DUSKIN (12 page)

She sprang out of bed and dressed as rapidly as possible in an attractive little dress of a new shade of blue called Mountain Mist. It had been designed for morning wear on the beach, and she sighed as she drew the blouse over her head and adjusted the well-hanging pleats of the stylish little skirt. It certainly was becoming. But why should it be wasted in this town? She had no desire to be dressed attractively for Schlessinger and Blintz, much less for that young man with steel swords in his eyes who refused to recognize her authority. Of course she hadn’t wanted to take this position and wield authority over anyone, but being there by necessity she meant to be obeyed.

She shut her lips tight as she arranged the red-gold waves of her shining hair. She meant to do things today that would count. She was thoroughly rested and entirely herself again. This was a part of her job, and she would do it. That young man would see that he had met his master!

And a very firm little person she looked to be as she took her seat beside the telephone and called for long distance. She had decided that the thing to do was to get this Delaplaine on the line and hire him to come at once, and then to send for Duskin.

As she waited for her call to go through, it occurred to her that Duskin might refuse to come to a conference; very likely he would. In which case she would wait for Delaplaine and take him with her to Duskin, get a policeman to go along if necessary, and put Duskin off the property. She felt that she ought to be prepared to go to all lengths with a man who she was practically sure was a crook. He had to understand that her word was law!

While she was still waiting for her call to go through, the office clerk asked again if Miss Berkley would speak to Mr. Schlessinger about something very important, but Carol cut the idea short by saying she had a long-distance call in and could not risk delaying it. She added that Mr. Schlessinger might send up a note if the matter was so important, but the clerk said that Mr. Schlessinger did not care to write what he had to say and would return again in an hour and hope to see her.

Panic took hold of Carol. She must be out of here in an hour unless she was willing to talk to Schlessinger, and as she felt now she would never be willing to talk to him. She had been rereading the notes she had taken of the talk she had overheard between him and his partner in crime, and the more she thought about it in the light of what had already been revealed, the more she felt that she did not want to trust herself to say anything to him. Indeed she wanted nothing at all to do with him.

She paced the floor in her agitation and watched the hands of her little wristwatch anxiously. She had put on her hat and had her gloves and handbag ready to go out. She planned to slip down the stairs rather than take the elevator and slide out some side entrance and take a cab. In that way she might escape Schlessinger. She felt terribly alone. She almost contemplated telegraphing for her mother, or even Betty, in her desperation.

While she waited she opened her Bible to get that item of her day done, and reading on down the chapter she lighted on these words: “The Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”

It was almost uncanny. Perhaps she was getting superstitious. Certainly she would never say again that Proverbs was impersonal!

Then at last the call came from Chicago. But it was only to say that Mr. Delaplaine was out of town. He might be at home sometime during the day but it was doubtful. He had gone on a motor trip.

What right had a man in a business life to go off on a motor trip when he might be wanted?
she asked herself bitterly. The voice went on to say that Mr. Delaplaine’s mother was there. Would she talk with her, or leave a message?

Carol decided to leave a message for Delaplaine to call her up at once as soon as he came home, that he was wanted to take charge of a job at the earliest possible moment. Then, as she noted that the hour was nearly up, she picked up gloves and bag, locked her room door, and fled the hotel.

Her meanderings through the halls and down various staircases brought her out at last at a side door, which also connected with the tea room and grill, but though she was hungry, seeing she had had no dinner the night before, she dared not risk going in lest Schlessinger might have her paged and somehow ferret her out and come to sit with her.

There was no taxi in sight at the moment she emerged from the hotel, so she crossed the street and went around a corner quickly to a small side street, crossed again, and so winding around, she came to a small, neat-looking cafeteria, and here she dared to take refuge. There were few people at that hour, and she took a seat far back in the room where she would not be noticed from the street and turned her face away from the door.

The coffee was good and the rolls and eggs that she ordered were hot and fresh. She came away feeling quite refreshed both in mind and body. At least she had escaped those haunting men for a while. She would go and sit in a little park that she saw a block farther on. It seemed to be a quiet, domestic neighborhood, hardly the spot she would expect to find either Schlessinger or Blintz at this hour in the morning. She sought out a seat behind a group of shrubs where she was well hidden from the street and sat down.

Her mind was in a tumult. She did not know what to do. She must not waste time like this, but she seemed balked at every turn. If only Mr. Fawcett were well enough she would telephone to him and ask his advice. But after what the doctor had said that was not to be thought of.

Five minutes of retirement behind the park shrubs put her nearly frantic. She realized that at any minute there might come a long-distance call from Delaplaine. Also, she might be missing a call from Duskin, although she felt very uncertain whether he would come near her if she waited six months for him.

At last she decided to call up the hotel and see if anything had happened.

She crossed the park to a small drugstore where she saw a telephone sign and called her hotel.

No, there had been no call from Chicago. No long-distance call at all. Yes, Mr. Schlessinger had been there and waited for some time. He had just gone. He had said he would telephone later to see if she was back. No, there was no mail, but a note had come by special messenger. They had put it in her box. No, it could not have been from Mr. Schlessinger, it came while he was still there waiting for her.

C
arol came out of the telephone booth and took a taxi back to the hotel. It was a quarter to twelve and she had to know what that note contained.

When she reached the hotel she went in the side entrance and walked up the stairs. She would not risk meeting Schlessinger. In her room she telephoned down for her mail to be sent up to her.

The note was from Duskin. How had he found her address? Did everybody in this miserable town know everything that went on? How had Schlessinger found out where she was staying?

The note simply said:

The angry color rolled into her cheeks as she read. And he thought he could get by by inviting her to lunch! The impertinence of him! The audacity! Insult her and then invite her to lunch with him!

She wouldn’t go of course, not a step. Why should he suppose that she wanted to talk with him? Suggesting a quiet place as if she would be willing to have a conference with him, after what he had said to her last night! It was preposterous!

And yet, as she pondered the matter, she realized that if she would talk with the man at all this was her only chance of contact. He had declined, and successfully, to talk with her on the job, had openly flouted her before the laborers. She had every reason to expect that he would do so again if she attempted to go there and tell him she was done with his services. It was all too evident that he did not recognize her right to give him orders or to dismiss him. She must show him her credentials, and there was no way to do that without meeting him. Of course, she could decline to eat when she got there. She could say she had already lunched but would tell him what she had to say while he ate, if he was in such a grand hurry. He wouldn’t be in a hurry anymore when she got through with him. His great rush would be over for this time, at least, because there wouldn’t be anything to hurry for! He would be out of a job. All the hurrying he would need to do after that would be to hustle for another job.

She shut her lips with satisfaction as she went around putting a few added touches to her already charming outfit. After all, one could talk better when one had the consciousness of being well dressed. She had learned that lesson from the little jade velvet.

As she adjusted the close, white felt hat on her shining hair, she reflected that she was dressed quite as appropriately now for lunching at an exclusive college club, as she had been the other night for banqueting with the great.

She dusted a small speck from her trim, white shoe, picked up her white gloves and white silk handbag from the bureau, and started out again on the warpath.

But her eyes were shining dangerously bright, and her cheeks needed no rouge to give them warm color. She was swallowing her pride and going to meet her man, but he would have to pay for it in the end. She was wearing her war paint now and was on her mettle. Thoughts came thick and fast of what she would tell him when she got him cornered as she knew she could. She had a few papers in her handbag which she would bring out, one at a time, at the proper moment, and one or two things to say, and if he enjoyed his lunch after that he was thicker skinned than even she had thought him.

The University Club building was quite imposing. She was impressed in spite of herself. She had not expected it in this small, unimportant western town. “Back-country town” she had called it in her metropolitan-trained mind.

He was not in sight when she entered the small reception room on the right where he had told her to wait for him. She frowned at the thought that he was going to keep her waiting, after daring to command her to be on time—sharp! That was such an unpleasant word, as if she was a little student and he her teacher. Stage stuff again, just to impress her of course! She half considered slipping out again and keeping him waiting for her. She glanced at her watch. There were yet three seconds to the time, and even as she looked he stood beside her, courteous, quiet as any gentleman might be, as if he was the pleasant stranger she had thought him the night before last when as strangers their eyes met across the room. She had a passing wish that it had been so, and that Duskin were another man, whom she did not know and could never admire. Then she heard his voice.

“Shall we go right out to the dining room without wasting any more time?”

She rose hastily, remembering her anger and all she had to say, and walked beside him the length of the beautiful hall with its glimpses of other reception rooms, furnished in rich taste, and of people here and there in pleasant groups. He was saying something about the house having been given by some famous millionaire in honor of his son who had been a university man, and she was following his words and wondering at his manner. Could this be the same man she had seen in overalls lying on the floor with the pliers in his hand? In a tumult of soul she followed him to the table in a secluded nook by a window and sat down. Once more she had somehow lost the thread of what she had intended to say. She found the dignity and self-confidence that would have helped her to dominate him slipping slowly from her. There was something about this man that simply would not be dominated. And yet she must. She set her lips and resolved not to yield to the fascination.

There were flowers on the table, expensive hothouse roses of a delicate golden-hearted pink. A quick glance around showed her that theirs was the only table so decorated. Did that mean that Duskin had ordered the flowers? Was this some more upstage stuff? What right had he to waste the company’s money on flowers to buy her off?

She took her seat with inward protest. This was going to be a most difficult lunch, because he was making everything so absolutely perfect that it seemed to be the height of rudeness to hold herself aloof in this way; yet she knew she must do it. She must not let herself be hoodwinked.

His manner was perfect, pleasant, grave, not too friendly. He did not presume upon their introduction. Neither did he emphasize her connection with the home office. She felt almost embarrassed by his quiet dignity.

He gave the order without consulting her beyond asking, “You like chicken? And coffee, or iced tea?” in a low tone as if he were a frequenter of the place, and the waiter thoroughly understood his wishes. A delicious fruit concoction arrived almost immediately.

For the first few minutes he talked of commonplace things—the weather, her journey—and asked for details of Mr. Fawcett’s accident. But when the main course arrived and the waiter had left them alone, he turned his keen eyes on her with a more human, friendly look than she had seen in them since their eyes first met in the banquet hall.

“Will you tell me honestly just why you want to get rid of me?” he asked in a tone that was utterly disarming, and his eyes lost not a flicker of expression on her face.

The quick color came into her cheeks, and she looked up with sudden confusion in her eyes, realizing that she was not here to have a good time socially but to do her duty by her employer. How was it that this man had the power to make one forget that for the time? She must guard herself!

She pulled her thoughts together and answered stiffly.

“I’ve nothing against you personally, Mr. Duskin. But I was sent out here to serve the company’s best interests, and I must do that of course, no matter how unpleasant personally it might prove to be.”

She finished with more ease. It seemed to her she had done pretty well with that speech, although it rather choked her to try to take another mouthful, and she poised her fork over the delicate bit of chicken on her plate without making any move to carry it to her lips.