Sweet and Low_An Emma Lathen Best Seller

by Emma Lathen

  Thatcher replied that the newspaper accounts of Frohlich’s death were substantially accurate. But, since banks serve their valued customers by passing on information, he added:

  “There was one thing more. Frohlich seems to have been worried about something going on in the New York office.”

  Gilligan cocked his head. “That would be what he wanted to see Shaw about, I suppose,” he murmured.

  “You knew he wanted to see Shaw?” Thatcher could not remember that being mentioned in the Times. Indeed the account had been niggardly with the names of Dreyer personnel, in general.

  “Dick told me so, himself,” Gilligan said. “I bumped into him over at the Exchange on Thursday and he asked me if I knew where Shaw was. If you ask me, he was worried.”

  “Hindsight,” Charlie suggested.

  “We were all worried on Thursday,” Gilligan replied. “We were waiting for Shaw to come on the floor and start buying. I don’t think he plans these cliff-hangers on purpose. But he knows how to make himself felt. Sometimes he’ll stand for days at the same place on the floor, just waiting. Some of the real suckers forget to watch the action, they’re so busy watching Shaw.”

  It was clear that Leo Gilligan never made this mistake.

  But Thatcher was gnawing on a different bone. How many people had known of Frohlich’s determination to confront Shaw? He put the question to Gilligan.

  “I heard Dick ask at least two other people for Shaw while I was on the way to a phone,” Gilligan replied promptly.

  Well, that settled that. Considering the way that gossip circulated at any exchange, Thatcher was now willing to bet that the entire cocoa fraternity had foreknowledge of Frohlich’s quest.

  “The real kicker,” Gilligan said acutely, “is whether Dick was worried about his own office or Shaw’s.”

  Thatcher said there was no evidence either way.

  “I don’t see how he could know anything about Shaw’s office that Amory didn’t know already,” Gilligan mused. “Hell, that office is Amory!”

  Gilligan was chewing his lip, wondering how this could affect cocoa prices. At last he sighed. “It doesn’t make sense. Not even that fight with Orcutt.”

  “Fight?” Charlie looked up hopefully. This sounded more like a murder. “And who’s Orcutt?”

  “You don’t know about the fight?” Gilligan was astounded that this tidbit had not reached the Sloan. He gave them a synopsis. “The police are already onto it. They asked Orcutt where he was on Thursday night. He says he was home with his wife.”

  “Has anybody asked his wife?” Charlie, a lifelong bachelor, had patches of ignorance.

  Gilligan scoffed. “Why bother? Hell, mine would alibi me if I’d gunned down the whole Exchange.”

  Thatcher did not like to deprive Charlie of insights into modern American marriage. But his own curiosity lay along different lines. “Does anybody know what the fight was about?”

  “No, not even Russ Martini. He’s my broker. And when Amory doesn’t want to go on the floor himself, he uses Russ. So Martini knows the setup there. But what the hell! You can tangle with a guy without following him to the boonies and killing him. It isn’t as if Orcutt knows anything. Amory plays his cards pretty close to the chest.”

  “All that means,” Charlie pointed out, “is that Orcutt isn’t supposed to know much.”

  Gilligan shook his head. “You don’t know Amory Shaw.”

  “But I’d like to,” Charlie said frankly. “Look, Leo, if you want to go over these accounts before you sign, why don’t we do it at the Exchange? Who knows what will happen?”

  “I can promise you Shaw, but I don’t think I can go as far as another murder. Sure, come on. It’s time you knew more about cocoa, anyway. That’s what separates the men from the boys.”

  Charlie ignored this taunt, turning to Thatcher instead. “Coming, John? You might get your money’s worth.”

  Thatcher declined. He had a client due in a few minutes. Somebody, he said virtuously, had to keep the Sloan running.

  Charlie made a derisive noise.

  “Are you dealing entirely in cocoa these days, Leo?” Thatcher asked. He could remember when corn and wheat had played some role in Gilligan’s conversation.

  “Pretty much. I like the action there,” Gilligan replied.

  It was a revealing preference. The New York Cocoa Exchange is even less regulated than other commodity exchanges. There are chaotic price swings, with thousands of dollars hanging on each quarter-cent fluctuation. Furthermore, since cocoa is traded in London several hours before New York opens, the real professional plugs currency spirals and arbitraging into his game plan.

  “Cocoa,” Gilligan summed up, “isn’t for kids.”

  John Thatcher had been guilty of duplicity. True, a Sloan client was coming in. But the client had been handpicked. It had occurred to Thatcher that he was receiving too many aerial views of the Dreyer Company and its place in the sun. The Cocoa Exchange and Governor Curtis Yeoman were all very well in their way, but something less Olympian might be more useful. Something closer to a worm’s eye view.

  The Nagles were a survival from Thatcher’s past. They had been one of his first independent accounts, many years ago. He had already seen one generation out. It was soon being explained to him that he was not going to ring in a third.

  “That’s why we’re changing the voting stock,” explained Fred Nagle shortly after entering with his wife, Helen. “I fought as long as I could. After all, we’re the biggest candy jobbers in the Northeast corridor.

  You’d think my only son would want to come into the business. Where else will he find anything this good?”

  “Fred, we’ve been all though that,” his wife said wearily.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into Pete. Suddenly he says he can’t stomach a lifetime of peddling chocolate bars. He makes it sound like heroin, or something.”

  “He didn’t say that. All he said was—”

  “I know what he said. To think that a son of mine . . .” Fred Nagle’s voice cracked.

  Thatcher had been through too many scenes like this. He wondered what young Pete Nagle’s chosen alternative to Arrow Jobbers, Inc., would turn out to be. Thatcher had sympathized with fathers whose sons had joined communes, embraced Zen Buddhism, gone to the clink in Turkey, or were still seeking the perfect wave. What could it be this time?

  Helen Nagle was the one who told him. “Pete has decided to be a veterinarian,” she said, daring him to make something of it.

  Once again Thatcher realized that he had confused a passing fad for a constant. The day of the guru was over. Was he now destined to hear a trail of fathers complain that their sons were settling down into pedestrian occupations, bringing home pay checks and supporting their families? Would mothers lament the absence of radical fire in their daughters? Only one thing was certain. If they did it anywhere, they would do it at the Sloan.

  “I’m sorry that you’re having this disappointment,” Thatcher said, avoiding specifics, “but I understand that your son-in-law is active in the business.”

  “Him!”

  “Now, Fred, you yourself admit that he’s hardworking.”

  Further inquiry disclosed that the son-in-law was a compendium of virtues. He was efficient, responsible, energetic, and even innovative.

  “I just can’t stand him, that’s all,” said Fred. Then, coming to his real grievance, he said: “And now Pete is going to go away and leave me with that jerk for the rest of my life.”

  Helen had had all she was going to take. “Well, Pete doesn’t like him either. That’s probably why he decided French poodles would be an improvement. Anyway, you don’t see that much of Elroy. Not while you handle the buying and he does the selling.”

  Thatcher seized the moment.

  “Then you’re the one who deals with Dreyer, Fred?”

  On subjects other than family, Fred Nagle was a rational man. “Sure.” he said, shedding his melancholy. “I’ve bee
n handling them since Dad retired. You remember that, John. It must have been 20 years ago.”

  “They’re having their troubles right now. Have you read about it?”

  “Troubles . . . oh, you mean they had some murder up there. I didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t anyone we knew.”

  Murder at Dreyer did not cause the same tremors for a jobber as for a speculator. Personally Thatcher doubted if Fred Nagle would be alarmed until someone was pushed into a vat and wrapped as pecan bars.

  “They’ve had some executive changes up there, too, haven’t they?”

  Thatcher continued.

  Fred needed no prompting on this topic. “That’s right. There’s this new president. At least he’s heard about advertising. That’s really all they need from where I stand. They’ve always been a good, reliable outfit, just like Hershey and Nestlé. Quality controls are first-rate, deliveries are handled the way they should be, the billing is systematic.” He turned to his wife. “We’ve never had any trouble with them, have we?”

  “No, and it isn’t just us,” she agreed. “I’ve never heard any wholesaler complain about them—except the deadbeats, of course.”

  Thatcher raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Dreyer cuts you off pretty damn fast if you don’t meet your bills,” Fred Nagle amplified. “And they’re right, too. There are too damn many fly-by-night outfits in this field. And nowadays a lot of them don’t last—but they last long enough to rack up, some sizable accounts if anybody’s fool enough to give them credit.”

  At Arrow Jobbers bills were settled on the dot.

  Helen didn’t want Thatcher to think that Dreyer was heartless. “But they can be understanding, too, if there’s a real reason to be slow in paying. You remember, Fred, when Dave Ingersoll died and so much of the estate was tied up, Dreyer let Irene go on for months. They even let her increase her orders.”

  Thatcher ticked over what he was hearing and singled out a fact new to him.

  “I didn’t realize there were so many failures among jobbers,” he ventured. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Ah,” said Fred nostalgically. “Things have changed a lot since the days when you kept up with us, John. Sundries are killing the little man. We’re all candy, tobacco, and sundry jobbers. 20 years ago sundries meant pipe cleaners. Now you go crazy just trying to list them—ballpoint pens, sunglasses, combs, Alka-Seltzer, disposable lighters. And the biggest one of all!”

  “What’s that?” asked Thatcher, in danger of being swept off course.

  “Batteries!” growled Fred. “Honest to God, I think people eat them. We can barely keep the stores stocked.”

  Helen was the one who could not be diverted. “And the great thing about Dreyer is the product. Because chocolate bars go on and on, while the fancy bars have their day and then fade. Except for the all-time greats, of course.”

  “Milky-Way,” said Fred reverently.

  “Baby Ruth,” added Helen.

  Not to be left out of things, Thatcher said, “Peanut butter cups.”

  His clients stared at him.

  “My grandson eats them by the dozen,” Thatcher said stoutly.

  Fred waved away peanut butter cups. “That’s just a stage kids go through. But all in all, Dreyer isn’t a bad company. And now this new bar has pushed them into advertising, I’ve got no complaints. There’s nothing like a healthy dose of publicity.”

  Thatcher was more cautious. “I’m afraid it depends on what kind, Fred. And now we’d better get down to the way you want to handle the preferred shares. I’m going to have to leave at three. I have an appointment uptown—with the president of Dreyer.”

  “Tell him,” advised Fred, “that the sooner we see that new bar, the better.”

  Chapter 6

  Old Glory

  As a matter of fact, Howard Vandevanter was already thinking about Dreyer’s new candy bar. Old Glory had higher priority with him than the current meeting of the steering committee—which explained why he, Governor Yeoman, and John Thatcher were sitting in a small conference room at the advertising agency of Bridges, Gray & Kanelos.

  Yeoman did not approve of makeshifts. Once the committee’s work was done, his irritation overflowed. “Why drag us up here? Can’t these people wait?”

  Vandevanter met his complaints coolly. “I thought it was a convenient place for all of us. As for waiting, we’re running out of time as it is. You should appreciate that, Curtis. You were all for Dreyer advertising, weren’t you? Our trucks will be delivering the first Old Glory bars to the jobbers tomorrow. You wouldn’t want us to cancel out a week before our first TV spectacular, would you?”

  “Of course not,” Yeoman blustered.

  Thatcher took refuge from this bickering by seizing a handy mock-up. It depicted animated Old Glory bars storming Fort Ticonderoga.

  Vandevanter was relentless. “Well, someone has to think about the details, you know.”

  Predictably this did not silence Yeoman. “It shouldn’t be the president of Dreyer. Not after your best cocoa buyer’s been murdered. There are plenty of details there that could use some attention.”

  Vandevanter smiled. “You’ve reminded me of one,” he said triumphantly. “I’ve arranged for us to run up and see Dick Frohlich’s family. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  Yeoman was no believer that sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. “What? We don’t have anything to do with company employment.”

  But Howard Vandevanter had him neatly hooked. “The personnel department is taking care of the formalities. But under the circumstances I thought we should make some formal expression of condolence.” He looked at the ex-governor maliciously. “It is the least we can do.”

  “I thought Frohlich wasn’t married,” Thatcher objected.

  “He wasn’t,” Vandevanter reassured him. “This is his sister. She and her husband came for the funeral and to start probate.”

  Yeoman relaxed once he realized that he was not going to be faced with a pathetic widow, but he made one last effort. “Maybe they’ll be out,” he suggested.

  “They’ll be in all afternoon,” Vandevanter said firmly.

  Thatcher decided that it would be quicker to satisfy Dreyer’s president than to argue with him. So they were soon in a taxi speeding north. As the ride prolonged itself Thatcher began having doubts.

  “Where are these people staying?” he asked at length. “In the suburbs?”

  “No, they’re in Frohlich’s apartment. I think they’re closing it up.”

  Vandevanter peered out to examine a street sign. “It should be any minute now.”

  He was overly optimistic. Ten minutes more were required to complete a gigantic circle conforming to the latest one-way regulations. Then they halted before a luxury apartment house, where the security guard phoned their names upstairs.

  “These are from Dreyer, too,” he added.

  This remark was explained when they arrived at a living room on the fourteenth floor. Waiting for them were a young married couple—and a familiar figure.

  “Why, Amory!” exclaimed Vandevanter. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Mr. Shaw has been such a help,” Eleanor Corwin explained after the introductions. “There were so many papers that seemed to be about Dick’s business, and we didn’t know what to do with them. In fact, I really don’t know what to do about most of his things.”

  She looked around the room helplessly. There were signs of determined packing everywhere. Several large cartons had already been roped together and prominently labeled “Salvation Army.” A large old-fashioned trunk, its lid open, stood in the middle of the floor revealing a portable typewriter and some photographic equipment. The table by Amory Shaw’s chair supported an untidy heap of miscellaneous documents—brochures, printed reports, and typescript.

  It was not the moment to add to the apartment’s contents. Nevertheless Howard Vandevanter proffered the box he was carrying and said: “I thought you migh
t like to have this. Dick’s secretary went through his desk and put together his personal possessions. If I’d known you were having trouble with his files here, I could have sent her up to help you.”

  “That’s all right. We’re through the worst of it.” Rodger Corwin was a lanky young man with a pleasant expression and ears that stuck out. He was also a compulsive host. He insisted on dispensing drinks although this operation taxed the resources of the small kitchenette. After rummaging through the cabinets, he finally produced six assorted glasses and a lone tray of ice.

  While he was busy pouring, his wife had opened Vandevanter’s box and was idly examining the clutter that accumulates in any office. She removed a fountain pen and an electric razor, some photographs, and a leather notebook. Finally she held aloft a large cheap pottery mug, with the remains of a gaudy legend.

  “Oh dear,” she murmured. “I didn’t know Dick still had this.” Suddenly she blinked, sniffed, and began to hunt wildly for a handkerchief.

  With one accord, the men began a frenzied conversation.

  “It’s a good thing you were able to stay here,” Thatcher heard himself saying inanely to Corwin. “Much more convenient, with all this work to do.”

  He was ably seconded. “Dick’s lease doesn’t run out for another five months,” Rodger Corwin babbled back. “But the management already has a tenant lined up. What’s more, they’re willing to buy most of the furniture.”

  “That’s good. Moving costs so much these days,” said Curtis Yeoman, who was still living in the mansion in which he had been born, “that it’s scarcely worthwhile.”

  “And you’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?” chimed in Vandevanter.

  Rodger Corwin replied that they were from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and began a monologue on the many excellences of this community.

  Meanwhile muffled sounds from behind the handkerchief indicated that Dick Frohlich’s sister was losing her battle. Finally she gave up and made a dash for the bathroom.

  “I don’t know what set Eleanor off,” apologized her husband. “Actually we haven’t seen that much of Dick for the last eight or ten years.”