The thing melted shut. Weber sighed his relief at it and decided to go to bed.
He regretted while undressing that he hadn’t thought to ask the messenger the name of his firm. Knowing the delivery service involved would be useful in tracing the origin of this gruesome gift.
“But then,” he repeated as he fell asleep, “it’s not the gift—it’s the principle! Merry Christmas, me.”
The next morning when Lew Knight breezed in with his “Good morning, counselor,” Sam waited for the first sly ribbing to start. Lew wasn’t the man to hide the light of his humor under a bushel. But Lew buried his nose in The New York State Supplement and kept it there all morning. The other five young lawyers in the communal office appeared either too bored or too busy to have Bild-A-Man sets on their conscience. There were no sly grins, no covert glances, no leading questions.
Tina walked in at ten o’clock, looking like a pinup girl caught with her clothes on.
“Good morning, counselors,” she said.
Each in his own way, according to the peculiar gland secretions he was enjoying at the moment, beamed, drooled or nodded a reply. Lew Knight drooled. Sam Weber beamed.
Tina took it all in and analyzed the situation while she fluffed her hair about. Her conclusions evidently involved leaning markedly against Lew Knight’s desk and asking what he had for her to do this morning.
Sam bit savagely into Hackleworth On Torts. Theoretically, Tina was employed by all seven of them as secretary, switchboard operator and receptionist. Actually, the most faithful performance of her duties entailed nothing more daily than the typing and addressing of two envelopes with an occasional letter to be sealed inside. Once a week there might be a wistful little brief which was never to attain judicial scrutiny. Tina therefore had a fair library of fashion magazines in the first drawer of her desk and a complete cosmetics laboratory in the other two; she spent one third of her working day in the ladies’ room swapping stocking prices and sources with other secretaries; she devoted the other two thirds religiously to that one of her employers who as of her arrival seemed to be in the most masculine mood. Her pay was small but her life was full.
Just before lunch, she approached casually with the morning’s mail. “Didn’t think we’d be too busy this morning, counselor—” she began.
“You thought incorrectly, Miss Hill,” he informed her with a brisk irritation that he hoped became him well; “I’ve been waiting for you to terminate your social engagements so that we could get down to what occasionally passes for business.”
She was as startled as an uncushioned kitten. “But—but this isn’t Monday. Somerset Ojack only send you stuff on Mondays.”
Sam winced at the reminder that if it weren’t for the legal drudgework he received once a week from Somerset Ojack he would be a lawyer in name only, if not in spirit only. “I have a letter, Miss Hill,” he replied steadily. “Whenever you assemble the necessary materials, we can get on with it.”
Tina returned in a head-shaking moment with stenographic pad and pencils.
“Regular heading, today’s date,” Sam began. “Address it to Chamber of Commerce, Glunt City, Ohio. Gentlemen: Would you inform me if you have registered currently with you a firm bearing the name of the Bild-A-Man Company or a firm with any name at all similar? I am also interested in whether a firm bearing the above or related name has recently made known its intention of joining your community. This inquiry is being made informally on behalf of a client who is interested in a product of this organization whose address he has mislaid. Signature and then this P.S.—My client is also curious as to the business possibilities of a street known as Diagonal Avenue or Diagonal Level. Any data on this address and the organizations presently located there will be greatly appreciated.”
Tina batted wide blue eyes at him. “Oh, Sam,” she breathed, ignoring the formality he had introduced, “oh, Sam, you have another client. I’m so glad. He looked a little sinister, but in such a distinguished manner that I was certain—”
“Who? Who looked a little sinister?”
“Why, your new client.” Sam had the uncomfortable feeling that she had almost added “stupid.” “When I came in this morning, there was this terribly tall old man in a long black overcoat talking to the elevator operator. He turned to me—the elevator operator, I mean—and said, ‘This is Mr. Weber’s secretary. She’ll be able to tell you anything you want to know.’ Then he sort of winked, which I thought was sort of impolite, you know, considering. Then this old man looked at me hard and I felt distinctly uncomfortable and he walked away muttering ‘Either disjointed or predatory personalities. Never normal. Never balanced.’ Which I didn’t think was very polite, either, I’ll have you know, if he is your new client!” She sat back and began breathing again.
Tall, sinister old men in long, black overcoats pumping the elevator operator about him. Hardly a matter of business. He had no skeletons in his personal closet. Could it be connected with his unusual Christmas present? Sam hummed mentally.
“—but she is my favorite aunt, you know,” Tina was saying. “And she came in so unexpectedly.”
The girl was explaining about their Christmas date. Sam felt a rush of affection for her as she leaned forward.
“Don’t bother,” he told her. “I knew you couldn’t help breaking the date. I was a little sore when you called me, but I got over it; never-hold-a-grudge-against-a-pretty-girl-Sam, I’m known as. How about lunch?”
“Lunch?” She gestured distractedly. “I promised Lew, Mr. Knight, that is—But he wouldn’t mind if you came along.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” This would be helping Lew to a spoonful of his own medicine.
Lew Knight took the business of having a crowd instead of a party for lunch as badly as Sam hoped he would. Unfortunately, Lew was able to describe details of his forthcoming case, the probable fees and possible distinction to be reaped thereof. After one or two attempts to bring an interesting will he was rephrasing for Somerset Ojack into the conversation, Sam subsided into daydreams. Lew immediately dropped Rosenthal v. Rosenthal and leered at Tina conversationally.
Outside the restaurant, snow discolored into slush. Most of the stores were removing Christmas displays. Sam noticed construction sets for children, haloed by tinsel and glittering with artificial snow. Build a radio, a skyscraper, an airplane. But “Only with a Bild-A-Man can you—”
“I’m going home,” he announced suddenly. “Something important I just remembered. If anything comes up, call me there.”
He was leaving Lew a clear field, he told himself, as he found a seat on the subway. But the bitter truth was that the field was almost as clear when he was around as when he wasn’t. Lupine Lew Knight, he had been called in law school; since the day when he had noticed that Tina had the correct proportions of dress-filling substance, Sam’s chances had been worth a crowbar at Fort Knox.
Tina hadn’t been wearing his brooch today. Her little finger, right hand, however, had sported an unfamiliar and garish little ring. “Some got it,” Sam philosophized. “Some don’t got it. I don’t got it.”
But it would have been nice, with Tina, to have got it.
As he unlocked the door of his room he was surprised by an unmade bed telling with rumpled stoicism of a chambermaid who’d never come. This hadn’t happened before—Of course! He’d never locked his room before. The girl must have thought he wanted privacy.
Maybe he had.
Aunt Maggie’s ties glittered obscenely at the foot of the bed. He chucked them into the closet as he removed his hat and coat. Then he went over to the washstand and washed his hands, slowly. He turned around.