Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

by Gruber, Frank

  “They don’t seem to be following.”

  The cab rolled west on Sunset for about ten minutes, then the driver pulled up to the curb. “Here you are!”

  The bill was seventy cents. Quade gave the cabby a dollar and waited for his change. The man tried to make it in dimes and couldn’t. He finally gave Quade a quarter and a nickel. Quade gravely handed him back the nickel and received a dirty look in exchange.

  “You’re very welcome,” Quade said icily.

  The building before which they had stopped was a two-story affair, a row of small stores on the street level, and offices on the second floor. Quade found the entrance and consulted the directory just inside the door.

  “Martin Lund, suite seven,” he said.

  They climbed the stairs to a dimly lighted corridor. Suite 7 was at the far end. There was light behind the ground glass door and Quade pushed it open.

  They found themselves in a small waiting room, furnished in bird’s eye maple. There was no one in it.

  Quade coughed loudly. Charlie Boston called, “Anybody here?”

  There was no reply. Quade scowled and stepped to the door of a private office. He pushed it open, stuck his head in—and stopped.

  A man was sitting in a swivel chair. His head rested on a desk. There was a pool of blood on the desk. Some of it had dripped to the green broadloom rug on the floor.

  Boston breathed down Quade’s neck. “Gosh!” he said softly.

  “Twenty dollars!” Quade muttered. Then he shook himself and backed into Charlie Boston. “Let’s get out of here—quick!”

  Charlie Boston was perfectly willing. He was already descending the stair when Quade was still halfway up the corridor.

  Down on the sidewalk with the hot California sun beating down, Quade exhaled heavily. “Did you see a gun anywhere, Charlie?”

  There was a film of perspiration on Boston’s forehead. “Uh-uh,” he said. “All I saw was the blood. That was enough. Let’s get out of here.”

  “In just a minute.” Quade reached into his pocket and drew out the letter George Grimshaw had given him at the hotel. He looked at it.

  “What you goin’ to do with it?” Boston asked.

  Quade stuck his finger under the flap and ripped open the envelope. He drew out another envelope and a slip of paper. He looked at the slip and showed it to Boston.

  The letter read:

  Martin:

  Can’t come to your place, but here it is. Meet me in the club house at the track.

  G. G.

  “What’s in the other letter?” Boston asked.

  Quade felt it. “It’s not money, so I don’t think I’ll open it—not right now, anyway.”

  “Well, what’re we going to do?”

  Quade said, “We’ve got seventeen twenty-five left of the twenty. Do you think the manager of the hotel would take it as a down payment?”

  Boston winced. “No, he looked like a guy who’d made up his mind to do something and was going through with it. That’s your fault, Ollie. You been ridin’ him pretty hard this past month.”

  “I know,” Quade admitted. “I was counting on a break. It didn’t come. Well, we’ve got just one chance.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The race-track. Perhaps we can run this into enough to pay the hotel bill.”

  Boston exclaimed. “But, Ollie! For years you been squawking about my playing the ponies. And now—”

  “Now, it’s necessity. The seventeen dollars won’t stave off the hotel manager. A couple of hundred might. And what other way can we make a couple of hundred in a few hours?”

  Boston looked suspiciously at Quade. “Say, that note! You want to go to the races because that fellow Grimshaw wrote Lund he was going there. That’s why you want to go.”

  Quade said, “Tsk! Tsk! Such deduction!”

  “That’s it,” persisted Boston. “You want to play detective again. That means we’re going to get knocked around some more. And when it’s all over you and me will be behind the eight ball again.”

  “We’re there, now!”

  “Huh?”

  “Lund’s body is going to be found sooner or later. Three people, Grimshaw and the two thugs, knew we were going there this afternoon. No, four. The cab driver, too. How long do you think it’ll be before they have us down at the Fairfax Station?”

  Boston winced. “Ow!”

  Forty-five minutes later, Quade and Boston alighted from the special race-track bus. Ahead of them were the huge buildings of the grandstand and club house. Beyond the buildings was the track. They walked across the vast parking lot and approached the ticket windows.

  “Club house, two-twenty!” snorted Boston. “Let’s go over to the grandstand.”

  By way of reply, Quade stepped to the ticket window. “Two club-house tickets,” he said.

  At the gate he spent fifteen cents for a program. When they were inside, walking up the long flight of stairs to the club house, Boston said:

  “Fifty cents bus fare, four-forty for tickets, fifteen cents for programs. How much does that leave us?”

  “You forgot the seventy-five cents taxi fare back to the hotel where we got the bus,” replied Quade. “That leaves us a total of eleven dollars and forty-five cents.”

  “And you want to win enough to pay our hotel bill?”

  “Oh, I’ll be satisfied with a couple of hundred profit. I leave that part of it up to you, Charlie. I may be the Human Encyclopedia, but one of the things I don’t know is how to pick horses. You’ve always been talking about your marvelous system. So go ahead, do your stuff.”

  Charlie Boston took the program from Quade. “What do you want to bet on the first race? Two dollars.”

  “Why delay the agony? If your system’s good, it’ll be just as good for the entire amount, won’t it?”

  Charlie Boston perked up. “That’s the way I like to play ’em myself. If you’re going to bet on the nags, bet on them right. That’s my system.”

  By this time they were in the club house. Quade was somewhat disconcerted by the size of it and the crowd. “Never find anyone in this mob,” he grumbled. “You’d think people had other things to do than come to the races.”

  A red-coated bugler on the track, put his instrument to his mouth and blew on it. The horses began parading out of the paddock.

  “What about the bet, Charlie?” Quade asked.

  “In just a minute. Hmm, yes, Rameses is my horse. Ten bucks to show. Come on, Ollie.”

  They started back to the club house, to the pari-mutuel betting room. Quade caught Boston’s arm. “Why to show, Charlie?”

  “Because that’s my system. I never bet a horse to win. Only to show. I never lose that way.”

  “I’ll not say anything about last winter when we were in Florida,” Quade said, “provided you don’t lose today.”

  “I won’t lose!” said Boston, emphatically. “This race is a cinch. There’s the window. Just tell him a ticket on Rameses, Number six.”

  A minute later Quade rejoined Boston. He rubbed the ticket between his thumb and forefinger. “This is for the Lincoln Hotel,” he said.

  “Come on!” exclaimed Charlie. “The horses are going to the post now. They’ll be off in a minute.”

  The cry of “They’re off!” went up before they got back to the front side of the club house.

  Thirty thousand people immediately went nuts.

  Quade couldn’t even see the horses. There were too many people on their feet in front of him. But finally he found a spot, where, by standing on his toes, he managed to catch a diagonal view of the track.

  A voice blared over a public address system.

  “At the turn. Skyhigh … Betty May second by a length … Beefboy. Cold Water coming up on the outside … Rameses.”

 
“Rameses!” yelled Charlie Boston.

  The announcer droned, “In the stretch, Beefboy and Skyhigh, neck and neck. Betty May third … and Rameses! Rameses coming up.”

  “Come on, Beefboy!” screamed several thousand throats. And just as many roared. “Skyhigh! … Betty May! … Rameses!”

  The horses thundered across the finish line, not a single length separating the first four animals. The announcer gave the result even as the numbers of the winning horses flashed on the tote board. “Beefboy, first, Skyhigh second and Betty May third!”

  Oliver Quade took the ten-dollar pari-mutuel ticket from his pocket and tore it up. “Charlie,” he said, “just what is this system of yours?”

  Charlie Boston winced. “Why, I wait until they parade the horses, then I pick the best looking of the black ones.”

  Quade growled deep in his throat. “After all these years of listening to you blab about how you could pick them!”

  The voice of the announcer exclaimed, “Hold your tickets, everybody. A foul has been claimed against the rider of Beefboy! Hold your tickets!”

  Charlie Boston yelped, “Our ticket!” He stooped and began searching among the forest of moving legs for the ticket Quade had torn and thrown away. Here and there others who had thrown away tickets prematurely were also scrambling for them. A fat, perspiring man, moaned, “My ticket, my ticket!”

  Charlie Boston came up with two halves of a pari-mutuel ticket. “Whew!” he panted, triumphantly. “That was close.”

  The voice on the public address system droned, “The foul has been allowed. Beefboy is disqualified. The winner is Sky-high. Betty May is second and Rameses third.”

  “Whew!” yelled Charlie Boston. “We win! I told you my system worked. It had to. There was only one black horse in this race.”

  Oliver Quade snatched the pieces of pasteboard from Boston’s hands and raised himself to his toes to consult the tote board out on the field. He inhaled softly. “Nine-eighty to show!”

  He turned and stumbled over the fat man who was down on his knees. The man exclaimed, “My ticket! My ticket!”

  “Come on, Ollie,” Charlie Boston cried, “let’s go and collect.”

  Oliver Quade gripped Charlie Boston’s arm. “Charlie, this ticket—it’s not ours!”

  “What? You mean it’s no good?”

  “I mean,” said Quade, “our ticket was for ten bucks. This one’s for a hundred.”

  For an instant, Charlie Boston’s face was stricken. Then slowly the lines lifted and an expression of huge delight spread over the broad face. “And it pays nine-eighty!”

  Quade shook his head. “No, Charlie. It isn’t ours.”

  Charlie Boston showed his teeth. “No? Well, we had a ticket on Rameses. You threw it away. Somebody’s found it by this time. O.K., so we found someone else’s ticket. ‘Finder’s keepers, losers weepers,’ my grandmother always said.”

  The fat man wailed, “My ticket, my ticket!”

  Quade tapped him on the shoulder. “Mister, I threw away a ten-dollar show ticket on Rameses—”

  “A ten-dollar ticket!” cried the fat man. “Hell, I threw away a hundred-dollar ticket!”

  Quade clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Say, that’s tough, pal. Maybe if you’d offer a reward, someone might—”

  The fat man rose to his knees. “That’s an idea. I’ll post a reward!”

  “You win,” Quade snapped. “Here’s your ticket. I found it.”

  The man got up and fell against Quade. He tore the halves of the tickets from Quade’s hands. “Thanks, mister,” he babbled, “thanks a million.” He stumbled toward the club house and Quade had to spring after him and catch hold of his arm.

  “Say, the reward!”

  The fat man blinked. “Oh, sure, the reward.” He reached into a pocket and brought out a roll that would have choked Rameses, the horse. He peeled off two bills and shoved them at Quade. “There you are, sir, and many thanks!” He turned and wobbled away.

  Quade looked at the reward, stunned.

  “Two bucks!” Charlie Boston cried. “Two bucks for a ticket worth nine hundred and eighty! Quade, you—”

  He staggered away, too stricken to continue his reproach.

  Slowly, Quade folded up the two one-dollar bills and put them in his pocket. Then he walked into the club house, in the direction of the pari-mutuel betting room.

  To reach it, he had to walk past the staircase leading up to the rooms of the Turf Club. As he came abreast of the stairs a man hurtled down and collided so savagely with Quade that he went sprawling to the floor. The man fell on top of him.

  “What the hell!” Quade cried, angrily. He shoved at the man and wet sticky stuff smeared his hand. Startled, he jerked the hand around to look at it.

  He saw blood on his fingers.

  He got up from the floor then. The man who had knocked him down remained on the floor. He would never get up. He was dead. It was George Grimshaw.

  A tall man in a gray uniform ran up. He looked at the man on the floor and paled. “He’s—dead!”

  Quade nodded soberly. “He came tumbling down those stairs. Knocked me over.” His eyes went to the stairs. He started toward them, but the gray-uniformed man rushed past him and blocked Quade with his back.

  “I see it!” he said. “And you—up there! Stay where you are!”

  Two men and a woman were coming down the stairs. They stopped, puzzled. “What’s the matter, officer?” one of the men asked.

  The special policeman shook his head. “Someone’s been hurt. Everyone will have to remain upstairs.”

  A heavy-set man in his middle thirties came out of the betting room. He snapped, “What’s going on here, Kleinsmith?”

  The uniformed man turned and relief swept across his face. “Hello, Lieutenant. This man,” he pointed to the huddled body on the floor, “came tumbling down those stairs. He’s dead and,” he pointed to the stairs, “there’s a gun lying there.”

  The heavy-set man took a fat cigar from his vest pocket and stuck it between his teeth. He rolled it in his mouth and looked at Quade. “There’s blood on your hand, Mister,” he said accusingly.

  “Yes,” Quade admitted. “He knocked me over when he fell down the stairs.”

  The cigar made a complete circuit of the heavy-set man’s mouth. “Zat so? We’ll get into that in a minute. You, Kleinsmith, run up to the steward’s office. Tell him what happened, then phone the office. After that, come back here and bring some of the boys with you.”

  The uniformed man turned to go.

  “You forgot something,” Quade said. “The police.”

  The heavy-set man scowled. “What do you think I am?”

  Quade replied calmly. “Just a special policeman hired by the track. This is murder, man.”

  “All right, Kleinsmith,” snapped the track police lieutenant, “call the cops, too. In the meantime,” he glowered at Quade, “let’s have your story. Why’d you knock him off?”

  Quade walked deliberately to the stairs and sat down on the lowest step. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping the blood from his fingers.

  “I’ll wait until a policeman comes,” he said.

  And wait he did, even though the special detective snarled and stormed at him. Fortunately, the police came within a few minutes, an entire squadron of them, led by Captain Roletti. By that time there was a ring of spectators eighteen deep around the dead man. The police dispersed the crowd quickly, however, driving away everyone but Quade and the track policemen.

  “Now then,” said Roletti, a black-haired, dapper man of about forty, “let’s start at the beginning. You, Mister, what’s your name?”

  “Oliver Quade. I was on my way to the betting room and when I passed these stairs this man came tumbling down. He knocked me to the floor and
fell on me. I pushed him off, and then discovered that he was dead.”

  “How’d you know he was dead?”

  “How do I know you’re alive?”

  Captain Roletti grinned frigidly. “Oh, so it’s going to be like that? Fine! I haven’t had a good scrap all week. So he fell down the stairs and tumbled into your arms. Uh-hum, and where are your witnesses, the people who saw you walking along here when he came down?”

  Kleinsmith, the special policeman, said, “I saw it.”

  Roletti whirled on Kleinsmith. “Ah, Mr. Kleinsmith, The Eye himself. So you’re his pal, eh?”

  Kleinsmith screwed up his face. “No, I never saw the man before in my life.”

  “No? Then how’d you happen to be watching?”

  “That’s my job. I’m supposed to keep an eye out for slickers and pickpockets.”

  Captain Roletti smiled pleasantly. He purred, “Ah, so you were looking out for pickpockets and you were watching Mr. Quade. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Kleinsmith turned red in the face. “I didn’t say he was a pickpocket. I said that was part of my job. I happened to be watching him because, well—there was some mixup about the last race. The results were announced and some of the people who’d lost tore up their tickets. Then a foul was allowed, which made Rameses a winner. Mr. Mills had torn up a hundred-­dollar ticket. This man found it and—”

  “And tried to keep it?”

  “No. He returned it to Mr. Mills.”

  Captain Roletti snorted. “Diogenes! All right, Kleinsmith, get this Mr. Mills. You seem to know him.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s a member of the Turf Club.” Kleinsmith went off.

  Captain Roletti scowled at Quade. “You’re lucky, Mister. But don’t go yet.” He climbed the stairs and, stooping, examined the gun. Finally, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick the gun up by the muzzle. He came down the stairs and handed it to a blue-uniformed policeman.

  “Take this to the steward’s office, Cassidy. Blake will be out in a little while with his stuff. He’ll go over it for prints.”

  Special Policeman Kleinsmith came back with the fat, perspiring man whose name was Mills. The fat man took a look at the body on the floor.