The Case of the 16 Beans by Harry Stephen Keeler

Author:Harry Stephen Keeler [Keeler, Harry Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery;murder;crime;classic;detective
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIII

Proposition

Quickly Parradine took up the telephone which had been lying idle.

“Are you there yet, Mr. Jark?” he asked troubledly.

“Right here, Mr. Parradine,” came a prompt and patient answer.

“Awfully sorry I was off the wire so long. I—”

“The expense is all yours,” the lower New York bookdealer replied pointedly.

“True enough,” admitted Parradine, unper­turbed. “Well, I’m far more interested now than I was just before I went off the wire about that Chinese wisdom book we were discussing. Even though I am not wallowing just now in any specific situation where I seek—well—a Way Out! And just as we were interrupted, you were evidencing that you had no particular objection toward telling me who the browser was who plucked that copy off your shelves—the hides-dealer down on the East River front—the ‘stubborn micro-brained hu—’”

“That’s right,” returned the bookdealer promptly. “His name is McDolphus—Hutchcock McDolphus.”

“Hutchcock McDolphus?” echoed Parradine, a broad grin suffusing his features. “Does he look like his name?”

The bookdealer at the other end of the wire actually smiled audibly. “He does! Quite. Depending, that is, on how you objectify names.”

“I see,” laughed Parradine. His laugh faded. “Hutchcock McDolphus, eh? Well if there’s anything in a name, all heaven or hell, I’d say, couldn’t budge him if he took a stand on anything. Nor—however, any leads into his better—his more esthetic—his more human and sympathetic self?”

“None that I know of. He did ask in my shop one day where my phone was, so that he could call up his niece. And then dialed some number. And asked for ‘Carmine.’ Though she wasn’t there.”

“Carmine, eh! Carmine!” Parradine shook his head approvingly. “There, by George, is one beautiful name.” He added sagely: “Somebody in his tribe evidently has a flair for pure poetry!” He was momentarily silent. Then added, a bit sardonically: “However, so far as either one of us, say, reaching him through and via Miss Carmine—there are only about 6,000,000 people in New York, aren’t there?”

“Quite right, Mr. Parradine. Even though there be only one Carmine.”

Parradine was thoughtful. Then spoke. “Well, since this fellow’s name is McDolphus, I would only waste my time in calling him up and trying to wangle that book out of him for a price. For any price. For a man named McDolphus wouldn’t sell a 5-cent item for a million dollars, if somebody was bent on paying him the million. And a man who deals in hides would be shrewd enough to know that anybody trying to get a valueless book from him was trying to get something worth a million dollars. Not so? But now you, Mr. Jark—you’re a bookseller—somebody a hides-dealer named McDolphus would never understand—a man who might part with a valueless tome one day, and then develop an inordinate desire to possess it again the next, so-o-o—I’ve a pro­position to make to you. A sporting proposition. A proposition not particularly based at all on my interest in possessing an item that’s the only one of its kind, nor even to add to

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