Banking on Death

by Emma Lathen

  She stared at him in frank surprise, then made a note, and said, “You mean you want to know what planes started flying. That is, where they were going and all that.”

  “Yes,” he said, trying to think of some reasonable explanation for his interest.

  “My brother is a repairman for Northwest Airlines. I’ll call him and ask what’s the best way to find all this out.” To Claire Todd, most of the requests beyond simple typing that she had encountered at the Sloan verged on the bizarre; this was no odder. Ken stared for a moment, and then started down the hall, when she added, “Is it all right if I have to call Boston?”

  “O.K.”

  The second chore done—and not with his own hands. This did not remove responsibility, but it served to modify it somewhat. Nevertheless, Ken profoundly hoped that Jane Schneider never found out that he had checked her alibi. He also hoped that Logan Airport had been closed tighter than a drum all through the cursed night of Friday the thirteenth.

  He realized that he had not been successful in keeping Jane Schneider from interrupting his work, and on the trip down in the elevator concentrated on not thinking about her to such an extent that he made his mind a perfect blank.

  “High-hatting your old friends, I see,” he heard someone saying as the metal doors glided open at the main floor. Turning, he saw John Calderone disappearing toward the Accounting Department. “Wake up, Nicolls!” he muttered as he braced himself for the plunge into the stream of humanity flowing outside the Sloan’s glass doors. And during his three-block walk to Waymark-Sims, he pushed his way in a very determined fashion past the crowds that hesitated on corners.

  In Arnie Berman’s office, he realized that it might have been more efficient to concentrate on a story for Arnie that might explain the Sloan’s snooping into Martin Henderson’s affairs. “It’s like this, Arnie,” he began untruthfully. “This Henderson is one of the heirs to a trust that we administer. His co-heirs are minors.”

  Berman nodded his bald head understandingly. Ken went on, “Well, the story’s this. Some funny business had come up—about dissolving the trust, that is, and the kids—they’re young boys—make us feel a little uneasy.”

  Again Berman nodded. Ken continued, “So, we want to find out a little more about Martin Henderson’s affairs, without setting up any formal checks. And since he’s a customer of yours, I thought that maybe you could fill me in on some of the detail.” It was a lame finish.

  “I see it all,” Berman said, in measured tones. “The Sloan wants to know all about this guy’s business with Waymark-Sims—all his stock and bond movements for the last six months, which is a breach of professional confidence. And, the Sloan doesn’t want to tell me why. Right?”

  Ken flushed under the older man’s sardonic gaze. “I’m not as stupid as I look,” Berman continued mildly. “But of all the stories! My Lord, it would be a damn funny thing if the Sloan had to come to Waymark to find out about a man’s business affairs.”

  “Arnie,” Ken began.

  “What’s the matter with you? In love or something,” Arnie selected a cigar then pushed the box across his desk to Nicolls. “Now what do you really want to know?”

  Ken told him. He nodded then said, “Well, I have most of it here. Henderson’s been riding pretty high. Started out with about $35,000, in Raytheon. Got out at the high about a year ago with a tidy profit, went into Thiokol and Hertz, with some Ford. He was doing all right.” He looked up at the intent Nicolls. “Then, he committed suicide.”

  “What?”

  “He started getting smart. Convertible debentures. Buying bonds with bank money. He started pyramiding; put up twenty dollars and got the banks to lend him eighty to a hundred dollars. He had about $70,000 of his own—and by working in convertible debentures, he could play with over $300,000.”

  Ken frowned in concentration. “But Waymark-Sims wouldn’t do that for him, would it?”

  “Not for a million dollars,” Arnie said. “We wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. No, what happened was that Martin took the profits that we made for him out—or almost all—we still hold a little Remington-Rand and Fairchild for him. At any rate he took his marbles over to Amos Grant—they do these collateral loans, you know. I met Bill Staley who told me all about it.”

  “You mean that Henderson took all his profits, and started borrowing to build a roll to play around with convertible debentures,” Ken said.

  “Well, he could have gone into the commodity market,” Arnie said sarcastically.

  “It’s a good way to make a lot of money,” the trust officer in Ken admitted, “and lose it. I wish we could find out what he bought,” he added in a cautious tone of voice.

  Arnie eyed him tolerantly. “Well, my friend, so long as we don’t have any more fairy stories about little kids and the Sloan, I’ll be good to you. I called Bill just after you called this morning.”

  Ken leaned forward eagerly. Arnie blew a lazy smoke ring, smiled blandly, then said, “He put half into Firestone convertibles, and the other half into IT&T. Some $300,000, altogether.”

  “My Lord!” Ken exclaimed. He did some rapid mental calculations. “He made a fortune.” It certainly was more than enough to explain the Waverly Place apartment.

  “Right,” Berman agreed. “But, having learned how to make money easier and faster than the professionals, he went on.”

  “And?”

  “And put damn near a half a million dollars into Stevens Tools, International Fruit, and Collins Chemicals.”

  “Into the bonds?” Ken said, incredulously.

  “Into the bonds,” Arnie said. Both men fell silent. In his mind’s eye, Ken could see the weekly bulletins that Walter Bowman prepared for the trust officers; at the bottom, was a list of what the Research Department thought were the least desirable stocks in the market. On this select roster, Collins Chemicals and Stevens Tools had appeared with regularity. Ken knew that International Fruit had lost twelve points in the last month.

  “And that’s the stock price,” he thought aloud.

  “Yes indeed,” Arnie said in satisfied tones. “And with the bond price pegged to the stock price ..., “and he paused before continuing, “And with somebody else footing over 80 per cent of the price ..." as he tapered off with a grin at Ken.”

  “Wow!” said Ken inadequately.

  “He’s had a call on the Stevens Tools already. And both Collins and International Fruit are damn near it. The banks will sell him out unless he can raise enough to bring his collateral up to what it was.”

  Ken nodded in agreement. “We don’t think that those stocks have much of a chance.”

  “They don’t.” Arnie regarded the lengthening cigar ash, delicately tapped it into the ashtray, and then commented. “If he gets through the next two weeks without doing anything worse than losing every cent he’s got in the market, he’ll be lucky. I hope he’s got a lot of money somewhere.”

  Ken knew that he owed the good-natured Berman some information; he produced a suitably expurgated version of the Sloan’s real interest in Martin.

  “My Lord!” said Arnie Berman. “Murder.” He thought for a while. “I always did distrust those elegant boys. He was in here one day last fall wearing a silk vest.”

  They agreed that a man who wore silk vests was capable of almost anything. As he made his way back to the Sloan, Ken thought of his interviews with Martin Henderson at the Pavilion and the apartment on Waverly Place. That languid, cosmopolitan air hid not only a Framingham, Massachusetts, background, but what must be a desperate concern about money. It had been very deceptive and effective indeed.

  “The information’s on your desk,” Miss Todd said as he entered the office.

  “What information?” he asked, momentarily blank. “Oh yes, Logan.” Jane’s uncle had indeed put Jane out of his mind.

  He picked up the neatly typed schedule, studied it for a moment, and then, with no change of expression, reached for the phone.

  “Mr. That
cher free for a moment, Miss Corsa?”

  “Let me check, Mr. Nicolls”

  “Thatcher here.”

  Ken told John Thatcher about Martin’s financial hole.

  “I thought so,” Thatcher said. “More or less inevitable that he’d be a fool, but I didn’t think that he’d be that big a fool.”

  “No, sir,” Ken replied.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Thatcher,” Ken replied. “And the other thing. You were right about Logan.”

  “What about Logan?”

  “About its being open. They closed it down from seven in the evening until two in the morning. Then they got two runways cleared, and three planes got out for Chicago and the West Coast. By that morning planes from the west were landing.”

  There was silence on Thatcher’s end of the line; Ken went doggedly on. “That means that it is possible—remotely possible—that Jane Schneider could have flown from Boston to Buffalo and back. Her alibi is worthless.”

  There was an explosion—apparently of laughter; “Good Lord, Nicolls, will you stop acting like a moonstruck calf.”

  “Well, I didn’t really ...” he began.

  “Now stop this nonsense about the girl,” Thatcher interrupted. “That’s very interesting about Martin Henderson.” He paused a moment in thought, then went on. “You’d better come in to see me after lunch. I think it’s time that I get out to Buffalo. Today or tomorrow.” He rang off somewhat abruptly and once again Ken sat at his desk. Drawing stars on a pad of paper. This time, he was interrupted by the shrill of the phone.

  “A Miss Schneider to talk to you, Mr. Nicolls.”

  “Put her on, Miss Todd.”

  “Ken, is that ...”

  “Jane ... Jane, darling...”

  In the outer office, Clare Todd replaced the receiver with, “I told you so,” as she congratulated herself.

  Chapter 15

  Regulatory Agencies

  By Tuesday afternoon John Thatcher was pursuing his inquiries at the Buffalo Club. The Buffalo Club may be an unlikely place to investigate the death of a man whose head has been bashed in, but it is an extremely reasonable place to discover a good deal about Buffalo Industrial Products Corporation, or, in fact, almost any American profit-making institution. In its hushed, opulent reading room, therefore, John Thatcher found himself engaged in measured conversation with Bryant Cottrell, the Vice-President of the First National Bank of Buffalo who had acted as liaison with the Sloan Trust Department for thirty years. Cottrell spoke with the caution that made him so eminently well suited to bank and trust work. The fireplace cast waves of heat through the room, with an occasional cascade of embers lighting the shadowy corner in which the two men sat over their drinks. Outside, passers-by walked head down into the wind from Lake Erie that was whipping fat snowflakes onto the already deep snow that banked Delaware Avenue. John Thatcher felt sleepy.

  “Not that we have much information on Schneider,” Cottrell was saying. He frowned disapprovingly.

  “Yes, I had gathered that,” Thatcher said somewhat acidly; he had already spent an hour in conference with Cottrell; adjourning to the Buffalo Club had improved the locale without materially speeding the pace of the conversation.

  “Nevertheless,” Cottrell continued, “unless something unforeseen—quite unforeseen—occurs, it seems that Schneider’s wife and children will stand to inherit some 10 per cent of the outstanding stock in Buffalo Industrial Products.”

  “How much is it worth?” Thatcher asked.

  Cottrell took his glasses off and began to polish them in a deliberate, obviously routine gesture of temporization.

  “We really don’t know exactly. There hasn’t been any immediate reason to request inspection of the BIP accounts until Robert Schneider’s estate is settled.”

  Thatcher’s growing impatience, however, was noted and Cottrell deemed it wise to unbend: “Weissman and Weissman—they’re the lawyers for Michaels, you know, and they handle all the firm’s business—have told me, quite unofficially, that the Schneider share is in the neighborhood of $60,000.” He reached for his glass and took a sip of sherry. “Of course, now that the firm is going public and planning a very considerable expansion, this will grow very substantially.” He permitted a frosty look of approval to cross his face. “Very substantially,” he repeated.

  “And have you been in contact with Mrs. Schneider about a lawyer?”

  “Certainly not, Thatcher. She maintains no account with us, and we have no interest ...”

  “I want her to have good advice,” Thatcher interrupted.

  Bryant Cottrell looked as though he would like to remonstrate. “Yes,” he said. “You told us. I’ve spoken with Linkworth, but you’ll have to clear it with Mrs. Schneider. I’m not quite sure that I really approve of using the bank’s counsel this way.”

  John Thatcher’s attention appeared focused upon the fireplace. “I am not sure that I approve either,” he murmured.

  Cottrell shook his head slightly; he was not comfortable with business associates he could not tyrannize, but he knew full well that it would be useless and foolish to try to dictate to a Senior Vice-President of the Sloan. He was about to voice a mildly phrased caution, when Thatcher again addressed him. “Of course, what I really want to do is to find out more about Robert Schneider. I take it that you haven’t been able to find out much about him.”

  “Only the information that the police made public.”

  “Yes, of course, the police. I spoke to Captain Self, you know.” Thatcher knew that he was being deliberately provoking: Cottrell was the kind of man who would dislike being associated with the police simply on principle.

  “Oh,” he said in place of the admonitory lecture he would have liked to deliver.

  “What I really would like,” said Thatcher, “is a long talk with this Self. And I don’t need you to tell me that that’s out of the question.”

  Surprisingly Bryant Cottrell, again polishing his glasses, looked up. “I don’t see why,” he said calmly. “Not at all impossible. If you want to talk to anybody on the Buffalo Police Force, Thatcher, I think that we can arrange it. In fact I know that we can arrange it. Mind you, I don’t say that I advise it, but I certainly can arrange a meeting.”

  “You surprise me, Cottrell,” Thatcher said truthfully. “I should have thought that the First National would be too rarefied to have police contacts.”

  “It is. I, however, am a regular contributor to the Election Fund of the Western New York State Republican Party. And have been for a good many years.”

  “Buffalo isn’t a Republican stronghold is it?”

  “Far from it. Erie County, however, is.”

  “And you can get cooperation? Tell me, Cottrell, do you look upon your political activities as an investment in professional ... no, don’t answer that. I think that the less I know about this, the better.”

  Cottrell permitted himself a thin, triumphant smile. “I think perhaps that you’re right. Will you excuse me for a moment while I make a phone call?”

  So, instead of dining in East Aurora with the Cottrells, John Thatcher found himself that evening sitting in a small cheerful restaurant across the booth from Captain Peter Self. Taxiing out what appeared to be the whole length of Delaware Avenue to make the appointment, he had been pleased with the turn of events. Now, however, as he did something less than justice to an excellent steak, he found himself wondering how the man sitting across from him felt.

  Peter Self was resigned. Less placid men might have felt hot resentment at being called away from a rare evening at home by the mayor’s office and instructed to cooperate with “a New York big shot” who was obviously meddling in what did not concern him, but Self looked upon this as one of the occupational hazards of being a policeman. He was waiting, somewhat guardedly, for the first suggestion of a fix to explain that no matter how high and mighty the Sloan was, it couldn’t cover a murder. But until that proved necessar
y, he was prepared to discuss the Schneider murder case in fairly frank detail; he knew, as the mayor’s office knew, and as Bryant Cottrell knew, that this meeting was so far off the record, that for all practical purposes it was not taking place. He signaled the waiter for another beer.

  “No, the papers aren’t giving it any more play,” he said. “In a way, it’s a good thing. They were just about driving that wife of his crazy.” He looked at Thatcher. “She’s your client, isn’t she?”

  “Not exactly, Captain Self. We are acting for her sons, who have become heirs to their grandfather’s trust. But actually we have no real interest in the question of criminal proceedings.”

  Seeing that Self looked somewhat puzzled, Thatcher tried to explain. “The real truth is that I have been very much worried by the whole setup. A man who stands to inherit something like $100,000 disappears for years. Then, just as we succeed in tracing him—” Thatcher smiled inwardly at the grandeur of his euphemism—”we find he has been murdered. It doesn’t feel right to me. I want to be very sure that the Sloan isn’t being used—as party to fraud, if nothing else.”

  Self nodded in comprehension. He was fair-minded enough to see that if he were a trustee, he too, under the circumstances, might develop an unbanker-like interest in murder. Thatcher continued: “Then it appears that the other heirs to the trust all thought that they would stand to benefit considerably if Robert Schneider died. If nothing else, we want to free them from the, ah, taint of suspicion. And, of course, protect the interests of the boys.”

  “We checked them all out after you got in touch with us,” Self volunteered. “It was more a matter of routine than anything else, because we’ve got plenty here in Buffalo to keep us interested. Arthur Schneider was in the Mayflower in Washington at one-thirty, so that lets him out. The other one ...”

  “Martin,” prompted Thatcher. “Martin Henderson.”

  “Well, we don’t seem to have any verification of his alibi, but we don’t have any verification for most of our alibis. That damn blizzard.”