“That’s right.”
Her face flushed. “I’m running this office.”
“And I’m running Fischler’s office. What’s the use of going to all the trouble making a plant if a man comes in the door and sees a secretary writing letters on the stationery of B. Cool — Confidential Investigations?”
“Well, I can’t have her sitting over there twiddling her thumbs, doing nothing. I’m paying her a salary. I have work that has to go out.”
“Get another girl,” I said, “and charge it to expenses.”
“Expenses nothing. I’m not going to trade with you. You take this girl over there, and I’ll have Elsie come back here.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“Well, I say so.”
“You’re the boss.”
She waited for me to argue, and I didn’t argue.
“Well, what’s wrong with it?” she demanded.
“Nothing, if you want it done that way. Of course, the way things are shaping up now, it might make it a little involved if this girl should go home and talk to her mother, or her boy friend about how she’d been switched.”
“I’ll fire her and get another. This one’s no good anyway.”
I said, “All right, be sure you get one who doesn’t have a sweetheart or a family.”
“Why?”
“Because girls talk when they go home. That office over there in the Commons Building— Well, you know how it is. I can’t turn out any work. It’s just a plant. A girl with any sense would know it’s a plant.”
Bertha took a deep drag at her cigarette. “Well, things can’t go on this way.”
“That’s right.”
“Donald, they’re going to get you. They’ll drag you over to that hotel. The people will identify you, and you’ll be in jail — and don’t think your salary goes on while you’re in jail.”
I said, “I’m going to spend a thousand dollars of expense money this afternoon.”
“A thousand dollars!”
“That’s right.”
Bertha Cool tried the cash drawer to make sure it was locked. It was. “Well, you’ve got another think coming,” she snapped.
I said, “I’ve spent it already.”
“You’ve done what?”
“Spent it already.”
She blinked her eyelids once, then stared steadily. “Where’d you get it?”
“Ashbury.”
“So you went to him direct after getting all that money from me.”
“No. He came to me.”
“How much did you get?”
I waved my hand in an airy gesture. “There’s no limit. He told me whenever I needed a few thousand to call on him.”
She said, “I’m making the business arrangements for this agency.”
“Go ahead and make them, only see that my style isn’t cramped.”
She leaned over and toward me, getting as close to her desk as her figure would permit. “Donald,” she said, “you take in too damn much territory. I’m running this business.”
“No question about that.”
“Well, when I—”
There were hurried steps across the office. I could hear the bleat of the new substitute secretary as she tried to stem the human avalanche which dashed across the office and wrestled with the doorknob. The door jerked open, and Henry Ashbury came puffing in. “There you are,” he said to me. “What were you trying to do, give me heart failure?”
“Simply telling you the truth,” I said.
“Well, you and I are going to talk things over. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Bertha Cool said with dignity, “In the future, Mr. Ashbury, you’ll get reports from me. Donald is going to submit regular typewritten reports. I’ll get the information and pass it on to you. This agency has been getting too damned irregular.”
Ashbury turned to her and said, “What are you talking about?”
“Your arrangements are with me. In the future kindly make all arrangements through me. I’ll give you the information.”
He looked at her over the tops of his glasses. His voice was low, well modulated, and exceedingly polite. “I take it,” he said, “that I’ve been getting a little out of hand.”
“Donald has.”
“About the expense money perhaps?”
“That’s part of it.”
Ashbury said, “Come with me, Donald. You and I are going to have a talk.”
Bertha Cool said acidly, “Don’t mind me. I’m just his employer.”
Ashbury looked at her. He said quietly, “My principal concern is for myself, and I happen to be the one who’s paying all the bills.”
That had Bertha falling all over herself. She said, “Why certainly, Mr. Ashbury. We’re representing your interests. The thing we want the most is to do what you want.”
Ashbury took my arm. “All right,” he said. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Downstairs in my car.”
“It might be a good plan to travel,” Bertha Cool said to me.
“I’ve thought of that. Where’s the agency car?”
“In the garage.”
“See you later,” I said.
“When can I have Elsie back?”
“I don’t know.”
Bertha Cool struggled with her temper, and Ashbury took my arm, led me across the office, and down to a parking station where he’d left his big sedan. “All right,” he said, “we talk here.”
He slid in behind the steering wheel. I sat beside him. “What’s all this about Bob?”
I said, “Use your head.”
“I am. I should have done it a long time ago, but that possibility never occurred to me.”
“What other reason could there have been?”
“I thought it was a frame-up to get my money into the business. I thought Bernard Carter was the real brains behind the thing and was making all the money. I thought Mrs. Ashbury wanted to get him in on some easy pickings, and they decided the best approach would be through Bob.”
I said, “Well, it’s a racket. They’re pushing Bob out in front. I don’t think Bernard Carter has much to do with it.”
“Well, he’s mixed up in it.”
“A shrewder mind than Carter’s is back of it, and if Carter’s in it, he’s probably being played for a sucker. From all I can gather, Carter wouldn’t exactly want to have Mrs. Ashbury’s son get into trouble on his account.”
Ashbury gave a low whistle. “What’s the racket?” he asked.
I said, “They bought up some valueless tailings up by Valleydale, and are spreading a line of hooey that they’re rich in gold.”
“Are they?”
“I don’t think so. The dredging company didn’t dredge much where they couldn’t get down to bedrock.”
“That’s the idea back of it?”
“That’s it.”
“What are they doing?”
“Selling stock of a par value of one dollar in a defunct corporation at the modest price of five hundred dollars a share.”
“Good God, how can they do that?”
“Shrewd salesmanship, high-pressure, once-over, glib-talking men who work the rush act and dangle a golden bait in front of a man’s eyes. They set themselves a limited time for their talk. They stick a watch in front of the sucker. The sucker is always so imbued with the idea of being a busy executive that when it comes time for him to ask questions, he taps his fingers on the dial of the watch and sternly reminds the salesman that he’s taken up his allotted share of time.”
“That’s the way they work the rush act?”
“Yes. The customer really rushes himself.”
“It’s a swell idea,” Ashbury said. “Damned good psychology, when you stop to figure it.”
“It seems to be working.”
“So the prospect doesn’t ask any questions?”
“No. Every time he does, the salesman starts in talking as though he was finishing up the sales argument which the prospect interrupted because he’d run over his appointed time. That makes the prospect mad, and he shuts him off.”