“Father asked him to dinner, and when he wanted to discharge the fellow Torrance told him something that upset father terribly, and urged that he be kept a little while longer, to which father agreed.”
“What did he tell him?” asked Bince.
“Oh, some alarmist tale about somebody robbing father. I didn’t quite make out what it was all about, but it had something to do with the pay-roll.”
Bince went white. “Don’t believe anything that fellow says,” he exclaimed excitedly: “he’s nothing but a crook. Elizabeth, can’t you make your father realize that he ought to get rid of the man, that he ought to leave things to me instead of trusting an absolute stranger?”
“I have,” replied the girl, “and he was on the point of doing it until Torrance told him this story.”
“Something will have to be done,” said Bince, “at once. I’ll be over to see your father in the morning. Good-by, dear,” and he hung up the receiver.
After Jimmy left the Compton home he started to walk down-town. It was too early to go to his dismal little room on Indiana Avenue. The Lizard was still away. He had seen nothing of him for weeks, and with his going he had come to realize that he had rather depended upon the Lizard for company. He was full of interesting stories of the underworld and his dry humor and strange philosophy amused and entertained Jimmy.
And now as he walked along the almost deserted drive after his recent unpleasant scene with Elizabeth Compton he felt more blue and lonely than he had for many weeks. He craved human companionship, and so strong was the urge that his thoughts naturally turned to the only person other than the Lizard who seemed to have taken any particularly kindly interest in him. Acting on the impulse he turned west at the first cross street until he came to a drugstore. Entering a telephone-booth he called a certain number and a moment later had his connection.
“Is that you, Edith?” he asked, and at the affirmative reply, “this is Jimmy Torrance. I’m feeling terribly lonesome. I was wondering if I couldn’t drag you out to listen to my troubles?”
“Surest thing you know,” cried the girl. “Where are you?” He told her. “Take a Clark Street car,” she told him, “and I’ll be at the corner of North Avenue by the time you get there.”
As the girl hung up the receiver and turned from the phone a slightly quizzical expression reflected some thought that was in her mind. “I wonder,” she said as she returned to her room, “if he is going to be like the rest?”
She seated herself before her mirror and critically examined her reflection in the glass. She knew she was good-looking. No need of a mirror to tell her that. Her youth and her good looks had been her stock in trade, and yet this evening she appraised her features most critically, and as with light fingers she touched her hair, now in one place and now in another, she found herself humming a gay little tune and she realized that she was very happy.
When Jimmy Torrance alighted from the Clark Street car he found Edith waiting for him.
“It was mighty good of you,” he said. “I don’t know when I have had such a fit of blues, but I feel better already.”
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“I just had a talk with Mr. Compton,” he replied. “He sent for me and I had to tell him something that I didn’t want to tell him, although he’s got to find it out sooner or later anyway.”
“Is there something wrong at the plant?” she asked.
“Wrong doesn’t describe it,” he exclaimed bitterly. “The man that he has done the most for and in whose loyalty he ought to have the right of implicit confidence, is robbing him blind.”
“Bince?” asked the girl. Jimmy nodded. “I didn’t like that pill,” she said, “from the moment I saw him.”
“Nor I,” said Jimmy, “but he is going to marry Miss Compton and inherit the business. He’s the last man in the place that Compton would suspect. It was just like suggesting to a man that his son was robbing him.”
“Have you got the goods on him?” asked Edith.
“I will have as soon as the C.P.A.’s get to digging into the pay-roll,” he replied, “and I just as good as got the information I need even without that. Well, let’s forget our troubles. What shall we do?”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
He could not tell by either her tone or expression with what anxiety she awaited his reply. “Suppose we do something exciting, like going to the movies,” he suggested with a laugh.
“That suits me all right,” said the girl. “There is a dandy comedy down at the Castle.”
And so they went to the picture show, and when it was over he suggested that they have a bite to eat.
“I’ll tell you,” Edith suggested. “Suppose we go to Feinheimer’s restaurant and see if we can’t get that table that I used to eat at when you waited on me?” They both laughed.
“If old Feinheimer sees me he will have me poisoned,” said Jimmy.
“Not if you have any money to spend in his place.”
It was eleven thirty when they reached Feinheimer’s. The table they wanted was vacant, a little table in a corner of the room and furthest from the orchestra. The waiter, a new man, did not know them, and no one had recognized them as they entered.
Jimmy sat looking at the girl’s profile as she studied the menu-card. She was very pretty. He had always thought her that, but somehow to-night she seemed to be different, even more beautiful than in the past. He wished that he could forget what she had been. And he realized as he looked at her sweet girlish face upon which vice had left no slightest impression to mark her familiarity with vice, that it might be easy to forget her past. And then between him and the face of the girl before him arose the vision of another face, the face of the girl that he had set upon a pedestal and worshiped from afar. And with the recollection of her came a realization of the real cause of his sorrow and depression earlier in the evening.
He had attributed it to the unpleasant knowledge he had been forced to partially impart to her father and also in some measure to the regrettable interview he had had with her, but now he knew that these were only contributory causes, that the real reason was that during the months she had occupied his thoughts and in the few meetings he had had with her there had developed within him, unknown to himself, a sentiment for her that could be described by but one word — love.
Always, though he had realized that she was unattainable, there must have lingered within his breast a faint spark of hope that somehow, some time, there would be a chance, but after to-night he knew there could never be a chance. She had openly confessed her contempt for him, and how would she feel later when she realized that through his efforts her happiness was to be wrecked, and the man she loved and was to marry branded as a criminal?
CHAPTER XXII.
A LETTER FROM MURRAY.
The girl opposite him looked up from the card before her. The lines of her face were softened by the suggestion of a contented smile. “My gracious!” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter now? You look as though you had lost your last friend.”
Jimmy quickly forced a smile to his lips. “On the contrary,” he said, “I think I’ve found a regular friend — in you.”
It was easy to see that his words pleased her.
“No,” continued Jimmy; “I was thinking of what an awful mess I make of everything I tackle.”
“You’re not making any mess of this new job,” she said. “You’re making good. You see, my hunch was all right.”
“I wish you hadn’t had your hunch,” he said with a smile. “It’s going to bring a lot of trouble to several people, but now that I’m in it I’m going to stick to it to a finish.”
The girl’s eyes were wandering around the room, taking in the faces of the diners about them. Suddenly she extended her hand and laid it on Jimmy’s.
“For the love of Mike,” she exclaimed. “Look over there.”
Slowly Jimmy turned his eyes in the direction she indicated.
“Wha
t do you know about that?” he ejaculated. “Steve Murray and Bince!”
“And thick as thieves,” said the girl.
“Naturally,” commented Jimmy.
The two men left the restaurant before Edith and Jimmy had finished their supper, leaving the two hazarding various guesses as to the reason for their meeting.
“You can bet it’s for no good,” said the girl. “I’ve known Murray for a long while, and I never knew him to do a decent thing in his life.”
Their supper over, they walked to Clark Street and took a northbound car, but after alighting Jimmy walked with the girl to the entrance of her apartment.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he said, “for giving me this evening. It is the only evening I have enjoyed since I struck this town last July.”
He unlocked the outer door for her and was holding it open.
“It is I who ought to thank you,” she said. Her voice was very low and filled with suppressed feeling. “I ought to thank you, for this has been the happiest evening of my life,” and as though she could not trust herself to say more, she entered the hallway and closed the door between them.
As Jimmy turned away to retrace his steps to the car-line he found his mind suddenly in a whirl of jumbled emotions, for he was not so stupid as to have failed to grasp something of the significance of the girl’s words and manner.
“Hell!” he muttered. “Look what I’ve done now!”
The girl hurried to her room and turned on the lights, and again she seated herself before her mirror, and for a moment sat staring at the countenance reflected before her. She saw lips parted to rapid breathing, lips that curved sweetly in a happy smile, and then as she sat there looking she saw the expression of the face before her change. The lips ceased to smile, the soft, brown eyes went wide and staring as though in sudden horror. For a moment she sat thus and then, throwing her body forward upon her dressing-table, she buried her face in her arms.
“My God!” she cried through choking sobs.
Mason Compton was at his office the next morning, contrary to the pleas of his daughter and the orders of his physician. Bince was feeling more cheerful. Murray had assured him that there was a way out. He would not tell Bince what the way was.
“Just leave it to me,” he said. “The less you know, the better off you’ll be. What you want is to get rid of this fresh guy and have all the papers in a certain vault destroyed. You see to it that only the papers you want destroyed are in that vault, and I’ll do the rest.”
All of which relieved Mr. Harold Bince’s elastic conscience of any feeling of responsibility in the matter. Whatever Murray did was no business of his. He was glad that Murray hadn’t told him.
He greeted Jimmy Torrance almost affably, but he lost something of his self-composure when Mason Compton arrived at the office, for Bince had been sure that his employer would be laid up for at least another week, during which time Murray would have completed his work.
The noon mail brought a letter from Murray.
“Show the enclosed to Compton,” it read. “Tell him you found it on your desk, and destroy this letter.” The enclosure was a crudely printed note on a piece of soiled wrapping-paper:
TREAT YOUR MEN RIGHT OR
SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES
I. W. W.
Bince laid Murray’s letter face down upon the balance of the open mail, and sat for a long time looking at the ominous words of the enclosure. At first he was inclined to be frightened, but finally a crooked smile twisted his lips. “Murray’s not such a fool, after all,” he soliloquized.
“He’s framing an alibi before he starts.”
With the note in his hand, Bince entered Compton’s office, where he found the latter dictating to Edith Hudson. “Look at this thing!” exclaimed Bince, laying the note before Compton. “What do you suppose it means?”
Compton read it, and his brows knitted. “Have the men been complaining at all?” he asked.
“Recently I have heard a little grumbling,” replied Bince. “They haven’t taken very kindly to Torrance’s changes, and I guess some of them are afraid they are going to lose their jobs, as they know he is cutting down the force in order to cut costs.”
“He ought to know about this,” said Compton. “Wait; I’ll have him in,” and he pressed a button on his desk. A moment later Jimmy entered, and Compton showed him the note.
“What do you think of it?” asked Compton.
“I doubt if it amounts to much,” replied Jimmy. “The men have no grievance. It may be the work of some fellow who was afraid of his job, but I doubt if it really emanates from any organized scheme of intimidation. If I were you, sir, I would simply ignore it.”
To Jimmy’s surprise, Bince agreed with him. It was the first time that Bince had agreed with anything Jimmy had suggested.
“Very well,” assented Compton, “but we’ll preserve this bit of evidence in case we may need it later,” and he handed the slip of paper to Edith Hudson. “File this, please, Miss Hudson,” he said; and then, turning to Bince:
“It may be nothing, but I don’t like the idea of it. There is apt to be something underlying this, or even if it is only a single individual and he happens to be a crank he could cause a lot of trouble. Suppose, for instance, one of these crack-brained foreigners in the shop got it into his head that Torrance here was grinding him down in order to increase our profits? Why, he might attack him at any time! I tell you, we have got to be prepared for such a contingency, especially now that we have concrete evidence that there is such a man in our employ. I think you ought to be armed, Mr. Torrance. Have you a pistol?”
Jimmy shook his head negatively.
“No, sir,” he said; “not here.”
Compton opened a desk drawer.
“Take this one,” he said, and handed Jimmy an automatic.
The latter smiled. “Really, Mr. Compton,” he said, “I don’t believe I need such an article.”
“I want you to take it,” insisted Compton. “I want you to be on the safe side.”
A moment later Bince and Jimmy left the office together. Jimmy still carried the pistol in his hand.
“You’d better put that thing in your pocket,” cautioned Bince.
They were in the small office on which Compton’s and Bince’s offices opened, and Jimmy had stopped beside the desk that had been placed there for him.
“I think I’ll leave it here,” he said. “The thing would be a nuisance in my pocket,” and he dropped it into one of the desk drawers, while Bince continued his way toward the shop.
Compton was looking through the papers and letters on his desk, evidently searching for something which he could not find, while the girl sat waiting for him to continue his dictation.
“That’s funny,” commented Compton.
“I was certain that that letter was here. Have you seen anything of a letter from Mosher?”
“No, sir,” replied Edith.
“Well, I wish you would step into Mr. Bince’s office, and see if it is on his desk.”
Upon the assistant general manager’s desk lay a small pile of papers, face down, which Edith proceeded to examine in search of the Mosher letter. She had turned them all over at once, commencing at what had previously been the bottom of the pile, so that she ran through them all without finding the Mosher letter before she came to Murray’s epistle.
As its import dawned upon her, her eyes widened at first in surprise and then narrowed as she realized the value of her discovery. At first she placed the letter back with the others just as she had found them, but on second thought she took it up quickly and, folding it, slipped it inside her waist. Then she returned to Compton’s office.
“I cannot find the Mosher letter,” she said.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LAID UP.
Harriet Holden was sitting in Elizabeth’s boudoir. “And he had the effrontery,” the latter was saying, “to tell me what I must do and must not do! The idea! A miserable litt
le milk-wagon driver dictating to me!”
Miss Holden smiled.
“I should not call him very little,” she remarked.
“I didn’t mean physically,” retorted Elizabeth. “It is absolutely insufferable. I am going to demand that father discharge the man.”
“And suppose he asks you why?” asked Harriet. “You will tell him, of course, that you want this person discharged because he protected you from the insults and attacks of a ruffian while you were dining in Feinheimer’s at night — is that it?”
“You are utterly impossible, Harriet!” cried Elizabeth, stamping her foot. “You are as bad as that efficiency person. But, then, I might have expected it! You have always, it seems to me, shown a great deal more interest in the fellow than necessary, and probably the fact that Harold doesn’t like him is enough to make you partial toward him, for you have never tried to hide the fact that you don’t like Harold.”
“If you’re going to be cross,” said Harriet, “I think I shall go home.”
At about the same time the Lizard entered Feinheimer’s. In the far corner of the room Murray was seated at a table. The Lizard approached and sat down opposite him. “Here I am,” he said. “What do you want, and how did you know I was in town?”
“I didn’t know,” said Murray. “I got a swell job for you, and so I sent out word to get you.”
“You’re in luck then,” said the Lizard. “I just blew in this morning. What kind of a job you got?”
Murray explained at length.
“They got a watchman,” he concluded, “but I’ve got a guy on de inside that’ll fix him.”
“When do I pull this off?” asked the Lizard.
“In about a week. I’ll let you know the night later. Dey ordinarily draw the payroll money Monday, the same day dey pay, but dis week they’ll draw it Saturday and leave it in the safe. It’ll be layin’ on top of a bunch of books and papers. Dey’re de t’ings you’re to destroy. As I told you, it will all be fixed from de inside. Dere’s no danger of a pinch. All you gotta do is crack de safe, put about a four or five t’ousand dollar roll in your pocket, and as you cross de river drop a handful of books and papers in. Nothin’ to it — it’s the easiest graft you ever had.”
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 742