SOPHIA ELLIOTT — Miss Corning’s widowed sister, she wore the pants in the family without paying much attention to the fact that in such an outfit a good man was especially hard to find
ALFREDO GOMEZ — Introduced as Amelia Corning’s business agent from south of the Equator, one look at the slick, mustachioed gentleman made people beg, “South America, take it away!”
LT. TRAGG — The dour officer from Homicide, he was “for motherhood and against sin,” and he proved it by giving Perry a very painless break
FRANK GOLDEN — Proprietor of the We Rent M Car Company, he testified he had rented Car Number 19 at six-thirty and ten-thirty on Sunday the fourth, but there was some doubt that he knew his numbers
HAMILTON BURGER — Perry’s adversary at the bench, the district attorney was becoming more and more apoplectic with every day in court
CARLOTTA AMES JACKSON — A snippy nervous busybody, she was only a chambermaid in a hotel but she knew more than the desk clerk
CINDY HASTINGS — A not especially merciful nurse, she looked enough like Amelia Corning to be her sister but could she pay the same bills?
Chapter 1
Sue Fisher had to sign the register in the office-building elevator because it was Saturday morning and all of the offices were closed.
Sue had been looking forward to a restful weekend, but a wire announcing that Amelia Corning was due to arrive from South America on Monday morning necessitated a lot of last-minute statements and reports which she had been unable to get together by quitting time Friday night. So she had promised Endicott Campbell, manager of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company, that she would come in Saturday morning, finish typing the reports, and have everything on his desk so that the statements would be available the first thing Monday morning.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that in addition to an arthritic condition which confined her to a wheelchair, Amelia Corning was rapidly losing her eyesight. In fact, there were rumors from South America that she had already lost her vision to such an extent that she could only tell the difference between light and dark, and people were hazy, blurred figures whose features were indistinguishable.
Susan Fisher had been with the firm for more than a year and knew Amelia Corning only by her stiff, cramped signature which from time to time appeared at the bottom of irascible letters of brief instructions.
By ten-thirty, when Sue Fisher was well immersed in her work, she heard the patter of running feet, then the sound of knuckles on the door and a childish treble saying, “Oh, Miss Sue, Miss Sue.”
For a moment, Sue Fisher’s face softened. Then she frowned with annoyance. Carleton Campbell, the boss’s seven-year-old son, worshipped the ground she walked on and Sue, in turn, was strangely drawn to the youngster. But Elizabeth Dow, the governess, was, Sue felt, more and more inclined to wish off some of her responsibilities and disciplinary problems on Sue’s shoulders.
Sue shut off the motor on the electric typewriter, crossed her secretarial office, entered the reception room, and opened the door.
Carleton Campbell, his eyes shining with eagerness, held up a shoe box for her inspection.
“Hello, Miss Sue. Hello, Miss Sue,” he said.
Elizabeth Dow, moving steadily and deliberately on her low-heeled heavy walking shoes, came marching down the corridor.
Sue put her arm around the boy, lifted him up, kissed him, then stood waiting for Elizabeth Dow, who very typically refrained from quickening her pace in the slightest, nor would she deign to exchange a greeting until she was close enough so there was no necessity to raising her voice in the slightest.
“Good morning, Susan,” she said, formally.
“Good morning, Elizabeth.”
“I dropped in because they told me you were going to be here this morning.”
“Yes,” Sue said. “I have work to do.” And then, after a properly impressive pause, added, “A very important job. We’re working against a deadline.”
“I see,” Elizabeth Dow said, her voice showing her utter indifference to the urgency of the matter. Elizabeth Dow was affected only by problems which were important to Elizabeth Dow. Other persons’ problems made not the slightest difference to her.
“Sue,” she said, “would you be a dear and watch Carleton for thirty minutes? I have a very important personal appointment and I just can’t take him with me... and you know you’re the only one he’ll stay with.”
Sue glanced at her wristwatch. She knew the thirty minutes could be at least forty-five and might well be an hour.
“Well...” She hesitated and again looked at the watch.
“I wouldn’t ask it of you for myself,” Elizabeth Dow said, “but Carleton has some things he wants to talk over with you and he’s been rather upset this morning. I know if I left him with the housekeeper in his present state he’d be a nervous wreck by the time I got back, and she would, too.”
“Oh, please, Miss Sue,” Carleton pleaded. “Let me stay here with you. I want to talk.”
“All right,” Susan said, “but you’re going to have to be a good boy, Carleton. You’re going to have to sit in a chair and watch Sue work. I have some very important statements to get out.”
“I’ll be good,” Carleton promised, climbing into a chair and seating himself with his hands folded on the shoe box.
Elizabeth Dow, apparently fearful that something would happen to change Sue’s mind, headed for the door. “It will be only a few minutes,” she promised, and was gone.
Sue smiled at Carleton. “What’s in the box?” she asked.
“Treasure,” he said.
Sue regarded the box with sudden apprehension. “Now look here, Carleton,” she said, “you haven’t any toads or anything alive in that box?”
He smiled and shook his head. “This isn’t my treasure box,” he said, “it’s Daddy’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy keeps his treasure box upstairs. Last night he let me put my treasure in his closet. He said he’d trade treasures with me any time I wanted. So this morning I took his treasure.”
The words poured out with Carleton’s childish accent and were spoken so rapidly that one word seemed literally to tread on the heels of another as they left the child’s lips.
Susan regarded the box thoughtfully. “Did I understand you right, Carleton?” she asked. “This is Daddy’s treasure?”
“It’s my treasure now,” Carleton said. “Daddy said we could trade treasures, but he’d want his back and he’d give me mine back.”
“What about your treasure box? What kind of a box was it?”
“Just like this,” Carleton said. “Daddy doesn’t buy shoes in stores. Daddy buys shoes by mail. When they come, my daddy takes the shoes out of the boxes and puts the shoes in the closet.”
“Yes, I know,” Susan said, smiling. “I make out the orders for his shoes. He has a particular brand of shoes that he likes and he has rather an odd size. Does your daddy know that you have his treasure box?”
“He said we could trade,” Carleton said.
“When?”
“Oh, a while back.”
“I thought your daddy was going to go out on the golf course this morning.”
“He said we could trade,” Carleton repeated.
Susan said, “I’d better look in your daddy’s treasure box, Carleton, just to see.”
He made a convulsive grasping gesture, pressing the box into his stomach and bending over. “No!” he screamed. “That was the trouble with Miss Dow.”