“No.”
“Well, let’s try and find him.”
Sue connected up the switchboard and put through a call to the country club.
“Is Mr. Endicott Campbell on the links?” she asked.
“I’ll have to connect you with the office of the pro,” the operator said. “Just a moment.”
After a few moments a masculine voice said gruffly, “Golf shop.”
“Is Mr. Endicott Campbell on the links this morning?” Sue asked. “I’d like to speak with him, and it’s quite important. This is his office calling and if you—”
“But he isn’t here,” the voice interrupted.
“Not there?” Sue asked, disappointment in her voice.
“That’s right, ma’am, he isn’t here. Hasn’t been here all morning. There was a reservation for him as a member of a foursome, but they canceled out... Sorry.”
“Thank you,” Sue said, and hung up the telephone.
For a long moment she sat thinking while Carleton watched her, his eyes wide with childish curiosity.
Then abruptly the switchboard buzzed with an incoming call and a red light flashed on the trunk line.
Sue hesitated a moment, then almost automatically plugged in the line. “Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company,” she said.
A woman’s voice, sharply strident, said, “Why isn’t anyone here to meet me?”
“I’m sorry,” Sue said in her most dulcet voice. “Can you tell me who you are and where you are and—?”
“This is Amelia Corning. I’m at the airport.”
“What!” Sue exclaimed.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“I... yes... why... We weren’t expecting you until Monday, Miss Corning.”
“Monday my foot!” the voice snapped. “I sent you a wire. You should have met me. This is an imposition. I had to get someone to wheel me up to a phone booth and dial the phone for me. Now, you get out here! Who are you? Who’s talking?”
“This is Susan Fisher, the confidential secretary of Mr. Endicott Campbell,” Sue said.
“Where’s Mr. Campbell?”
“He isn’t here this morning. This is Saturday morning, you know.”
“I know what day it is. Don’t tell me what day it is!” the woman snapped. “All right, get out here. I’ll wait. I’ve had a lot of problems with baggage and all the rest of it and I’m tired.”
The receiver was slammed at the other end of the line.
Susan hung up in a daze, turned to Carleton, said, “Carleton, do you know where Miss Dow was going?”
“I think to the bank,” Carleton said.
“To the bank!” Susan exclaimed.
“I think the bank.”
“On Saturday morning?” Susan said. “The banks aren’t open on Saturday... oh, wait a minute. There’s one branch that is open.”
She picked up the telephone book and was looking up the number of the bank when she heard the sound of steady, deliberate steps in the corridor outside; then the door to the entrance room opened and Elizabeth Dow stood on the threshold. “Was he much trouble?” she asked.
“He’s a dear,” Sue said. “Just a darling. But I’ve got to run — and I’ve simply got to find Mr. Campbell. Do you know where he is?”
“Playing golf, I think. You better try the country club — that is, if it’s really important. I don’t think he’d want to be disturbed—”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sue interrupted somewhat shortly. “I’ve tried the country club. I can’t locate him there. I simply have to know where he is.”
The governess shook her head.
“Do you know the names of the people he was going to be playing with?”
Again she shook her head.
“Well, I haven’t time to mess with it now,” Sue said. “Come on, I’m closing up the office. Let’s go.”
“Where are you going?” the governess asked.
“I have a business matter to attend to, a very important business matter. It’s an emergency. If you see Mr. Campbell, tell him that he must get in touch with me at once. At once, do you understand? It’s a major emergency.”
Elizabeth Dow looked at her curiously. “I think I should know more than that if I’m to give him a message that will make any sense to him.”
“Tell him to get in touch with me immediately on a matter of the greatest importance. Tell him it’s a major emergency,” Sue said. “Come on now, let’s get out of here.”
Elizabeth Dow didn’t wish to be hurried. She collected Carleton in a leisurely manner and said, “Where’s your box, Carleton?”
Carleton started to say something, then checked himself and looked at Susan Fisher. “We’ve hid it,” he said.
Miss Dow said, “I don’t think you should be hiding things like that. We’ll need to keep your treasure with us. Where is it?”
“It’s safe for the time being,” Sue said. “I’ll get it later.”
Sue all but pushed the governess out of the door. She pulled the door closed, bent down to give Carleton a hug, then literally flew down the corridor to the elevator, and rang the bell.
“The box,” Miss Dow called after her. “He’ll want it and—”
The cage slid smoothly up to the floor. The operator smiled and said, “All finished, Miss Fisher?”
Sue could hear Miss Dow’s steps around the bend in the corridor, prayed that the attendant would not hear them. “Yes,” she said, “and I’ve got to get a cab in a hurry.”
“All right,” the attendant said, “let’s go.” The door slid shut just as Elizabeth Dow, holding Carleton Campbell firmly by the hand, rounded the bend in the corridor. The assistant janitor who was operating the elevator didn’t see them, but for a swift moment Elizabeth Dow’s eyes locked with those of Sue Fisher. And, as the door started to close, an expression of angry indignation flooded the face of the governess; then Sue saw only the lights marking the floor numbers as the elevator descended.
She hurried across the lobby and found a taxi at the cab stand near the corner. She jumped into it and said, “I’ve got to get to the airport. Please get me there as quickly as possible.”
After she had started, Sue looked in her purse, wondering if she would have enough money to pay the cab.
It was, she decided, going to be touch and go. She pulled out four one-dollar bills and then removed keys, lipstick, and compact so that she could count out the silver change in her purse.
Having decided she could just about make it, she settled back against the cushions, closed her eyes, and tried her best to get the situation clarified.
Miss Corning was an irascible but exceedingly clever businesswoman. If she could be stalled off until Endicott Campbell could be located, she would ask her questions of the manager. But Sue had a sinking feeling that Amelia Corning was going to ask questions of her; questions that it might be very difficult indeed to answer. In fact, Sue had been asking herself questions during the last few days while they had been getting statements ready in anticipation of Miss Corning’s arrival.
There was, for instance, the question of the Mojave mine known as the Mojave Monarch. The company books certainly showed the Mojave Monarch was operating on a twenty-four-hour basis, three eight-hour shifts a day. But a week ago Sunday, when Susan had taken a drive out by Mojave, she had seen an old weather-beaten sign on a dirt road which said simply: MOJAVE MONARCH. Sue had followed this road out to a place where unpainted buildings were sprawled in the sunlight on the side of a mountain.
Not only did the buildings seem unoccupied but they had about them an unmistakable aura of abandonment: the peculiar atmosphere which surrounds buildings in the desert that have not known human occupancy for some time. Only the manager’s cabin seemed occupied, but no one had answered her knock.