Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 01.djvu/102



AVE FRENCH wound his way in and out among the scattered desks in the city room of the News-Telegram to one corner where a thin, cabinet board partition separated the office of Davis, the city editor, from the news writers.

Without hesitating, he strode through the half-open door and faced the huge, red-faced man who sat behind a desk covered with telephones and scattered sheets of copy-paper.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked, looking down at the man.

Davis rapidly scrawled words on a sheet of paper. He stopped, picked up a lighted cigar from the edge of his desk, and puffed out a cloud of smoke. Then he looked up at French.

"Tomorrow," he said slowly, "is the fourteenth. And, being a reporter, that wouldn't mean anything to you, would it? But it so happens that Judson Vandervere comes of age on that day. Know what I mean?"

French's face lighted up.

"The steel millions!" he exclaimed. "The boy comes into the money!"

"Exactly. And we want a story. Get out to the house and see him. If he won't see you, burn the house down. He'll come out then. Get an interview. Earn your pay!"

French left the office and made his way back to his desk. He got his hat, trench coat, and a memorandum pad, and left the building.

Outside it was raining. French pulled the trench-coat collar up around his neck and turned the brim of his hat down to shield his face from the rain. Then he hailed a taxi and headed for Shore Oaks, where the Vandervere estate was located.

All during the ride, while the taxi rolled in and out among the heavy downtown traffic and finally passed into the suburbs, French turned over in his mind what he knew about Judson Vandervere. He did not know very much.

Right now, he thought, the heir to the steel millions was twenty years old. Five or six years before, he had been just an undersized kid going to some exclusive country day school and thinking nothing at all about his father's money. Then one day he had quit the school and come to town to study under a private tutor at his home. Shortly afterward, his father had died, leaving him an orphan with several million dollars.

It had dawned on young Vandervere then what his very generous allowance could do. And overnight he had become the nucleus of a mad bunch of playboys and girls who made the night spots, played polo, insulted reporters sent to interview them, got drunk and drove expensive foreign cars, and all of that

Life for Judson Vandervere had become one series of drunk driving and disorderly conduct charges after another, The perfect example of what happens to a spoiled brat with too much money,