Sound of the Trumpet

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Chapter 16

  There was a great consternation at the plant five minutes after Erda had stealthily departed with her booty. The sturdy manager had been proud indeed that the wonderful gadget had been completed at last, had passed its tests, and was ready to be reproduced. He felt as if his heaviest burden had rolled away and all things now were to be smooth and easy. And then he walked up to the place where he had left it five minutes before, with the foreman of the other half of the machine, and it was gone! He couldn’t believe his senses.

  “What’s the matter, Montie, where is it? What’s happened?”

  “It isn’t here,” said the big foreman, his swarthy face white with apprehension. “It couldn’t have gone far in that time! What—where—who has been here? Sam!” he called across the room. “Has anybody been in here? B. F.? Or Smalley? Or any of the crowd that had a right?”

  “No, I didn’t see anybody,” called Sam.

  “Have you been here all the time?”

  “Sure I have. I wouldn’t go away till my shift was done. What’s eating you? What’s the matter? You don’t think I’d hide your precious old contraption, do you?” Sam grinned deridingly.

  “Why, no, of course not, but where has it gone?”

  “Where did you put it?” asked Peters, coming over to join the crowd. “You’re dreaming, Jim. You’ve been up too many nights and got it on the brain. You’re going nuts. Take it easy, man, and stop and think. Just where did you leave it when you went to your morning lunch?”

  “I didn’t go to lunch. That’s just it! I brought my lunch here in my lunchbox, and then didn’t take time to eat it. I just went across the corridor to bring Belden here. He wanted to see what it looked like before he got ready to set it up.”

  “Well, where did you leave it? Now think! Did you hide it somewhere? It isn’t very large, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t hide it anywhere,” said the foreman. “I left it sitting right on top of the metal cabinet there, just where I put it when I finished. And it isn’t there! Say, if you fellows are trying to make a practical joke out of this, it isn’t funny! Hear that? It means too much to me and the plant and the government. If any of you fellows have hidden it, bring it out quick or I’ll report you responsible, every one of you. And you all know the oath of secrecy you’re under.”

  The men looked soberly at one another, weird suspicions creeping unaware into their eyes, but they all shook their heads. No, they hadn’t touched it. And one of the older men spoke for them.

  “I give you my word, Montie, these fellows were all at their machines working like men. Not one of them stepped over there. I know that, for I was waiting for a hot bearing to cool off and looking around the room. Nobody went over by your location.”

  “And no outsider came into that room?” asked the foreman.

  “Not a one,” said they all, and looked at one another with troubled glances.

  “Who would come?” asked the old man, Hardy by name.

  “That young scallywag of a Victor didn’t come? You’re sure? He’s liable to do anything, you know, but I’d be responsible.”

  “You bet you would,” said Sam under his breath. Victor was not popular among the men. They knew his comings and goings all too well.

  “Not he!” said Butch derisively. “He’s off to a nightclub getting drunk as a lord with that little smarty secretary of his. If you ask me, I think she’s a snake in the grass, and if I was running this plant, I’d get rid of her first off.”

  “Try and do it!” said Sam.

  “Shut up, all of you! This is a serious thing. We’ve got to give the alarm at once,” shouted the foreman. “We’ll have to call our guards and see if there have been any questionable characters about. Call the inspector, Butch. Tell him what’s happened. But first, lock the doors and search this room. Don’t miss a corner. Look everywhere.”

  “Is anything else gone, Jim?” asked Sam.

  A look of fear passed over the face of the foreman. He dashed to the cabinet and pulled open the drawers.

  “Yes,” he gasped, “the blueprints are gone!” He said it in a terrible tone. “They were here ten minutes ago. I was just looking at them.” He gave another desperate look about the room and then dashed to the telephone. This was something the master must know. It was awful to have to awaken old Vandingham, but he had the right to know at once, and he was the only one who had a level head anyway.

  From then on the plant became frantic.

  The streets were deserted, stillness and darkness everywhere, broken only by searchlights turning steadily back and forth over the neighborhood. But there in the quiet night, the plant went on the alert, searching for that small, important gadget that meant so much to the war and the country and the trusted plant. And so very much to the enemy! What would happen if this went on and the government had to find out about it? What would happen to the foreman, who had been so proud of the trust put upon him? What would happen to the dependable old plant, with its enviable reputation that had weathered already two wars and been trusted through them both? Some of the great machines had been working night and day to produce as fast as the government needed their work. What would happen when many of them stopped now, while the men who ran them went searching everywhere, leaving no cranny unscanned?

  But from the first discovery that the blueprints were gone, those in charge lost hope. The enemy had done this, this was certain! Who else would want blueprints? This was no practical joke. It had assumed the proportions of a disaster.

  More soldiers arrived and were marched into the plant before day had scarcely dawned, so that the general public was not yet aware of the calamity. Policemen and plainclothesmen and detectives were called upon, and a system of tense guard was planned, locking the barn after the horse was stolen. The personnel of the plant was put through a severe grilling to discover if anyone knew anything that might help in the investigation, but the heart of the head of the house of Vandingham was heavy.

  Moreover, Victor was missing. Also his secretary. It was thought they had gone away together. Victor had often been missing in the early morning and had turned up later with a heavy hangover from drinking all night. But the secretary had always been on hand. Now, upon inquiry, it developed that she had gone to New York to see a friend who was dying. She had been careful to leave this word with the people at her apartment. Everything seemed to be all right in her direction, although the Vandingham family were sorely worried, for fear that Victor had gone with her. But a telegram addressed to him from Erda presently arrived, stating that her friend was dying and she would probably have to remain away until after the funeral. The detective tried to trace that telegram to its source, somewhere in the outskirts of New York, but it was hard to trace. Erda had been most careful in all her small details. That was one of her strong points, never to consider anything unimportant. But nothing was heard from Victor until late in the afternoon, when he turned up heavy-eyed and said he was sick.

  They were so relieved that he had come at all that his father refrained for a time from the severe tongue-lashing his son ought to have had.

  Victor verified the fact that Erda had been called away by a telegram to the bedside of a dying friend. But he hadn’t seen the telegram. He had no clue to her whereabouts, and he began to learn that the business he was supposed to have “taken over” was really something quite serious. He was questioned by the police, and an official from Washington arrived and took him in hand, looking at him keenly and asking him about his whereabouts last night when the robbery took place. It further developed that he had been with a young girl named Cherry, a waitress at the big department store restaurant during most of the evening, and thus Cherry was brought into the picture and questioned. She wept and declared her innocence, and finally was able to bring witnesses to prove that she had not been about the plant, not ever. She knew when she was dismissed that the police intended to keep an eye on her, and she wouldn’t be very safe anywhere until this affair was over.
She was just a silly, pretty girl, who quietly carried on a good many escapades with rich patrons of the restaurant, unknown to her quiet, respectable little mother at home who was working hard to keep her daughter respectable. She had yet to learn that rich young men who made up to waitresses entirely out of their social class were not usually to be depended on when real trouble came, and a girl was safer to stay in her own realm and not get her silly head turned by attentions that flattered.

  Victor, sullen and unhappy, thought back to the days when he and Lisle Kingsley used to be companions and wished he could turn the calendar back to that time and have things go peaceably and happily on the pattern his parents had set for his life. After all, these wild nights he was practicing nowadays always left a bad taste in his mouth, and nobody was quite as pretty and well-bred as Lisle. Why had he quarreled with her? He could have been more discreet about that. He could have kept his criticisms to himself until he had her in his power. He could have let her go to any old college she wanted and trusted to making her over to his plan after they were married.

  He sat in his luxurious office and meditated. Cursed his luck. Decided that it was all Lisle Kingsley’s fault. If she had just taken his advice and not acted so bull-headed. If she had changed her college and learned a few things, she wouldn’t have declined to marry him. She wouldn’t have acted like a stiff little icicle at the party and spoiled all his prospects. They would have been married by this time and everything would be going fine. It was all her fault!

  Then his father came in and began to berate him. His father had usually been rather easy on him, leaving his upbringing mostly to his mother. Perhaps because that was the easy way, for Mrs. Vandingham was a very determined woman. But now Victor was a man, and in a supposedly important position in the business. Even more important now, because the government was behind it and had the power to revoke contracts and make a great deal of trouble for them. Mr. Vandingham was greatly worried by what had happened, a “calamity” he called it, and he gave Victor a piece of his mind, straight out from the shoulder. He told Victor he couldn’t be a mere playboy any longer. He had to grow up and take responsibility or he would find himself behind prison bars pretty soon, and he wasn’t joking either.

  Victor at last looked up with a sneer. This kind of talk irked him.

  “Oh, now, Dad, let up on that line, can’t you? You make as much fuss about a little thing as if it were an irreparable loss. They made it in one day, didn’t they? They got the machine all set the way to made it, haven’t they? Why can’t they make another and nobody be the wiser? The government needn’t ever know anything about it. Just go ahead and work this out the way you planned. Where you made your mistake was in letting the workmen all know anything had happened. They didn’t need to know. But you can tell them you’ll skin them alive if they mention it, can’t you? And suppose the blueprints are gone? The enemy will be some time getting machines ready to duplicate the gadgets, and by that time you can get some other new invention going. I think it’s time this nonsense stopped and the men got back to work again. It isn’t necessary to carry on so when something like this happens. It’s bound to happen sooner or later with all these foreigners around the country, and of course some of them might be spies. I think it’s ridiculous to make such a fuss and act as if the heavens were falling! I wish you’d let up.”

  “Be still!” said his father. “Not another word like that out of your mouth! You’re an ignorant little upstart! That kind of talk is dangerous. Besides, it isn’t true! The government already knows all about this affair and has taken steps accordingly. What do you suppose all those extra soldiers are coming into the plant for, guarding every building?”

  “What?” said Victor, starting to his feet and looking wildly about. “You don’t mean you told the government? Or did the foreman get rattled and go blabbing it before you knew?”

  “Certainly I told the government. Didn’t you know that I am under oath to carry on this business openly with the government and report every possibility of trouble as soon as it comes? And didn’t you know that you are under the same oath?”

  “Oh, rats!” said the youth arrogantly. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more about this. I’ve got a headache, and you’re a pain in the neck. What’s an oath? Nobody pays any attention to that. It’s just a form. You can get by any oath that was ever taken. If you’re going to talk like this, you can get right out of my office. I’ve got work to do, and I can’t be bothered with you anymore.”

  “Victor? What do you mean by speaking that way to me?”

  “I mean just what I say,” said the angry young man. “This is my office, isn’t it? Didn’t you make me the first vice president of the plant? Well, I say get out! You can’t interfere with me, even if you are my father.”

  For answer the father rose and seized his son by the coat collar, jerked him across the room to the door, and opening it, flung him out forcibly. Then he locked the door and put the key in his own pocket. Victor’s father was a large man and strong, and it was all done so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that the boy, flabby from overindulgence and heavy drinking, had no chance to defend himself. He crumpled like a piece of pie crust and huddled in the corner where his father had flung him, blinking up at the astonishing spectacle of his father in a righteous rage.

  He lay still for a minute or two, completely abashed by this sudden onslaught from a father who had always been so kind and loving. And the father walked back and forth in the handsome room, his hands clasped behind him. After a turn or two he came out and stood before his prostrate son.

  “Now,” he said, with an air of finality. “You can lie there and decide what you’re going to do. I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind whether you’re going to get up and act like a man and a patriotic citizen of the United States. If you do, very well. We’ll try to go from there in good form and weather this thing together. Otherwise, I’ll hand you over to the government to put a uniform on you and make a buck private of you, unless they first decide that you belong behind bars!”

  “Dad!” said Victor, aghast, his face white and frightened. “You wouldn’t do that!”

  “Yes, I would, if you ever talk to me like that again. I won’t have a son who is an utter disgrace to the family and the community.”

  “Dad! What do you think Mother would say to you if she heard you talking this way?”

  “That gag doesn’t work anymore, Son! Your mother has protected you all your life from real discipline, and the time has come for you to step out from behind that sort of camouflage and see what’s in you. And I’ll tell you another thing. You’ve seen the last of this fancy office and that little dressed-up doll you call your secretary. I’m done with all that nonsense, and so are you, if you expect to stay here. You’ve got to get down to real work and show what’s in you, or out you go!”

  There was silence in his father’s plain little office for a few seconds while Victor tried to work this out. Gradually he rose, first to his elbow, then upright on his feet, and stood uncertainly, wavering, and blinking at his father.

  “Do you understand?” thundered his father, in a tone reminiscent of the day when Victor was a little boy caught stealing apples by the police and brought to his father for accounting, with his mother far away at a summer resort for a week.

  Victor’s eyes were downcast under his father’s steady gaze.

  “Yes sir!” he managed tremblingly.

  “Well, sit down then. I want to ask you a few questions. Just where is that girl of a secretary of yours?”

  “I told you, Dad, she went to the bedside of a dying friend who sent for her.”

  “But where?”

  “She said she was going to New York.”

  “Where in New York?”

  “I don’t know. She was in a hurry. She went right away.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you let her go without getting her address?”

  “Why, Dad, I didn’t think that was important. She p
romised to be back as soon as possible. She said she might even come this afternoon. She was in a hurry to catch her train.”

  “Yes, I guess she was. Well, you certainly proved your inability to run any kind of a business, even just an office. But that settles it. We’ll put the police and detectives after her right away!”

  “Dad! You wouldn’t do that! She was away. She wouldn’t know anything about what went on here.”

  “Wouldn’t she? It’s an extraordinary coincidence that the most important thing that we were making should be stolen the night she went away. I always suspected that little dolly. She has sly eyes. She was out to get something, and I guess she got it. I ought not to have given in and let you take her. Even your mother questioned the wisdom of having her here.”

  “Now, Dad, she’s a good secretary! Hurried as she was to catch her train, she waited to finish a letter I had just dictated.”

  “Yes?” said the father dryly. “What was that letter about? Some nightclub bill you hadn’t paid?”

  Victor’s eyes went down and his face flushed angrily. He opened his lips to speak and then closed them fearfully as he saw the glint of anger in his father’s eyes and the sneer on his lips. Perhaps, just possibly, his father knew more about his private, personal affairs than he had thought.

  “She’s a good secretary, all right,” said Victor. “The letter was some business about that steel that hasn’t shown up yet. I think that was it.”

  “Oh no,” said his father. “I came into your office and got that memoranda and answered it myself two days ago, and the steel has already arrived. You’ll have to get a better alibi than that. Remember you haven’t been here for two days, and you don’t know what has been going on. Now, if that is settled, and you actually don’t know where this excellent Miss Brannon is hiding herself in New York, suppose you go into the little side office over there and have an interview with the government man who is waiting for you. And be sure you speak the truth, remember, for I have a Dictaphone over there and I’ll go over the interview afterward. So be careful. Your future rests largely on this interview.”