Accounting for Murder Page 4

  Miss Sullivan, as befits the competent secretary, and because she was interested in such things, had charted the course of the disturbance as it approached.

  At ten o’clock that morning, she had circulated Mr. Mason’s memo to the Division Managers: a meeting at two-thirty with Mr. Clarence Fortinbras who had already been in correspondence with them.

  “Another meeting?” asked Dr. Richter R & D. Dr. Richter was young, blond, and somewhat bull-necked; he asked the question with what he thought was an irresistible smile.

  “That’s what it says,” she answered sweetly.

  Mr. Blaney of Commercial Sales was hearty. “What’s up this time, Mary?” he shouted, rapidly scanning the document she handed him. “Uh-huh, Fortinbras, I see.” Harry Blaney who was not so young, had a round face, a thin thatch of brown hair, and normally a guileless, if heavily tanned, countenance. But as she watched him, she saw his cheeriness collapse when he noticed Allen Hammond’s name on the circulation list. Allen Hammond was the assistant division manager of Commercial Sales; he was also the president’s nephew learning the business, as the saying goes. These things are never easy.

  “I’ll put it on Mr. Rutledge’s desk,” Clara Floyd in Government Contracts promised. “He’s in New Jersey until lunch. Are they in a flap up there?”

  “You know how they are, Clara,” Mary replied. She returned to her elegant quarters just outside the president’s office and applied herself to her work, which included a long memo to Table Model Division in Elkhart, Indiana about a new union contract, and an equally long, but livelier memo to the Empire Club about the Reunion Dinner “for Harvard’s football greats in the New York City area.”

  “It’s going to be a great evening, Miss Sullivan,” said Mr. Mason when he strolled out a few minutes later to see how things were coming. Mr. Mason was a big soft-looking man with a troubled pink face.

  “We’ve got forty responses already, Mr. Mason,” she replied, because she was a kind-hearted girl.

  “. . . and old Bull Peabody is coming up from Washington,” he said, genuine enthusiasm lighting his faded blue eyes. Bull and Chip Mason, as Mary Sullivan knew all too well, had been the famous Twin Battering Rams of the great 1929 Harvard team. Before she fully grasped the depth of Mr. Mason’s lack of interest in cash registers and computers, she had unwisely told him about her brother Jack, a tackle with the Chicago Bears, a fact that led him to infer sympathy with his heroic past.

  “Did I ever tell you . . .”

  “I put the Fortinbras correspondence in this folder for you,” she cut in ruthlessly.

  “Oh, yes,” Chip Mason said, eying it with distaste. “I suppose I’d better look it over.”

  She turned suggestively to her typewriter, and he wandered back into his office, possibly to look at the folder. By the second month of her employment, Mary Sullivan had discovered that despite his many shortcomings the president of National Calculating took direction. Possibly coaching was a better word. Bad as things were, they would have been far worse had it not been for that fact.

  Promptly at two-thirty, Clarence Fortinbras presented himself at Mary Sullivan’s desk.

  “I think Mr. Mason is expecting me,” he said with a marked New England accent.

  Knowing her chief’s capacity for self-delusion, Mary doubted it, but she said, “This way, Mr. Fortinbras,” and led him into the president’s office. Before she shut the door behind him, she saw that the Battering Ram looked apprehensive as he rose to greet his visitor, and that Dr. Richter was the only Division Manager not yet present.

  He strode in twenty minutes later, pushing a hand through his crew cut. “Couldn’t get away,” he said importantly.

  “I believe they’re waiting for you, Dr. Richter,” she pointed out when he showed a tendency to stop and discuss the demands on his valuable time.

  “Oh, yes,” he said and disappeared into the president’s office.

  Thereafter, Mary Sullivan worked without further executive interruption, solving several small problems which could be expected to throw Mason into a welter of indecision, and sending some intelligent directives to Elkhart. At three o’clock she bore Mr. Mason’s glass of milk into the room, her practiced eye noting that Clarence Fortinbras retained the slightly rugged air of calm that had distinguished him when he greeted her, but that Mason and the senior staff looked, according to their temperaments, ruffled, angry, disdainful, or mulish. Dr. Richter was trying to look profound. Allen Hammond smiled at her.

  At four o’clock, the mumble of voices stopped, the door opened, and a red-faced Mason escorted Fortinbras through the office. Fortinbras murmured a courteous word of farewell, nodded to Miss Sullivan, and left. She waited for the rest of the staff to eddy out, and back to their appointed places. Instead Mason silently returned to his office, shut the door, and the steady rumble of voices was resumed.

  That was when Mary Sullivan knew that something was up.

  “Well!” said Allen Hammond in amused tones.

  “What does that mean?” Mason demanded pettishly as he returned to the chair at the head of the long table. Hammond, a thorn in Harry Blaney’s flesh because he was the president’s nephew, was an irritant to his uncle because of his status as Founder’s Grandson. He was a pleasantly ugly, intelligent young man whose presence never failed to remind Chip that the entire Mason family agreed that the president wasn’t half the man his father had been.

  “It means that that was quite a session,” Allen Hammond said equably. “He’s impressive, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a nuisance, that’s what he is!” Mason said fretfully. Instinctively he looked around the table for support. Harry Blaney was staring glumly at a scratch pad; Morris Richter had assumed a judicious look, and was gazing abstractedly into the distance. Allen Hammond looked intelligent and respectful, which was no balm to his uncle. Only Jay Rutledge, his creased homely face as expressionless as ever, responded.

  “Well, now, Chip,” he said, a hint of his native Georgia in his voice, “He is a troublesome little man”—Rutledge was six feet tall—“but I think we took the right line with him. We can’t tolerate fishing expeditions into the books every time anybody gets a bee in his bonnet . . .”

  “I tell you, he isn’t ‘anybody,’ ” Blaney said for the second time. “He’s Fortinbras on Accounts Receivable. He’s an authority in the field of corporate accounting, he taught for 20 years at Maine, and he’s the one who single-handed got the boys at New England Marine to give up that depreciation system of theirs!”

  Mason felt the familiar stab of pain in his stomach. It had been a long meeting, and he could not delude himself that he had handled it very well. His every overture had been refused with cold indifference.

  “Call me Chip!” he said.

  Fortinbras had looked at him. “Mr. Mason,” he replied, “I want to be sure that we understand each other.”

  Well, they understood each other, he thought as he chewed on a Gelusil. Not that he had been able to present the company’s case well; Fortinbras’s calm refutation of his host’s comments and his unexpectedly detailed knowledge had rattled Mason.

  “How was I to know that he knew all that?” he demanded, stung by the injustice of the whole thing.

  Harry Blaney was tactless enough to tell him. “I don’t know why you didn’t check up on him, Chip,” he said, earnestly helpful. “I called Berman this morning, and he put me onto the comptroller at New England Marine. It only took two phone calls to find out who he was, and to be honest with you, I think we’ve made a mistake with him.”

  It was obvious to everybody at the table that National Calculating had erred with Clarence Fortinbras. Nevertheless, Chip Mason thought resentfully, he disliked people who went around being honest. Of course, Blaney was a Business School type if there ever was one, not the same thing as a Harvard man, God knows! And Mason endured his heavy-handed, jolting geniality on the theory that it was good for business. Quite early in life, Charles Mason had been brought to se
e that he lacked the hard-hitting vigor that would push cash registers to the top, and he was resigned to dynamic subordinates. But Blaney seemed to possess the defects of the go-getter with none of his virtues: his division, Commercial Sales, was going into the red again this month.

  “. . . why does he want to examine the books?” Richter broke the silence by asking. His brilliant scientific abilities kept him involved with research projects and development techniques but, although totally innocent of any business knowledge, he liked to ask penetrating questions. The affection was harmless enough except when, as now, it required an answer.

  “He wants to see the books,” said Blaney as one talking to an idiot, “because we’ve done so damn badly last year and this year that he thinks we’re guilty of mismanagement. Or worse. You heard him, didn’t you? ‘We may find something suggestive.’ “ He threw down a pencil in disgust.

  “Well, now,” Jay Rutledge said ruminatively. “I think you’re letting him get under your skin. Can’t say that I blame you, mind you. I never saw a man so sure of himself. Still, when you run into a little trouble, you have to expect something of the sort. Remember David Paul, Chip? Back in ’48? Now this Fortinbras is a different sort, I grant you, but I think we can handle. . .”

  This was a long speech for Rutledge, and Mason was grateful for it. Blaney too looked grateful, if slightly surprised.

  Because Rutledge’s division, Government Contracts, was the only division in the company that consistently made money. The Target Control Release which Rutledge had developed was a small computer ideally suited for light artillery work. National Calculating was the only company to manufacture it and, in turn, the TCR brought National Calculating almost all its profits.

  Normally Jay Rutledge, by nature unforthcoming, was isolated from his colleagues because he was involved with neither their problems nor their disappointments. He spent most of his time in his own division’s New Jersey plant; if Morris Richter and Harry Blaney resented his independence, they were not in a position to complain about it.

  He tamped his pipe and looked up. “Well?” he asked with a slight smile at the unanimous relief his words had evidently brought.

  “I’m damned glad you’re taking that attitude, Jay,” Blaney said bluntly. “I’m not always sure where you stand when something like this comes up. I like to think that we’re all on the same team, and I’m glad that you think of it that way too.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Harry,” Rutledge said calmly, “I’m not a great one for meetings and long talks, but I agree that we can’t just hand over the prerogatives of management to anybody who comes around. Whether it’s the unions or Mr. Clarence Fortinbras. So long as I’m the head of Government Contracts, he doesn’t set foot in it.”

  “I knew we could rely on you,” Mason said. National Calculating might have its troubles, he thought, brightening slightly, but it was game. A second thought exploded the bubble. “What about that court order he was talking about?” he said anxiously. “Do you think he’s got a chance of getting one?”

  A depressed silence ensued.

  “He’d have to show cause,” Hammond said at last, in an unsuitably light voice. “That means he’d have to satisfy the court that this was more than”—he bobbed his head to Rutledge, who had fallen into his normal Lincolnesque posture of deep thought—“more than a fishing expedition.”

  “Can he do it?” asked Richter, still pursuing the truth regardless of its implications.

  “What do you mean by that?” Mason cried.

  “Now, Chip, don’t get excited,” Rutledge intervened calmly, the southern note in his voice deepening. “I don’t think there’s much likelihood of it,” he said to Richter. “And if he does, we won’t have anything to hide.”

  “He won’t want to look at the books of Government Contracts,” Blaney said gloomily. “He’ll be in my hair, wanting to know why we’re carrying the kind of inventory we’re carrying, why our distribution costs are so high . . .” He broke off, looked at Richter with dislike and added, “Then he’ll be after you!”

  The scientist was startled out of a narcissistic examination of his hands. “Me!”

  “Sure. He’ll want to know why we spent $156,000 on that bright idea of yours for a diode casing, and then had to scrap it . . .”

  “You can’t plan scientific work like an assembly line,” Richter retorted. “You don’t know ahead of time what will pan out and what won’t.”

  “I’m not saying you can,” Blaney replied. “I’m just saying that we’re the ones who’ll have to put up with this prying old fool. If he gets a court order, which I hope to God he doesn’t.”

  “You know,” Allen Hammond said without malice, “after today’s conference, I don’t know that I’d agree with you, Harry. I think he’s going to be gunning for all of us.”

  They instinctively turned to Rutledge who smiled, a trifle grimly. “He sure put my back up,” he agreed, “and I think you’re right. If he gets a court order, he’ll be all over the place. But without one, he’s not setting foot in the door of my division.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Blaney said, trying to shake his edginess. “Well, I guess we’d better get back to work. Was there anything else, Chip?”

  Mason, recalled from some private reverie, frowned at the regrettable lack of deference in Blaney’s voice.

  “I don’t think so,” he said, trying to muster some heartiness of his own. “Unless you want to report on that new cutting process you were talking about last month . . .”

  Hammond permitted himself a small smile while Richter assumed a spuriously expectant attitude.

  “We’ve had some trouble in the plant with it,” Blaney said in a careful show of candor. “I still think it’s going to work out,” he added with a defiant look at Richter, “but it’s a little tricky.”

  Hammond and Richter had both opposed the new process.

  “. . . so, we’re going to work on it some more, and see if we can straighten out the bugs. Otherwise, it won’t do us any good . . .”

  “As well as costing us forty-seven thousand for the new tools,” Mason said fretfully. “Jay, what do you think about this?”

  “Leave me out, Chip,” he said without bothering to remove the pipe from his mouth. “Harry sounded pretty sensible to me when he talked about it, and he’s running the tests. He’s the one who knows whether it’s going to work or not.”

  “Have you tried anything like it on the TCR’s?” asked Blaney.

  “No,” Rutledge replied. “We have to stick with the original specifications we gave to the Army. Any change would have to be okayed by General Cartwright and the Ordnance people.”

  “The reason it’s worth trying,” said Blaney, who tended to repetition, “is that we can’t sell at a profitable price unless we find some way to cut costs. Remember, on our commercial sales we just sell the computer itself, not the whole TCR . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” Mason said. “Selling just components is a different proposition. But it’s funny that we can make the same sort of thing in two divisions and only show a profit from one.” He sounded depressed.

  “It is,” Blaney said in an aggrieved voice.

  “Well, we’ll hope for the best,” Mason said optimistically.

  He did not specify the area.

  Chapter 4

  In the Wings

  On the bad penny principle that governs human affairs, John Putnam Thatcher found that National Calculating Corporation, about which he had rarely if ever thought of before his luncheon with Robichaux and Fortinbras, was now popping up wherever he looked.

  In some areas, of course, this was to be expected. Upon his return from Fraunces Tavern, he had immediately summoned Walter Bowman, his Chief of Research, into conference. What he learned about National Calculating, and the Sloan’s investment in its convertible debentures, made painful listening.

  “God knows what got into Claster,” Bowman summarized. “Maybe he knows something that we don’
t.” Since both he and Thatcher knew Claster and his work, his voice lacked conviction.

  “I’d better talk to him about it,” said Thatcher unenthusiastically. But it was a week before he steeled himself to confront Burton Claster, head of the Investment Division. Claster was being tactfully but firmly nudged to retirement by a Board out of patience with similar ventures. He was determinedly resisting these moves with a series of clumsy attempts to cover his errors, enlist allies, and justify his existence. A conference with him was not undertaken lightly these days.

  Nevertheless, it took place. Emerging, Thatcher summed up what he had learned: the situation at National Calculating was, if anything, worse than Clarence Fortinbras had suggested. More germane, the situation in the Investment Division of the Sloan Guaranty Trust was worse than the Board of Directors guessed. Thatcher was going to have to deal with the latter; he hoped that he had washed his hands of the former.

  This hope was in vain. Not three days later, Walter Bowman called his attention to a discreet paragraph in the Journal of Commerce.

  “So he got his court order,” Thatcher mused aloud. He had never doubted for a moment that Clarence Fortinbras would.

  “National didn’t have a leg to stand on,” said Bowman levering his great bulk out of the chair. “If it had been anybody else, maybe, but not Fortinbras.”

  Thatcher looked at him. It should have occurred to him that the omniscient Bowman was the man to know precisely who Clarence Fortinbras was. Bowman did indeed. Falling back into his chair, he obliged Thatcher with a brief description. Clarence Fortinbras was an accountant’s accountant. When Price, Waterhouse was reduced to wringing its hands in despair, Fortinbras was the man to be called in. If the problems raised by a major auto firm’s going public proved very delicate, then a quiet feeler would go forth from the independent auditors to Clarence Fortinbras. Never bothering to acquire a clientele of his own, Fortinbras had been content to let his brethren seek him out. Firmly maintaining his residence in Orono and his appointment at the University of Maine until his retirement, he had carefully nurtured his reputation for expertise and eccentricity.