Dedication
To my most faithful readers
Ethel C. Biggle
and
Lloyd Biggle, Sr.
Copyright Information
Copyright 1966 by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
All rights reserved.
EBOOK EDITED BY KENNETH LLOYD BIGGLE
WITH THANKS TO DAVID DATTA
Chapter 1
Whistling gusts of wind drove swirling snow against the glass with a hard, rattling sound. Jan Darzek, watching from his office window, thought that New York City had never experienced a more unlovely snowstorm. The powdery granules ricocheted from the window, performed looping acrobatics at the wind’s whimsy, and dove to a moist and grimy doom in the slush churned up by crawling traffic.
Ed Rucks, staring moodily from the next window, demanded, “Why do people insist on driving automobiles into Manhattan?”
Darzek grinned at him. “If taxicabs weren’t extinct, I’d say you were talking like a cabdriver.”
“I’m serious. In this enlightened year of 1988, when our fair city is peppered with trans-locals, and a person can go from anywhere to anywhere at the drop of a half dollar—”
“You’re thinking of the automobile as a means of transportation,” Darzek told him. “It isn’t, except incidentally. Its chief function is play. People drive cars because they like to drive them.”
“In Manhattan, in a snowstorm?”
“Automobiles fulfill a very important psychological need. In an age when man is completely at the mercy of the machine, he must have one machine all his own that he can pretend he’s the master of. His ego demands it. So he drives a car.”
Rucks said doubtfully, “Well, maybe.”
“I take it that you think we’re stumped.”
“I know we’re stumped. I’ve never seen an accumulation of facts that added up to less.”
“I have,” Darzek said, “but I didn’t solve those cases, either.”
“Look,” Rucks said earnestly, “if you really want to identify these snoops, just turn Miss Schlupe loose on them. If she can’t find out who they are, they don’t exist.”
Darzek shook his head. “She’s a dear, and I don’t want anything to happen to her. If we get close to these people they may decide to play rough.”
“It’s them you should worry about. Honestly—Schluppy is the deadliest person I ever met. It’s her little-old-lady innocence that makes her so dangerous. People don’t believe it, even after it happens to them. Like on that Morris case. She gives the guy her cute little smile and says, ‘Excuse me, please.’ Then she breaks his arm. Anyway, these jerks don’t play rough. They’re darned curious about Jan Darzek, but in a very gentlemanly way.”
“Perhaps. But I’m keeping Schluppy out of it. Couldn’t you get anything more from Jake Ennoff?”
Rucks shook his head. “It was just a routine inquiry, and he gave it the routine treatment. He thought maybe you’d applied for a loan, or credit, or something.”
“Credit! I’ll buy that crummy building where he has his office and throw him out!”
“Well, he didn’t know you were a rich Universal Trans stockholder until his men turned in their reports. He was paid to investigate you; he investigated you. It didn’t occur to him to check on the guy that ordered the investigation. Jake would investigate his own mother, no questions asked, if anyone was willing to pay cash in advance for it. I’ll carry on if you want me to, but as far as I’m concerned it’s obtaining money under false pretenses. I’ve done everything I could think of, and everything you could think of, and we don’t know any more than we did the day I started.”
“All right, Ed. Give Miss Schlupe your time, and she’ll write you a check. When I need you again I’ll call you.”
Miss Schlupe came in a few minutes later. She carefully rearranged an unruly lock of graying hair while she peered at him doubtfully over her spectacles. “Couldn’t they find out anything at all?”
Darzek shook his head. “They narrowed the field a little. Three of our unknowns were men from out-of-town detective agencies. Someone paid a lot of money for a full-scale blitz on Jan Darzek. I wonder if he got what he wanted.”
“What about Able-Baker-Charlie-Dog?”
“Those four are as anonymous as they were the day we first spotted them. It seems incredible that a dozen good men could investigate them for two weeks without learning a thing, but that’s what happened. Maybe they’re supernatural. They never go home; they just vanish.”
“They may have been lucky.”
“I doubt it. Not for two weeks. The fact is that the trans-locals make it almost impossible to tail anyone in New York City. Well, I have two choices left. Either I hire a private army and go after them in a big way, or I ignore them.”
“You might try to kidnap one of them. I know a museum custodian. He’d loan us a thumbscrew overnight.”
Darzek smiled. “They really haven’t done anything except spend a lot of time and money investigating me. Maybe I should be flattered.” He turned to the window and looked dreamily at the wind-whipped snow. “Is there a Universal Trans terminal in Tahiti?”
Miss Schlupe sniffed. “You vacation more than you work. Sometimes I think you vacation when you work.”
“That’s because you don’t leave anything for me to do.”
“Mrs. Arnold called. She wants you for dinner on Sunday.”
“I already have an engagement.”
“Oh, dear! Have I goofed again? There wasn’t anything on the calendar.”
“I just thought of it. A friend in Samarkand has misplaced his toupee. He wants me to help him look for it”
Miss Schlupe giggled. “Is Mrs. Arnold matchmaking again?”
“Her cousin is visiting her,” Darzek said gloomily. “The Arnolds had me over to meet her, without any warning to either of us, before the poor girl had time to unpack her bags. The way married people keep trying to marry off their friends is incontrovertible proof of the venerable adage that misery loves company.
“It isn’t Mrs. Arnold’s fault. A man who’s as handsome as you are has no business being a bachelor. Blame your blue eyes and your curly blond hair and your broad shoulders. Any woman who doesn’t try to marry you off is a traitress to her sex. Anyway, you shouldn’t talk like that. I know lots of people who are happily married.”
“You do not. You know lots of people who seem happily married, but mere histrionics can’t disguise the fact that the state of matrimony has two basic flaws: husbands and wives. Every male has an innate talent for being a deplorable husband. Females match this with a truly astonishing aptitude for being wretched wives. What the human race needs is a third sex, neuter, with a boundless domestic capacity. Then either of the present sexes could marry it and be happy. If you think so highly of matrimony, why is it that you never married?”
“A Mr. Smith telephoned for an appointment. He wouldn’t say what he wanted.”
“Don’t change the subject. Why is it that you never married?”
“Nobody ever asked me,” Miss Schlupe said sadly. “Mr. Smith is on his way now.”
“From where?”
“He didn’t say.”
Darzek smiled. “John Smith?”
“I didn’t think to ask.”
“If his business brings him out in this weather, it must be urgent.