“Mrs. Druher” was a stout, middle-aged woman on the slatternly side. She waddled forward, looked at Sargent, then turned her eyes on Robertson. “Dot is de man,” she said, “de no-good loafer!”
Then Robertson broke. “Oh, what’s the use? If Ruth sold me out...” He laughed harshly. “And here comes Loony Lew, the boozer!”
Lew Thayer it was, eyes bloodshot and wild. He wobbled in, like a sailor in Frisco, on the fourth day of his three-day leave.
“Ben, you louse!” he shouted. “I been thinkin’ it over. I ain’t gonna waste money suin’ you. I’m gonna get satisfaction like this.”
Whack!
For the second time that morning Ben O. Chapman went down. It was an anticlimax to the tense scene that had just been enacted. Chapman relaxed and watched Lieutenant Fanning put handcuffs on Jim Robertson. Then he followed the detective and the retiring editor of The Skating Rink to the door.
“Thanks, Jim,” he said, “for helping me with the editorial stuff.”
Robertson grinned wryly — and cockily. “You repaid me, pal,” he said, holding up his manacled wrists.
The elevator came to the floor and a portly, gray-haired man stepped out. “Is this the office of Business Jour—?” he began, then stopped. “Sargent! I’ve just come from your hotel and what a mousetrap it turned out to be. I don’t approve of Trotter field men living in such slum places.”
“Hello, Mr. Trotter,” said Sargent. “How are you?”
“Disappointed,” said Horace Trotter. “Disappointed in you. I’d had hopes for you. I was going to make you Director of Public Relations for the Institute.”
“Press agent, you mean?”
“Well, yes. Actually I was going to have you get out a house organ. A fine, illustrated magazine of, say, about twenty-four pages—”
“Grab it, Sargent,” said Jim Robertson, stepping into the waiting elevator with Lieutenant Fanning. “Grab it — and good luck.”
Sargent waited until the elevator door had closed, then turned back to Horace Trotter. “If that job’s still open... I’ll take it.”
“Good! cried Trotter. That’s why I came here, to try to persuade you to accept it. But what about your editorial job here?”
“Wait here!” said Sargent. “I’m going in to resign right now.”
Grimly he entered the offices of Business Journals, Incorporated, walked down the narrow corridor between the cubicles, and pushed open Ben O. Chapman’s door.
Chapman stopped pacing his rug. “You, Sargent,” he snapped. “I was just thinking. That wasn’t very loyal of you, making me pay all that money. So you’re fi—”
“I quit!” cried Sargent, beating him to it. “And here’s my resignation!”
Whack!
He didn’t wait to see if Chapman went down. He heard the thump and that was enough for him. He walked out of Chapman’s office, to Horace Trotter, who would take him to New York, a city he’d always wanted to see. It was far from Chicago... and perhaps Hester Pelkey could be persuaded to come there.
He thought she could be persuaded.