once have been cream-colored brick, but you would have had to use a chisel or a sand-blaster to find out. However, the two enormous street-floor windows, one on either side of the entrance, were so bright and clean they sparkled. Behind one was a vast geometrical array of bathtowels, in a dozen colors and twice that many sizes, and behind the other was a crazy old contraption with a placard resting on one of its crosspieces which said:
HARGREAVES’ SPINNING JENNY
1768
Both sides of the double door were standing open, and I entered. The left half of the wide and deep room was partitioned off all the way back, with a string of doors, but the right half was open, with an army of tables, piled with merchandise. Only four or five people were in sight, scattered around. An opening in the firsteight feet of partition had the word INFORMATION above it, but the old war mare inside, seated at a switchboard, looked too damn skeptical, and I went on by, to the right, to where a rotund and ruddy type stood scratching the top of his ear. I showed him my case, open to display my license card with its photograph, and snapped, “Goodwin. Detective. Where’s the boss?”
He barely glanced at it. “Which boss?” he squeaked. “What do you want?”
Another skeptic. “Relax,” I told him in an official tone. “I’m on an errand connected with the death of Priscilla Eads. I want to talk with everyone here who will own part of this business because she died, preferably starting at the top. Would it be better to start with you? Your name, please?”
He didn’t bat an eye. “You want to see Mr. Brucker,” he squeaked.
“I agree. Where is he?”
“His office is down at the end, but right now he’s upstairs in the conference room.”
“And the stairs?”
He jerked a thumb. “Over there.”
I went in the direction indicated and through a door. Everything about the stairs was contemporary with the building except the treads and risers, which were up-to-date rough-top plastic. The second floor was visibly a busier place than the first. There were row after row of desks with typewriters and other machines, cabinets and shelves, and of course the girls, easily a hundred of them. There is no more agreeable form of research than the study of animated contour, color, and motion in a large business office, but that day I was preoccupied. I crossed to a dark-eyed smooth-skinned creature manipulating a machine bigger than her, and asked where the conference room was, and she pointedto the far end of the room, away from the street. I went there, found a door in a partition, opened it and passed through, and closed the door behind me.
The partition was well soundproofed, for as soon as I shut the door the clatter and hum of the big room’s activity became just a murmur. This room was of medium size, square, with a fine old mahogany table in the middle, and chairs to match all the way around it. At the far side was a stairhead. One of the five people seated in a cluster at the end of the table could have been Hargreaves of the 1768 spinning jenny, or anyhow his son, with his pure white hair and his wrinkled old skin trying to find room enough for itself with the face meat gone. He still had sharp blue-gray eyes, and they drew me in his direction as I displayed my case and said, “Goodwin. Detective. About the murder of Priscilla Eads. Mr. Brucker?”
Whitey was not Brucker. Brucker was the one across from him, about half Whitey’s age and with half as much hair, light brown, and a long pale face and a long thin nose. He spoke. “I’m Brucker. What do you want?”
None of them was reaching for the case, so I returned it to my pocket, got onto a chair, and took out my notebook and pencil. I was thinking that if I didn’t overplay my self-assurance I might get away with it. I opened the notebook and flipped to a fresh page, in no hurry, and ran my eyes over them, ending at Brucker. “This is only a preliminary,” I told him.
HARGREAVES’ SPINNING JENNY
1768
Both sides of the double door were standing open, and I entered. The left half of the wide and deep room was partitioned off all the way back, with a string of doors, but the right half was open, with an army of tables, piled with merchandise. Only four or five people were in sight, scattered around. An opening in the firsteight feet of partition had the word INFORMATION above it, but the old war mare inside, seated at a switchboard, looked too damn skeptical, and I went on by, to the right, to where a rotund and ruddy type stood scratching the top of his ear. I showed him my case, open to display my license card with its photograph, and snapped, “Goodwin. Detective. Where’s the boss?”
He barely glanced at it. “Which boss?” he squeaked. “What do you want?”
Another skeptic. “Relax,” I told him in an official tone. “I’m on an errand connected with the death of Priscilla Eads. I want to talk with everyone here who will own part of this business because she died, preferably starting at the top. Would it be better to start with you? Your name, please?”
He didn’t bat an eye. “You want to see Mr. Brucker,” he squeaked.
“I agree. Where is he?”
“His office is down at the end, but right now he’s upstairs in the conference room.”
“And the stairs?”
He jerked a thumb. “Over there.”
I went in the direction indicated and through a door. Everything about the stairs was contemporary with the building except the treads and risers, which were up-to-date rough-top plastic. The second floor was visibly a busier place than the first. There were row after row of desks with typewriters and other machines, cabinets and shelves, and of course the girls, easily a hundred of them. There is no more agreeable form of research than the study of animated contour, color, and motion in a large business office, but that day I was preoccupied. I crossed to a dark-eyed smooth-skinned creature manipulating a machine bigger than her, and asked where the conference room was, and she pointedto the far end of the room, away from the street. I went there, found a door in a partition, opened it and passed through, and closed the door behind me.
The partition was well soundproofed, for as soon as I shut the door the clatter and hum of the big room’s activity became just a murmur. This room was of medium size, square, with a fine old mahogany table in the middle, and chairs to match all the way around it. At the far side was a stairhead. One of the five people seated in a cluster at the end of the table could have been Hargreaves of the 1768 spinning jenny, or anyhow his son, with his pure white hair and his wrinkled old skin trying to find room enough for itself with the face meat gone. He still had sharp blue-gray eyes, and they drew me in his direction as I displayed my case and said, “Goodwin. Detective. About the murder of Priscilla Eads. Mr. Brucker?”
Whitey was not Brucker. Brucker was the one across from him, about half Whitey’s age and with half as much hair, light brown, and a long pale face and a long thin nose. He spoke. “I’m Brucker. What do you want?”
None of them was reaching for the case, so I returned it to my pocket, got onto a chair, and took out my notebook and pencil. I was thinking that if I didn’t overplay my self-assurance I might get away with it. I opened the notebook and flipped to a fresh page, in no hurry, and ran my eyes over them, ending at Brucker. “This is only a preliminary,” I told him.
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