The Green Turtle Mystery by Ellery Queen Jr

Author:Ellery Queen Jr. [QUEEN, ELLERY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781504003940
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 1958-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

“Gosh, that’s good, Mr. Furlong,” said Djuna. “Say it again, would you, please?”

Socker repeated the couplet and added, “Don’t get the idea that I’m calling you small fry. You’re not. You’re headed for the big league, kid.”

Djuna wasn’t sure, exactly, what Mr. Furlong meant, but Mr. Furlong’s tone gave him an inward strength and made him very happy. And the idea of visiting the Mint and meeting a real Secret Service man had already made him pretty happy.

A few minutes later they were in Mr. MacHatchet’s office and Socker was saying to Mr. MacHatchet, “Sandy, I want you to meet my pal, Djuna. Djuna thinks that perhaps he can give you a few ideas on how to clean up that gang that are passing the phony ten-dollar bills.”

“Why, Mr. Furlong,” Djuna said, and he was really distressed. “I know I can’t give Mr. MacHatchet any ideas. Why, I–I–”

“Don’t mind this guy, Djuna,” Mr. MacHatchet said as he wrung Djuna’s hand so hard that Djuna felt sorry for any conterfeiter he ever got his hands on. Mr. MacHatchet was built along the general lines of the Mint itself, and he had eyes that were like two pieces of gray ice when they weren’t smiling at you. He pulled a chair over beside his desk for Djuna and treated him with the same comradeship that he extended to Mr. Furlong, so that Djuna felt entirely at ease again.

After they were seated Mr. MacHatchet said to Socker, “What’s the matter with that newspaper of yours? I called up the other day to ask Canavan to send someone over to get a release about that counterfeit ten-dollar bill. He sent some lug over here who couldn’t understand English, let alone write it. Why didn’t he send you?”

“Well,” said Socker with a grin. “Mr. Canavan and I aren’t on the best of terms at present. He seems to think that he can go his own way and get along without me very nicely. Time will tell.”

“You mean he has fired you again?” MacHatchet asked.

“That’s the general idea,” Socker said. “And that’s why I’m here. I want you to give me some inside stuff on this counterfeiting story that I can take to Canavan and make him see the error of his ways. I want to make it good enough so that I can impress on him that if he fires me again I might not come back.”

“I wish I could, Socker,” Mr. MacHatchet said slowly, and he was deadly serious. “But I’m sorry to say we don’t have any inside stuff. The lads who are making and passing those bills are slick. They made a counterfeit plate to make Federal Reserve Notes about three years ago. Each year, in a different section of the country each time, they unload from five to ten thousand dollars’ worth of notes and then they disappear for a year. During the year another five or ten thousand come trickling in from Central and South America and Mexico. We’ve never been able to get our hands on the passers so that we could trace down the plate.

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