“Perhaps you’d better tell Donald about that,” Bertha said.
Ashbury took the cigar from his mouth.
“Couple of chaps,” he said, “Parker Stold and Bernard Carter, control a corporation, the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company. My wife has known Carter for some time — before her marriage to me. They gave Bob a job. At the end of ninety days, they made him sales manager. Two months later, the directors made him president. Figure it out for yourself. I’m the one they’re after.”
“Foreclosed Farms?” I asked.
“That’s the name of the concern.”
“What does it handle?”
“Mines and mining.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me. Bertha asked the question. “What in the world would a Foreclosed Farm Underwriters Company have to do with mines and mining?”
Ashbury slumped lower in his seat. “How the hell should I know? I can’t imagine anything which causes me less concern. I don’t want to know Bob’s business, and I don’t want him to know mine. If I ask him any questions, he’ll start trying to sell me stock.”
I took out my notebook, jotted down the names Ashbury had mentioned, and added a note to look up Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company.