DUSKIN (23 page)

But bed was no place for her active brain. She throbbed all over with excitement. She got to thinking over in detail the events of the night before and suddenly out of the throng of memories came that voice in the dark calling, “Come, Carol!” Who had that been? It had not sounded like Paisley. It had not sounded like Schlessinger, nor even the drunken man, though he couldn’t of course have known her name. Who, then, had it been?

It had been a quiet voice, full of comfort and also command, like Duskin’s when he gave orders to his men.

Had Duskin called her
Carol
?

She sat right up in her bed, her cheeks growing hot at the thought.

But why? If he had. How did
he
know her name? Oh yes, she had signed it in that note she wrote him. Perhaps she ought not to have done that, but—well—anyway he had not presumed in any other way afterward. He had been fine, just as if he had been a lifelong friend—or a brother. And perhaps he didn’t know he had called her that! Perhaps it had been his subconscious mind that had spoken! Yet—well—

And Duskin was out in the night somewhere, in a world with those same men who had conspired to take her to that roadhouse last night! They might, they doubtless would, like to do worse by him.

She could stand it no longer. She snapped on the light and called up the building.

After a minute or two Charlie’s voice drawled hello.

It came to Carol that somebody else might be listening in. Silly, perhaps, but possible. She must be guarded in what she said.

“Is that—Charlie?” she asked shyly.

“On the job.”

“Have you had any word yet?”

“Not so’s you’d know it, ma’am.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’ll give me a call as soon as you know. I’m not asleep.”

“Okay, ma’am. I’ll do that little thing as soon as it comes. But you needn’t to worry. I know the boys.”

She lay down again and tried to sleep, but she heard the clock strike one and two and three before she fell asleep, and still no call had come. She had time to thrash her whole life over and face a lot of things during that vigil, and she felt with her last waking thought that she had never really known herself well before.

It was half past seven on Sunday morning when the telephone woke her up, ringing like mad beside her ear. But it was not Charlie’s voice that answered her as she voiced a frightened little response into the receiver. It was Duskin’s, and it sent a thrill of relief to her troubled heart.

“Good morning. I’m sorry to wake you so early, but Charlie seemed to think this was the most important next move. I have to report that I arrived safely about five minutes ago. The truck was in bad shape. The lights went bad and held us up for hours. We had to drive so slowly. But we’ve won through again, and the trim’s all ready for Monday morning. I hope you had no trouble.”

“Only to worry about the construction engineer,” said Carol playfully. “I spent a dull evening in my room marveling on my escape of the night before.”

“Be good enough not to stray very far from the hotel today,” he said in a tone that she knew meant command. “I don’t trust—well—everybody. I’m going to snatch a little sleep this morning, but if you need anyone, call Charlie.”

“Oh, thank you! I’ll be all right,” she answered with a lilt in her voice. “I’m going to church across the road. It’s a beautiful building and they have a wonderful chime of bells.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I wish I could go, too, but I’m afraid I’d disgrace myself going to sleep in church.”

She lay down and thought to go to sleep again, but something glad in her heart kept her awake; and before long she got up and dressed. There was barely time to get some breakfast before the chimes began to ring for service.

Her own head felt a trifle whirly as she sat in the dim, sweet light of sunshine that drifted through marvelous old stained glass and heard the song and prayer and sermon, like faraway bells in her heart! Somehow life looked good to her. She did not know just why, but she was glad that the truck had come through without disaster and the boss was safe at home again. That was enough to make one day bright. How her interest was being bound up in the Fawcett Construction Company! Strange! And she hadn’t wanted to come at all!

What were Maine and the rocks and the sand and the girls and the excellent hotel? If she was told that she was done here and might start for Maine tomorrow she would not want to go! Now, why was life always contradictory like that?

She spent a good deal of the afternoon reading her Bible and was amazed to find how interesting it had become. She knew nothing of the revealing power of the great Teacher the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised should reveal the truth to the seeking heart. She had never read that other promise: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Nor did she know that her mother, miles away, was at that moment on her knees praying for her child. Therefore she marveled at the wonders suddenly opening to her eyes.

Monday brought hard work again and monotony. There seemed to be more men than ever in the building. Carol had to shut her door to keep the sound of their voices from distracting her from her typing. The heater men had arrived with more radiators—great mammoth creatures that took rollers and six men to lift them and time to get them in. The hall was blocked, the stairs were blocked, the lift could not run because a radiator had slipped across the shaft. The elevator men were held up and began to curse.

Duskin appeared on the scene and restored quiet with a few words and a command or two.

Around noon the plumbers arrived. More noise, and more men crawling in and out of small places where pipes like nerves crept all unawares.

Duskin did not get down until three o’clock to sign those letters. He did it breathlessly with strained, tense face and set lips. Carol artlessly asked him why he worked so hard. Did he want to break down before the work was over?

He flashed her a keen look and a few cryptic sentences that made her see that all was not clear sailing yet by any means. The wrong radiators had been sent. This was the second time. They ought to have been in long ago.

When the letters were finished he went to the telephone and Carol had a chance to watch his tired, white face while he talked.

“What? You say those were the ones that were ordered? You are wrong. I was in your establishment Saturday afternoon. I measured my own consignment which I saw standing ready to be loaded on the trucks. They were the correct ones, just eighteen inches high. They were a special order, you will remember, and I went there to make sure that such a mistake could not occur. What? Oh, you think now they must have been shipped elsewhere. Well, that sounds more natural. However, where do you think they were shipped? Kansas City? When? To whom? I’m going to track this thing down. What? Use these at a discount? No! My contract calls for eighteen-inch radiators, and that is the kind I am going to have. I’m not going to fall down on my contract because you’ve made a mistake. And I couldn’t anyway. The windows are too low to allow any higher radiators. Now, look here, I want my own radiators, and I want them mighty quick! If you can send them over this afternoon and get your men to work at night, and you pay the overtime part, well and good; but if not, I’m going to make trouble for you. I know pretty well
who
is paying you to hold up my job, and he isn’t going to shoulder the disgrace when it comes out either.
He’ll
run away on a fishing trip and let
you
pay the piper, so I advise you to get those radiators over here before five o’clock or I’ll get the law on you! I’m tired of chasing you. You did the same thing about the boilers. I should think you’d try a new trick!”

The right radiators arrived at ten minutes to six, and Carol was amazed and humbled to see a string of heater men walk meekly in a few minutes later and go to work. To think that she had ever thought that Duskin was ineffectual!

But she began to see that he needed to be ten men at least to keep up with the fox who was trying to work his downfall. It evidently was not just plain scheming with Schlessinger. It had become a game, which he was playing brilliantly and planning to win at all costs. Too much was involved for him to dare to lose.

Day succeeded day, and to Duskin was much like the night, for he did not pretend to take more than five hours of sleep in twenty-four, and often did not get that much.

Carol kept good pace with him, or would have if he had let her. He usually came down and sent her off at six o’clock, or if there was a stress of work and she lingered beyond that, he sent Charlie to take her in the car.

Of Duskin himself, Carol saw very little. Once or twice she timed her lunch hour with his and went with him to the hot dog shop because there was something she wanted to ask him. But for the most part she worked her own way through correspondence and accounts without bothering him. If there was something she did not understand she typed her questions and fastened them with a clip to the letter and he answered them when he came to look over the letters.

It was curious how their friendship grew when they had so little contact, only a glimpse now and then, a smile, and a word about the work.

Carol had taken over much of the ordering now and all of the accounts. She signed the vouchers when material was delivered unless it was something which she was not sure was right and felt Duskin ought to see; only then did she send for him.

He seemed deeply grateful for all this, and he had come to depend more and more upon her, sometimes in very important matters.

“You got a notice this morning that your personal bank account was overdrawn,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone one afternoon when he was rushing through his correspondence.

“You don’t say,” he said looking up, worried. “That comes of forgetting to balance my checkbook. I really haven’t had time. I don’t see how—but of course I must have made some mistake.”

“Would you care to have me go over it and see what is the matter? I could call up the bank and get them to send up the checks that have come in.”

“It would be an imposition to ask you to do that,” said Duskin. “I’ll try to get time, but I know I shan’t.”

“It’s no trouble to me,” said Carol. “It’s part of my job, you know.” She smiled.

“Not to look after my personal discrepancies,” he said.

“You looked after mine, once.”

“I don’t know that that would be called a discrepancy,” he said with a grin, “but go ahead if you don’t mind. I’ll be darned glad to get the thing straight, and I can’t take time to do it myself today, that’s certain.”

He brought her his checkbook and bank book from the little private drawer in the safe where he kept his things, and she got to work on it.

She got the bank to send up the checks that afternoon and she pasted them into their respective stubs until everything tallied. But there were some checks which rather amazed her. Dared she speak of them to him? They were undoubtedly what had made his balance so low, for they were for large amounts. One was to a steel company whose name she had never seen before except on a bill of lading for a lot of steel rivets and a receipted bill which matched the amount of the check. The other was for a lot of paint. The dates were old. They went back to the beginning of the operation.

While she was fingering over the checks and thinking about it, Duskin himself appeared on the scene, on his face the look of a naughty little boy who had come to be punished.

“Did you find out what was the matter? How much am I overdrawn?” he asked her anxiously. “I’ve been trying to get down again all the afternoon. I ought not to have let this happen. I have a suspicion that Schlessinger is one of the directors of the bank. At least he is thick with them. And he would like nothing better than to trip me up on something like that.”

“It isn’t a large amount,” said Carol thoughtfully, “and I’m wondering whether you didn’t make mistakes sometimes and pay things out of your personal account instead of the company account. There are two checks—”

“Yes! I know!” said Duskin and suddenly walked over to the window and began to stare out at the building across the street.

“They aren’t mistakes,” he said suddenly, whirling around and facing her. “Those were a lot of rivets I had to buy because the others didn’t get here—
never
got here, in fact. Fawcett seemed to think that was a fairy tale, and I hadn’t time to write volumes to explain to him, so I paid for them myself. You see, we hadn’t an account with those folks, and they were … sore about not getting the sale, so they refused to sell except for cash. They were the only people around here who had that many rivets on hand.

“The other check is that lot of paint that was stolen. Fawcett thought that was my fault somehow, or he implied that it was, so I paid for that. But that’s all right, or would have been if they hadn’t been unreasonably slow in sending me my salary from New York. I thought it would have been here long ago.”

“Have they been holding up your salary?” asked Carol in surprise. “That’s abominable.”

“Well, I thought so myself, but what was the use bothering about it? I had to get this building done, salary or no salary. But now—you don’t suppose we could get them to wire some to me today, do you? I don’t see just what I can do. I have friends up in New York I could easily borrow from if I was sure they were home, but the only Chicago friend I have I could ask that favor of has gone to Alaska. Besides, all that would take time.”

“Why it’s a great deal easier than that,” said Carol, laughing happily. “I represent the New York office, you know, and I have power of attorney. Don’t worry any more about it. I’ll straighten it all out. Where are your receipts?”

“Say, that would be wonderful!” he said with a relieved air. “Do you suppose they would okay that? The receipts ought to be around there somewhere in the safe.”

“They certainly would,” said Carol, “and I’ll see that you don’t pay for rivets or paint either. Now go back to your work and I’ll have everything ready for inspection in an hour. I telephoned the bank that you will send a check over tomorrow morning. Don’t worry any more about it.”