Now, as McLove stood looking out the windows, the whole place seemed to reflect the cold mechanization of the modern office building. The windows could not be opened. Even their cleaning had to be done from the outside, on a gondola-like platform that climbed up and down the sheer glass walls. There were no window sills, and McLove’s fingers ran unconsciously along the bottom of the window frame as he stood staring out. The fog might be lifting a little, but he couldn’t be certain.
McLove went out to Margaret Mason’s desk, saw that she was gathering together her copy books and pencils for the meeting, and decided to take a glance into Billy Calm’s office. It was the same size as the directors’ room, and almost as plain in its furnishings. Only the desk, cluttered with the trivia of a businessman’s lifetime, gave proof of human occupancy. On the left wall still hung the faded portrait of the firm’s founder, and on the right, a more recent photograph of Israel Black, former president of Jupiter and still a director though he never came to the meetings. This was Billy Calm’s domain. From here he ruled a vast empire of holdings, and a word from him could send men to their financial ruin.
McLove straightened suddenly on hearing a man’s muffled voice at Margaret’s desk outside. He heard her ask, “What’s the matter?” and then heard the door of the directors’ room open. Hurrying back to her desk, he was just in time to see the door closing again.
“Is he finally here?”
Margaret, unaccountably white-faced, opened her mouth to answer, just as there came the tinkling crash of a breaking window from the inner room. They both heard it clearly, and she dropped the cigarette she’d been in the act of lighting. “Billy!” she screamed out. “No, Billy!”
They were at the door together after only an instant’s hesitation, pushing it open before them, hurrying into the directors’ room. “No,” McLove said softly, staring straight ahead at the empty room and the long table and the shattered window in the opposite wall. “He jumped.” Already the fog seemed to be filling the room with its damp mists as they hurried to the window and peered out at nothing.
“Billy jumped,” Margaret said dully, as if unable to comprehend the fact. “He killed himself.”
McLove turned and saw Knox standing in the doorway. Behind him, Greene and Hamilton and Shirley Taggert were coming up fast. “Billy Calm just jumped out of the window,” McLove told them.
“No,” Margaret Mason said, turning from the window. “No, no, no, no...” Then, suddenly overcome with the shock of it, she tumbled to the floor in a dead faint.
“Take care of her,” McLove shouted to the others. “I’ve got to get downstairs.”
Knox bent to lift the girl in his arms, while Sam Hamilton hurried to the telephone. Shirley had settled into one of the padded directors’ chairs, her face devoid of all expression. And Jason Greene, loyal to the end, actually seemed to be crying.
In the hallway, McLove pushed the button of Billy Calm’s private elevator and waited for it to rise from the depths of the building. The little man would have no further use for it now. He rode it down alone, leaning against its padded walls, listening to, but hardly hearing, the dreary hum of its descent. In another two minutes he was on the street, looking for the crowd that would surely be gathered, listening for the sound of rising sirens.
But there was nothing. Nothing but the usual mid-morning traffic. Nothing but hurrying pedestrians and a gang of workmen drilling at the concrete and a policeman dully directing traffic.
There was no body.
McLove hurried over to the police officer. “A man just jumped out of the Jupiter Steel Building,” he said. “What happened to him?”
The policeman wrinkled his brow. “Jumped? From where?”
“Twenty-first floor. Right above us.”
They both gazed upward into the gradually lifting fog. The police officer shrugged his shoulders. “Mister, I been standing in this very spot for more than an hour. Nobody jumped from up there.”
“But...” McLove continued staring into the fog. “But he did jump. I practically saw him do it. And if he’s not down here, where is he?”
Back on 21, McLove found the place in a state somewhere between sheer shock and calm confusion. People were hurrying without purpose in every direction, bent on their own little useless errands. Sam Hamilton was on the phone to his broker, trying to get the latest quotation on Jupiter stock. “The bottom’ll drop out of it when this news hits,” he confided to McLove. “With Billy gone, the merger won’t go through.”
McLove lit a cigarette. “Billy Calm is gone, all right, but he’s not down there. He vanished somewhere between the twenty-first floor and the street.”
“What?”
W.T. Knox joined them, helping a pale but steady Margaret Mason by the arm. “She’ll be all right,” he said. “It was the shock.”
McLove reached out his hand to her. “Tell us exactly what happened. Every word of it.”
“Well...” she hesitated and then sat down. Behind her, Hamilton and Shirley Taggert were deep in animated conversation, and Jason Greene had appeared from somewhere with a policeman in tow.
“You were at the desk,” McLove began, helping her. “And I came out of the directors’ room and went into Billy’s office. Then what?”
“Well, Mr. Calm came in, and as he passed my desk he mumbled something. I didn’t catch it, and I asked him what was the matter. He seemed awfully upset about something. Anyway, he passed my desk and went into the directors’ room. He was just closing the door when you came out, and you know the rest.”
McLove nodded. He knew the rest, which was nothing but the shattered window and the vanished man. “Well, the body’s not down there,” he told them again. “It’s not anywhere. Billy Calm dived through that window and flew away.”
Shirley passed Hamilton a telephone she had just answered. “Yes?” He listened a moment and then hung up. “The news about Billy went out over the stock ticker. Jupiter Steel is selling off fast. It’s already down three points.”
“Goodbye merger,” Knox said, and though his face was grim his voice was not.
A detective arrived on the scene to join the police officer. Quickly summoned workmen were tacking cardboard over the smashed windows, carefully removing some of the jagged splinters of glass from the bottom of the frame. Things were settling down a little, and the police were beginning to ask questions.
“Mr. McLove, you’re in charge of security for the company?”
“That’s right.”
“Why was it necessary to have a security man sit in on directors’ meetings?”
“Some nut tried to kill Billy Calm awhile back. He was still nervous. Private elevator and all.”
“What was the nut’s name?”
“Raimey, I think. Something like that. Don’t know where he is now.”
“And who was usually present at these meetings? I see eight chairs in there.”
“Calm, and three vice-presidents: Greene, Knox, and Hamilton. Also Calm’s secretary, Miss Taggert, and Miss Mason, who kept the minutes of the meeting. The seventh chair is mine, and the eighth one is kept for Mr. Black, who never comes down for the meetings anymore.”
“There was resentment between Calm and Black?”