Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,9
day was this?”
“July sixth, I think—just a minute.” Bolling pressed a lever and spoke into the intercom. “Rita, will you bring me that file on Captain Romstead?”
The gray-haired, rather matronly secretary came in with a file folder and went back out, closing the door. Bolling consulted some of the papers in it. “His brokers are a small firm, Winegaard and Stevens; it was Winegaard who handled his business. Your father called him just at seven A.M. on Thursday, July sixth—that’s local time, of course, which would be the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. He read him a list of securities to sell and asked him to deposit the proceeds in his checking account at the Northern California First National Bank, which is practically next door on Montgomery Street. He said to sell it all at the market opening and to expedite the deal as much as he could; he needed the money not later than the following Wednesday, which would be the twelfth. The deposit would still have to clear, of course, before it could be drawn on.”
“Then did he alert the bank?”
“Yes. On Monday, the tenth, he called and talked to Owen Richter, one of the officers he knew personally. Told him about the upcoming deposit, asked him to clear it as fast as he could, and told him he was going to want it in cash, so they’d be prepared.”
“Did he ask Richter to call him when it cleared?”
“No. He said he’d call back himself. Which he did, Wednesday morning. The money was there, so he came in and picked it up.”
“Was he alone?”
“Yes. I specifically asked Richter about that. He said there was nobody with him at all. He seemed to be perfectly all right, rational and sober. He got a little abrasive when Richter tried to talk him out of taking it in cash, and he didn’t offer any further explanation except that it was for a business deal; but both of these are entirely characteristic of the captain in the best of circumstances. He seldom explained anything, and he had a very low tolerance for unsolicited advice.”
Romstead nodded, puzzled. “And Winegaard didn’t get any further explanation either?”
“No.” Bolling smiled faintly. “I doubt he expected much; he’d dealt with your father a long time. The only thing he objected to was the selection of the stocks to sell.”
“How was that?”
“Well, normally, of course, if you’re liquidating part of a portfolio for some reason, you do it selectively, that is, you prune out the weak sisters, the indifferent performers, losers where you want to cut your losses, and so on. He didn’t do that. He just went straight down the list until the total added up to a little over two hundred and fifty thousand and told Winegaard to sell it all.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No. Certainly not for a man who’d managed to make a fortune in the stock market over the years. As I say, Winegaard objected, or tried to, but he was cut off pretty sharply.”
“I don’t get it.” Romstead shook his head. “Oh, how about the burial expenses? Are there any accounts to settle?”
“No. They’re all taken care of.”
“Then you paid them, as executor of the estate?”
“No, he did. At the time he drew up his will, just shortly after he moved here, he made all the arrangements with the mortuary and paid for his own funeral in advance. Also the headstone.”
“Why? You don’t suppose he had some warning this was going to happen?”
“Oh, no, that wasn’t it. It was just that he took a dim view of the whole overblown ritual and what he considered the funeral industry’s exploitation of family grief. Said it’d do them good now and then to have to deal with a hardheaded businessman who was still alive. So he picked out the cheapest package they had, beat them down to the rock-bottom price, and paid it and gave me the receipt. I pointed out that since he’d probably live to a hundred and ten, he was losing the interest on the money, but he said with the chronic rate of inflation he wasn’t losing a cent. And he was right, when you stop to think of it.”
“Yeah. And then the same man’s supposed to have gone wandering around the streets of San Francisco like some kind of nut with a suitcase full of money.”
Bolling spread his hands. “The same man.”
Romstead stood up. “Well, thanks for filling me in, Mr. Bolling. I won’t take up any more