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.
“And you think you can serve the best interests of the company by dismissing me?”
The quiet voice did not sound annoyed. His eyes were still almost amusedly on her face. It confused her to have to face that steady look.
“Why, certainly!” she answered sharply, dropping her own eyes to her plate. “You did not think I would have made that decision if I had not thought so, did you?”
“But why did you think so?” he asked with still that steady look, as if he were searching her.
“Because it is absolutely necessary that that building be finished on time. I feel that we must have someone on the job who will not be constantly balked by trifles. You read the letter that I brought from Mr. Fawcett?”
“I did,” he said, “but it said nothing about dismissal. Did Mr. Fawcett tell you to dismiss me? If so, why did he not put that in the letter?”
“The letter was written just before Mr. Fawcett’s accident. He was about to take the train to Chicago, on his way here. I imagine the letter was to prepare you for some such thing. It was to have been mailed before he left, but in the confusion it did not get off, so he told me to bring it.”
“And he told you to dismiss me?”
“Well, no, not in so many words. He gave me the power to act in any way I thought best to insure the completion of the job before the date set.”
“I see!”
There seemed incredibly to be almost a gleam of satisfaction in the young man’s eyes.
“And now, may I ask, before we go any further, whether you have ever had any special training in engineering and construction? Do you know, for instance, just how far along such a building as the one we are at work upon should be at this stage of the game? Have you any practical reason for thinking it is not going to be ready at the time promised?”
She looked up defiantly.
“I have!” she said with a little tilt of her head.
“You have training?” he asked quietly.
Her eyes wavered and she tried to cover her confusion by words.
“No, I mean I have reason for thinking it is not going to be ready on time, and you know it means a large forfeit to the company if it is not. We are not risking it any longer.”
“May I ask what your reason is?”
“We have had complaints, Mr. Duskin. The people most concerned are alarmed and anxious.”
“I thought so!” was the unexpected response. “You have been talking to Schlessinger and Blintz. A pair of dirty crooks!”
“Isn’t that rather a dangerous thing to say about the owners of the building you are working on?” asked Carol with a self-righteous tone she was far from feeling toward the two men who were haunting her steps.
Duskin laughed a big-boy laugh of pure mirth.
“Dangerous?” he questioned amusedly. “If I had been worried about danger I would have quit long ago. But honestly, don’t you know about these two men? Don’t you know they are not the owners? Who told you they were? Did they?”
“Oh, no,” said Carol quickly, “but I understood—”
“Yes, they’ve been making people understand all sorts of things, but the time is almost here when we can make a few things understood, too, and show them up for what they are.”
There was a dangerous light in his eyes, and Carol could not help being impressed.
“What do you mean?” she asked, trying to put dignity into her voice and failing miserably. “Who are they?”
“Schlessinger is mayor of this blooming town, and Blintz is his henchman! That’s who they are! They used to be a couple of gamblers who ran a so-called “high class” place in secret. That is, Schlessinger owned it, and Blintz appeared to run it. They got themselves pretty well established and got possession of a lot of other branch places, made a little money, and bought a lot of voters; and then Schlessinger got himself elected as mayor. This building we’re putting up is for municipal purposes and is to be paid for out of the city treasury, did you know that? And these crooks are getting as big a take out of it as they can manage. At least they are trying to do so, and they will go to all lengths to accomplish their purpose. And one of the best things they could do for that purpose would be to make the Fawcett Construction Company lose that forfeit! You can readily see that, can’t you?”
“But surely,” said Carol, wide-eyed, “they would be fools to do that! Wouldn’t they be caught red-handed? Isn’t the contract made public?”
“The contract and the results are absolutely in the hands of these two men!” declared Duskin. “They handle the business entirely, and the official board that is supposed to control them are hand and glove with them and absolutely—bought up by them! They will all share, of course, in the big payoff! I have evidence of what I am saying.”
Carol’s eyes suddenly hardened. She remembered what Blintz had said about Duskin. She looked at the fine eyes and seemingly strong face before her and wondered that any man could be so completely masked. She remembered that even the devil was said to appear as an angel of light!
She drew a long breath, and he saw her face harden.
“I am sorry,” she said with an air of finality. “But I, too, have evidence of some things, and I cannot pass them by.”
As soon as she had said that she was sorry. She had not meant to speak of that until she had told Fawcett himself about it, at least, not until the very last extremity.
A kind of surprise swept over Duskin’s face.
“You—have—evidence—!” he repeated as if he could not quite fathom what she meant. He sat for an instant studying her, his expression changing so rapidly that she could not analyze its different meanings.
The last one was almost stern. His eyes made her most uncomfortable. It was almost a scorn as when he had looked at her that night at the banquet.
“Meaning—?” he asked deliberately and then answered his own question, as if he had found the cue to it in her eyes. “You do not trust me!”
His eyes went down to the tablecloth where he flecked a crumb of bread into space, and then he lifted them again. His gaze was now inscrutable. She was too nervous to get its meaning.
“And may I ask what is your evidence against me?”
Carol drew herself up, feeling absurdly inadequate to the situation. She seemed to have made a terrible muddle of this and scarcely knew where to take hold of the subject again.
“Mr. Duskin,” she said desperately, “I would rather not talk any further about this matter. It would be better for both of us if we let this thing drop where it is. I am not ready to make public all that I know. I am not sure that it will ever be necessary.”
“But you don’t imagine, Miss Berkley,” he said with again that flash of almost amusement in the steel of his eyes, “that I am going to let the matter go at that? After putting in fifteen months of the best part of my life, day and night, and fighting untold odds that I am going to drop it all before I have fought it out to a finish? Just on a few words from an inexperienced girl who has got a few little lines on something she doesn’t understand? When I promised Fawcett that if I lived I would see that this thing got done even before time! Don’t you know that you and your foolish little dismissal is just one more of the countless hindrances that I’ve been up against since I began? If necessary I’ll take the express back to New York tonight and see Fawcett in the hospital and make him understand it all, but I’m not going to give up now. I’ve too much at stake!”
“Yes, I know you have!” said Carol, angry now and very defiant. There was deep significance in her tone. He had called her a little inexperienced girl!
He looked at her again at that and paused, taking it all in.
“So?” he said and suddenly laughed, a pleasant, mirthful laugh, as if what she had said couldn’t touch him at all. And as suddenly she felt that he was too nice to have done all that. She felt sorry for him. But she mustn’t let this interest in him come to the front. It would be disastrous! She must finish the matter now, once and for all. She had gone so far, there was no turning back.
“Mr. Duskin,” she said, lifting troubled eyes into which some of her sympathy had crept, “I’m very sorry, but I know all about it, and it will be much better for you to go. The evidence is most clear. And I may as well tell you that I have sent for another man to take your place. He will probably be here in the morning. His name is Delaplaine. Perhaps you have heard of him?”
Carol remembered afterward his expression as she said this like an indulgent parent taking blows in the face from a chubby baby hand. It both angered and puzzled her.
“I see,” he said coolly. “Yes, I know him. We were in college together and have kept up the acquaintance more or less since.”
Then, after a pause in which he deliberately took up his coffee cup and swallowed the last of its contents, he said pleasantly and quite as if nothing unpleasant had been going on, “Well, shall we go?” He glanced at his watch. “My time is up. I’ll have to get back on the job. That inspector promised to be in again at three o’clock. He didn’t quite finish going over the work. I mustn’t be late. He is just watching for a chance to make trouble for me. I can see you again after Delaplaine comes. May I call you a taxi?”
Dismissed, like a little girl who had been naughty, and sent back to her hotel in a taxi before she realized what was going on or found words to stop it. And he walked off unscathed!
She could see him down the street in the sunshine lifting his hat to a trim little woman in black satin. He did not bear the marks of battle. Apparently she had not been able to reach him at all. From the start he had held the issue in his own hands and no matter what she did, he had turned it somehow to his advantage. Oh, he was a terrible man to be up against! With all her soul she rebelled against her situation. Why had she got meekly into that taxi and let him order her off to the hotel? Why hadn’t she stayed and made him own he was beaten? Why—?
But the taxi suddenly lurched to a stop in front of the hotel, and she almost fell to her knees. Then when she attempted to pay the driver he said the gentleman had paid. That annoyed her, too. She did not want to be beholden to him in any way. Now she would hurry in and if there was no message yet from Delaplaine she would call up New York on the telephone and try to get the doctor. Perhaps Mr. Fawcett would be able to talk with her. He likely had a telephone by his bed, and it surely would encourage him to know that she had made progress. She had made progress, she assured herself. Duskin was finally fired! He wasn’t beaten, but he was fired. He hadn’t had a thing to say when he found out who she had gotten to take his place. She was glad she had told him who it was. If she hadn’t they might still have been arguing.
Yet she had an unpleasant feeling that the interview was not conducted even now. She would have to explain to Delaplaine when he came how hard Duskin had tried, and that she had strong reasons for putting him off the job which she felt it was not her place to disclose until Mr. Fawcett was able to do it himself. As she stepped within the hotel corridor it came to her that if Delaplaine had not yet turned up she would try to get Frederick Fawcett and ask him to hunt him up in Chicago and see if he couldn’t persuade him to take the midnight train. It really was time she had someone to discuss the situation with. Perhaps she had better confide in young Fawcett after all; he seemed pretty levelheaded. The more she thought about it, the more she felt as if she had not finished with Duskin. The very set of his shoulders as he walked down the street had been defiant—like a rock that had never been moved and would not and could not be moved whatever she did. She felt shaken almost to tears, though she despised a girl that cried. She was still ashamed of her breakdown the night she arrived.
Shutting her lips very firmly and lifting her chin with determination, she swung around the corridor into the office to enquire if any mail was awaiting her and came face-to-face with Schlessinger, in top hat and eyeglasses, looking more like a fox than ever!
Chapter 9
Philip Duskin passed a weary hand over his forehead and eyes before he put his hat back on his head.
The lady in black satin had passed on. Duskin had not encouraged her to stop and talk with him, though she would have liked to do so. She had met him at a dinner given by the mayor last week to the directors of a hospital of which her husband was one of the founders. He had been described to her as one of the rising young men of the times. He certainly looked it. She was glad her daughter Eleanor was coming home from an Alaska trip while he was here. They would give a dinner and a dance at once and invite him. He certainly was stunning.
But Philip Duskin felt anything but stunning as he passed on down the street. It was getting on his nerves, this continual procession of attacks from all sides. It was bad enough when it came from outsiders and crooks, but when it began to come from the main office, things looked black. Of course, this girl was simply trying to show off, letting the main office see what wonders she could work. She hadn’t any idea how she was messing things, or would be messing them if he let her. He had not a moment’s intention of letting her of course, but it was going to be a lot of trouble to hinder her, and it would hinder himself in the bargain, and there was such a precious little margin of time left! It was too much that he must waste any on a silly girl who did not know what she was talking about. He had better try and get somebody on the telephone in New York and find out just how much authority she really did have. If she had been given carte blanche she might really make trouble, and he might even have to knock off and go to New York to see Fawcett at the hospital as he had threatened. This would be almost disastrous to the job. He really didn’t dare be away a minute. Of course Bill and Charlie and the rest would stick by now that they were here, bu
t what were they? Merely workmen with no authority. They would fight for him to the last breath in their bodies, but they couldn’t do anything if the Schlessinger outfit took it into their heads to do something crooked.
Well, what was the use worrying? This was only one more thing—the next hurdle to jump, the next ditch to cross. He couldn’t afford to waste his strength thinking about it. If that girl kicked up a row as she promised—and she likely would, he could see it in the set of her chin—he must have that wiring passed by the inspector so the elevator people and the trimmers could go ahead without him for a day. Every minute gained was two at the end, and he must put it out of his mind.
He swung himself onto a trolley car just as the door was about to close and stood by the door, ready to swing out again when his corner was reached. He couldn’t even spare time to sit down and rest between blocks.
A young girl got in the car in a blue dress that made him think of Carol. How pretty she had looked with that blue dress just the color of her eyes, pretty and sweet and womanly, till she stuck up her chin and began to try to be his boss.
A grim smile dawned on his lips. “The little boss,” he said to himself amusedly. She wasn’t meant to be that! She had a face like a Madonna! How many madonnas had the modern business world spoiled? And men, too, perhaps. How could a man work with a girl like that running around hindering? Of course she was smart and bright and all that. Doubtless a better businesswoman than many a man, but she was out of her place. He wasn’t exactly an old-fashioned man who wanted women to be clinging vines of course, nor to stick to nursing and housekeeping entirely. Women were bright and entirely capable of earning their own living, as capable as men when they had the same training. But the idea of sending this girl out on just her natural grit and expecting her to run an important job like this was suicidal. Probably the office lost its head when Fawcett was hurt and they let her come.
You could see she was brighter even than most men from the clever speech she made at the banquet, but, well, it must have gone to her head, this temporary little power, or else somebody had been feeding her a lot of rot to blind her eyes to truth.