Keeping Secrets

by Suzanne Morris

  On Monday morning I set about getting into his secret compartment. It was to prove twice as hard as the task in the credit department, because he carried the key in his inside suitcoat pocket, and very often wore his coat all day, unless the office became stuffy. I was lucky enough to know the whereabouts of the key in the first place, and only just happened to learn this one day as he slipped it there after closing his safe.

  Monday and Tuesday passed without luck. They were rainy, chilly days during which even I wore a shawl around my shoulders throughout the day. Finally on Wednesday the weather warmed up, the sun came out, and in the afternoon the heating system proved to be a little stifling. I walked through and remarked on how hot the office was getting.

  “They need to adjust the heat,” said Mr. Tetzel, and within a few minutes he’d taken off his coat and hung it on the rack behind his office door. I will never forget how spunky I felt that day, as I went around gathering opportunities with the same outward detachment as someone gathering eggs from a hen house. Tetzel had a meeting at three o’clock in a conference room down the hall. He started to reach for his coat, then, as I held my breath, decided against it. He straightened his tie, pulled at the hem of his vest, and walked out. “I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.

  I walked into his office, laid some papers on his desk, checked his outgoing box and left, stopping quickly to reach into the coat pocket and find the key. Once my hand was on it, however, I didn’t feel so spunky. I hurried past Claude, telling him I just remembered my watch had to be put into the shop for repairs before closing time, dashed downstairs and up the block toward the locksmith as fast as my legs would carry me and the traffic would permit. When I returned with the duplicate key, Mr. Tetzel was still gone, and even Claude had stepped out. I slipped the original back into its place and sat down at my desk, with a sigh of relief.

  That night I made no excuses about working late. I just took my things as though I were bound for home and hid in the ladies’ room till everyone was gone. Two days before Christmas, few employees were apt to be staying around late, and besides that I had lucked into a job wrapping packages for the week at Joske’s, and had to report to work at seven o’clock every night through Christmas Eve.

  I was left with less than an hour to get into the safe, reach a phone and contact Edwin if I found anything, and get to Joske’s on Alamo Plaza. At six-fifteen all was quiet. I crept down the hall. Within three or four minutes I was inside Tetzel’s office, fidgeting with the combination lock. Once it clicked into place I felt a little better, and rammed the key against the secret compartment lock, then forced it in and opened the door. The compartment was a deep rectangle, and I was pleasantly surprised as I pushed my forearm toward the back that it was almost completely unoccupied.

  First I pulled out a small oval-shaped photograph in a fancy silver frame. It was very old, reminding me of some of my father’s photographs taken around the time of the War Between the States. I focused the light on the face of a pretty young woman, her mouth turned in a fetching smile, a bonnet on her head. Tetzel’s mother? No, his wife more likely. I paused for a moment then, feeling disgusted for this invasion of Mr. Tetzel’s private life. It was like going through his under clothing in a chest of drawers.

  I replaced the photo then, and pulled out a roll of papers tied with a string. Once I’d flattened them out it was easy enough to tell they were exactly what I’d hoped never to find: a group of invoices from several hardware companies located in a town in the Midwest. Tallied up, they amounted to thousands of dollars in rifles and ammunition. One common denominator among them was the consignment order: R. M. Gutierrez, Inc., Laredo, Texas.

  I sat back on my heels. One fact was certain: there was no going back for me now. I rolled up the papers and put them into my bag, closed the safe, and made for the nearest telephone outside the building.

  It was six forty-five by the time I reached a phone in a little cafe near Joske’s. My heart beating triple time, I was standing on one foot then the other, looking anxiously about, waiting for Edwin to answer his line. When I told him what I had, my voice a few decibels higher than usual, he said, “Don’t panic, Camille. I’ll meet you at seven o’clock on the Commerce Street bridge. I can have the invoices duplicated and back to you by morning.”

  “But I have to be at Joske’s by seven.”

  “All right. Give me five minutes. Have you got on an overcoat? … Good. Put the papers in your right-hand pocket.”

  “Hurry!”

  True to his word, he was there by five of seven. The air was so chilly off the river I should have been freezing to death, yet I was hot from the inside, even while my teeth clattered and my breath made little clouds on the air. Edwin approached from behind, and I felt his hand slip into the coat pocket and out again. Then he stood there beside me for a few moments, both of us staring at the river below. “You’re doing great.”

  “Oh, this is horrible!”

  “Don’t take it so personal.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Go to work now, and I’ll slip these into an envelope under your apartment door by seven in the morning. Can you beat Tetzel to the office and replace them?”

  “I think so.” The words came from the back of my mouth as though there were a gag around my neck. “There’s no denying it now, is there?”

  “Probably not. But we still don’t know to what extent Tetzel’s working. I’ll get back with you as soon as I know something. Till then just try to stay calm and get that itinerary.”

  “I have it. He’ll be in Germany, then up into Scandinavian countries.”

  “Anything more detailed?”

  “No. That was all Claude knew.”

  “All right. Maybe we can get something from the other end. Get to work. And thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  There were crowds of people in the store that night, and I received a few snide glances by the other women on duty wrapping packages when I walked in, plus a definite look of disapproval from my supervisor. I was only five minutes late, but you would have thought it was an hour, and from the way the people were lined up I could understand the irritation I had caused. Without a word I went to wrapping. One woman kept looking at her watch as she handed over box after box, then I heard her remark to a companion as she walked away, “You don’t find decent shop girls anymore. Look how long it took to get this done.”

  I was tempted to shout back she ought to have read the notices in the paper that suggested people shop early, but was saved from the outburst when a man placed a full-sized child’s rocking horse on the counter in front of me.

  I worked till ten-thirty, and went home exhausted. I was not sure the effort was worth the few extra dollars, but then there was only one night left before Christmas, so I supposed I’d make it. My own apartment was depressing after I’d passed by all the street decorations and colorful shop-window displays. I hadn’t even had time to trim a tree, and it didn’t look as though I would.

  Suddenly I dreaded the thought of Christmas, and this year a long weekend followed because it fell on Friday and we’d be off on Saturday. Mother had to be in Washington in advance of the House vote on a constitutional amendment on national suffrage, so she wouldn’t be in town with me for Christmas. My brothers all lived too far away to pay them a visit.

  Now all my dreams seemed to be falling apart. I hadn’t realized before just how much I had counted on Mr. Tetzel being innocent of any crimes against humanity. The war in Europe had never before seemed to be of any consequence to me, and certainly had not seemed to have anything to do with Mexican troubles. Now it looked as though it were all somehow tied together, and I was right in the middle of the knot.

  Too keyed up to sleep, I lay awake half the night. At one-thirty I heard steps in the hall and the sound of Edwin’s envelope shooting under my door and across the floor.

  6

  There are a number of things which I did for the BNA that still keep me awake nights from time
to time. If I despised my early and timid peeks into Mr. Tetzel’s business, that feeling was nothing compared with the anguish and disgust I suffered later over what I did to the Cabots.

  I will never forget the first day Emory Cabot appeared in Tetzel’s office, the week following Christmas of 1914. I was busy that morning—with honest banking work—and had just finished typing a stack of letters that had to go to the post office by noon. I was thinking how convenient a time to offer my services as courier for Tetzel as I glanced over the letters for errors, and all at once I became aware of the presence of Cabot at my desk. First his enormous finger ring caught my eye, then I looked up. There he stood, hat on his head, impatiently puffing on a cigar. His gaze on me was startling. I jumped up. “May I help you?”

  “I have an appointment with Adolph Tetzel.”

  “Yessir. Won’t you have a chair while I tell him you’re here?”

  He would not, and paced around the office until I returned to send him in. Although I did not know at the time, Cabot was not accustomed to waiting for anyone, and was rarely still.

  He was the most attractive individual I had ever seen up close. Giddy, who was leaving Tetzel’s office with an armload of files, met him face-on as he passed through. She obviously agreed with me. After he was inside we both kept staring at the closed door.

  Finally she approached my desk and said in a whisper, “Did you see that beard? Now, in my day that was the sign of a real man.”

  “He isn’t bad to look at now.”

  “Wish I was about twenty years younger … who is he?”

  “I never saw him before.”

  “Well I hope he comes around regularly.”

  “Giddy, your tongue’s hanging out, for heaven’s sake.”

  She winked. “I may be old, honey, but I’m not dead,” she told me, then walked out. She had a prissy walk that she’d exaggerate at times like these. I was still smiling and shaking my head in her direction when the door opened and out came Tetzel.

  “Pull out a commercial account application for Mr. Cabot, Camille, and push through all the confounded paper work, will you?” He handed me a note with all the information I needed.

  I didn’t have much opportunity to study what I was typing. I noticed his office was located on Commerce, his home on Beauregard at Washington—I knew where that was—and his would be the only signature on the account. He was opening with a thousand dollars. No wonder he was getting special treatment.

  It was almost noon when I took the application in for signatures, and I carried the letters in with me. “I could take these right over to the post office on my way to lunch,” I offered.

  “Why, that’s nice of you, Camille.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve noticed most of your late-afternoon mail doesn’t go out until morning. I pass close by the post office on my way home in the evening. I could easily drop it off.”

  He looked as though he’d agree, then changed his mind. “That’s a lot of extra bother … I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, but I’d be glad to.”

  “Maybe so. We’ll talk about it later. Mr. Cabot and I are going to have lunch at the International Club. I’ll probably be out a couple of hours.”

  When they were gone I wondered idly about Cabot. His firm name—Cabot Enterprises—didn’t indicate his business; rather, it seemed to suggest he was involved in several areas under one company heading. I wondered whether I ought to mention him to Edwin. Probably he was unconnected with Tetzel’s undercover activities. The bank eagerly solicited big accounts, and likely Cabot was swinging all his business over here. That was reason enough for special treatment by the president.

  They had been gone for a couple of minutes by the time I noticed Tetzel’s homburg on the shelf. I rushed out the door with it, through the main lobby, and caught them up just as they were reaching the street. “Why, thank you,” said Tetzel. “I don’t know why I have such a time remembering this hat.”

  When I started back through the door, Cabot said, “Allow me,” and I brushed in front of him. My heart thumped a little faster all the way back to my desk, and it seemed to me I’d never been in the presence of anyone who generated such power. Boy, I bet you didn’t cross him without thinking twice.…

  When Tetzel returned in the late afternoon, he said, “I’m very pleased with your work, Camille. I went against my better judgment in hiring you, to be truthful, and relied on my instinct. I believe I made the right choice. I’m always glad to see enthusiasm in young people, particularly when they work for the bank.”

  It was the kind of genuine statement that convinced me he just couldn’t be bad, and kept me wondering whether I’d made the right decision in accepting the proposal to spy. That evening I went home in low spirits, yet still with the faint hope that if I dug deeply enough into Mr. Tetzel’s affairs, maybe I’d wind up turning a frog into a prince. Yet I was reluctant to go further, always fearing the next step would prove me wrong. Nine chances out of ten he would turn his mail over to me, and because in the late evening I couldn’t get postage from the mail department at the bank, it would be so easy to keep a supply on hand and leave it off until I’d steamed open the envelopes and resealed them. In some ways it was so easy to deceive him, and knowing he trusted me, I hated myself for doing it.

  Inside my apartment door was a note from Edwin, wanting me to meet him on Main Plaza on the courthouse side at lunchtime the following day. Oh Lord, what now, I wondered? Suddenly the air seemed foul. I walked to the River Avenue balcony and opened the doors. Only seven o’clock, but pitch dark outside. Down below the street was filled with vehicles behind glowing lights. Up the block I caught a glimpse of Keith Butler, his figure outlined by a streetlight, loading boxes into the store truck. Apparently they were catering a party tonight. How nice and uncomplicated his life seemed. His immediate goal was to finish school. His great dream, a rather boyish one it seemed to me then, was to learn to fly an aeroplane.

  He had invited me to a winter dansant at the St. Anthony’s Hotel on the night after Christmas, and wound up spending most of the evening talking about being in the air. His interest was aroused a few years earlier when Lieutenant Honeywell housed his great air balloon the “Centennial” in a hangar at San Pedro Park, and used the park as a departure field on many of his flights. Keith was one of countless youths who hung around Honeywell as he tended to his balloon, badgering the poor guy with questions about what kind of gas he used, what materials he used to build his craft, and details on his famous flight in the Chicago International Race of 1907, when a forty-mile-per-hour gale blew him and his co-pilot through eight fences as well as various other obstacles. Yet in spite of it all, Honeywell had emerged with two cups and established American records for distance and endurance, flying twenty-three hours and over eight hundred and fifty miles.

  Keith spoke of Honeywell’s experiences as intently as though they were his own, and conceded his most prized memory was when Honeywell took him, along with several other boys, up over the park one windy Sunday afternoon.

  “That was it,” he said. “I knew then someday I wanted to be like Honeywell, maybe go for the Lahm Long Distance Cup myself.”

  “Maybe after the war you could pick up a German Zeppelin at a discount, and take people on world tours. I’ve heard they used to be pretty classy, with dining on board,” I told him in jest. He seemed insulted I could take his hopes so lightly and looked across at me seriously.

  “That’s all changed now,” he said. “As soon as I finish school and save up enough money, I’m going to take flying lessons. I want to be an aeroplane pilot.”

  “Your parents are paying for you to become an engineer,” I reminded him.

  “I know, but sending me to college was my mother’s idea. She felt it only fair if Ken got a college education, I should have one too. Dad just wants a son to take over the store someday, and he gave up on Ken years ago when he swore he’d become a dentist.”

  “I see … what do your fo
lks think about your becoming a flyer?”

  “They don’t take me seriously. But they will, one day.”

  I started to remark that I agreed with them, but it seemed ungrateful to hurt his feelings. He’d rescued me from the Christmas doldrums by asking me out that night. What if he was a bit boyish? At least he was an ordinary American, a refreshing departure from the type of people I was becoming involved with.…

  I watched him finish loading the boxes into the truck and drive off, then went inside and closed the doors behind me. Keith was always after me for failing to eat right, and just the evening before had brought me a box of fresh vegetables from the store. I opened up the icebox and considered making a big salad for supper, but then lost interest and fixed a cheese sandwich instead.

  Next day Edwin had some interesting news.

  He was so late that I had almost run out of time. I’d been sitting on a bench wondering if the people who built the mighty stone courthouse intended for its main tower to look like a beehive when he finally drew up beside me. It occurred to me for the first of many times that we must have looked like two crows perched upon a fence, the way we looked straight ahead all the time.

  That day he was reporting on the invoices, and explained, “Since the British blockade was set up the Germans have been in a tough spot. At the beginning of the war they thought they would outguess the Allies by tying up the American munitions factories with their own orders for weapons, but now with the blockade in effect they can’t get the weapons they’ve ordered overseas where they need them. So they’re consigning them to Mexico for sale down there. A lot of them went to Huerta before he got thrown out a few months ago, and exiled.