DUSKIN (2 page)

But perhaps that was what Fawcett was going to do when he got out there. He was not a man who talked much, behind those shaggy eyebrows and those close-compressed, hard lips. Perhaps he had reason to think that this Duskin himself was the enemy he talked about. Perhaps it was Duskin who had stolen the paint and lost the rivets on purpose. Or very likely he had loafed on the job and knew it wasn’t going to get done on time, and so was preparing excuses for himself beforehand.

She bit the words out on the typewriter with sharp clicks of her fingers, as if by punching the letter keys harder she could give more force to the unpleasant sentences of which she felt no doubt the young man was fully deserving. Why, here he was not only holding up the building for the people who were in a hurry for it and engendering disaster for the Fawcett Construction Company, as well as hurting his own future career by his careless and criminal inefficiency, but he was causing numberless other smaller troubles. Here was even herself being held up from her long-anticipated holiday to write this letter.

Then suddenly she was startled by hearing the name she had just written at the head of her letter, pronounced in furtive syllables in the next room!

“Philip Duskin—”

Her fingers paused for an instant and she looked up, her attention drawn to the blurred shadow of the two men in the outer office thrown across the ground glass partition. One was tall and thin with a hawk nose and very little chin, giving his profile at certain angles as he turned his head to talk with his companion something of the outline of a fox’s face. The other was short and fat, with full lips and baggy eyes, and sneered as he talked.

“That Phil Duskin has
got his price
, you know! I’ve pretty neatly proved that!” insinuated the voice of the short, fat man.

The typewriter Carol was using was one of the so-called “noiseless” type, and the partition of the inner office was only head-high, a mahogany and ground glass affair, which did little else but screen off one corner of the room. It was quite possible to hear everything that went on in the outer office, even when the keys of her typewriter were clicking at full speed.

For an instant, however, her hands paused, poised above the keyboard, a look of startled question on her face, and then as the importance of the words and the furtiveness of the tone impressed her as something that needed investigation, she suddenly slid back into rhythm and began to write again, easily keeping up with the somewhat detached conversation on the other side of the partition.

As the minutes went by and the clock on the outer desk showed half past two, and then quarter to three, and still the president of the Fawcett Construction Company had not arrived, the visitors hitched their chairs closer together and, it happened, a few inches nearer to the partition, and became more confidential.

Carol forgot that there were still letters to be finished before her employer returned, forgot that her trunk was locked and waiting and that she yet had a few purchases to make at the stores, forgot that the rocks and the sand and the excellent hotel awaited her, forgot everything except that she must take down every word that these two men on the other side of the partition were saying. It might and it might not have any bearing on the case of Philip Duskin, but her conscience would not let her leave the words unwitnessed. When Mr. Fawcett came in she would show them to him, and then he could rave at her if he liked for not having completed the most important letter of all. At least raving was the most he could do and a few minutes more would finish the notes. There were only two more brief letters besides this one and her day’s work was done.

The men were mentioning other names now and chuckling quietly over things that had happened. Carol Berkley wondered whether after all the Fawcett Construction Company
did
have an enemy, as the young construction engineer suggested. But what could possibly be their object? Duskin’s name figured largely in their talk.

“We could afford to divvy up again,” they murmured. And they mentioned sums in hundreds of thousands that filled the girl with awe. These must be crooks on a grand scale and Duskin in with them, or else she had mightily misinterpreted what they were saying. Her fingers flew faster, and she was not missing anything they said. Under cover of the steady click of the “silent” little rhythm they grew bold and talked more freely.

“Well, it’ll be all over but the shoutin’ in another month or so,” declared one of the men, shoving his chair back with a grinding noise. “Say, when is that bird comin’? You don’t suppose he’s holdin’ us up on purpose, do you? I got a date to play pool with a friend at half past. Better step out and scout around. Mebbe the old bird is out there somewhere!”

Both chairs scraped on the floor now as if the two men had risen. Carol could only see the shadow of the two, a tall, gaunt one with a hawk nose and a short, thick one with a bald spot on his head. One lock stuck up grotesquely as he turned his profile toward the glass for an instant and pouted out a baggy pair of lips above a baggy pair of chins.

Carol paused, quickly drew the sheet of paper from the machine, and dropped it into a drawer beside her. Suppose they should open her door to see if Mr. Fawcett was in there and see Philip Duskin’s name at the top of her letter!

She slipped a new sheet of paper into the roller and adjusted it, trying to summon her senses to a keener alertness.

Quickly she turned to the next letter and began to write. But before she had finished the date she was startled by someone in the outer office calling her name excitedly.

“Miss Berkley, Miss Berkley, where are you? Come quick! There’s been an accident. Mr. Fawcett’s hurt. They’re bringing him up here. They want you to phone for the doctor!”

She was on her feet in an instant, but even as she opened the door her eye took in the two men and identified them. The short, stout one with the bagging eyes and lips had been the one who said that Philip Duskin had his price!

She sprang to Mr. Fawcett’s telephone and called up a doctor, found out where he was at the hospital, capably called the hospital, and arranged to have him come at once. Then she turned to the big leather divan and cleared it. Among other things was an open traveling bag showing a bundle of papers and a checkbook on the top. How careless Mr. Fawcett was sometimes! She snapped the bag shut and swept all the other things into a corner of the room. She plumped up the leather pillows and then turned on the two visitors who were watching her with significant looks at each other and an appearance of waiting to be in on whatever was about to happen.

“It would be better for you to go outside and wait in the other room,” she said to them coldly. “The doctor will want quiet in here. I will let you know later if Mr. Fawcett will be able to see you.”

She stepped to the door and swung it open.

They hesitated.

“We’re here by appointment!” the tall man said with an ugly look like the snarl of a dog that had been denied a bone.

Carol, haughty in her consciousness of what she had just heard him say, pointed briefly.

“You can wait out there on that bench!”

Reluctantly, the two obeyed her, but as the elevator clashed its door open and the men from the general office came slowly bringing their burden between them, she saw the two visitors approach the aisle down which the little procession must come and stretch their necks to see. Carol felt like telephoning for the police and having them removed, only that there was no time now to bother with mere criminals. There was need for her instant ministrations.

The president of the Fawcett Construction Company had fainted with the pain of being carried into his office. His gray hair fell back from his furrowed forehead, and the sour lines of his lips sagged wearily. One big-knuckled hand that had always been so vigorous in its impatient gestures hung limply down at his side as they carried him.

Carol was efficiency itself. She sent the office boy flying down to the drugstore for smelling salts; she brought water from the cooler and produced a clean, folded handkerchief to bathe his face and lips. She adjusted the pillows and started the electric fan.

The doctor came almost immediately, but the injured man’s eyes had opened wonderingly, just before he came, and looked around the office uncomprehendingly and then intelligently.

“I’m quite all right!” he snapped. “I’ve got to go in a few minutes. Have you got those letters done, Miss Berkley? If you’ll bring them I can sign them while I lie here and rest a minute. It was that cursed car ran into us. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

His voice tailed off weakly and he almost faded out again, but the doctor knelt by his side and wafted something pungent before his face.

“You’re all right, Mr. Fawcett,” he said in his cool voice. “Steady, there, steady! I wouldn’t sign any letters just now. Let them wait a bit till I see what you’ve done to yourself.”

“But I’ve
got
to!” demanded Fawcett excitedly, trying to raise his head and failing miserably. “I’m going to leave on the six o’clock train, and those letters
must be signed
!”

“Steady there, my dear fellow! There’s plenty of time. And you’re not going to leave on any train, not today. I’m sorry, but you’ve got a little vacation coming to you, friend, and I’m afraid you’ve got to take it in bed this time.”

“But I can’t, Doctor, I tell you
I can’t
! I’m in a position of trust, you know; this whole company depends on me, and it will mean heavy loss—
irretrievable
loss—if I don’t go at once and straighten things out.”

“I’m sorry, old fellow, but I’ll have to tell you the truth. You’ve broken the fibula near your knee and you’re very badly bruised, perhaps internally. It might mean the loss of your leg if you attempted to take a journey now, even if it were possible for you to get around on it.”

“Then I can get a wooden leg!” snapped Fawcett impatiently. “Leg or no leg, I’ve
got
to go.”

“It might even mean the loss of your life, Fawcett,” said the doctor more gravely now.

“Then at least I’d die honorably. Let me up! There are no bones broken. I
know.
I stood up by myself for a whole minute after the car was righted. I couldn’t have done that if my leg was broken. I’m going to get up right now. Please, all of you get out of my office; I’ve got work to do! Miss Berkley, have you brought those letters?”

He attempted to sit up and sank back suddenly with a moan. The doctor laid a firm hand on his patient.

“Now see here, sir!” he said in a tone which people did not lightly disobey. “I’m in command here. You’re my patient and I’m going to be obeyed. Miss Berkley, will you telephone Mrs. Fawcett? This man should be in the hospital right now. He’ll be getting a fever.”

“No!
No! Don’t
call my wife!” said Fawcett weakly. “I tell you I’ve
got to go
! The devil will be to pay—it is now—somebody’s got to get out there and stop it. Nobody else understands it.”

“That’s all right!” soothed the doctor, taking out a little vial and dropping some dark liquid into the glass of water that Carol brought. “I guess we’ll find somebody else to send. You can give them careful directions. We’ll see that everything is attended to all right, my dear fellow. There’ll be somebody—”

“There’s
nobody
!” thundered the injured man. “Nobody knows anything about it but myself! Miss Berkley, you tell him. Make him understand that it is
imperative
for me to go. Tell him nobody knows the situation.”

“Oh, you can easily explain the situation,” said the doctor lightly. “I’m sure I can find a dozen people willing to help you out just now, and when you get nicely settled in the hospital and feeling comfortable and have had a little nap and a little nourishment you can have a brief talk and give all directions.”

“But I don’t
want
anybody to know. I couldn’t possibly explain the situation—OH—h—h!”

The helpless, angry tears were beginning to course down the strong old bear’s cheeks. He was actually looking at his pretty, young secretary as if he was a troubled little boy and Carol Berkley was his mother.

What was it in his look that suddenly made summer breezes and rocks and sand and excellent hotels recede entirely from the picture and gave Carol Berkley strength for a sudden resolve? Something in the pleading, angry eyes of her impatient old tyrant had actually tugged at her heartstrings—or was it that she was possessed of knowledge that he did not have and which would have made him all the more troubled and anxious to go himself? She did not stop to consider. She stepped forward.

“Mr. Fawcett,” she said in a cool little voice that surprised herself, for every nerve was throbbing with a particular jangle of its own and her head felt light and whirly, “Mr. Fawcett—
I
know all about things! Couldn’t I go out there and do what you want done? I think I understand everything.”

He turned from his boyish tears and became a man again, a bitter, old, cross tyrant.

“You!”
he said, contemptuously. “How could a
woman possibly
do what I have to do?”

Carol laughed.

“I’ll go,” she said, still calmly. “I think I know what’s to be done. If I can’t make that man hurry up and do his work in time, I’ll fire him and get another engineer.”

He stared at her blankly, the actual practicality of her words bringing him to see that she was not altogether devoid of sense.

“But we have a contract with him—” he objected, his brow drawing again into its accustomed frown.

“I know,” she said, “but if he hasn’t kept his part of that—”

A twinge of pain brought a sudden ghastly whiteness.

“Now, look here,” said the doctor fiercely, “this thing has to stop! Whether this young woman goes or whether she doesn’t go doesn’t matter to me. This man has got to get quiet or he’ll have a fever before I can do anything for him. Young woman, if there’s anything you think ought to be done, do it, and say no more about it. Get ready to go, and when Mr. Fawcett feels better perhaps he can talk with you for five minutes—”