Find the Clock

by Harry Stephen Keeler

  She laughed an odd little laugh with a rising inflection. “Don’t get your wind up, doc. I need the money. I want to get home to England bad. I’m sick of this beastly land. I’ll play the game just as you’ve outlined — and I’ll play it as well or even better. But, old dear, just tell me one thing, will you? There’s a big brain back of this whole thing somewhere — and that brain isn’t yours. You’re too slow, doc, to work out the details of a game like this must be. I’ll wager you a sov. that all you’re doing these days is writing whisky prescriptions and selling dope to white-faced dope peddlers from that little safe over there.” She flicked a dainty little finger toward the iron safe in the corner of the room, and a cloud passed over Flandrau’s face. “I bet you haven’t done a legitimate piece of medical work for a month of Sundays, doc. But don’t get mad, old dear. Instead, tell me just one thing. Who is the big brain back of this scheme? So long as I’m not in on the know, won’t you tell me who’s the brigadier-general that’s running it?”

  The doctor shook his head slowly.

  “If I knew, Lily, I’m frank to say that I wouldn’t tell you. I grant you that there’s a game — a right good game in the air. And I grant you that there’s a master mind back of it all. But the fact of the matter is that who that mind is, and where he is, I no more know this minute than you yourself.”

  The doctor shook his head slowly.

  And as the Manchester Lily nodded her petite, golden head slowly, convinced beyond doubt that the man across from her spoke the truth, Doctor Flandrau drew forth his fountain pen to inscribe on a piece of blank paper the name and address of the man with whom she was to associate herself for thirty short days. And as the pen scratched its way across the paper, a pleasant conversation was going on between Doctor Flandrau and himself, solely in his own mind. To himself he was saying:

  “So long as I know that Victor Flandrau gets one third of a cold hundred thousand dollars, and handles every cent of the cash himself, so that he can’t be swindled out of his own cut, what difference does it make as to who the real brain back of it all is? What difference indeed!”

  CHAPTER II

  Across the World — and Back!

  WILLIAM G. BRAYTON, chief stockholder and virtually owner of the Morning Call, dismounting from a taxicab at four in the afternoon in front of the old-fashioned Call Building on Market Street, where newspaper plants formed a narrow gloomy canyon which gave forth to the skies only the sound of clanking presses, paid the chauffeur, and picking up his traveling bag, flashing with vividly colored labels of European hotels, strode up the steps. The big man, with his smooth face and half-white hair, his heavy, gold watch chain across his chest, his broad-brimmed, gray Stetson hat, made his way past several rooms containing busily working newspaper men and newspaper women, and at length, still carrying his foreign-labeled valise, turned in and strode through and past the battery of typewriters in the city room. A moment later he had passed into the office of Crosby, the city and managing editor.

  Howard Crosby, a smooth-faced man of about forty-five with a serious, thoughtful mien, whipped from his eyes the green celluloid eye shade which he wore and arose suddenly as from the tail of his eye he glimpsed the person of no other than the big man of the Call — his superior.

  “Mr. Brayton!” he exclaimed. “Well — well! I didn’t dream of seeing you to-night.’’ He drew forth a capacious visitors’ chair with polished arms and proffered it to his chief. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Brayton? You look tired.”

  “I am tired, Crosby,” was Brayton’s succinct reply. He dropped his valise on the floor, and removing his broad-brimmed gray hat, let his huge, strong frame drop into the visitors’ chair. “I just got in on the three-thirty from Cleveland, and came straight on to the Call before going home.” He looked about him wearily, his face carrying a look of uneasiness.

  Crosby had closed the door of his sanctum and resumed his own swivel chair in front of his badly cluttered desk. He donned his green eye shade again. His eyes rested curiously on his chief.

  “And did you have a good time in Italy, Mr. Brayton?” he queried solicitously. “Such a brief trip, don’t you know, I wondered if — ”

  Brayton laughed, a friendly booming, big man’s laugh.

  “Yes, rather brief, wasn’t it, Crosby, and simply for the reason that I failed in my mission to the land of the villas.” He crossed his legs and sighed. “Yes, Crosby, I covered ten thousand miles only to have to return without what I went for.”

  Crosby’s face was puzzled.

  “You mean, Mr. Brayton, that you had an object other than pleasure in your trip?”

  Brayton nodded.

  “I am going to tell you, Crosby, exactly why I went to Italy. You probably surmised that it was a brief pleasure trip, which was exactly what I wanted everyone to think. But I have now come to the conclusion that it is advisable for your own sake and any plans you may have about your own future to know something of the peculiar situation which led me away from America.” He looked about him, and drawing forth a cigar bit off the end and lighted it. About him was a general atmosphere of glumness which it seemed would not be dispelled.

  “Crosby, you have probably believed up to this time that I am a majority stockholder in the Call, but the fact is, I am sorry to say, that the full extent of my holdings in Call stock amount to forty-nine and one half per cent. In other words, I am a minority stockholder — providing the balance of the stock ever gets into the hands of one man.”

  He paused, and Crosby’s brow wrinkled up. “Then you mean to intimate, Mr. Brayton, that the son of old Matt Bardeen, your friend of those many years before he died, owns the balance of the stock, fifty and one half per cent? If so then why hasn’t he — ”

  “No, Crosby. Such, fortunately, isn’t the case. If it were, we would both have heard long ago.” He shook his head. “It is deplorable that old Matt Bardeen’s son, of all people, should turn out to be the Millionaire Anarchist. His father was a conservative, a keen, cold, hard thinker, just alike to capital and labor, employer and employee. Perhaps it is a law of heredity that just such a mind as old Matt’s should generate a boy whose policies and theories, Crosby, were they put into practice, would demoralize our nation, would cast us into a chaos far worse than that into which Russia has been cast. Reed Bardeen, Crosby, I say without hesitation is the most dangerous man in America to-day for every true-hearted American. Dangerous as he is, he is cunning enough to appreciate the value of subtle propaganda — of arousing the masses against their employers by insidious methods rather than open preachments. That is the method he believes will throw the world into the new order of anarchy — the order which you and I know will be no order, but chaos. Reed Bardeen, Crosby, has made known his intentions in certain circles, if he is able to gain control of the Call, one of the oldest and most conservative papers in the Middle West, a paper worth to-day a half million dollars at least, of putting out news in which every possible story is tinged with the subtle venom of class and mass hatred, stories which will inflame the people to violence, to rise up — to what? To chaos, Crosby, for the solution of our economic problems must come by the political machine, not by the torch and by dynamite and by machine guns.”

  Brayton puffed violently on his cigar. From outside the staccato click of typewriters filtered in through the glass door of the city editor’s office, and he resumed.

  “But as I have said to you, Reed Bardeen, fortunately, inherited only Matt Bardeen’s holding in the Call — forty per cent. In addition to this he has recently acquired, according to secret information which has been brought to me from an unimpeachable source, the five per cent owned by old Mrs. Kinsey — the widow of Dan Kinsey who formerly owned it — and a further four per cent which came down from Hasley Adams of Winetka to some spendthrift nephew whose name eludes me just at the moment. If you will add these up, Crosby, you will find that they total forty-nine per cent of the entire Call stock. This means that I with my one half per cent over Reed B
ardeen’s holdings am the sole means which can keep the Call a real newspaper, just alike to friend and foe, a newspaper which will continue to print the news regardless of whose interests are served or harmed. And the keeping of the Call to that policy is a fine and inspiriting game, is it not, Crosby?”

  Crosby nodded enthusiastically.

  “It is. The Call is to-day and always has been a great and splendid paper, Mr. Brayton, and I am mighty proud of my own part in it. We have fought a clean game in the newspaper world, and the public knows that the Call is untarnished from its front page to its last.”

  A pause took place, during which each of the two men lost himself for a moment in his own reflections. Then Brayton again took up the thread of his explanation.

  “But about my visit to Italy, Crosby. Here it is in a nutshell. In the old days when the Call was first founded by Matt Bardeen, Hasley Adams, Dan Kinsey, myself, and a group of other old-timers whose stock, as you know now, has filtered into my hands alone, a a prominent figure over in Little Italy — Gregorio Martori, by name — was one of those who were in on the ground floor. He was a small-time politician on the North Side — at that time chief of the Italian street sweepers — and as I recall it, wanted stock in a newspaper so that he could insure that every piece of violence committed by Italian thugs and rowdies wasn’t charged up as Black Hand activities. In other words, he wanted his countrymen to get a clean and impartial deal in the press — which they weren’t getting at that time. Whatever the reason, however, Martori was one of those whose savings helped to found the Call — a highly dubious proposition at that time, let me assure you — and his holdings were one and one half per cent of the total stock.”

  “I see,” replied Crosby. “And that one and one half per cent is exactly the amount which Reed Bardeen would need to secure in order to control the Call — turn the good old Call upon humanity and transform it into a blazing torch.” He nodded his head slowly. “Where — where is this Gregorio Martori to-day — his holdings? This, of course, is why you went to Italy?”

  “Yes, Crosby. As soon as I learned from friends that Reed Bardeen had secretly secured Dan Kinsey’s old stock and Hasley Adams’ block, and was trying to get a majority holding in the Call solely through the big nucleus left him by his father, with the avowed intention of making it the great paper of dissociation and inflammatory propaganda, I realized then that the days of honor and gentlemen’s agreements were over; that I must fortify myself in my not wholly secure position; that I must increase my holdings from the present forty-nine and one half per cent to fifty-one per cent. Thus it was that I sailed posthaste for Italy, to make a search from the data I had for Gregorio Martori, who went back there in 1899, and never returned to America. From Italy the trail led me back to Cleveland, from which city I’ve just come.”

  “And what success, Mr. Brayton?”

  “Poor — almost none, Crosby. I unearthed Martori’s history after he left America. He married in Italy for the first time. This was in 1903, four years after he left here. He died in 1904 and left little or nothing unless we count his stock certificate in the Call. This very certificate I located among some papers of his in a sister’s possession, showing that it had never been transferred. Of course it did not belong to the sister, and I could not purchase it legally from her. Gregorio Martori, however, had had a wife and little girl — Berta Martori by name. The woman and the little girl came to America in the steerage in the year 1908 and were known to have gone to Cleveland, Ohio, where they settled in the Italian district there. The wife ran an obscure Italian grocery till 1914, when she died. The girl was brought up by a neighboring family of Sicilians, and about four weeks ago, according to certain records in the Cleveland marriage license bureau, married a sort of bad man and cheap prize fighter — Duke Murphy by name. A small race war had already been started by the impending marriage, for the girl had been promised to a big, black-mustached Sicilian of that city. A number of Italians and Irish were knifed and beaten up. The man, Duke Murphy, so far as I can learn, is a professional slugger and what we call a hard-boiled egg, Crosby, but he hasn’t stayed around Cleveland with the clan of the flashing stiletto. Duke Murphy and Berta Murphy, née Martori, have pulled up their tracks and departed from Cleveland fully ten days ago, and they’ve been careful not to leave a single trace by which the Black Hand can regain its lost bride, unless perchance some girl friend of the girl, or some tough who knew the man, has some inside knowledge. At any rate, Crosby, I have crossed not a few palms with money, but not an inkling has it brought me of Duke Murphy and his Italian bride.”

  Crosby leaned forward on his desk, tapping with his pencil.

  “One question, Mr. Brayton. Does this Italian girl know that she owns one and one half per cent of the stock of the Call?”

  Brayton shook his head.

  “To all intents and purposes, no. Martori must have concluded that the Call went under when it passed through its worst crisis back in 1901. The ignorant Italian wife that he married left the certificate in Italy with his papers when she came to America in 1908, apparently not even knowing what it represented. No effort has been made in all these years by anyone to apply for the accumulated dividends which now amount to several thousand dollars. The present status of the case is, of course, that the girl now owns the stock; this is complicated, perhaps, by the fact that we own our own land here. If this makes her a part holder in real estate, then her husband, Duke Murphy, is part owner with her. I would have to see a lawyer on that point. All of these facts, however, we know. But how much Reed Bardeen knows I cannot say. There is no reason why, with his wealth, he cannot unearth within a few more days the very same facts that I have. Then begins the race for the deciding shares — the signatures of Berta and Duke, which will give me a majority of fifty-one per cent, or Reed Bardeen a majority of fifty and one half per cent. Whoever gets that legal transfer owns the Coll. Heavens, I don’t mind the loss of my own stock — or of any further dividends that it might be made to pay. I’ve made my little pile. But it breaks my heart to see the Millionaire Anarchist get the paper — to sit here and determine the angle of each and every news story and editorial and cartoon published, to see the public swayed and misled by a cracked newspaper man with a distorted brain.”

  “I’m with you,” agreed the city and managing editor. The latter paused. “You have covered every possibility?”

  “Absolutely. A thousand dollars in detective agency fees and gratuities to various alleged friends and acquaintances of these two. They have quit Cleveland just in time to keep Duke Murphy from being knifed. The girl was a prime favorite in Little Italy there — and Duke knows that wherever he goes, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Black Hand will reach out and grab him. He knows it’s his move. Of course I’ve got my agencies in Cleveland waiting — watching various sources — and that is really all that can be done.” He shifted his position. “Well, Crosby, that is the history of my trip to Italy. I wanted you, old man, to know the underlying circumstances, for of course, if Reed Bardeen gets control of the paper, his own henchmen will be brought in to cover every desk and department, and you and the rest of the boys will be out. Hence, forewarned is forearmed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brayton. I respect your confidence. I’m going to take the optimistic viewpoint, however. After all, there’s as much chance for you to get the missing stock as Reed Bardeen; and if you do, his chances of making the Call a tool are over forever. No new paper he could start could ever be as dangerous or as effective as this strongly established daily.”

  Brayton nodded. “Precisely.” He took several ruminative puffs on his cigar. “Well, let us dismiss the unpleasant possibilities. Until the control of the Call is taken away from us, we are still newspaper men. And I for one have been long enough a hound on the trail to be thirsty for news. Tell me, Crosby, everything of a Chicago angle that has broken since I took the liner for Naples.”

  Crosby complied. Brayton listened attentively. Finally he asked:<
br />
  “By the way, what was the stuff which broke — just as I took the liner — about a man known as the Blonde Beast? The last paper I had seemed to show that this story, developing in New York, had moved westward toward Chicago.”

  “The Blonde Beast story,” declared Crosby, “fizzled out. Sorry as I am to say it, our best man, Jeff Darrell, not only had that story in his mitt, but almost had the capture of the Blonde Beast himself — and muffed it. But speaking of Jeff Darrell brings me first to a far more important thing before outlining what there was to the Blonde Beast story. I’d like to take it up with you before my man goes out on a story. He’s in the next room.” He leaned back. “Mr. Brayton, we’ve put over a neat deal while you’ve been gone. And I have some plans which I want to present to you that will add considerably to the Call’s standing.” He paused. “You will be surprised to learn that I have added to our staff Marvin Feldock of the San Francisco Despatch!”

  “Marvin Feldock! Feldock of the Frisco Despatch!” ejaculated Brayton. “You don’t mean it! Bully for you, Crosby. Marvin Feldock, the famous reporter-detective. Why, man, his stories and analyses of crime mysteries have been printed as far east as New York. I understand they’ve even been syndicated. How did you do it?”

  “Feldock came to a disagreement with the Despatch people over some trivial point, and left. His contract prevented him from joining any other paper west of the Rockies until two more years have elapsed; so he came to Chicago. The Despatch people gave him a good letter to me, although between the lines I could read the warning that he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with. Anyway, the famous Marvin Feldock is now one of the Call staff and at the same salary the Despatch was paying him. And now to cash in on it exactly as the Despatch has done. We have plenty of crimes and mysteries that break in this town in which a story written in the characteristic Feldockian style and an analysis of the situation, all run under his name, will be a headliner.”