“Some of the thousand-dollar bills?”
“Ah yes, the treasury certificates. The beautiful thousand dollar bills. I am not a rich man, but I have been careful. I put these away for a rainy day and now, sir, the heavens have opened and it is raining. I am fifty-nine, well, if you must have it straight, sixty-two years of age. I do not have too many years left and I want to help my kinfolk. Mother is dead. Father — Father does not want, or need my aid. There is only Auguste, Auguste whom I have never seen in all my life. I want to find him. I want you to find him.”
“For ten thousand dollars?”
“If need be, ten thousand — yes, ten thousand dollars.”
“You’ve told me all you know of your brother?”
“All, sir, all.”
Alder shook his head. “The letter he wrote you when he was fifteen. To what address did he send it?”
The big man hesitated. “Is that necessary? My residence at the time can be of no help.”
“I’d like to have it.”
“You embarrass me.”
“Why? Why would a thirty-two-year-old address embarrass you?”
“Because I was at the time dear Auguste wrote to me in a rather peculiar situation. Very well, sir, if you must know, the address was Ossining, New York.”
“Sing Sing?”
“Alas, yes.”
“You served time?”
“I have served a great deal of time. I am an erudite person. Where did I acquire such erudition? I had very little formal education. I left home at the tender age of fifteen. In prison, Mr. Alder, there is time for study. They have excellent libraries in the better state prisons. There is time — time.”
“How long were you up?”
“The first time? A mere jaunt — three years.”
“The second time?”
“I’ll spare you, Mr. Alder. I am sixty-two years of age. I have spent a total of twenty-six years in prisons.” He shook his head. “They gave me a life sentence the last time, a habitual criminal, the judge called me. I spent sixteen consecutive years in durance. I am a criminal, Mr. Alder, alas, but a successful one. My last, ah, haul, netted me in excess of one hundred thousand dollars — one hundred and ten thousand, to be exact. My rainy day nest egg. My attorneys knew that I had it safely tucked away and they never ceased their efforts on my behalf. And their own, you might say, inasmuch as I promised them one-half of all my worldly goods. I have paid them, Mr. Alder, and I am again at liberty, breathing the fresh, untainted air of freedom. My nest egg is smaller, but I am a man of modest desires.”
“Pleschette,” said Alder. “Big Frenchy, the king of the confidence men. Only it isn’t Pleschette, is it?”
“Pleschette is my real name. I would not sully that name, sir, when I engaged in crime. I assumed an, ah, nom de plume. Philippe Fanchon.” The big man became earnest again. “Mr. Alder, you will not let my, ah, my true identity and character stand in the way of our little deal? You will find my brother for me?”
“I don’t know, Frenchy, I don’t know.”
“Sleep on it. We will talk tomorrow. But please, I detest the ah, the monicker — Frenchy, Big Frenchy. Let us keep it on a higher level — one gentleman to another. Mr. Pleschette, Mr. Alder. Yes?”
The big man got to his feet. Then suddenly he stooped and laid the crisp thousand-dollar bill on the coffee table. “Keep it there overnight. Look at it. Let it tempt you.”
“I can be tempted by a thousand-dollar bill without looking at it. Take it along.”
“My little mission will not interfere with your other work, Mr. Alder. You can do it at the same time. Please, consider it carefully. And give me your answer in the morning?”
Chapter 10
After Pleschette had gone, Alder waited fifteen seconds and opened the door. The big man was just turning a corner of the corridor, going toward the elevators. Alder closed the door again and got the Manhattan telephone directory.
He searched for a number, then got the hotel operator. A moment later a male voice said, “Detectives, Incorporated.”
“Jim Honsinger,” Alder said.
“Call back in the morning for Mr. Honsinger,” said the voice on the phone.
“No, I want to talk to him now. Call him at his home. Tell him it’s Tom Alder in from Los Angeles.”
“Hold on.”
Alder kept the phone to his ear. After a full minute, there was a connection and a blustering voice boomed into his ear, “What the hell, Tom, I’m playing bridge!”
“Be dummy long enough to talk to some of your people on the phone. Got a pencil handy?... All right, a woman named Sally Weaver — at least that was her name in 1938, when she attended Miss Tabitha Tubbs’s School for Girls...”
“That name rings a bell, Tom. Mmm, 1938...”
“She was Doris Delaney’s best friend.”
“Holy Hannah! You out of your mind, Tom?”
“Spare me the remarks, Jim. You’ll get paid for everything you do.”
“Sure, sure, but I hate to take the money. I worked on the Delaney thing when I was in the department. All I know of that case for sure I could put on the back of my left thumbnail and have enough room left to write a good book.”
“That’s good, then your mind isn’t cluttered up with theories.”
“Hell, I got those, too.”
“Give me one of them, Jim. What do you think happened to the girl?”
“Kidnaped. The snatchers got scared when the F.B.I. moved in and cut her up into little pieces. She’s dead and gone these twenty years.”
“Twenty-two. Still got your pencil? Dr. Drucker, a pediatrician...”
“Nothing there, Tom, believe me. I talked to him myself. He couldn’t identify the girl.”
“Get me his address. Now, hold on... this next one may give you trouble. The address of Mrs. Delaney, the girl’s mother. And her private telephone number.”
“You’re right, it may be tough. But — next!”
“The February 18th issue of the New York Bulletin page four, section two. I want a photostatic copy of the entire page.”
“You could’ve got that yourself for a dollar. Right from the paper.”
“They have two bound files. Each has been mutilated, a three-inch chunk cut out. That’s what I’m interested in — the piece that’s cut out.”
There was a slight pause on Jim Honsinger’s part. “Who’d cut out a piece from the file copy — both copies?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Now, last but not least — a complete history of Big Frenchy Fanchon, the con man.”
“I can save you time. Frenchy was a blue-sky stock and bond man. He might, in a pinch, sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Kidnaping, uh-uh — not big Frenchy.”
“I didn’t say he had anything to do with this case. It’s really a different matter. By the way, Big Frenchy’s real name is Jacques Pleschette.” Alder spelled it out. “He has a younger brother, Auguste Pleschette. See if you can get anything on him. He probably changed his name too.”
“Nice people you associate with. I suppose you want all of this by yesterday?”
“Would I have interrupted your bridge game otherwise?”
“Yes, you would!”
“I just thought of something else, Jim — a wild one. A woman named Julia Joliet. In her fifties. And Leroy Dane...”
“The movie actor? My wife’s secret passion. Hey — he mixed in this?”
“Not necessarily. Incidentally, his real name isn’t Leroy Dane, although a lot of people think it is. See if you can get his real name. Okay, Jim?”
“I’ll get the office on it right away. And if you’re not too busy tomorrow, drop by — we’ll have lunch.”