He read down the sheet, and Benson listened with eyes intent but face dead and forever expressionless. Outstanding shares of stock, five hundred thousand, par one hundred. Plant and equipment — current debts — current liabilities — good will—
“Cash reserve on hand, fourteen million two hundred thousand dollars,” the banker finished.
“The size of the reserve,” said Benson, “puts the firm in a fine, sound spot, I’d say. Why is the stock so low, Carter?”
“It got started down with all the others listed on the board in the current recession,” the banker said. “No sense to it, any more than to the drop in other sound stocks. But it has been hammered down even lower by the French leave that seems to have been taken by some of the executives. I’d like to know something about that myself. Everybody in-money circles would.”
“There’s been a lot of the stock dumped at distress prices,” said Benson.
“Yes. But no one with sense should sell at the current quotations.”
“Mrs. Robert Martineau did.”
“Hysterical widow,” grunted Carter. “She probably got stampeded into selling by the continual dropping of the stock.”
“One more thing,” said Benson. “Could you tell me the names of the heaviest stockholders?”
“One of our customers’ men was with Carney & Buell for a while,” mused Carter. “I think he might know. Just a minute—”
Benson dropped more coins, and then Carter picked it up again:
“There are six, Dick. Lawrence Hickock, Mrs. Martineau, Stephen Vincent, John Lansing, Arnold Leon and Harry Andrews. But why all the curiosity? Have you some stock, too?”
“Just asking around,” said Benson expressionlessly.
“You fox! I’ll bet you plan to buy a lot low, and wait for a rise. If I had your money — When am I going to see you for a reunion?”
“Soon, I hope,” Benson said. “Thanks for the information, Carter. You’ll never know how much it has helped.”
He hung up. Six principal stockholders. Of the six, four were mysteriously missing — Hickock, Leon, Mrs. Martineau, and Vincent. That left two. A man named Harry Andrews — and John Lansing.
It was to Lansing’s home that Leon had been lured, just before his disappearance. It was to Lansing’s home that Hickock had gone, after a phone call from therein spite of the fact that Lansing was supposed to be in Florida at the moment.
Benson called the hotel. MacMurdie’s Scotch burr sounded.
“Mac, go to the home of Harry M. Andrews. See if he is there. I have reason to believe he’s on our mystery list, so he probably won’t be. But check and make sure.”
“Right,” said MacMurdie. “And then?”
“Report back to the hotel. I’m going there after I make a call myself.”
Benson’s call was at the Lansing home. Queer how that name had bobbed up so often. Benson had heard the name before ever this sinister mixed-up affair started. He had placed it now.
Lansing owned the Upstate Tool & Machinery Co., a company competing with Buffalo Tap & Die.
At the Lansing house, the repaired door told that the owner had gotten back home. And a moment later, in the vast library of the place, Lansing himself confirmed it.
“Wasn’t coming up from Florida all summer. I like the summers down there. But I had to come and see what all this silly business was about. Tap & Die? I own a lot of stock in that — but where do you come in on this?”
“You can just call me — a questioner,” Benson said evenly.
Lansing, a portly old gentleman with vague brown eyes, stared with a wary gaze.
“Investigator? Private detective?”
“You might call it that,” said Benson.
“You’re being confounded vague. Why should I answer any of your infernal questions?”
“Because it would look odd if you refused,” Benson rapped back. “Some queer things have happened at your house, Mr. Lansing. Are you thinking of selling your Tap & Die stock?”
Something — fear suspicion, alertness, what? — leaped into the man’s eyes.
“I may be,” he said evasively. “It’s down low, and seems to be going lower. No use losing more money than you have to.”
“What part of Florida were you in during the past six weeks?”
“West Palm Beach,” snapped Lansing. “You can check on that, if you like.”
There was a subtle wall going up between him and Benson. The gray-steel man with the pale-gray eyes knew he was done questioning. That is, he could keep on questioning, if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t get any more answers. At least, he had found out one thing.
Here was one, at least, of Tap & Die’s big stockholders who had not mysteriously vanished.
He went back to his hotel. At the entrance, an enterprising newsie was crying the latest edition. And this time a financial item had strayed from the rear of the paper to a small box on the front page.
Buffalo Tap & Die had dropped in the face of an otherwise rising market. Another large block of stock had been sold on the decline. It was rumored that Mr. John Lansing, just home from a sojourn in Florida, had sold.
Benson’s pale eyes glittered. Lansing had already disposed of his stock, at the very moment when he was telling him that he “might sell.”
The gray fox of a man went up to the suite — and the phone was ringing. A voice, in a whisper, greeted him.
“Thank Heaven, ye’re there.”
“Mac!” said Benson. “What’s wrong? Why are you talking so low? I can hardly hear you.”
“Trouble, mon,” whispered the Scot, over the miles of wire. “They’ve got me. Andrews’—”
The fine went dead, after Benson had heard a sort of gasp — and then a moan.
CHAPTER XIII
The Clue
Andrews’ home was modest for a man of his means. It was a large shingle bungalow at the dead end of a residence street, and cost a third of the sums that must have been spent on the other big homes around. It had extensive grounds, though, and was hidden from the road by shrubbery.
Benson glided among the bushes and trees in his silent, jaguar fashion. Mac in there — in desperate trouble of some sort!
At a glance, the house seemed to be vacant. All the shades were down against the dying sun. Not a soul could be seen—
But then Benson did see someone, and his pale, deadly eyes narrowed. A man had stepped furtively from around a corner of the house. The sly look of him, and the way he kept glancing around, told he was a guard — and a crook. Something was going on in that house which was not supposed to be interrupted.
Benson got out Mike, the unique, specially designed little revolver. He took the half-second aim of the sure marksman. There was a soft spat as Mike spoke in his usual silenced whisper.
And the man dropped, out for at least an hour.
Benson stole to the house and around to the rear. There was a heavy, blank door. He tried the knob, softly, and the door opened a fraction of an inch.
Benson paused there, hand on the knob, face as dead as a mask of white wax, but eyes flaming like ice in a colorless sun. Whoever was inside seemed to have placed a great deal of confidence in the guard, to leave the door unlocked. Or else the man had just stepped out for a look around and had not bothered to lock the door for the short time he meant to be out.
Benson went in. He made absolutely no sound as he went across the bare kitchen floor. You’d have thought he wasn’t quite touching the boards, but was floating an inch above them. He got to a swinging door and, after listening, went through that.
He entered the room fast, for on first opening the door he had gotten a glimpse of a chair leg — with a man’s leg roped to it!