Early Thursday morning, Gilbert Falck entered the offices of the Telagog Company when nobody else was present. There was not even a single controller carrying a client through an early-morning crisis. Without hesitation, the young man got to work on the mechanism of his control booth and Jerome Bundy's next to it.
With a screwdriver he removed the panel that covered the wiring at the front of the booth. He traced the wiring until he found a place where the return motor leads of his booth and Bundy's ran side by side. With wire cutters he cut both wires and installed a double-pole double-throw knife switch. When the switch was down the controls would operate as usual; when it was up, he would control Bundy's client while Bundy controlled his. However, as the sensory circuits were not affected, each would continue to see, hear, and feel the sensations of his own client.
Falck did not consider himself a heel. But he had fallen heavily in love with Claire La Motte and deemed all fair in love. His effort to have Ross disgrace himself by uninhibited behavior in Westchester had backfired, so that Ross had ended up more solid with Claire than ever.
Ross, while he had not exactly complained to the company about the paces that Bundy had put him through, had asked them to go easy. This request had caused Falck's and Bundy's supervisor to glower suspiciously and to warn the two controllers not to try stunts. Therefore, Falck did not dare to undertake any direct bollixing of his client's actions or to ask Bundy to. He must work by a more subtle method.
He had already tried to date Claire by telephone. She, however, was free only on week-ends and had been dated up solidly for the next two by Ross. After this afternoon's contest, some of those dates might no longer be so solid.
Falck measured the panel. With a hand auger, he drilled two tiny holes in it. Then he looped a length of fishline around the crosspiece of the knife switch and pushed both ends back through the upper hole in the panel from the back. He did likewise with another length of line through the lower hole, screwed the panel back into place, and tautened the lines.
Now he had only to pull hard on the upper double length of fishline to pull the switch from the down to the up position. Then, if he released one end of the line and reeled in the other, he would remove the line entirely from the works and could stuff it into his pocket. Similar operations with the lower line would return the switch to its original position.
Later, when the excitement had died down, he would remove the panel again and take out the switch. There was a chance, of course, that the electricians would come upon the switch in checking for trouble, but Gilbert Falck was no man to boggle at risks.
About ten on Thursday morning, Ross's telephone in the Gazette offices rang.
"Ovid? This is Claire. You won't have to meet my train after all."
"Why not?"
"Because Peshkov's driving me down."
"That guy! Is he planning to attend the contest?"
"So he says. Would Mr. Ballin mind?"
"Hm. I don't think so, but I'll call him and straighten it out. I got — I've got influence with him. Is Peshkov coming alone?"
"Well, he wouldn't let his family be contaminated by this example of bourgeois frivolity, but he wants to bring Fadei."
"The goon? No sir! Tell him he'll be welcome (I think) but no bodyguards."
Ross called the Outstanding Knitwear Company and persuaded a dubious Marcus Ballin to let Peshkov attend the showing.
The contest took place in Marcus Ballin's showroom, directly underneath his lofts. Despite the swank decor of the showroom, the noise and vibration of the knitting machines came faintly through the ceiling. The showroom had been fixed up something like a nightclub, with a stage a foot high on one side and little round tables spread around in a double horseshoe.
There were over three hundred spectators present, including representatives from The Clothing Retailer and other garment-trade magazines. These distributed themselves around the tables, to which a group of hardworking servitors brought trayloads of cocktails and small edible objects on toothpicks.
While Ivory Johnstone's band from Harlem entertained the audience, Ballin and Ross lined up the contestants behind scenes. Each of the lovely ladies wore a lightweight Outstanding sweater.
These sweaters were so sheer that to Ross they seemed practically non-existent, following every contour of their wearers' bodies with implacable fidelity. Under normal conditions, this spectacle would have reduced Ross to a state of stuttering embarrassment. But as Gilbert Falck was now operating his body, he could give no outward sign of his feelings.
With a worried frown, Ballin said: "Say, Ovid, where's that little redhead of yours?"
"I'll look." Ross put his head around the end of the backdrop to look over the audience.
Claire La Motte and Bogdan Peshkov were just coming in, the latter the only man in the room wearing a coat. Peshkov said something that Ross could not catch over the distance and hubbub, patted Claire's arm, waved her towards the stage, seated himself at one of the tables, and haughtily beckoned a waiter. Claire started uncertainly towards the stage, then sighted Ross and walked quickly to where he stood.
Ballin said: "All right, Miss La Motte, here's your sweater.
This is the third judge, Joe Aldi." He indicated a swarthy, muscular young man with a dense glossy-black beard who stood by with his hands on his hips. "Just step behind that curtain to put it on. Nothing under it, you know."
With these sweaters, thought Ross, it made little difference where she put it on. In looking over the talent, Falck-Ross had already eliminated many of the girls. He had also picked several whom he expected to place high. Among these were (according to the badges pinned to their waist) Miss Loretta Day (neé Wieniawski), the noted burlesque queen; and Miss Shirley Archer, a model from the Towers agency. Claire, the unknown amateur, would find stiff competition.
"Line up, girls," said Ballin. "Look at the girls next to you to make sure you're in alphabetical order. The A's are at this end."
A female voice down the line said: "Does M come before or after N?"
Ballin continued: "You introduce them first time around, Ovid. Here's the list. As you call each one I'll send her out. Make it snappy, so one's coming out while the previous one's going."
Ballin strolled out upon the stage, waited for applause to die down, and gave a little speech: "So glad to see you all here this fine summer day ..." (It was drizzling outside.) "... our new line of fall sportswear ... the pre-eminent position of the Outstanding Knitwear Company ... an assortment of fine, healthy upstanding American beauties ... will be introduced by one of the judges, Mr. Ovid Ross of The Garment Gazette."
Ross came out in his turn. During the first few steps, his spirit quailed within him. After that he found that he did not mind. In fact, if Falck had not been controlling him, he thought that he would be able to manage the act as well as Falck.
As the girls came out he called their names: "Miss Wilma Abbott ... Miss Miriam Amter ... Miss Shirley Archer ..."
The spectators applauded each one — all but the ex-commissar. Bogdan Peshkov sat alone, his potbelly bulging out over his thighs, drinking down cocktails with great gulps, staring somberly at the scene and occasionally glancing nervously over his shoulder.
Ballin stood just out of sight of the spectators with a duplicate, list in his hand, checking the girls' names as they filed past him so that there should be no mix-ups.
Then all forty-six girls came out and lined up on the stage in a double rank. Ballin and Aldi came out, too. The three judges paraded back and forth. The plan was that any judge who thought that any girl had a good chance should tap her on the shoulder, the idea being to reduce the contestants to a mere dozen or so. Falck-Ross tapped Claire La Motte, Miss Archer, Miss Day, and a couple of other lovelies.