newspaper.
Kane did not write featured stories or national news. Rather in the McIntyre tradition and manner, he sounded off daily about local personages, their fads and foibles. Though young, Kane was clever, and his widely read column was often delightfully humorous and interesting. He was certainly a popular and an obviously discreet newspaperman. His items were personal but never vicious, as currently seemed to be the fashion with certain braying and crusading columnists in eastern cities. Significant in a sense was his welcomed presence in the Back Room. It was to him that Starr addressed himself, after ordering from Mr. Grimes, the ubiquitous waiter.
“Bert, what’s the latest that the police should know about but probably don’t?” he asked with a smile.
Kane had paused in what he had been saying to the Senator, but before he could reply, a heavy laughing voice from across the table cut in on the interchange. The booming voice of Tiger Olsen, an ex-professional football player, now a used car salesman, cut in with: “Kane’s been giving us the lowdown on this guy, or woman, or whatever it is, who went to Denmark and had his marbles removed.” Olsen’s jolly laughter was infectious and brought out smiles all around the table.
Without letting him finish, the columnist chimed in, “Yeah, but get this for a laugh: At the Council meeting yesterday, the Commissioner started to discuss the suggestion that the city again operate ferries on the Bay. Well, some one loudly remarked that he would like to see more ferries on the Bay and fewer on the streets.”
The gentlemen were all amused at this story, though the football player evinced a slight disgust at the type of person indicated.
Tiger Olsen was the youngest of the Back Room group, and had been accepted for the past several years for rather unique reasons. The gentlemen had seldom included an athlete among the older and more professional members. But circumstances had been a bit different with Olsen, who was very popular in many parts of the city. A local boy, in his late teens he had become an outstanding football player and all-around athlete. Snatched up by a nearby university that could afford the best, he had justified their investment by becoming all-American and leading the school’s team to many heady victories. While many people would have doubted it, Tiger Olsen had never slighted his studies. He had, in fact, received his sheepskin with very creditable honors. However, almost simultaneously with the diploma, he’d also received an induction notice from Uncle Sam. This he neatly sidestepped by enlisting in the Marine Corps.
On his return to civilian life a few years later as Captain Olsen, and after a very spectacular service career, he was at once feted everywhere as Bay City’s most representative hero. Two or three seasons of professional football gave him enough of the game. This was followed by a series of positions and jobs, none of which ever seemed to come to much of anything. At present he represented a firm selling foreign cars.
Behind Olsen’s brash and rough surface manner was a good mind and a really pleasant, though actually shy, personality. Of late he had begun to worry about the future. Getting on towards thirty, he had a comfortable nest egg stashed away in the bank. He had hundreds of friends and acquaintances. It was known that a long series of women had enjoyed his company for varying lengths of time and with varying degrees of intimacy.
A psychiatrist would have sensed the inherent shyness of Tiger Olsen. He might have discovered that a good deal of this could have resulted from the name given him by his now deceased parents. The product of a tough neighborhood, he had successfully defended then discarded and lived down the name of Clarence. Very few persons knew the Tiger’s real name, and he very pointedly did not offer it. All in all, ran the general opinion, Tiger Olsen was quite a guy.
Another of the group, Joe Cannelli, a rather gross, middle-aged man who ostensibly operated a bar and restaurant, but who was considered by many to be one of the city’s leading gamblers, shrugged expressively, and with fair accuracy summed up the local opinion of sexually confused persons: “‘Live and let live,’ I always say.”
Kane laughingly put in: “You always say. But my little birdie tells me you’ve got a new bartender at your joint who’s very gay.”
The restaurateur pretended to be annoyed as he growled, “What the hell. The union sent him. Besides, he’s pretty.”
Here Captain Starr broke in. “Let me tell you a real funny story, and it happened only this morning. Do any of you remember the old Morley Agency? Old man Morley was one of the first in the city to have a private license.”
The attorney nodded. “I remember. He did some jobs for me once or twice. Very reliable. And a very decent old fellow.”
Kane interrupted, “Say, didn’t he die just last year?”
“That’s the fellow,” continued the plainclothesman. “Now it seems that he had some steady accounts, quite a sizeable business: skip-tracing, and stuff like that. The lawyers who handled his estate have kept the office open. Some old girl—Morley’s secretary for thirty years—has been running it, with some extra help now and then. Well, as I get the story, there was only one heir to whatever was left. They finally located him back East, and now he’s out here and is going to take over.”
“He in the business too?” queried Olsen. This brought a short laugh from the police officer. “Well, it all depends on what business you mean. He has ‘been in the theater,’ as he puts it, but it seems to me that he was actually a chorus man in a musical show.”
This brought further grins and laughter around the table.
“They say that some of those guys are all man,” volunteered the gruff cafe man.
“Not this one,” put in Starr. “He came in to get a license and a gun permit. A very pretty fellow with a roving eye. Of course, I could be wrong, but I think …”
“Don’t tell us that he made a pass at you, Captain,” wryly put in the poker-faced Senator, while more or less obviously looking over the officer’s very regular and very masculine features. This, and the Senator’s droll manner, brought more hilarious laughter from the group.
“How about it, Starr? Is it, or isn’t it?” asked Olsen.
Pausing speculatively before answering, the Captain said, “Hell, you can’t always tell these days. But when I asked this character what he needed a gun for, he just rolled his eyes, put his hand on his hip, tossed back his wavy hair and shrieked at me that he’d have a helluva time beating off some attacker with a mascara brush …”
Hattie Campbell—gray, angular, and efficiently smart—always arrived at the office early. Today in particular she felt that she must be on hand. The new owner, Mr. Francis Morley, was to take over actual charge. While the efficient Miss Campbell had been assured that she would have a place as long as there was an agency, she had an intuitive idea that her private preserve of many orderly years was about to be disrupted.
This new man, old Harry’s nephew, had been in and out several times; but the opportunity she had sought for a good, long, get-acquainted talk had just not materialized. Hattie hadn’t quite made up her mind whether she liked the young man anyway. After many years as a employee, and later office manager, of a detective agency, she was well aware of the “facts of life.” And in Bay City, home of the Arts, culture, bohemianism, and all of the several things that were meant by this last term—things mentioned only in joking—she knew only too well that the simple old classification of “men and women” simply didn’t cover the situation any longer.
About Francis Morley, she was puzzled. The guy had charm, manners, and a certain bubbling exuberance, but he was certainly not the man that Harry Morley had been. And who should know better than Hattie? For thirty years she had been secretary, assistant, mother, companion—everything, in fact, that she could be to Francis Morley’s uncle.
There had never been any question of romance for them, but a healthy respect and need for each other instead. The idea of