Erle Stanley Gardner
The Jeweled Butterfly
There was an office rumor that old E.B. locked the door of his private office on Wednesday mornings so he could practice putting. This had never been confirmed, but veteran employees at the Warranty Exchange & Fidelity Indemnity, known locally as WEFI, made it a rule either to take up important matters on Tuesday or to postpone them until Thursday.
Peggy Castle, E.B.’s secretary, didn’t inherit the Wednesday breathing spell from her predecessors. When Old E.B. found out that before coming to WEFI, Peggy had worked on a country newspaper upstate he inveigled her into starting a gossip column in the WEFI house organ.
Peggy was interested in people, had a photographic memory for names and faces, and a broadminded, whimsical sense of humor. The result was that her column, which she called “Castle’s in the Air,” attracted so much attention that Old E.B., beaming with pride, insisted she devote more and more time to it.
“It’s just what we’ve needed,” he said. “We’ve had too much money to spend on the damn paper. We made it too slick, too formal, too dressed up. It looked impressive, but who the hell wants a house organ to be impressive? We want it to be neighborly. We want it to be interesting. We want the employees to eat it up. We want something that’ll attract customer attention on the outside. You’re doing it. It’s fine. Keep it up. One of these days it’ll lead to something big.”
Old E.B. carried a bunch of clippings from Peggy’s column in his wallet. Very often he’d pick out priceless gems and sidle up to cronies at the club. “Got a girl up at the office — my secretary, smart as a whip,” he’d begin. “You ought to see what she’s done to the gossip column in our house organ. This is it. ‘Castle’s in the Air.’ Listen to this one: ‘The identity of the practical joker in the Bond Writing Department has not as yet been discovered. When Bill Fillmore finds him he insists he’s going to choke him until his eyeballs protrude far enough to be tattooed with Bill’s initials. It seems that Bill and Ernestine have been keeping pretty steady company. At noon on last Thursday, Bill decided to pop the question, did so, and was accepted. That afternoon he was walking on air. However, it seems that Bill had confided his intentions to a few friends, showing them the ring he had bought to slip on Ernestine’s finger if she said yes. So some was managed to dust the knees of Bill’s trousers immediately after lunch. Bill doesn’t know how it was done. He didn’t even know it had been done. While Ernestine was telling the news and showing her sparkler, observant eyes were naturally looking Bill over. People couldn’t refrain from seeing the two well-defined dust spots on the knees of Bill’s trousers. Ernestine thought it was cute, but Bill— Well, let’s talk about something else.’
“How’s that for a yarn?” E.B. would say, slapping his crony on the back. “Damnedest thing you ever heard? You can figure what that’s done to the house organ. Everybody reads it now. Stuff like that really peps it up.
“How’s that? Hell, no! Not a word of truth to it, but the funny thing is that Bill Fillmore doesn’t know it. He really thinks there was dust on his trousers, put there by some was, and he’s going around chewing tenpenny nails. Half of the people in the place are in on the secret, and the other half are looking for the practical joker. Damnedest thing you ever saw, the way stuff like that peps up the house organ. Here’s more of it.”
Given the slightest provocation, Old E.B. would pull out more clippings. Usually his cronies gave him the provocation. The clippings were always good for a laugh, and many of E.B.’s friends had house-organ problems of their own.
On this Wednesday afternoon, Peggy opened the anonymous letter and read it through carefully.
Don Kimberly is having a date tonight at the Royal Pheasant with Miss Cleavage. Is this going to burn somebody up! I don’t ask you to take my word for it, so I won’t sign my name. Just stick around and see what happens.
The missive was signed “A Reader,” and the writing was feminine.
Ordinarily she would have consigned this sort of thing to the wastebasket after only a cursory glance, but Don Kimberly, troubleshooter in the Claims Adjusting Department, was the most eligible catch in the organization. A young, clear-headed bachelor with a legal education, he had dark wavy hair, steady slate-colored eyes, bronzed skin, and a rather mysterious air of reserve. Every girl in the organization got cardiac symptoms when he walked by her desk — and Peggy was no exception.
“Miss Cleavage” was Stella Lynn, who had won a beauty contest at a country fair before coming to the city to work for WEFI. It was obvious that the judges of this local show had been more interested in well-developed curves than in streamlined contours.
Stella Lynn, proud of her curvaceousness, habitually wore the most plunging necklines of any employee in the WEFI organization. When someone came up with the nickname of “Miss Cleavage,” the appellation had fit as snugly as the office dresses she wore and had stuck like chewing gum.
Peggy Castle studied the anonymous letter again.
What in the world could Don Kimberly see in Stella Lynn? The whole thing was ridiculous enough, so that it could have been a gag sent to her by some practical joker who hoped she would publish it in her column without confirmation and so create a minor office furor. On the other hand, suppose the thing actually was true? It would cause plenty of commotion.
Without stopping to think that this was exactly what the writer of the anonymous letter had planned, Peggy decided to find out at firsthand.
The Royal Pheasant night club catered to a regular clientele. The floor show was spotty, the food quite good, the music fair. The dance floor was a little larger than the handkerchief-sized squares in some of the more expensive night clubs.
Peggy, using her press card to forestall any rule about unescorted women guests, sallied into the Royal Pheasant attired in her best semi-formal, secured a table, and toyed with a cocktail, waiting.
Half an hour passed uneventfully. The headwaiter dropped by. “Another cocktail, Miss Castle?”
She started slightly at his use of her name and then, remembering the press card, smiled and shook her head.
“We want you to be happy,” the headwaiter went on, “and we hope you will write something nice about the place.”
Peggy felt a twinge of conscience. Perhaps the management thought she was with some magazine of large circulation.
“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I read your column every single issue.”
“You do?” she asked, surprised.
“E.B. Halsey told me about your column,” the headwaiter went on. “He comes in here quite often. He put me on the mailing list. It’s very good stuff.”
Peggy felt a surge of relief. “Oh. I’m so glad — so glad you like it.”
“We get quite a bit of business from the big brass out at your company,” he went on. “We’re really pleased that you’re here. And of course, you’ll be entitled to all the courtesies.”
“All the courtesies?” she repeated.
“The tab is on the house,” he explained. “Another cocktail?”
“No, thanks, not right now.”
“We have a good show tonight. Glad you’re here.”
He moved away, taking with him a load of guilt from Peggy’s shoulders and leaving her with a queer feeling of exultation.
Then Don Kimberly came in — alone.
Quite evidently he had a table reserved. He seated himself, looked leisurely around, ordered a cocktail, and settled back with the air of a man who has arrived early for an appointment.
Peggy glanced at her wrist watch. It was 9:15. The floor show started at 9:30.