Tell me not of aught beside …
And she dropped off to sleep with a smile on her lips.
Chapter 9
That very afternoon, as John Sargent left the shipyard and began his short walk to the trolley that would carry him to his grandmother’s apartment, an elderly man walked up to him and asked how to get to the center of the city. John told him clearly.
“If you get on this car I’m taking, it will take you within a block of where you say you want to go.”
John swung himself onto the car, found a seat, and settled down. He was annoyed when the man followed him and took the other half of his seat. It was the more annoying because there were plenty of other seats the man could have taken, but he followed John closely and indicated that he wanted to take the outside of the seat next to the aisle.
“I’ll just sit here with you,” he said cheerfully. “Then you can tell me where to get off.”
John drew a faint sigh and accepted the company of the stranger. This new patience was one of the many things he was learning at that Bible class, and not always did he remember it. But after an instant’s thought, he moved over and gave the man a little more room. Then he pulled out the morning paper from his overcoat pocket and absorbed himself in its pages, though he had already read as much as he cared to that morning on his way to work. But his companion was not abashed by the paper. He opened up a conversation and was not in the least troubled by John’s inattention.
“It feels good to sit down,” he said. “I’ve been all day long hunting for a job. Strange, isn’t it, just because I have a few gray hairs and no bunch of references? You see, my references were burned in a little rooming house where I was staying. It caught on fire, and I barely got out alive with the few clothes I could manage to scramble on as I climbed out the window to the ladder the firemen had brought. And while I wouldn’t have any trouble in getting more, the place I was working wouldn’t keep me for the time it would have taken to get them. Of course, if I hadn’t lost my money, too, I could have called people on the phone, long distance, but you can easily see what a time I’ve been having.”
“Yes,” said John, giving the man a quick glance.
It was a fantastic story. Was the man a superior kind of crook, or what? He certainly wouldn’t be expecting to get anything out of a working man on his way home from work, would he? Or would he? Sometimes workmen had soft hearts and were gullible. He knew he was himself occasionally.
“Well, how did it come out?” he asked as he turned over another leaf of his paper.
“Well, it hasn’t come out yet,” said the man with a sigh and a good-natured grin, “but I guess it will in the end. I heard of a job this morning, and I went without lunch and spent the nickel to phone. I took a chance. The man I had to call had the same name as an old fellow workman of mine, and it turned out to be the same man. He’s the head of personnel in this big Vandingham plant. Do you know it? I hear they’re making some new kind of secret weapon that is going to do big things in this war and hustle it up in great shape, and they’re crazy to have reliable men that they can trust to keep their mouths shut, and that’s where I had the advantage. This man knew me, and I tell you, he was glad to hear my voice. They want me to begin work right away, and they need more men badly, only so many are gone to war, and so many haven’t had the training, and so many are strangers, that it is hard to get the right ones. The only thing was, he wanted me to hunt up another man to spell me, half-time. He said they always got along better if they knew each other, or were sort of buddies. He said it would be to my advantage if I could find some old friend in the city, or somebody I knew and thought I could sort of go partners with. But I can’t find any old friends. I called up several men I know—one had a son who used to be a buddy of my son, and I knew if I could get hold of him I’d be in luck, because my son used to say he was as bright as they make ’em, and the work was right along his line, welding. If I could just get him for my assistant, I’d be sitting pretty. But when I called, I found he had joined the army same as my son did and was already overseas. So that was that! And then I unearthed another name, but the whole family had moved west, and I found I’d have to go on my own. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt maybe I could find somebody, just anybody, who was looking for a job and take him along with me. And when I saw you, I took a notion to you. I liked the way you walked and the way you held your head, and I knew I’d never be ashamed of you if I buddied up to you, so here, I’m telling you. Would you like a chance to rake in a whole bunch of money? I know the shipyard pays well, but nothing like this job. You could be a rich man if you kept at this long. How about it, buddy, would you be willing to go along with me and take on this job? You know the Vandinghams are good people to be with. You can’t find much better. And now the government’s behind it, so there isn’t a question. How about it, man? Will you come with me and get the chance of a lifetime making your pile? It’s a job you can’t match anywhere else that I know of. Want to go with me and try for it?”
“Thanks,” said John indifferently. “I have a job that I’m very well satisfied with, and I don’t care to make a change at present.”
“But wait, young man, till I tell you what these people pay,” said the stranger, putting out a detaining hand as John rose and signaled that he wanted to get out.
“That wouldn’t be a consideration for me at present,” said John determinedly. “I’m perfectly satisfied with my job, but thanks for thinking of me. I hope you succeed in getting what you want. Good-bye.” And John swung off, made for the nearest drugstore, which wasn’t far away, and called up his officer friend.
The man on the bus rode a few blocks and was lost in the dusk of the evening. His name was Lacey.
Later that evening he called Weaver.
“Nothing doing!” he said with a half-triumphant note in his voice. “He says he’s not interested.”
“We’ll keep at him,” said Weaver. “He may come around yet. It sounds as if he is just the man we want, in spite of his reluctance. They say he has a lot of character. What’s that? The girl? Oh, yes, I liked her all right, but I still think the young man is our best bet for the Vandingham outfit. The old boss has some very decided notions, and one of them is that he doesn’t like women around business. You can’t go against that.”
“But I think there may be a way for the girl to work, too. She’s got ways of her own. She’s been scraping acquaintance with young Vandingham and got a bid to his party. She might work it through him.”
“You don’t say! Well, that shows enterprise, and if she can work it, it’s okay with me. But I’d still like to try for the young man. A man’s invaluable where machinery is concerned. A girl doesn’t always understand some important points that a man would know intuitively. So keep on trying for the young fellow. See if you can’t get in with him. Tell him you failed in your attempt to get into the plant and ask him to help you. Maybe that will work.”
“Okay!” said Lacey. “But I still don’t believe it will work. The boy’s got something in his mind that makes him allergic to the idea.”
“That so? Well, perhaps there’s something in that. He and young Vandingham might not have been good friends in college. Look up the records. Find some other student who knows them. See what he says. If there was rivalry between them, you might work it on the line of revenge. Sometimes a strong-minded guy like Sargent will yield if you told him there was a chance to get back at Vandingham. But you’d have to buddy up to him before you could do anything about it.”
“There’s another thing, too. This man Sargent has a pretty good reputation around town wherever he’s been. He’s known to be honest. Goes to some weird kind of Sunday school, is thoroughly trustworthy. And that’s a good reputation to have in a business like this. Nobody would suspect a fellow like that if it ever came to a showdown.”
“Yes, that’s all right,” said Lacey, “once you get him going and into the job too deep to get out and tell. But the trouble with the conscie
ntious kind is they’re too honest to start in something that seems a bit shady. I doubt if you can ever win this guy over. He’s too genuine to fall for it, no matter how much money he can make.”
“Is anybody really that honest and conscientious if he gets a chance to get away with a big thing like that, and no strings to it?”
“Could be,” said Lacey. “I’ve seen ’em occasionally.”
“Well, keep at it. You can’t do more than fail! And remember, we don’t fail in our business. We’ve got too much to lose. Of course, if worst come to worst, there are ways to make anybody do what we say. You understand?”
“Yes, I understand. But this is not the old country. These people will not fall for everything. They have courage. They are proud. They have a sense of right and wrong, which we over there have renounced. We have a different standard of life.”
“Lacey, you need to go back and take another course if you don’t know how to win over a needed fellow. This one has all the qualifications we need, and there are not so many anymore who have them, since the men are going into the army. In the old country we have ways to train the stubbornest of them to do what they are told, but not here, not yet. Say, how about turning your girl loose on the lad? She looked to me as if she were better fitted for that sort of work than the actual spying in a plant where they are all men and where she would not have the mechanical knowledge to understand what she was doing. But she might persuade your young man to undertake the job. She’s pretty enough. Get her to work on young Sargent.”
Lacey shook his head.
“Not his type. He doesn’t have much to do with girls. I’ve never seen him with a girl but once, and that was to help her find shelter during a blackout and then take her home afterward.”
“Who was she? Did you find out?”
“Yes, naturally. She is the daughter of the millionaire, Kingsley. He steps high when he does fall for a girl.”
“Hmmm! Is she a good looker?”
“Yes, but in a different way. More refined. More old-fashioned. You wouldn’t get her stooping to win a young man. Besides, I’ve heard she is engaged to young Vandingham.”
“The very thing, Lacey! You can get around her. Get her to make Vandingham take her into the plant, and then approach her wisely about the great job offer there is for the right young man. Perhaps she will induce him to go into this, talk to him about how much good he could do with the money.”
Lacey shook his head decidedly.
“You don’t get me,” he said contemptuously. “They are neither of them that type. The girl would never stoop to coax a young man to do anything, not even to get him to give money to some cause for which she was working, war work or defense or something of that sort. She is reserved and dignified and lovely. And he is reserved also.”
“Very well, then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Kidnap the girl and let the boy know she is in trouble. Then employ a bum to tell him he knows where she is and will tell him if he will get certain information from that plant for us. Try the chivalrous line and see how that works.”
Lacey shook his head.
“I’ll try it if you say so, but I don’t feel either of those young people would yield. They are wholly American, even to death. They have the same qualities you are trying to inject into your army.”
“Nonsense! They haven’t been trained as our young men are trained. They are a fun-loving, giddy set. Why our men have been bred and born to fight and to count self as nothing, for the glory of the whole earth. These Americans are soft. They are thoughtless and careless. They’ll do something that looks good to them and seems to be for their own good, and when they find out what it has done to them they’ll collapse and do what they are told if the promise of release is sufficient.”
“No, you’re wrong there! These two young people have been born and bred to honor. They drank it with their mother’s milk. They have not succumbed to the worldliness and modernism that so many are full of today. That young Vandingham has, and that is why he can be influenced by Erda, but the other girl, Lisle Kingsley, has an exalted view of life and is devoted to manners and customs. You would find it hard to kidnap a girl like that and get her into a dangerous situation.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Not if you picked your kidnapper, and you and I know plenty could do it.”
“Yes. It could be done. But there would be plenty danger in trying it. The so-called righteous indignation of the wealthy and fashionable, of the respectable church-going community would be roused and the dogs of the law would be turned loose upon us.”
“Those are things we have to expect and avoid,” said the big bully whose name was Weaver. “Those are the things we trained to overcome and beat. You know how! Now go and accomplish. I don’t care how you do it, but I want that lad and that other girl if possible, and I don’t care how much it costs. When is the next blackout? Watch for that. It’s an excellent time to carry out any schemes. Does that Kingsley girl go every night to that Red Cross class in the southern part of the city?”
“No, she goes to a dingy little religious gathering of some sort. At least that’s where she took refuge when the young man was with her.”
“Oh! So that’s the game is it? The religious angle. Well, that oughtn’t to be hard to beat. The element of fear would likely help a lot. Work it out, Lacey, and let me know tomorrow what you plan. Time is going fast, and the quicker we get this thing going, the better. It’s about the most important thing we have to do just now. This plant has got to be watched in the right way. The man that makes this possible is due for advancement. You know what that means. Now go, and see how quick you can get some action.”
The two men parted, and Lacey went on his way back to his desolate room to get on the telephone, call up his satellites, and work out a plan.
Lisle Kingsley, unaware that her name had been set down among the victims that the saboteurs were arranging to use to attain their ends, went happily on about her war work, Red Cross classes, and her university course. But none of those led her into a neighborhood where plans such as had been discussed would be easily carried out without detection. And approaching examinations kept her busy with her studies, too busy to go to the Bible classes she longed to attend. Thus God protected her.
John Sargent wrote her a brief and deeply grateful note after the lovely flowers reached his grandmother.
I can never tell you what those flowers did for my grandmother. To understand it, you would have had to see her eyes when she looked at them, and to have known her expressive eyes through the years as I have done, to read the almost glorified look of wonder that she wore when I brought them near her face and she caught the heavenly fragrance. I know she smelled them, for she drew deep breaths, as if she was fairly reveling in them. Then her eyes looked at me with a question in them. You see, she knows I would not feel I could buy flowers just now, and she wanted to know who sent the flowers, so I told her it was a friend of mine whom I had told about her, and I gave her your name. I think she knew the name. Your family, of course, is well known, and there was surprise in her eyes that I should know you. So I told her of the blackout and how we came to know one another. I told her about the Bible class, and there was great joy in her face, a kind of glory, if it is right to use that term about a human being.
So I thank you from my heart for your kind flowers. I do not know if you have been to the class again, because my work has changed to the night shift and I work from four until midnight, so I have missed the class myself, much against my wish. But I trust that the Lord will guide you into His truth.
I am enclosing a little booklet that you may like to see, about the soon-coming of the Lord.
Thank you again for your kindness,
John Sargent
Lisle kept that letter among her treasures, quietly, not even telling her mother about it. She felt her mother might not understand, and since she would not be likely to see this young man again, at least not often, if at all, it didn’t matter. It somehow
seemed to her that this was something all her own, something she didn’t want to talk over or have reasoned about or torn asunder by worldly traditions. She was not going to make anything of it in her life, so why should it be necessary to discuss it? It wasn’t as if there were danger in it for herself or anybody else. It was just a little happiness that was a pleasant thing to herself and would be spoiled by having objections raised. Only, what objections could there possibly be? She had sent some flowers to a dear lady who was a hopeless invalid with perhaps not long to live. And the grandson, who had helped her when she was frightened, had written a polite note thanking her. That’s all there was to it. If her mother ever came upon it, she would let her read the note. She would know at once by its tone that it was all right. Perfectly courteous. And there wasn’t anything wrong in her sending flowers to an old lady. It couldn’t possibly be misunderstood. There!
She put the letter away carefully, and now and again took it out and read it, just to reassure herself that there was nothing about it she need regret.
The little book John had sent her she read and re-read, and in time wrote a brief, pleasant, appreciative note thanking him.
One evening not long after she received the little book, she was walking to her nursery work and noticed some rough-looking men watching her. Drunk, were they? She wasn’t sure. But she didn’t like their looks. They seemed to be discussing her. A taxi was passing just then and she hailed it and got in, glad to have it turn a corner and whirl her away quickly from their sight. The occurrence lingered in her mind and worried her, so that she hesitated to go walking in the lower part of the city alone and was always casting an anxious look around for those same men. She was never sure that some she saw in the distance were not the same ones. She tried to laugh herself out of it, but finally fell into the habit of taking a taxi whenever she went into the lower part of the city.
Victor, by this time, had “taken over,” as he called it, his father’s business. That is, he had a large and beautifully equipped office, though those who were watching saw no sign that his father, because of Victor’s activities, did any less than he always had done. The only difference seemed to be that expensively furnished office of Victor’s, through which the most important people entered to see his father in a plain inner office. There were no frills in the elder Vandingham’s private office.
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