Executive Suite

by Cameron Hawley

  Shaw wasn’t the only one, of course … there were a lot of these younger men around the company now who didn’t know that either … and some of the older men who did know sometimes forgot. There had even been times these last few years when it seemed that Avery Bullard had forgotten … but of course he hadn’t. Avery Bullard was a great man. Great men did not forget. Sometimes they were too busy, or too distracted by someone else, to remember for the moment but in the end they always did remember. That was why they were great men.

  There was no lack of remembering in Frederick Alderson’s mind. Strangely, his memory seemed clearer now than it had ever been. Age, instead of dulling his recollection of those faraway days, seemed to have sharpened it. He could recall every thing that had happened all that year, every word that had been said, every action that had been taken. He could even see, focused rays of two sun-catching lenses, were the eyes of Loren P. Shaw.

  “Mrs. Prince is on the line, Mr. Alderson. She’s called twice in the last fifteen minutes trying to reach Mr. Bullard and now she’s asked to talk to you.”

  “To me?” He was pleased to have been singled out as Mr. Bullard’s alternate by Julia Tredway Prince. She was Orrin Tredway’s daughter, the last surviving member of the family and, despite all the rumors about her, she was still a Tredway and still lived in the mansion house behind the high stone wall on North Front Street.

  Alderson knew that she frequently called Avery Bullard for help in matters of business and that Mr. Bullard would sanction almost any effort in her behalf. Only last month, at Mr. Bullard’s request, he had spent an entire afternoon working on an agreement covering a ground lease on some property that she owned.

  “Yes, Mrs. Prince. This is Frederick Alderson speaking.”

  “Oh thank you for talking to me, Mr. Alderson. I’ve been attempting to reach Mr. Bullard but apparently he hasn’t returned from New York?”

  “No, we’re expecting him but—”

  “Something rather strange has happened. At least it’s something that’s never happened to me before, and I’m quite puzzled about it. Perhaps you can advise me what to do.”

  “I’ll be glad to try, Mrs. Prince.”

  “It’s possible that it may have some significance one way or another—something that Mr. Bullard should know about—and you, too, of course—although I’ll admit that I’m completely at sea about it myself. I don’t know whether it means anything or not.”

  “Yes?”

  “You know Mr. Caswell of course?”

  “Yes indeed.”

  “This afternoon Mr. Caswell called me to ask if I had sold any Tredway stock and I told him I hadn’t. I didn’t think anything more about it—and of course there may be no connection at all between the two calls—but about an hour ago I had a second call from some man in New York—a Mr. Pilcher. Bruce Pilcher. Do you know him?”

  The name had some vague association in his mind but he could not immediately identify it. “That name does sound familiar. I—”

  “He claims to have met me once with Mr. Shaw, but I can’t remember him. He said he was with the Odessa Stores—or some such name.”

  “Oh yes, I remember now,” Alderson said quickly, annoyed with himself for the lapse of memory. “Mr. Pilcher is president of Odessa Stores. They’re one of our very large customers.”

  “Then he is someone who might have information about our company?”

  His natural caution was heightened by the undertone of urgency in her voice. “That would depend, Mrs. Prince. Perhaps if you would tell me what he told you—I mean, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

  “Of course. That’s why I called you. He said that he had received some information that was highly unfavorable to the future prospects of the Tredway Corporation and—”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said that he had—”

  “Yes, I heard you, Mrs. Prince, but what was the nature of this information? I can’t imagine—”

  “I asked him that question but he said his information had come from a highly confidential source and that he wasn’t free to tell me anything about it.”

  He paused, debating the propriety of revealing the approximate net profit that would be shown in the forthcoming semiannual report, but deciding that he would not dare to do it, even for Mrs. Prince, without Avery Bullard’s specific approval.

  “I don’t believe I’d be worried about any rumors like that if I were you, Mrs. Prince. When you see the semi-annual report I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the showing we’ve made in the first half. We’ve just prepared our forecast for the fall months and—well, I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Alderson. I really was rather concerned when this man was so insistent that I sell some of my stock.”

  “Sell your stock?”

  “Yes, that was his whole point. He said that Tredway stock was sure to drop in price over the next few weeks and that even if I wanted to retain my holdings I could sell now and buy back a little later and have a very substantial profit.”

  “Well, I—well, it just doesn’t make sense, Mrs. Prince.”

  “I know, it seemed strange to me, too. I asked him why he called me, and the only thing that I could get out of him was that he had a connection through which he could dispose of a block of two thousand shares—provided that I could give him an immediate decision—before six-thirty. Oh, yes, there was something else. He said that it ought to be a private sale—not go through the stock exchange—because that wouldn’t depress the price so much. There was a lot more talk like that but it was all so financial and legal that it didn’t make too much sense to me, but at least that was the general idea.”

  Frederick Alderson’s mind, slow-starting, was speeding up under the impact of counterflashing fact and supposition. The manipulation of securities, with which he had been intimately involved during all of the years of the Tredway Corporation’s expansion, had always been the most exciting part of his work. “Mrs. Prince, I can’t be certain of what’s happening, of course—never can be—but it looks to me as if someone is trying to pull a fast trick to get his hands on a block of Tredway stock.”

  “You think someone wants the stock?”

  “Why else would he call you and suggest that you sell?”

  “Yes, I see. I—you think then it was a trick?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And you don’t think I should sell?”

  “No—at least not on the basis of any worry about the future of the Tredway Corporation.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Alderson. I’ll take your advice, of course. It is strange though, isn’t it—this man calling me up like that?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “If it isn’t too much trouble, perhaps you won’t mind telling Mr. Bullard about it. It might possibly have some significance for him—the fact that someone seems to be trying to buy a block of stock.”

  “I’ll tell him the moment I see him. I know that it’s information he’ll be happy to have and that he’ll appreciate your calling us up about it, Mrs. Prince.”

  He hung up, pleased with himself for the way he had handled the situation, yet disturbed that it could not be matched to precedence. In all of his years of close association with the financial affairs of the corporation he had never heard of a similar circumstance.

  Suddenly, as separate lightning flashes streak across the sky to join in a single blinding flash, he saw what was happening. It was Loren Shaw! She had said that Pilcher had mentioned Shaw.… that checked … Pilcher was a friend of Shaw’s … they had worked together for some company that Shaw had been with before he came to Tredway. Shaw had said that himself, the time the executive committee had discussed that price protection contract for Odessa.

  But why was Shaw …? The second answer flashed. Shaw only held 612 shares of stock. The figures were engraved on his mind as were the stockholdings of all the other officers of the company. His own holding of 1256 shares was, next to Aver
y Bullard’s, the largest of any. If Shaw could manage to get his hands on two thousand more shares he would have a total of 2612—plus any more that he might have picked up on the open market that hadn’t been transferred yet. The market had been active today … biggest turnover on Tredway in months … if Shaw had been buying …

  Alderson short-circuited his alarm. He was getting unnecessarily excited. There was nothing to worry about. Shaw didn’t have those two thousand shares of Mrs. Prince’s … and now he wouldn’t get them! He had been caught red-handed and tripped up. Wait until Avery Bullard heard about this one!

  Peeping through the slit in the almost closed door of the president’s office, he saw Erica Martin talking on the telephone. He waited until she hung up and then called her name.

  She came to the door. “Yes, Mr. Alderson?”

  “When Mr. Bullard comes I’d like to see him for a minute before he comes into the meeting. I’ve just had some extremely important information and I know he’ll want to have it at once. Will you call me out as soon as he gets here?”

  “Yes, Mr. Alderson, but I’m afraid—”

  Her voice had clipped off unaccountably.

  “Is anything wrong, Miss Martin?”

  “I don’t know, I—” She stopped, momentarily searching his face as if she were debating a confession of fear. “While you were talking I had a call from Eddie at the station. Mr. Bullard wasn’t on the six-thirteen.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No. There isn’t another train until the seven-forty.” She stopped again, weighing another revelation. “I knew you men would want to know whether there would be time enough to go for dinner, so I called the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to see what time Mr. Bullard had checked out. I thought that would give us an idea whether or not he’d be on the seven-forty.”

  “Yes?”

  “He hasn’t checked out.”

  “Well, in that case, Miss Martin—well, then he couldn’t be on the seven-forty either, could he?”

  “Mr. Alderson, do you think something might have happened to him?”

  The urgent way her voice cut in on his made him look at her sharply. He had never heard that same quality in Erica Martin’s voice before, yet it was a tone that was completely familiar to him. His wife used it constantly to express the concern for him that she never seemed able to escape. The association automatically influenced the timbre of his voice and what he said was an equally automatic response. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all.”

  “But if he changed his plans, why didn’t he wire?”

  He could see now that she was truly alarmed, more so than he had suspected at first. “You know Mr. Bullard better than that, Miss Martin,” he said with practiced reassurance. “When something comes up that gets him interested, he forgets everything else in the world.”

  “‘I suppose something did come up,” she admitted reluctantly. “At least we know he’s still in New York.”

  “That’s right,” he said, changing his voice to open a new subject. “I might as well tell the others, don’t you think? No use for any of us to wait any longer under the circumstances—and Mr. Dudley has a plane to catch.”

  She nodded, looking past him, preoccupied.

  “You might give me a ring as soon as Mr. Bullard gets here in the morning, Miss Martin. This matter that I—oh, tomorrow’s Saturday, isn’t it? Well now, let me see—if you should hear anything from him, Miss Martin, I wonder if you’d be good enough to give me a ring at home?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, suddenly over-crisp. “What shall I tell him that you want to see him about?”

  He hesitated until he found a way to say it that would keep his secret and still avoid the danger of making Erica Martin feel that he did not trust her. “Tell Mr. Bullard that it concerns some information I’ve just received about certain manipulations that are going on in connection with the company’s stock.”

  “Very well, Mr. Alderson.”

  He saw the quick dart of her eyes toward the telephone and, walking across the hall, his mind carried the impression that she might know more than she had let him think. It was possible that Mrs. Prince had told her what had happened. But it didn’t matter … nothing mattered now except getting the facts into Avery Bullard’s hands … that’s all it would take, just the facts. That would be the end of Mr. Loren P. Shaw … just as the facts about taking a knockdown from the lumber brokers had ended the career of that fellow in the purchasing department back in thirty-four … Mr. Bullard had kicked him out.

  Frederick Alderson smiled the smile of rewarded tolerance. He remembered something that Avery Bullard himself once said, “There aren’t many real bastards in business, Fred, a lot fewer than most people think—and there’s not much point in worrying about the few there are. All you have to do is sit back and wait. Give them enough rope and they’ll put the noose around their own necks.”

  He opened the door of the directors’ room and, for the first time in many months, his eyes made no effort to avoid Loren Shaw. Consciously, he looked directly at him. “I’ve had word that Mr. Bullard has been unavoidably detained in New York, so our meeting will have to be postponed. There’s no point in any of us waiting any longer.”

  Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “Did he call you? Was that Mr. Bullard on the phone?”

  Alderson waited, savoring the moment. Then, without answering Shaw he turned away and spoke to the others. “Give anyone a lift? Have my car downstairs.”

  They were all looking at watches.

  “I’ve got to get to the airport,” Dudley said, “but that would be too far out of your way.”

  “I’ll run you out, Walt,” Shaw cut in before Alderson had a chance to reply, waving down Dudley’s protest that he could catch a cab. “No, be glad to do it. Something I want to talk over with you anyway.”

  They went out together and, watching them, Alderson felt the strangeness of his new ability to restrain his anger.

  “Want to stop by Pike Street with me and see how the test is going?” Walling asked Grimm.

  “Afraid I’ll have to keep pushing if I’m going to get down to Maryland before dark,” Grimm said.

  Frederick Alderson followed them into the hall. He saw Erica Martin putting on her hat. “Mind if I use your phone?”

  He dialed the number of his home and his wife answered almost immediately. “I’m starting now,” he said.

  “Fred, are you all right?” Edith Alderson asked anxiously. “You sounded so tired and worn out when you called before that I’ve just been sitting here worrying that—”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all,” he said. The words were bright and crisp, not tonelessly automatic as they usually were.

  6.18 P.M. EDT

  Julia Tredway Prince jabbed the sharp heel of her satin slipper into the white fur rug and spun herself around on the old Victorian piano stool that she used as a dressing table seat. A second heel jab abruptly braked the turn so that she stopped facing the wide window through which she could see the distant white shaft of the Tredway Tower.

  An errant thought suggested the possibility that Miss Martin might not have told her the truth about Avery’s not being home from New York yet, but she quickly dismissed the suspicion. The woman was a bitch but she wouldn’t have dared to go that far … unless, of course, Avery had asked her to do it. She would do anything he asked … and probably had!

  “Stop it!” It was a command to herself, said aloud, a device that she had learned to use to keep her thoughts from straying into forbidden zones. Any thoughts of the relationship that might exist between Avery Bullard and Erica Martin was completely off limits. Even thinking of Avery Bullard alone was usually over the border line, but today the call from Pilcher had given it an eagerly grasped legitimacy. It was the first sustainable reason that she had had in a long time for calling him.

  The recognized sharpness of her disappointment when she had found that she couldn’t talk to him had m
ade her enforce the self-discipline of asking Mr. Alderson to relay the story, but there still remained the thin thread of hope that Avery might call her back. It was such a remote possibility that she could risk the danger of thinking about it. She knew he wouldn’t. There had been too many times before when he might have called but hadn’t. At least he could say, “Thank you, Julia.” Even that would be something, a pale echo of what he had once …

  “Stop it!”

  “What was that, dear?”

  She was startled by the unexpectedness of her husband’s voice, not having noticed that he had come into the adjoining bedroom.

  “Just talking to myself,” she said with a quick laugh, tossing the words over her shoulder as she spun the stool to face her dressing table again.

  “Did you get Mr. Bullard?”

  She could see him in the mirror, standing in the doorway like an unbidden guest, polite as he was always polite. “No, I talked to Mr. Alderson.”

  “Oh?”

  “He advised me against selling.”

  “I suppose that’s best then?”

  “There’s no reason why I should sell.”

  “No, I don’t suppose there is.” He hesitated and then, as if he were trying to make conversation, asked, “Have you called back the man in New York?”

  “No,” she said, starting to brush her hair.

  The door in the mirror began to close.

  “Oh, Dwight?” She turned now, pleasing him. “We’re having strawberries for dinner and I told Nina that I might be able to persuade you to make the sauce.”

  His face lighted. “Of course, my dear.”

  “I should have asked you before.”

  “There’s still time. I’ll do it at once.”

  When she turned back he was gone from the mirror but the image of his smile still lingered in her mind. It was a smile of gratitude and she returned it. She, too, was grateful—most grateful that he was so easy to please.