Jane Carter Investigates Episode One-Hundred and Ten
Dad reached for his check book.
“How much will you need?”
“Oh, just sign your name at the bottom
and leave the amount blank.”
“Sorry, I prefer not to financially
cripple myself for life. One hundred dollars is my limit. I’m throwing it down
a sinkhole, but the lessons you’ll learn may be worth the cost.”
“I can do a lot with a hundred
dollars,” I said. “Thanks, Dad.”
I picked up the check before the ink
was dry and, dropping a kiss lightly on my father’s cheek, was gone.
I telephoned Florence from the corner
drugstore and told her the news. I asked her to come downtown at once. Fifteen
minutes later Flo met me at the entrance to the Morning Press building.
“Just think, Flo!” I said as I unlocked
the front door. “This huge plant is all mine! I’m a publisher at last.”
“You’re completely insane, if you ask
me. This place is a dreadful mess. You’ll never be able to clean it up, let
alone get out an issue of a story magazine. Do you honestly intend to write all
the stories yourself?”
“I do not,” I said, “but I do have
almost enough material laid by—previously rejected by Pittman and other editors
of old-fashioned and narrowminded inclinations—to make up the bulk of the
serials for months to come. Where I have a bit of a deficit is short stories,
but haven’t you heard the saying that every educated woman of taste and
intelligence has a secret ambition to be a lady novelist?”
“Whose saying is that?”
“Mine.”
“Supposing you succeed in locating this
group of educated women of taste and intelligence, all yearning to become lady
novelists, how do you propose to pay them? Every penny of that hundred dollars
your father gave you will have to go to plant expenses.”
“I know that,” I said. “Perhaps you’ve
heard this saying: ‘Write without pay until someone offers pay. If nobody
offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as a sign that
sawing wood is what he was intended for’.”
“Don’t tell me that’s yours, too?”
“No, I borrowed it from Mark Twain. My
point is, if I can just get through the first year, later on I can begin to pay
out handsomely and will richly reward all those loyal would-be lady novelists I
plan to enlist as cadets in the service of Carter’s
All-story Weekly.”
“I think,” said Flo. “Any educated
woman of taste and intelligence might be better advised to going straight to
sawing wood.”
We had passed through the vestibule to
the lower floor room which once had served as the Press’s circulation department. Behind the
high service counter, desks and chairs remained untouched, covered by a thick
layer of dust. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling light fixtures and festooned the
walls.
We climbed the stairs, glanced briefly
into the newsroom and then wandered on to the composing room. My gaze roved
over long rows of linotype machines and steel trucks which were used to hold
page forms. There were bins of type, Cheltenham, Goudy, Century—more varieties
than I had ever seen before.
Passing by the stereotyping department,
we entered the press room where slumbered ten giant double-decked rotary
presses. Lying on the roller of one was a torn strip of newspaper, the last
issue of the Morning Press ever printed.
“It gives one an odd feeling to see all
this,” said Florence. “Why do you suppose Roberts closed the plant when it was
prosperous?”
“No one seems to know the answer,” I
replied, stooping to peer into an empty ink pot. “But it doesn’t seem possible
a man would give up his business and throw so many people out of work without a
good reason.”
“His bad luck seems to be your good
fortune,” Florence said. “Well, since you’ve fallen heir to all this, what will
you do with it? It will take a sizeable chunk of your hundred dollars just to
get the place cleaned.”
“Not according to my calculations,” I
said. “Let’s choose our offices, and then we’ll discuss business.”
“Our offices?” echoed Florence. “I’m
not in on this brainstorm of yours. I may be an educated woman of taste and
intelligence, but I assure you that I’ve never yearned to become a lady
novelist.”
“Don’t worry, Flo. You won’t have to
write any stories yourself. You’ll be the editor.”
“But I thought you were the editor!”
“I’ll be the managing editor,” I
explained. “You’ll have your office and oodles of authority. Of course, you’ll
have to work hard keeping our staff in line.”
“What staff?”
“Oh, they don’t know it yet, but the
ladies of the League of Women Voters have found a solution for their
advertising problems.”
“But what does that have to do with
your nonexistent staff?” Flo asked.
“The LWV is undoubtedly rife with
educated women of taste and intelligence. Who would be better fitting to staff
a story magazine dedicated to the portrayal of strong, capable heroines than
the ladies of the League of Women Voters?” I asked.
“You’ve not met Mrs. Dunst, have you?”
“No, but I fully intend to. This
afternoon, if possible,” I said. “Would you happen to know what Mrs. Dunst is
in the habit of doing on a Friday afternoon?”
“No, but I do know she’ll be at the
Greenville Garden Circle’s annual tea tomorrow,” said Flo. “I’m supposed to
accompany Mother there and help hand round the sandwiches while listening
politely to the old dears’ sundry medical complaints.”
“I’m a veritable expert at dispensing
noodle-juice,” I said. “And you know I always bend a sympathetic ear when any
person brings up their ailments.”
“Is that your way of asking to come
along?” Flo said. “Well, alright. But it won’t do you any good. There’s no
denying that you have a way with words, but I think you’ll find Mrs. Dunst is a
force to be reckoned with.”
“I shall look forward to it,” I said.
“I’ll even get gussied up in my most respectable frock and find a pair of
stockings without a single hole in them.”
“See that you do,” said Flo. “And don’t
you dare do anything that might embarrass Mother.”
Florence glanced around at the dusty
machinery.
“I don’t see how you expect to get
these presses running.”
“We’ll only need one.”
“True, but you can’t recruit pressmen
or linotype operators from the Greenville
Examiner. They’re all union.”
“Unfortunately, no. The first issue of Carter’s All-Story Weekly Magazine will
be printed at the Examiner plant. Dad doesn’t know it yet. After
that—well, I’ll think of something.”
“How do you propose to get this place
cleaned?”
“Every person who works on our paper
must wield a broom.”
Returning to the second floor, we
inspected the offices adjoining the newsroom. I selected for myself the one
which previously had been occupied by Marcus Roberts. His name was still on the
frosted-glass door, and the walls were hung with etchings and paintings of
considerable value.
An assortment of pens, erasers,
thumbtacks, and small articles remained in the top drawer of the flat-top desk.
All letters and personal papers appeared to have been removed.
“Mr. Roberts apparently left here in a
great hurry,” I said to Flo. “For some reason, he never returned for the
paintings.”
Florence chose an office adjoining my
new quarters. We both were admiring the view from the window when I stiffened
and grabbed Flo by the hand.
“What’s wrong?” Flo demanded.
“I thought I heard someone moving
about,” I whispered.
We remained motionless and listened. A
board creaked.
I darted to the door and flung it open.
The newsroom was deserted, but I heard footsteps retreating swiftly down the
hall.
“Flo, we’re not alone in this
building!”
“I thought I heard someone, too.”
We ran through the newsroom to the hall
and down the stairway. Three steps from the bottom, I halted. A man’s grimy
felt hat lay on the service counter of the advertising department.
“Look at that,” I said to Flo. “Someone
was upstairs!”
“He may still be here, too. Jane, did
you leave the entrance door unlocked?”
“I guess so. I don’t remember.”
“A loiterer may have wandered into the
building, and then left when we gave chase.”
“Without his hat?”
“Probably he forgot it.”
“I intend to look carefully about,” I
said. “After all, I am responsible for this place now.”
I immediately went down and locked the
entrance, then Flo and I wandered warily from room to room. We even ventured
into the basement where a battalion of rats had taken refuge, but the building
appeared deserted.
“We’re only wasting precious time,” I
said at last. “Whoever the intruder was, he’s gone now.”
Retracing our way to the advertising
department, we stopped short. The hat, which had been laying on the counter
only a few minutes before, had vanished.
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