The Go-Getter | Page 9

I saw in
the window, and I know she'd be prouder than Punch if she had two of them--one for
each side of her drawing room mantel, understand?
"Now, I'm leaving from the Southern Pacific depot at eight o'clock tonight, bound for
Santa Barbara to attend her wedding anniversary tomorrow night. I forget what
anniversary it is, Bill, but I have been informed by my daughter that I'll be very much de
trop if I send her any present other than something in porcelain or China or
Cloisonné--well. Bill, this crazy little blue vase just fills the order. Understand?"
"Yes, sir. You feel that it would be most graceful on your part if you could bring this
little blue vase down to Santa Barbara with you tonight. You have to have it tonight,
because if you wait until the store opens on Monday the vase will reach your hostess
twenty-four hours after her anniversary party."
"Exactly, Bill. Now, I've simply got to have that vase. If I had discovered it yesterday I
wouldn't be asking you to get it for me today, Bill."
"Please do not make any explanations or apologies, Mr. Ricks. You have described the
vase--no you haven't. What sort of blue is it, how tall is it and what is, approximately, its
greatest diameter? Does it set on a base, or does it not? Is it a solid blue, or is it figured?"
It's a Cloisonné vase, Bill--sort of old Dutch blue, or Delft, with some Oriental
funny-business on it. I couldn't describe it exactly, but it has some birds and flowers on it.
It's about a foot tall and four inches in diameter and sets on a teak-wood base."

"Very well, sir. You shall have it."
"And you'll deliver it to me in stateroom A, car 7, aboard the train at Third and Townsend
Streets, at seven fifty-five tonight?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you, Bill. The expense will be trifling. Collect it from the cashier in the morning,
and tell him to charge it to my account." And Cappy hung up.
At once Mr. Skinner took up the thread of the interrupted conference, and it was not until
three o'clock that Bill Peck left his house and proceeded downtown to locate Cappy
Rick's blue vase.
He proceeded to the block in Sutter Street between Stockton and Powell Streets, and
although he walked patiently up one side of the street and down the other, not a single
vase of any description showed in any shop window, nor could he find a single shop
where such a vase as Cappy had described might, perchance, be displayed for sale.
"I think the old boy has erred in the co-ordinates of the target," Bill Peck concluded, "or
else I misunderstood him. I'll telephone his house and ask him to repeat them."
He did, but nobody was at home except a Swedish maid, and all she knew was that Mr.
Ricks was out and the hour of his return was unknown. So Mr. Peck went back to Sutter
Street and scoured once more every shop window in the block. Then he scouted two
blocks above Powell and two blocks below Stockton. Still the blue vase remained
invisible.
So he transferred his search to a corresponding area on Bush Street, and when that failed,
he went painstakingly over four blocks of Post Street. He was still without results when
he moved one block further west and one further south and discovered the blue vase in a
huge plate-glass window of a shop on Geary Street near Grant Avenue. He surveyed it
critically and was convinced that it was the object he sought.
He tried the door, but it was locked, as he had anticipated it would be. So he kicked the
door and raised an infernal racket, hoping against hope that the noise might bring a
watchman from the rear of the building. In vain. He backed out to the edge of the
sidewalk and read the sign over the door:
B. Cohen's Art Shop
This was a start, so Mr. Peck limped over to the Palace Hotel and procured a telephone
directory. By actual count there were nineteen B. Cohens scattered throughout the city, so
before commencing to call the nineteen, Bill Peck borrowed the city directory from the
hotel clerk and scanned it for the particular B. Cohen who owned the art shop. His search
availed him nothing. B. Cohen was listed as an art dealer at the address where the blue
vase reposed in the show window. That was all.

"I suppose he's a commuter," Mr. Peck concluded, and at once proceeded to procure
directories of the adjacent cities of Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda. They were not
available, so in despair he changed a dollar into five cent pieces, sought a telephone