Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “What a policeman don’t know about you will never hurt you,” was one way that the Lizard put it.

  When Jimmy appeared in the shop the next morning he noted casually that Krovac had a cut upon his chin, but he did not give the matter a second thought. Bince had arrived late. His first question, as he entered the small outer office where Mr. Compton’s stenographer and his worked, was addressed to Miss Edith Hudson.

  “Is Mr. Torrance down yet?” he asked.

  “Yes,” replied the girl, “he has been here some time. Do you wish to see him?”

  Edith thought that the “No” which he snapped at her was a trifle more emphatic than the circumstances seemed to warrant, nor could she help but notice after he had entered his office the vehement manner in which he slammed the door.

  “I wonder what’s eating him,” thought Miss Hudson to herself. “Of course he doesn’t like Jimmy, but why is he so peeved because Jimmy came to work this morning — I don’t quite get it.”

  Almost immediately Bince sent for Krovac, and when the latter came and stood before his desk the assistant general manager looked up at him questioningly.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Look at my chin,” was Krovac’s reply, “and he damn near killed the other guy.”

  “Maybe you’ll have better luck the next time,” growled Bince.

  “There ain’t goin’ to be no next time,” asserted Krovac. “I don’t tackle that guy again.”

  Bince held out his hand.

  “All right,” he said, “you might return the fifty then.”

  “Return nothin’,” growled Krovac. “I sure done fifty dollars’ worth last night.”

  “Come on,” said Bince, “hand over the fifty.”

  “Nothin’ doin’,” said Krovac with an angry snarl. “It might be worth another fifty to you to know that I wasn’t going to tell old man Compton.”

  “You damn scoundrel!” exclaimed Bince.

  “Don’t go callin’ me names,” admonished Krovac. “A fellow that hires another to croak a man for him for one hundred bucks ain’t got no license to call nobody names.”

  Bince realized only too well that he was absolutely in the power of the fellow and immediately his manner changed.

  “Come,” he said, “Krovac, there is no use in our quarreling. You can help me and I can help you. There must be some other way to get around this.”

  “What are you trying to do?” asked Krovac. “I got enough on you now to send you up, and I don’t mind tellin’ yuh,” he added, “that I had a guy hid down there in the shop where he could watch you drop the envelope behind my machine. I got a witness, yuh understand!”

  Mr. Bince did understand, but still he managed to control his temper.

  “What of it?” he said. “Nobody would believe your story, but let’s forget that. What we want to do is get rid of Torrance.”

  “That isn’t all you want to do,” said Krovac. “There is something else.”

  Bince realized that he was compromised as hopelessly already as he could be if the man had even more information.

  “Yes,” he said, “there is something beside Torrance’s interference in the shop. He’s interfering with our accounting system and I don’t want it interfered with just now.”

  “You mean the pay-roll?” asked Krovac.

  “It might be,” said Bince.

  “You want them two new guys that are working in the office croaked, too?” asked Krovac.

  “I don’t want anybody ‘croaked’,” replied Bince. “I didn’t tell you to kill Torrance in the first place. I just said I didn’t want him to come back here to work.”

  “Ah, hell, what you givin’ us?” growled the other. “I knew what you meant and you knew what you meant, too. Come across straight. What do you want?”

  “I want all the records of the certified public accountants who are working here,” said Bince after a moment’s pause. “I want them destroyed, together with the pay-roll records.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They will all be in the safe in Mr. Compton’s office.”

  Krovac knitted his brows in thought for several moments. “Say,” he said, “we can do the whole thing with one job.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Bince,

  “We can get rid of this Torrance guy and get the records, too.”

  “How?” asked Bince. “Do you know where Feinheimer’s is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you be over there to-night about ten thirty and I’ll introduce you to a guy who can pull off this whole thing, and you and I won’t have to be mixed up in it at all.”

  “To-night at ten thirty,” said Bince.

  “At Feinheimer’s,” said Krovac.

  CHAPTER XX.

  AN INVITATION TO DINE.

  As the workman passed through the little outer office Edith Hudson glanced up at him.

  “Where,” she thought after he had gone, “have I seen that fellow before?”

  Jimmy was in the shop applying “How to Get More Out of Your Factory” to the problems of the International Machine Company when he was called to the telephone.

  “Is this Mr. Torrance?” asked a feminine voice.

  “It is,” replied Jimmy.

  “I am Miss Compton. My father will probably not be able to get to the office for several days, and as he wishes very much to talk with you he has asked me to suggest that you take dinner with us this evening.” “Thank you,” said Jimmy. “Tell Mr. Compton that I will come to the house right after the shop closes to-night.”

  “I suppose,” said Elizabeth Compton as she turned away from the phone, “that an efficiency expert is a very superior party and that his conversation will be far above my head.”

  Compton laughed. “Torrance seems to be a very likable chap,” he said, “and as far as his work is concerned he is doing splendidly.”

  “Harold doesn’t think so,” said Elizabeth. “He is terribly put out about the fellow. He told me only the other night that he really believed that it would take years to overcome the bad effect that this man has had upon the organization and upon the work in general.”

  “That is all poppycock,” exclaimed Compton, rather more irritably than was usual with him. “For some reason Harold has taken an unwarranted dislike to this man, but I am watching him closely, and I will see that no very serious mistakes are made.”

  When Jimmy arrived at the Compton home he was ushered into the library where Mr. Compton was sitting. In a corner of the room, with her back toward the door, Elizabeth Compton sat reading. She did not lay aside her book or look in his direction as Jimmy entered, for the man was in no sense a guest in the light of her understanding of the term. He was merely one of her father’s employees here on business to see him, doubtless a very ordinary sort of person whom she would, of course, have to meet when dinner was announced, but not one for whom it was necessary to put oneself out in any way.

  Mr. Compton rose and greeted Jimmy cordially and then turned toward his daughter.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, “this is Mr. Torrance, the efficiency expert at the plant.”

  Leisurely Miss Compton laid aside her book. Rising, she faced the newcomer, and as their eyes met, Jimmy barely stifled a gasp of astonishment and dismay. Elizabeth Compton’s arched brows raised slightly and involuntarily she breathed a low ejaculation, “Efficiency expert!”

  Simultaneously there flashed through the minds of both in rapid succession a series of recollections of their previous meetings. The girl saw the clerk at the stocking-counter, the waiter at Feinheimer’s, the prize-fighter at the training quarters and the milk-wagon driver. All these things passed through her mind in the brief instant of the introduction and her acknowledgment of it. She was too well-bred to permit any outward indication of her recognition of the man other than the first almost inaudible ejaculation that had been surprised from her.

  The indifference she had felt prior to meeting the efficiency expert was altere
d now to a feeling of keen interest as she realized that she held the power to relieve Bince of the further embarrassment of the man’s activities in the plant, and also to save her father from the annoyance and losses that Bince had assured her would result from Torrance’s methods. And so she greeted Jimmy Torrance pleasantly, almost cordially.

  “I am delighted,” she said, “but I am afraid that I am a little awed, too, as I was just saying to father before you came that I felt an efficiency expert must be a very superior sort of person.”

  If she placed special emphasis on the word “superior” it was so cleverly done that it escaped the notice of her father.

  “Oh, not at all,” replied Jimmy. “We efficiency experts are really quite ordinary people. One is apt to meet us in any place that nice people are supposed to go.”

  Elizabeth felt the color rising slowly to her cheek. She realized then that if she had thrown down the gage of battle the young man had lost no time in taking it up.

  “I am afraid,” she said, “that I do not understand very much about the nature or the purpose of your work, but I presume the idea is to make the concern with which you are connected more prosperous — more successful?”

  “Yes,” said her father, “that is the idea, and even in the short time he has been with us Mr. Torrance has effected some very excellent changes.”

  “It must be very interesting work,” commented the girl; “a profession that requires years of particular experience and study, and I suppose one must be really thoroughly efficient and successful himself, too, before he can help to improve upon the methods of others or to bring them greater prosperity.”

  “Quite true,” said Jimmy. “Whatever a man undertakes he should succeed in before he can hope to bring success to others.”

  “Even in trifling occupations, I presume,” suggested the girl, “efficiency methods are best — an efficiency expert could doubtlessly drive a milk-wagon better than an ordinary person?” And she looked straight into Jimmy’s eyes, an unquestioned challenge in her own.

  “Unquestionably,” said Jimmy. “He could wait on table better, too.”

  “Or sell stockings?” suggested Elizabeth.

  It was at this moment that Mr. Compton was called to the telephone in an adjoining room, and when he had gone the girl turned suddenly upon Jimmy Torrance. There was no cordiality nor friendship in her expression; a sneer upcurved her short upper lip.

  “I do not wish to humiliate you unnecessarily in the presence of my father,” she said. “You have managed to deceive him into believing that you are what you claim to be. Mr. Bince has known from the start that you are incompetent and incapable of accomplishing the results father thinks you are accomplishing. Now that you know that I know you to be an impostor, what do you intend to do?”

  “I intend to keep right on with my work in the plant, Miss Compton,” replied Jimmy.

  “How long do you suppose father would keep you after I told him what I know of you? Do you think that he would for a moment place the future of his business in the hands of an ex-waiter from Feinheimer’s — that he would let a milk-wagon driver tell him how to run his business?”

  “It probably might make a difference,” said Jimmy, “if he knew, but he will not know — listen, Miss Compton, I have discovered some things there that I have not even dared as yet to tell your father. The whole future of the business may depend upon my being there during the next few weeks. If I wasn’t sure of what I am saying I might consider acceding to your demands rather than to embarrass you with certain knowledge which I have.”

  “You refuse to leave, then?” she demanded.

  “I do,” he said.

  “Very well,” she replied; “I shall tell father when he returns to this room just what I know of you.”

  “Will you tell him,” asked Jimmy, “that you went to the training quarters of a prize-fighter, or that you dined unescorted at Feinheimer’s at night and were an object of the insulting attentions of such a notorious character as Steve Murray?”

  The girl flushed. “You would tell him that?” she demanded. “Oh, of course, I might have known that you would. It is difficult to realize that any one dining at my father’s home is not a gentleman. I had forgotten for the moment.”

  “Yes,” said Jimmy, “I would tell him, not from a desire to harm you, but because this is the only way that I can compel you to refrain from something that would result in inestimable harm to your father.”

  CHAPTER XXI.

  JIMMY TELLS THE TRUTH.

  Mr. Compton returned to the room before Jimmy had discovered whether the girl intended to expose him or not. She said nothing about the matter during dinner, and immediately thereafter she excused herself, leaving the two men alone.

  During the conversation that ensued Jimmy discovered that Bince had been using every argument at his command to induce Compton to let him go, as well as getting rid of the certified public accountants.

  “I can’t help but feel,” said Compton, “that possibly there may be some reason in what Mr. Bince says, for he seems to feel more strongly on this subject than almost any question that has ever arisen in the plant wherein we differed, and it may be that I am doing wrong to absolutely ignore his wishes in the matter.

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Torrance, I have reached the point where I don’t particularly relish a fight, as I did in the past. I would rather have things run along smoothly than to have this feeling of unrest and unpleasantness that now exists in the plant. I do not say that you are to blame for it, but the fact remains that ever since you came I have been constantly harassed by this same unpleasant condition which grows worse day by day. There is no question but what you have accomplished a great deal for us of a practical nature, but I believe in view of Mr. Bince’s feelings in the matter that we had better terminate our arrangement.”

  Jimmy suddenly noted how old and tired his employer looked. He realized, too, that for a week he had been fighting an incipient influenza and that doubtless his entire mental attitude was influenced by the insidious workings of the disease, one of the marked symptoms of which he knew to be a feeling of despondency and mental depression, which sapped both courage and initiative.

  They were passing through the hallway from the dining-room to the library, and as Compton concluded what was equivalent to Jimmy’s discharge, he had stopped and turned toward the younger man. They were standing near the entrance to the music-room in which Elizabeth chanced to be, so that she overheard her father’s words, and not without a smile of satisfaction and relief.

  “Mr. Compton,” replied Jimmy, “no matter what you do with me, you simply must not let those C.P.A.’s go until they have completed their work. I know something of what it is going to mean to your business, but I would rather that the reports come from them than from me.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Compton.

  “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you,” replied Jimmy. “I preferred that the C.P.A.’s discover it, as they will within the next day or two — you are being systematically robbed. I suspected it before I had been there ten days, and I was absolutely sure of it at the time I suggested you employ the C.P.A.’s. You are being robbed at the rate of approximately one thousand dollars a week.”

  “How?” asked Compton.

  “I would rather you would wait for the report of the C.P.A.’s,” returned Jimmy.

  “I wish to know now,” said Compton, “how I am being robbed.”

  Jimmy looked straight into the older man’s eyes. “Through the pay-roll,” he replied.

  For a full minute Compton did not speak.

  “You may continue with your work in the plant,” he said at last, “and we will keep the accountants, for a while at least. And now I am going to ask you to excuse me. I find that I tire very quickly since I have been threatened with influenza.”

  Jimmy bid his employer good night, and Mr. Compton turned into the library as the former continued along across the hall to the entrance. He w
as putting on his overcoat when Elizabeth Compton emerged from the music-room and approached him.

  “I overheard your conversation with father,” she said. “It seems to me that you are making a deliberate attempt to cause him worry and apprehension — you are taking advantage of his illness to frighten him into keeping you in his employ. I should think you would be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I am sorry that you think that,” said Jimmy. “If it was not for your father and you I wouldn’t have urged the matter at all.”

  “You are just doing it to hold your position,” retorted the girl, “and now, by threats of blackmail you prevent me from exposing you — you are a despicable cur.”

  Jimmy felt the blood mounting to his face. He was mortified and angry, and yet he was helpless because his traducer was a woman. Unconsciously he drew himself to his full height.

  “You will have to think about me as you please,” he said; “I cannot influence that, but I want you to understand that you are not to interfere with my work. I think we understand one another perfectly, Miss Compton. Good night.”

  And as he closed the door behind him he left a very angry young lady biting her lower lip and almost upon the verge of angry tears.

  “The boor,” she exclaimed; “he dared to order me about and threaten me.”

  The telephone interrupted her unhappy train of thoughts. It was Bince.

  “I am sorry, Elizabeth,” he said, “but I won’t be able to come up this evening. I have some important business to attend to. How is your father?”

  “He seems very tired and despondent,” replied Elizabeth. “That efficiency person was here to dinner. He just left.”

  She could not see the startled and angry expression of Bince’s face as he received this information. “Torrance was there?” he asked. “How did that happen?”