“Racketeers,” she sniffed. “Cheap ones, too, and how he loathed the type! Unless it was you?”
“I appreciate the suspicion,” he said dryly. “Has somebody a bequest, or dug up the story of how he made his first fifty thousand?”
“Somebody,” she stated, “used his departure to swindle me out of fifteen dollars and forty-two cents.”
“Why, forty-two cents?” Chip asked.
“Special handling. It was a Parcel Post — C.O.D.”
“Oh, one of those,” he muttered. “They sent him a letter that they’d picked up an unclaimed package addressed to him and thought it might be important. And you wrote back to send it immediately?”
“It’s passing strange that you know the details so intimately,” she crackled.
“Well,” he grinned, “it’s a pretty old con game. They used to send C.O.D.’s directly to the obituary list, but the Federals stepped on that. Now they have to get a written order, but the departed person’s relatives usually ask for delivery if the sum involved is not too great. It still turns out expensive for a pair of cheap slippers or a ten cent pen.”
“I must say, you are well informed,” she commented. “I suppose you’d call on the Fifth Amendment if I asked you to do something about it?”
He said cautiously, “I don’t mind the nuisance of trailing them down, but the case will be dismissed, even if I get them into court.”
“Who said anything about court?” she barked. “I’m simply sure that if common swindlers can think of a trick that foul, you’ll think of something more so, and I want them whamied.”
“I am a licensed private eye,” he pointed out.
“You’re an evil eye,” she corrected. “And I want these tricksters chastised.”
Aunt Tilly hung up, sharply, before he could remonstrate. So that was that! She had stated what she wanted, and when a million dollar aunt said she wanted something done, you did it. The question was — what? He should have lured an idea out of her. She had a very lively imagination herself, as she must have had to hook his departed, skinflint uncle.
He mixed another drink, picked up the evening paper and stretched out on the couch to check the day’s obituaries. If it had been a three dollar C.O.D. involved, his job would have been relatively easy. The con artists would have sent out a form letter to the entire list of departed.
But if they were working the fifteen dollar bracket, they had to make their sucker list selective. A workman’s family might be more sentimental about his passing than more substantial folk. But it would think twice about parting with fifteen dollars for some unknown doodad that he’d supposedly ordered. A fifteen dollar swindle would be among the upper crust.
It was a loathesome but safe racket for the swindlers, of course. C.O.D.’s cannot be opened for inspection before the C.O.D. charge is paid. Even when hooked with a ten cent pen or some other trivial item, few people in grief and mourning would do anything about it. Even if they grew incensed, there was little that they could do legally. The delivery had been ordered by some member of the family in writing, and the original letter from the swindlers had stated that the contents of the package was not known.
Occasionally, the feather merchants hit the eighty and ninety dollar brackets, just short of grand larceny. But fifteen dollars was a smarter sum. More suckers bit, fewer made trouble, and ten or twenty of those deals a day provided a nice profit for the time it took to write the original letters.
But — it was one helluva sum from Chip Stack’s standpoint. It meant looking up the addresses of the day’s deceased in various ways to select those living in more expensive sections of the city. Many of the more elite were not listed in the phone book. He had to search them through the Social Register or Poor’s list of executives, and in one case, a church director’s manual.
“The things I do for my country!” Stack growled as he faced the task. But then, there was almost nothing that he would not do for million dollar Aunt Tilly.
He completed his list and sat there frowning at it. Something ghoulish about preying off the dead. Personally, he preferred the living, such as well rounded, mink-stealing, strawberry blondes.
The swindlers were easy enough to figure. They would probably wait three days after an obit to pull their racket. That would bring their letter of inquiry to the family on the fourth or fifth day, after the worst of the grief had subsided. It would probably bear some faked letterhead such as — The National Unclaimed Package Recovery Service. They’d have a mail address somewhere, which they’d change every few weeks as a routine precaution against some old style citizen whose outrage might burst his due regard for the laws that protect crooks and creeps.
On the fourth day, Stack took his preferred list from the file and began to phone. The first two calls were answered by butlers. All mail addressed to the deceased was being forwarded to the estate lawyers they, said, so that eliminated them. The next call was answered by the very cool and aloof voice of a social secretary.
She was not at all impressed that he identified himself as Detective Stack. Her tone implied that, there could not possibly be anything for a detective to phone about, and even if there were, he should await a period of decent mourning. As far as the deceased’s mail was concerned, she could scarcely see that it was any of his business whether or not there had been any C.O.D’s. But as a matter of fact, there had been a letter from a reclaiming service.
She had the letter at hand, and so could read him the usual glib explanation. It was addressed to the deceased. It stated that the Service had located a package mis-addressed to the deceased, contents unknown, but the charge amounted to $14.50, plus postage. If the merchandise was still desired, the Service would forward it for the sum involved upon written authorization.
“Naturally, the family will accept it,” the secretary informed Stack coolly. “Although it is strange that it would be a C.O.D.”
Then she recollected that Stack had said he was a detective. “There isn’t something peculiar about it?”
“Well, to this extent. We think it is an item worth about ten cents. However, with your cooperation, we’d like to have you send for it.”
The cool voice snapped indignantly, “Why, the very idea! Pay fourteen dollars and fifty cents for a ten cent item?”
Stack winced, but had to make the gesture. “I will be happy to reimburse you.”
“Oh!” the voice murmured less icily. “Very well, as soon as I receive your money order, I will instruct this company to send it. I will let you know when it arrives.”
“Perfect,” Stack said and hung up with a sour face. She hadn’t even suggested a personal check. Money order, she’d said. There was something about rich people and money — they stuck together like fly paper.
He got out his American Express checks and mailed the requisite amount, wondering what the cool secretary would say if, handling costs ran eight cents over. Then he re-examined the pen that his Aunt Tilly had been swindled for. Just a ten cent piece of junk, the kind of ballpoint that was sold by the hundred at any surplus mail order house.
He recalled that the first cheap ones had been made out of WW II surplus ballbearings and tubing, and supposed that the practice might still be existent. Some of the small, fringe manufacturers would find a way to make something out of a pig’s squeal, if it showed a ten cent profit on a gross.
Five days later, the social secretary was considerate enough to phone. She sounded a little more cordial. “You were right. It’s a cheap pen that Mr. Satterlee never would have ordered. Shall I mail it to you?”
“If it’s convenient, I’ll stop by for it,” he said. “There’s a little urgency to catch the birds before they’ve flown.”