address, I finally discovered, was one of those cracker-box houses in the rear of an unpretentious bungalow. For a while there had been quite a building vogue of backyard houses by which a small investment resulted in twenty or thirty dollars a month additional income.

  The young woman who answered my knock was slender with an athletic figure of the sort that manufacturers of bathing-suits and ski outfits like to feature. She was brunette but not a raven’s-wing brunette, such as Shirley Bruce, and her skin had that fine-grained bloom which one usually expects to find only in blondes.

  She was as friendly as an eager little puppy. As soon as I had asked, “Is this Miss Dona Grafton?” she smiled and said, “I suppose you’re another newspaper reporter calling about the crow.”

  I said, “As a matter of fact, I am interested in the crow, although I’m not exactly a newspaper reporter. Would you mind telling me something about him?”

  “Not at all. Come in, please.”

  I entered the miniature living-room and felt as though I had been ushered into some oversized dollhouse. She gave me a chair, seated herself, said, “What was it you wanted to know?”

  “Where is the crow now?”

  She laughed. “The crow is in the woodshed. Mr. Cameron, of course, could afford to give Pancho the best of everything. I can’t. My landlady is a bit narrow-minded about crows. The woodshed so far is the best I’ve been able to do.”

  “How did you happen to get the crow?”

  “Well, Pancho and I are old friends. He always spent about half his time with me.”

  I signified that I’d like to know more about that.

  She said, “My father was Frank Grafton and the crow is named after him. Pancho in Spanish is the same as Frank, you know.”

  “Then you’ve known Mr. Cameron?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “For some time?”

  “Ever since I was a child.”

  “And Harry Sharples?”

  She nodded.

  “Shirley Bruce?”

  She said, “I know Miss Bruce. We’re not—well, I don’t see her frequently. We aren’t in the same set.”

  “And Robert Hockley?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  I said, “I’m interested in that.”

  She shook her head and said, “There isn’t any story about that, I’m afraid. My father, Frank Grafton, was manager of some mines for Cora Hendricks. Miss Hendricks died when I was a child. I don’t remember her. My father was killed in a mining accident three or four years later. Both Mr. Cameron and Mr. Sharples, who were trustees of the Hendricks properties, were much attached to my father and were deeply shocked by his death. They feel, in a way, that-well, I think he’s responsible for the initial success of the mining ventures. Most of the big money in the mines was made within the three or four years that followed the death of Miss Hendricks.”

  “So the crow knows you?”

  “Oh, yes, we’re old friends. You see, Pancho likes to fly around and a crow should have some exercise, so Mr. Cameron had his place fixed so the crow could fly in and out whenever he wanted to. While a woodshed was the best I could do, I put a cage in there and left a pane of glass out of one of the windows. So Pancho comes to see me whenever he wants. He sits on the shed roof and caws to me, and I go out and talk to him and let him sit on my shoulder and give him a few tidbits. Then, in case I wasn’t home, he’d fly into his cage in the woodshed and wait for me, or perhaps fly back to Mr. Cameron’s place. Now, since this terrible thing has happened—well, he’s here. He’s very lonely. Did you want to see him?”

  I said, “I’d like to, yes.”

  She led the way out around the back of the house to a little woodshed not more than ten feet square and fairly well littered with old trunks, boxes, kindling wood, a couple of discarded tires, and a few chunks of firewood.

  “You see,” she said by way of explanation, “the heating is all done by gas now, although there’s a fireplace in the landlady’s house there in front. I don’t think she ever uses it. Pancho must be in his cage. Come on, Pancho, where are you?”

  I not
iced then that the crow’s cage, which had been hung up in a dark corner of the woodshed, was an exact replica of the one I had seen at Cameron’s place. When she called, there was a rustle of motion. For a moment I couldn’t make out the figure of the crow in the dark corner. Then he came hopping out of the cage, fluttered his wings, and started toward Miss Grafton. Then he caught sight of me and made a sudden droll hop to one side.

  “Come on, Pancho.” She held out a finger.

  The crow twisted his head to fasten me with his beady eyes. “Liar,” he said, and laughed with crowish glee, a raucous cacophony.

  “Pancho, don’t be like that. That’s being a bad boy. That’s not good crow manners. Come over here.”

  The crow hopped tentatively toward her, pausing on the dusty fireplace wood.

  “Come on, now. Mr. Lam wants to be friends with you.? He’s interested in finding out something about you. Come on and speak to him nicely.”

  The crow took another long hop and with a quick flutter of wings came to rest on her finger. With her other hand she stroked him under the throat. She said casually, “He hates to have you put your hand over the top of his head. You do that when you’re punishing him. Just hold your hand over the top of his head and he really has a fit—I guess it goes back to the wild instincts. A bird hates to be imprisoned. Always goes into a panic when something is over him. That means his escape is shut off. Pancho, come over and see Mr. Lam.”

  She moved her hand toward me and I extended my hand. But Pancho would have none of me. He drew back and uttered some harsh sound which, for the moment, I didn’t get.

  She laughed and said, “He’s saying, ‘Go away.’ He doesn’t talk too clearly. ‘Liar’ is about the plainest word he says. He’s a dear. Just full of mischief—Oh, I do wish I could take him in the house where he belongs. He isn’t accustomed to staying out like this, and the shock of his owner’s death and all that has upset him so he’s moody.”

  I said, “You’re not far from Mr. Cameron’s place, are you?”

  “Only about three or four blocks.”

  “Any other places on Pancho’s visiting-list?”

  “We think there were,” she said.

  “We?”

  “Mr. Cameron and I. I simply can’t realize that he’s—that—er, that thing happened to him,”