“I’m the switchboard operator. I don’t know anything about the books. But I guess I’ve got the names of all the big stockholders in my own book.”
“But you don’t know who owns what?”
“I know who’s the boss, don’t I?”
“Who?”
“The president, naturally.”
“And who’s next in line; the vice-president?”
“Uh-uh, old Clammy Farnham. He runs the office.”
“But he’s only the treasurer.”
“After Seebright, he’s the boss. At least as far’s the office is concerned.”
Johnny pulled out one of the big ledgers and opened the cover. Inside the pages were headed: Accounts Receivable.
He closed the book and tried another. It said: Disbursements.
He tried a smaller book, opened it casually and became interested. Stockholders, as of the fiscal year ending, June 30, he read. Then he grunted. “Who’s the biggest stockholder in Mariota Records, Violet?”
“The president, I imagine.”
“Seebright’s name is Number Six on the list.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It says here that he holds fourteen thousand four hundred and fifty shares of Preferred and one hundred and fifty of Common.”
“What’s the difference between Preferred and Common?” Sam asked.
“The Common is the voting stock. The Preferred is what the suckers get. If there are dividends, they get them — if the Common stockholders decide to let them have any. The guys that own the Common run the company. Edward Farnham, it says here, owns two hundred shares of Common and twenty-one thousand six hundred of Preferred...”
“More than Seebright?” exclaimed Violet.
“That’s what it says in the book, but even Farnham isn’t on top. That place goes to the East River Trust Company, who, on behalf of Con Carson, owns twenty-five thousand shares of Preferred and two hundred and twenty-five of Common. That’s what the firm gave him, I guess, to come over from Consolidated Records.”
“Yes, but Carson’s dead — and besides, he wouldn’t have been active in the company, anyway.” Violet peered past Johnny into the ledger.
She exclaimed, “Who’s Martin Preble?”
“Number Two on the list, with twenty-two thousand five hundred Preferred and two hundred Common? It says here he lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.”
“Iowa?” exclaimed Sam. “That’s the place where Doug Esbenshade comes from.”
“Right, my boy, Iowa. Only Cedar Rapids happens to be a couple of hundred miles from Des Moines. But I still think you’ve got something, Sam. Yes, I think you have.”
“You mean this Preble is Esbenshade?”
“By proxy, maybe. He could be a dummy for Esbenshade. Mmm, Number Three is none other than our friend, Joe Dorcas, twenty-three thousand shares of Preferred and two hundred Common. Nice going, Joe.”
“Who’s four?” Sam asked.
“Our friend Armstrong, thirty thousand shares Preferred, but only twenty-five Common. In fact, that’s all the Common stockholders there are. But there’s a whole page of Preferred stockholders, down to Charlotte Zyskind, who owns two shares. Oh-oh, here’s Walter Doniger, one thousand shares Preferred. But no Common and — what do you know, Violet Rodgers, five shares Preferred...!”
“My life’s savings,” said Violet bitterly. “Two hundred and fifty bucks, gone blooey.”
“You bought at fifty a share?”
“Well, it was supposed to be worth fifty a share. Now I won’t get a nickel...”
“You say it was supposed to be worth fifty a share? What did you actually pay for it?”
“I didn’t pay anything.”
“You said your life’s savings...”
“That was just an expression. I mean, he told me it was worth two hundred fifty dollars.”
“Who told you?”
“Mr. Farnham, who d’you suppose? He gave me the stock for a... a Christmas present.”
“Farnham,” said Johnny grimly. “I thought you and Doniger—”
“Whaddya mean, me and Doniger? Donny’s married.”
“I’ve met his wife.”
“There’s nothing between me and Donny. He buys me a drink now and then, that’s all. Oh sure, he makes passes at me. Who doesn’t?”
“Does Armstrong?”
“That guy? He’s got X-ray eyes. But he really had it for the Fair girl. When she quit here he was so nervous for a couple of weeks nobody could hardly talk to him.”
Johnny closed the ledger. “Suppose we take a look in the private offices...”
“What for?”
“For whatever we find in them.”
Violet, almost completely sober by this time, struggled with her loyalty to the defunct Mariota Record Company and pouted for a few minutes. But when Johnny led the way into Charles Armstrong’s office and discovered all the drawers of the steel desk, securely locked, she brightened. The door of Farnham’s office was locked and Violet’s key did not turn the lock. Nothing was locked in Orville Seebright’s office, but there was nothing interesting, or incriminating, in the desk. In fact, it contained very little. Mr. Seebright was an orderly man.
Doniger’s office revealed some nice pictures of his wife and children and a few personal bills from liquor stores, a dentist and a tailor, but very little else.
The office clock in the main office said that it was ten minutes after one. Johnny gave up in disgust. “I might as well go home and go to bed.”
“That’s where I’m going right now,” Violet declared.
She headed for the front door, Johnny and Sam followed, but as Violet reached for the door, Johnny stopped at the switchboard. “Let me see your private telephone directory.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s against the rules to let anyone have the home addresses and telephone numbers of the employees.”
“Whose rules?”
Violet hesitated, then took a small key from her purse and unlocked a drawer. She took out a black loose-leaf book.
“Here it is, with the addresses and telephone numbers of everybody.”
Johnny picked up a pad of paper and a pencil and opened the book. He found that Doniger lived in Scarsdale, Farnham on West 72nd, Joe Dorcas in Newark and Charles Armstrong on Sutton Place. He wrote all their addresses on a slip of paper and was about to put the book back when he turned the page from the d’s to the f’s and saw Marjorie Fair’s name. Her address had been on Forty-eighth, but a line was drawn through that and above it was written: Forty-fifth Street Hotel.
“How’d you know Marjorie Fair lived at the Forty-fifth Street Hotel?” Johnny asked.
“Is that what it says in the book?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s right; I keep the book up pretty well.”
“That’s fine, but who told you she lived at the Forty-fifth Street Hotel?”
“She made an audition for the company just last week. I suppose she gave me her address at the time. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be in there, would it?”
“You mean she was up here, at the time of the audition?”
“Where else would she make it?”
“I thought at the plant, in Newark.”
“Our recording room’s here.”
“Where?”
“Right over there. I didn’t take you in, because there’s nothing there.”
Johnny strode to the door that Violet indicated, threw open the door and switched on the lights inside. He went into a room twenty by thirty, in which stood three or four microphones, a bandstand and a phonograph recording machine.
Sam and Violet followed him into the room.