“Shut up that magpie chatter,” the woman snapped, “and go down and get me those suitcases! I want to get started on this. I want to have this thing all at my fingertips by Monday morning and I want to know how to approach Endicott Campbell. I’m not going to lay myself wide open to a lawsuit by accusing him of anything I can’t prove. If I make an accusation I want to be able to prove it. The way things look now I am going to make an accusation and I want the facts to back it up. Now, get started.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sue said, feeling very small and insignificant and at the same time very much alarmed.
She went down in the elevator and after a couple of fruitless attempts to find a luggage store open on a Saturday afternoon, enlisted the aid of a cab driver who took her to a rather small but well-stocked store, waited while she hurriedly selected the two strong suitcases, and then drove back to the office.
Sue, carrying the empty suitcases, found Miss Corning in her wheelchair by the window holding some canceled checks up to the bright afternoon light. A thick-lensed reading-glass was held above the checks.
Miss Corning looked up as Sue entered and said, “Humph, just as I thought. This whole deal is completely phony. You got the suitcases, child?”
“Yes.”
“Put them out on that table. Start putting these checks in them. Now, I want that book and all of these statements. I’m going over them in the hotel tonight.
“Now then, just where is Endicott Campbell? I mean, where is he supposed to be?”
“I don’t know. I called the golf club this morning trying to locate him. He was part of a foursome that had a reservation there but it had been canceled out.”
“I want to see him,” Miss Corning said, “and I want to see him tonight, at my hotel. Now don’t let him come up here. I don’t want to see him now, I don’t want to see him at his convenience, I want to see him at mine! Get on the telephone and get him located.”
“I’ll have to go to the switchboard,” Sue said, “and... and—”
“I don’t care where you have to go,” Miss Corning snapped, throwing a bundle of canceled checks into one of the suitcases. “Get on the telephone and get him located. Ring up his golf club. If he isn’t there, find out the names of the people who were in the foursome. Ring each one of them up. Get Campbell located. What about his house... he wouldn’t be there?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know where he is, Miss Corning.”
“He’s a widower?”
“His wife has left him. There’s a daughter, Eve, with her. A younger son, Carleton, is with Mr. Campbell. He has a governess for him.”
“Who’s the governess?”
“An Englishwoman.”
“Who is she? What’s her name?”
“Elizabeth Dow.”
“All right,” Miss Corning said, “get hold of her. Get her on the phone. Dig up some information. I want Endicott Campbell at my suite at the hotel tonight at eight forty-five. Right on the dot, you understand... and tell him that I don’t like people who are late for appointments. When I say eight forty-five, I mean eight forty-five on the dot.
“Now you get busy on that telephone and I’ll put the things I want in these suitcases.”
At the end of a full fifteen minutes spent on the telephone Sue knew no more than she had earlier in the day. The foursome at the golf club had been canceled out. Two of the parties to the foursome had joined another pair to make a foursome. They had been advised earlier in the day by Endicott Campbell that he couldn’t make it. The other party to the foursome, Harvey Benedict, was an attorney. There was no way that Sue could reach him over the weekend. No residence number was given for him in the telephone book. The phone operator advised her that he had no listed residence telephone number.
A telephone call to the Campbell residence brought the information from Elizabeth Dow that the housekeeper had not heard from Endicott Campbell all day; that he was supposed to be home at six-thirty; that he had asked to have dinner served promptly at seven o’clock.
When Sue Fisher reported to Miss Corning, the woman sat for nearly thirty seconds motionless in the wheelchair. Her bony face with the high cheekbones, the lantern jaw, and the long nose, seemed almost grotesque with the immobility of concentration. Then she said, “Very well. These suitcases are quite heavy for you. Go down and give the man who runs the elevator a couple of dollars to come and take these down to the sidewalk. We’ll get a cab there and go to the hotel.”
Sue went to the elevator, explained their predicament to the assistant janitor, who promptly came and picked up the suitcases. Then Sue closed up the office and she and Miss Corning went to the elevator and down to the sidewalk. Sue hailed a cab.
“What’s your address, my child?” Miss Corning asked.
Sue gave her the address.
“Very well,” Miss Corning said to the cab driver, “we’ll drive by there first and leave this young woman at her apartment. Then you can take me to the Arthenium Hotel. Now help me fold up this wheelchair.”
There was something about the way Miss Corning gave orders which caused cab drivers instinctively to touch their caps. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Miss Corning, with deft skill, whipped the wheelchair alongside the open door of the cab. She could, Sue noticed, use her legs enough to be of some assistance as the driver helped her into the cab, but at one period she leaned heavily on Sue’s shoulder and it was at that moment Sue got the impression of enormous strength in the long fingers which seemed to dig into her shoulder. Then Miss Corning was in the cab, the wheelchair was being folded and put up in front with the two suitcases. Sue got in the other side of the cab.
“Oh, by the way,” Sue said, “I neglected to give you the change from the two-hundred dollars. The two suitcases amounted to seventy-six dollars and thirty cents with taxes. And there’s the expense money you gave me at the airport.”
Sue gave her the receipt, opened her purse to take out the rest of the money.
“Never mind, my child. Forget it,” Miss Corning said. “You’ve had a hard day today. You did nobly and I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to find loyalty in employees. That’s a very precious commodity. I don’t often find it. You’re honest. Did you think I didn’t know those first five bills I showed you were hundred-dollar bills? I was testing your honesty. If you’d told me they were tens I’d have fired you on the spot. You are honest; you’re loyal; you’re a nice girl.”
“Why... why... thank you,” Sue said, completely overwhelmed.
“Not at a ll,” Miss Corning said.
“I don’t see how you stand it,” Sue said. “You must have had a terrific trip flying up from South America and with all the strain of packing and getting away, and the work you’ve done in the office, and—”
“Bosh!” Miss Corning interrupted curtly. “It was nothing. Don’t you worry about me. I stopped over in Miami and had a good hot tub. I’m fresh as a daisy.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to go to the hotel with you and—”
“What for?” Miss Corning snapped. “I’m perfectly at home there now. I don’t like to be babied, young woman. I get along by myself and as you get to know me better you’ll find I’m very self-reliant.
“Now, sit back and relax. I want to do some thinking and I don’t want to have any chatter. If I want you to say anything I’ll ask a question. If I don’t ask a question, keep quiet.”
“Yes, Miss Corning,” Sue said.
They rode in silence until the cab reached Sue’s apartment.
“This has been terribly out of your way,” Sue said apologetically.