Accounting for Murder Read online

  “. . . and he’s made a fortune, too. Why, that textbook alone, Fortinbras on Accounts Receivable, that’s the accountant’s Dr. Spock!”

  Thatcher digested this.

  “He’ll be raising hell at National Calculating,” Bowman said cheerfully in parting.

  “And enjoying it thoroughly,” Thatcher replied.

  “That,” said Bowman jovially, “just makes it worse.”

  Both of them were right. Armed with his court order, Clarence Fortinbras speedily set about raising hell at the Southern Bourbon Building, and enjoying himself in the process. Thoughtfully, for he was a thoughtful man, he informed his wife of both developments as soon as he could.

  “Emily,” he said crisply into the mouthpiece, “I just want to warn you that I’m going to be late for dinner tonight. I have to get settled here and organize things . . .”

  From Connecticut, Emily’s voice spoke rather sadly about a roast with Yorkshire pudding. It lacked authority; 30 years of marriage to Clarence had left their mark on Emily.

  “. . . problems with deferred charges, just as I suspected,” Clarence said happily.

  “How nice,” said Emily. “Tell me, Clarence, did they give you a nice office?”

  Clarence loosed a bray of laughter. “Stuck me in a closet,” he said without rancor. “Mason and the rest of them are burned up. But I told them that I was ready to go to court again if it’s necessary, so I’ve got an assistant. And I’ll get more . . .”

  “That’s nice,” said Emily vaguely. “Clarence, I do hope you’re not going to make a lot of trouble down there, particularly for Margaret . . .”

  Clarence did not share his wife’s high opinion of peace and quiet.

  “I’m not making trouble, Emily, I’m finding it!” he said firmly. “Well, I’d better get to work. Mark my words, before the day is out, National Calculating is going to realize that I mean business!”

  “Oh, dear,” said Emily.

  Clarence Fortinbras made his boast on Monday and possibly one day was too ambitious a forecast. Novel perceptions were not readily assimilated at National Calculating Corporation. But certainly, by the end of that week, nobody had the slightest doubt that he meant business. His relations with Charles Mason, discordant from the start, deteriorated under the impact of day-to-day contact. The president of National, nettled by what he regarded as an intransigent lack of cooperation by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, undertook misguided skirmishes designed to restrict Fortinbras’s activities.

  Fortinbras reacted to these guerrilla tactics in precisely the manner John Thatcher had predicted, by digging in his heels, laying back his ears, and becoming less controllable than ever. He flourished his court order, at one point produced his attorney, and threatened contempt proceedings. The resultant fireworks achieved so much entertainment value that, in the words of one lowly employee, you hated to go home for fear of what you might miss. By Wednesday the mail room was making book on the outcome. But after a notable early victory centering on access to the executive men’s room, Chip Mason lost ground steadily. Fortinbras successfully maintained his right to enter the premises, to make extracts and photostats, to plunge into files at will, and to communicate his findings to fellow shareholders.

  By Friday, Mason retired from the arena, a broken man. No further attempt was make to restrain Fortinbras, and he was left to enjoy the fruits of his court order and the freedom of the executives’ men’s room as best he could.

  With the front office wrapped in an impenetrable cloud of lordly indifference, National’s intelligence network fell back on a resource natural in time of crisis. Rumors flowed unchecked. Fortinbras was to be the next president, and Charles Mason was on the way out; Fortinbras was the agent of a take-over group, and a merger would be announced any day; Fortinbras was the advance guard of a full-scale Congressional investigation. Most of the clerical staff remained in genuine confusion about the source of Fortinbras’s authority, a confusion he made no effort to dispel.

  Fortinbras was not slow to consolidate his position. By the simple method of approaching various menials and crisply barking orders, he was soon absorbing full-time energies of one secretary, two comptometer operators, and three messenger boys, who did nothing but rush from office to office, collecting files to add to the growing heap which was rapidly creating a first-class fire hazard in the cubicle from which Fortinbras was directing all this frenetic activity. Empires are not built without inconveniencing somebody.

  In this case the nominal employer of the secretary was sacrificed to the tide of progress. His complaints to the office manager were unavailing. Miss Quackenbush, who had never surmounted the problems inherent in reordering office supplies, was already paralyzed by the raid on her comptroller staff. The chief of the Messenger Service was no longer on speaking terms with anyone in the Accounting Department. Harassed telegrams flowed to Elkhart, Indiana, where the controller of National Calculating, being no fool, immediately extended his absence from his home office. No controller likes to see their financial records in hostile hands: Harris decided to spare himself that painful sight by absenting himself from the premises.

  Only one person was stirred positively by the descent of Clarence Fortinbras. Stanley Draper, junior accountant, had held a lonely and unenviable position at National during the four months which had elapsed since his graduation from Cornell. Debarred alike from association with the bookkeepers by virtue of his college degree in accounting and from association with the assistant controllers by his lack of standing as a certified public accountant, he had led an isolated and often uncomfortable existence.

  His only formal colleague was a man some 30 years older than himself who had started with National in 1929 as a bookkeeper, and raised himself to the level of accountant by 13 years’ assiduous attendance at night school. Not unnaturally exhausted by this sustained effort, he had decided to rest on his laurels.

  But Stanley was young, and his ambitions assumed a less negative character. He yearned after the world of big business. Not the world of Expense Accounts and Petty Cash which were his chief professional concerns at the moment, but the world of mergers and poolings of interest, of write-ups and writedowns, of depreciation and reserves. In other words, Stanley Draper wanted to be a very important man. Like Clarence Fortinbras.

  One of the last to hear news on the company grapevine, Stanley Draper had received no warning of Fortinbras’s arrival. He entered his office the day after this event to find the following masterful memo awaiting him.

  To: STANLEY P. DRAPER

  Date: October 17

  From: CLARENCE FORTINBRAS

  Subject: Internal Audit

  By virtue of the authority vested in me under a Court Order issued October 13 by the Supreme Court of New York, I am undertaking a complete examination of the Company’s records and financial accounts. You are requested to report to me at 2:00 this afternoon for instructions concerning assistance to be rendered by your department.

  Stanley was delighted. He would no more have questioned the authority of Clarence Fortinbras to press him into service than he would have questioned the summons of his local draft board.

  Stanley Draper presented himself promptly at the appointed hour with the most cooperative face Fortinbras had yet encountered at National Calculating. The great accountant was not slow to capitalize on his advantage. For three days Stanley Draper, to his complete satisfaction, received calls from the adjoining office with frequency. On the third day Fortinbras swept him up at noontime, carried him off to lunch at L’Aiglon, and for two hours regaled him with an animated description of the opportunities open to a bright young man in accounting.

  From that moment, Stanley was Clarence Fortinbras’s devoted acolyte. The Accounting Department became hardened to the sight of Stanley rushing back and forth between the two offices, of Stanley closeted with Fortinbras for hours, of Stanley busily compiling lists, checking files, and importantly sending the office boy out for sandwiche
s so that he and Fortinbras could improve the lunch hour by organizing and assessing the task before them. It was the middle of the month and, as far as Stanley was concerned, those duties in connection with Expense Accounts and Petty Cash for which he was employed and paid could be deferred until the monthly closing. In the meantime, he was prepared to sit at his mentor’s feet and imbibe wisdom.

  • “Always check discrepancies. They have no place in good accounts.”

  • “It’s your sense of smell that counts, Stanley. Train it first; then trust it.”

  • “Small jobs should be done just as well as large ones. Everybody has brains enough to know that you should be very careful with ten-million deals.”

  • “So long as there’s a paper record at all, you can track things down. The only really successful frauds have been the ones that nobody tried to substantiate.”

  These private tutorials were a genuine source of inspiration to Stanley, while Clarence Fortinbras accepted his transparent adulation indulgently. He was used to students, and sometimes missed them. Nevertheless, a steady diet of Stanley Draper was a little too rich for his aging blood, and he was relieved to see his calendar, on the morning of Monday, October 23, warn him that a meeting of the National Calculating Stockholders’ Protest Committee was scheduled that afternoon.

  “Good, good,” Fortinbras said to himself. Regina Plout was perfectly acceptable as a change from young Draper, if from no other point of view. Every cloud has its silver lining. Pausing at Stanley Draper’s office to inform him that he would be absent for the rest of the day, Fortinbras headed for the elevator with a jaunty step. How right he had been to stay away from formal business life. Exchanging a curt nod with Charles Mason, who shared his elevator, he decided that office life might be the death of him.

  He was right.

  Chapter 5

  Fortinbras and the Conspirators

  No one could deny that Regina Plout’s living room on Central Park West provided a wholehearted contrast to the interior decor of National Calculating’s accounting department. For years she had been a part-time enthusiast of home decorating and a faithful reader of Better Homes and Gardens.

  But the death of Samuel Plout, the very substantial price which his partnership interest in Lady Godiva Foundation Garments, Incorporated had commanded, and the removal for reasons best known to themselves of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Plout, Jr., to one of the more inaccessible points on Long Island had all conspired to transform a mild hobby into an all-consuming interest. When House Beautiful heralded the return to elegance, she had been one of the first to lend a sympathetic ear.

  Louis Quinze was the style favored by Mrs. Plout, and she was fond of saying that she, personally, saw nothing wrong with ornateness provided it was expensive enough. Various decorators had been happy to take her at her word, and two years of hard spending had gone into producing the swaged draperies, the polished parquet floors, and the slim, uncomfortable side chairs which now housed the third meeting of the National Calculating Stockholders’ Protest Committee.

  Indeed, Mrs. Plout’s membership in this group stemmed directly from the finished perfection of her home. Left without an occupation, and enraged by a cut in her dividends, she had responded to Clarence Fortinbras’s circular letter as to a clarion call. Her very sizable holdings not only made her a welcome addition to the group, they lent some substance to Fortinbras’s appearance in court as the representative of a substantial stockholder element.

  Her personal qualities, which did not include tact, consideration, or intelligence, could never have recommended her even to a Protest Committee; but Mrs. Plout had one valuable characteristic: she was not idle. She brought bustling vigor to the business of writing, telephoning, soliciting funds, addressing envelopes, consulting with the printer, and finding out about third-class mail. And while Fortinbras was sorely tried by her habit of insisting that every meeting of more than three people be conducted in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order, he had to admit that the pompous solemnity with which these tactics endowed their proceedings was thoroughly enjoyed by most of the participants.

  It was inevitable that Regina Plout should be elected secretary-treasurer by popular acclaim. Listening to her reports, thought Fortinbras, was a small price to pay for having all the work done. “. . . $376 for postage, $252 for stationery, and $318 for printing, coming to a grand total of $1232. We didn’t have to include a typist’s fee due to the fine help of Mrs. Evelyn Harries and Mrs. Miriam Dennis who addressed all the envelopes. I think we should have a motion for a vote of thanks to show our gratitude to these two ladies for all their work.”

  She paused to look about her expectantly. Fortinbras scowled at a Fragonard print across the room, and the danger passed. A retired doctor made the motion. It was duly seconded and carried to the accompaniment of blushing disclaimers by the two elderly widows involved, suitable expressions of gratification by most of those present, and a look of absolute disgust from a wealthy and unemployed young man who had come to the meeting because his trustee had told him that he should take an interest in his investments. Mrs. Plout surveyed the scene indulgently for a moment before continuing.

  “Now you mustn’t think that we’ve just been wasting the Committee’s money. Some of you feel that over a thousand dollars is a lot to spend on circularizing. But the results of our mailing have now been calculated, and I’m proud to announce that more than 30 percent of the stockholders responded favorably. We now represent over 14 percent of the outstanding stock.”

  There was a stir of approval from the twelve people listening. One woman who was there in the face of her husband’s heated objections nodded complacently to herself. That would teach Arthur to say he had only put the shares in her name for tax purposes! The second doctor present took out a notebook and made an entry. Mrs. Dennis and Mrs. Harries looked modestly pleased.

  Mrs. Plout hesitated for a moment, as if reluctant to come to the inevitable moment when she must yield the sweets of public speaking to a successor. She consulted the index cards fanned out before her, made a great show of ticking off points, shook her head momentously, and finally succumbed to the temptation of revenging herself on the next speaker with a lengthy introduction.

  “Mr. Clarence Fortinbras needs no introduction to us . . . first raised the possibility of organizing ourselves . . . enthusiasm and devotion . . . an inspiration to us all . . . will report to us on his findings . . . Mr. Clarence Fortinbras!”

  The company settled down expectantly for the pièce de résistance of the meeting. In response to Regina Plout’s busy directions, Fortinbras obediently proceeded to the small table serving as a rostrum, paused for a moment while he collected the attention of the gathering in a practiced manner, and then briskly squared away to the business of delivering his report. After dealing faithfully with the petty harassments of his first few days at National and allowing himself a fruity chuckle at the nature of the sanitary facilities provided for his accommodation, he produced a copy of National’s Annual Report to its stockholders, and flipped expertly to the financial statements.

  There was a subdued bustle as eleven people searched for similar documents in handbags, briefcases, and down between the sofa cushions. The rich young man had failed to bring his copy. Regina Plout hissed at him sharply. He shied nervously, and she ostentatiously tiptoed to an elegant sideboard in which she maintained a supply while Fortinbras courteously suspended his speech. The young man accepted his material ungraciously, permitted his hostess to find his place, and Fortinbras continued.

  Rapidly reviewing what he regarded as the weak spots in the financial summaries, he was brought to an early halt by a voice raised in question.

  “But, Mr. Fortinbras, it says here that profits went up during the last year.”

  “Total profits did go up slightly, Mrs. Stanton, but they were all from Government Contracts Division.”

  “I’m afraid I still don’t understand.” Mrs. Stanton smiled ingratiatingly as her
beflowered hat bobbed up and down. “Does that make any difference?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stanton,” replied Fortinbras without a hint of exasperation in his voice. A lifetime of teaching had left its mark. “Only one major division was profitable. All the other divisions were run at a loss. Does that clear the point up?”

  “Oh, yes.” Mrs. Stanton was profuse in her thanks. It was obvious that Fortinbras had reduced her to total bewilderment. To total silence also, with any luck.

  The itemization continued, punctuated by similar questions. The two doctors, who had both retired from the cares of medical practice to devote themselves to the management of their estates, were the source of indefatigable interrogation. They seemed to have lived lives singularly untouched by the great stream of national commerce. Their oracular manner covered an almost endearing innocence of the Federal tax structure. Fortinbras dealt with them kindly but shortly, and by dint of perseverance came to his peroration.

  “These are the areas which should be the subject of meticulous scrutiny. All the basic records have been assembled for my examination, and the preliminary organization has been completed. I will not conceal from you that my worst fears are being substantiated. The financial picture for the present year is a good deal worse than that for the year just past. Incompetence, negligence, stupidity, and obsolescence of both material and personnel are rampant. There is something very radically wrong at National Calculating.” He paused for dramatic effect, and everybody looked pleased. If you spend over a thousand dollars for the surgeon, you want the patient to be very ill.