“You, you’re a hold-up man!” cried Karl Becker. “You want our money. I don’t keep none here. I only got six-seven dollars in the whole house.”
He looked sidewise at the others in the room, but his anxiety did not seem to lessen.
“I’ll bet you’re Karl Becker!” said the big gunman. “I heard about you. You’d sell the gold in your mother’s false teeth. Well, Becker, I’ll take your six-seven dollars for cigarette money, but that ain’t why I came up here to the North Pole. I guess you know that, don’t you, Becker?”
Karl Becker’s teeth chattered. “Uh — uh, I don’t know.”
“You got some foxes out there,” said the gunman. “Maybe you got some skins, too. I like fox skins. Louis, here, does too. We read about you in the newspaper a while ago; so we thought we would come and see you and maybe take along a few pelts.”
“Och Gott!” cried Becker.
Quade whistled. “This is going to be sad,” he said to Charlie Boston.
The gunman had sharp ears. He heard.
“Ain’t it though?” he said.
Olga Larsen contributed her silver fox vocabulary. “Silver foxes, Mr. Becker? You raise them? I have always meant to buy a beautiful silver fox coat.”
“If you’ve got the money to lay on the line,” said the gunman, “I’ll sell you a few pelts, Miss.”
The swarthy gunman nudged his bigger partner. “Hey, Willie, dat dame, I know her. I seen her somewhere.”
Willie looked hard at Olga Larsen. “Yeah, Louie, I have too. Sister, what’s your name?”
Ben Slade couldn’t contain his managerial pride. “This is Olga Larsen,” he announced.
“Olga Larsen!” gasped Louis. “The ice skater!”
“Movie star,” murmured Willie. He looked in awe at Olga Larsen. “Lady, I seen you in Queen of the Ice. You wasn’t bad, not bad at all.”
“Thank you,” said Olga frigidly.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Willie. “I don’t mind telling you you’re good. Me, I’m good in my own line, too. I always like to meet people who are tops in what they’re doing.”
“You’re Willie Scharnhorst, aren’t you?” Quade asked.
Willie inhaled. “Yeah, sure, but look, pal, I don’t like the Willie stuff from strangers. Call me Bill, and we’ll get along.”
“Willie Scharnhorst,” cut in Boston, “he’s the guy who snatched that butter and egg man down in St. Louis, ain’t he?”
“Now, now,” chided Scharnhorst, “you mustn’t believe all the papers say. They say I did it, and I ain’t saying I didn’t. I ain’t saying I did, either. Anyway, he didn’t shell out.”
“Aw, cut it!” groused Louie. “We didn’t come here to tell everyone our business. We came to do something; let’s do it and get out of here.”
“Yeah,” said Scharnhorst, “the fox pelts. Break them out, Becker.”
“Vot do you mean, break them out?” cried Becker. “They are out, out there on the foxes. It’ll take two weeks to get them off.”
“You wouldn’t fool me, Becker,” jeered Scharnhorst. “You finished pelting your animals two days ago, and somewhere around here you got three or four thousand skins all ready for me to load up into my truck outside.”
Becker groaned. “Thirty-two hundred pelts! A year’s income! Och, why did I ever go into this foolishness business!”
“To make money, you tight-fisted Dutchman!” said Scharnhorst.
Quade grinned. Scharnhorst was as much of a Dutchman as Becker. The newspapers’ pet term for him was “The Mad Dutchman.”
Becker threw up his hands. “The skins are out in the drying sheds.”
“You mean I got to go around and bale them up?” Scharnhorst frowned.
“Not if you don’t want to,” cut in Quade. “If you’ll leave your name and address, we’ll be glad to pack them up and ship them to you.”
“Wise guy!” said Scharnhorst. He turned to his pal, Louie. “Well, Louie, it’s going to be a little harder than we figured, but for a hundred and fifty grand, we don’t mind doing a little work, do we?”
“How much work?” asked Louie.
Scharnhorst grinned. “You heard him say the pelts are in the drying sheds. You take these boys and have them gather them up and load them into the truck. Me, I’ll stick here and see that none of these folks run to call a cop.”
“The police are miles away,” said Becker, “and I ain’t even got no telephone.”
“I know that,” said Scharnhorst. “You’re too stingy to have one put in. I know lots of things about you, Becker. I cased this joint for quite a while.”
“Look, Willie,” said Louie, “it’s snowing like hell outside; it’s cold. Why do I have to be the one to go outside?”
“’Cause I’m the boss,” replied Scharnhorst, “And the boss always takes it easy. Go on now. The sooner you get the pelts in the truck, the sooner we get out of here.”
Louie stabbed his gun at Oscar, then Julius. “All right, you fellows, come on. Let’s get busy! I’m warning you, I’m sore already. You fellows make any bad moves, and I’ll skin you too!”
The three of them left the room. Scharnhorst pulled up a chair near the door and dropped into it. He dangled his gun carelessly between his knees.
“Relax, folks. It’ll take Louie a while to get the skins baled together, and there’s no reason we can’t make ourselves comfortable…. Say, Miss Larsen, how about you giving us a song, that song maybe that you sang in ‘Queen of the Ice’?”
“I don’t want to sing,” said Olga Larsen coldly. “I don’t like you, and I am not used to having guns waved in my face. Please go away!”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Willie Scharnhorst. “So you don’t like me. Well, I don’t mind. I like you just the same.”
“Mr. Scharnhorst,” said Ben Slade suddenly, “we’ve been in an airplane accident. We’re nervous and excited. Please let us alone.”
“Who are you?” asked Scharnhorst.
“Slade’s my name. I’m Miss Larsen’s manager.”
Quade nudged Charlie Boston. “All right, Charlie, here we go.”
“Folks!” Quade announced in a sudden, dramatic voice. “I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia. I’m probably the smartest man in the entire state of Wisconsin! I know the answers to all questions!”
His voice rose until it filled the entire room. It was an amazing voice, vibrant and clear. It would have done credit to the best political orator of a national convention. The entire group jerked to attention.
“I see doubt in your faces,” he cried. “You think I’m crazy! I’m not. I’m the Human Encyclopedia, and I know the answers to everything! I can answer any question any of you can ask me on any subject — history, mathematics, geography, business or sports! Try me out with a question, someone!”
Those in the room were staring at Quade in open-mouthed astonishment, all except Karl Becker. He had sampled Quade before.
“What’s this,” demanded Scharnhorst, “a new game?”
“Call it that,” Quade shot back at him, “and ask me something.”
Scharnhorst screwed up his mouth. You could almost hear him think. After a moment his face twisted into what Quade guessed was brilliance. “I got something!” exclaimed Scharnhorst. “Who was called the father of this country?”
Quade looked hard at Scharnhorst. “Is that your idea of a difficult question?”
“Why not?” demanded Scharnhorst. “When I applied for my citizenship papers four years ago, they asked me that. I got mixed up, too. I told ’em Congress.”
Charlie Boston guffawed.
“Oh, you’re another smart guy, huh?” snapped Willie Scharnhorst. “You know all the answers, huh? Well, I did too. The saloon-keeper on the corner told me they always ask first who makes the laws for this country and second, who’s called the father of this country. Well, the judge made a mistake and asked me the second question first and I give him the answer to the first. Was it my fault the judge didn’t know his stuff?”