Duskin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill
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