Peggy batted her eyes and turned her most charming manner on Mrs. Maxwell, the apartment-house manager.
“I certainly hope you don’t think I’m too ghoulish, Mrs. Maxwell, but, after all, a girl has to live.”
Mrs. Maxwell nodded almost imperceptibly, studying her visitor through narrowed eyes around which pools of flesh had been deposited so that the eyes seemed to be about half normal size. Her hair had been dyed a brilliant orange-red, and her cheeks had been rouged too heavily.
“Apartments are so hard to get,” Peggy went on, “and, of course, I read in the paper about Stella Lynn’s unfortunate death. So I know that the apartment is untenanted, and I know that you’re going to have to rent it. Some people might be superstitious about moving into an apartment of that sort, but I definitely am not, and, well, I thought I’d like to be the first applicant.”
Again the nod was all but imperceptible.
“I’m not too well fixed,” Peggy said. “I’m an honest working girl, and I don’t have any — protector — in the background, but I do have fifty dollars saved up that I’d planned to use as a bonus in getting exactly the right kind of apartment. If this apartment suits me, since I wouldn’t have any need for the bonus, I’ll give it to you in gratitude for the personal inconvenience of showing me the apartment.”
This time the nod of the head was definitely more pronounced, then Mrs. Maxwell said, “My hands are tied right at the moment.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t get in to show the apartment.”
“Oh, surely you have a key—”
“The police have put a seal on both doors, front and back. They’ve been looking for fingerprints—”
“Fingerprints!” Peggy exclaimed. “What do they expect to find out from fingerprints?”
“I don’t know. They’ve put powder over the whole apartment. They’ve ordered me to keep out. They’ve sealed up the doors so they can’t be opened without breaking the seal.”
“Well, you can tell me about the apartment?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How about milk?”
“Milk can be delivered at the back.”
“And the collection of garbage and cans?”
“There are two receptacles, one for cans and glass, one for garbage. The garbage is collected every other day, the cans and glass twice a week. The tenant has to deposit the material in receptacles on the ground floor in the back.”
“I believe this apartment is on the fifth floor,” Peggy said.
“That’s right.”
“I have to walk down five flights of stairs to—”
“Four flights, dearie.”
“Well, four flights of stairs to deposit cans and garbage?”
“I’m sorry. There isn’t any dumbwaiter service.”
“May I take a look at the back stairs?”
“Certainly. Just go through that door at the end of the corridor. Look around all you want, dearie.”
When the going got tough, Peggy Castle sometimes appealed for help to her Great-uncle Benedict.
Benedict Castle had lived a highly checkered career. One of Peggy’s earliest memories was of hearing the mellifluous voice of Uncle Benedict reminiscently extolling the virtues of Benedict’s Body Builder.
“... Not a chemical, ladies and gentlemen, that tries to achieve health by whipping the worn glands, the tired muscles, the jaded nerves to greater and greater effort until finally the whole machine breaks down, but a tonic, ladies and gentlemen, that helps Mother Nature renew worn glands, create new cells, build new muscles, and make new blood. Now, who’s going to be the first to get one of these bottles of B.B.B., offered tonight not at the regular price of ten dollars, not even at the half price of five dollars, not at the special advertising introductory price of two dollars and a half, but at the ludicrously low price of one dollar! Only one dollar to build the body into renewed health!”
That had been 20 years before. Peggy, four years old, had been an orphan — too young to appreciate the tragedy that had deprived her of both father and mother — an orphan picked up and raised as their own child by Uncle Benedict and Aunt Martha.
The days of the patent medicine vender had long passed, but Uncle Benedict loved to review the patter he had used in his prime, the patter that had enabled him to travel around, living, as he expressed it, “on the fat of the yokels.” It was before the days of Federal Trade Commission supervision, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the income tax.
Uncle Benedict had had a horse-drawn van that by day served as living quarters and laboratory, at night opened to provide a stage on which his magic fingers performed feats of sleight of hand while his magic tongue brought in a steady stream of silver coins on which there was no income tax and no necessity to account to anyone.
No one knew how much Uncle Benedict took in. He went where he wished, did what he wished, and spent his money as he wished.
When the patent medicine business began to die, other infinitely more lucrative fields opened up. It was the era of mining stock and the wildcat oil speculator. Gradually Uncle Benedict drifted into a gang of clever sharpshooters, a gang in which Uncle Benedict was referred to as “The Sleeper.” Never was there another man who could put on such a convincing act of sleeping while his ball-bearing mind was working out plans for fleecing suckers.
Uncle Benedict was at his best in the club car of a transcontinental train. He’d sit down, drink a beer, then Int. his head droop forward in gentle audible slumber. People sitting next to him would discuss their business affairs with enough detail so that Uncle Benedict could figure out the correct approach.
Then Uncle Benedict would give a convulsive nod, a rather loud snore, waken with such evident embarrassment and look around him with such a panic-stricken apology for his snoring that the whole careful of people would spontaneously break into laughter.
After that Uncle Benedict was right at home.
Some ten years before, twinges of pain had announced the coming of arthritis. Gradually the long slender fingers that had been able to deal cards so convincingly from the bottom of the deck, or pick pockets with such consummate skill that a wallet could be lifted, carefully examined, and returned to its proper place, all without the sucker’s having the faintest idea that he had been “cased” — gradually the nimble fingers began to thicken at the joints.
Now Uncle Benedict, confined to a wheel chair, dozed through the twilight of life, his mind as keenly active as ever, and even Martha, his wife, was unable to tell when his dozing was genuine slumber or when he was merely keeping his old act in practice.
Those who had known Uncle Benedict never forgot him. His friends worshipped the ground he walked on. It was a matter of police record that on three occasions suckers whom he had fleeced had refused to prosecute, stating publicly that they valued their brief companionship with Uncle Benedict far more than the money that he had taken from them.
One of his victims had even gone so far as to place an ad in the personal column reading: Dear Benedict, Come home. All is forgiven. We like you even if it did cost us money...
Not even Martha knew the ramifications of Uncle Benedict’s connections. With a photographic memory for names, faces, and telephone numbers, Uncle Benedict kept no written memoranda. From time to time he would arouse himself from what seemed to be a sound sleep, send his wheel chair scurrying across to the telephone, dial a number, and give cryptic instructions. Occasionally men came to the house, men who regarded Uncle Benedict’s slightest word as law, men who shook hands very gently so as not to bring pain to the thickened joints, men who left envelopes containing crisp green currency.