DUSKIN (20 page)

But Paisley did not seem to be troubled by the coldness of her tone. He drove wildly on, turning now and then a corner on two wheels it seemed, dashing down another road and over to a second highway, barely escaping collision with an oncoming truck, and rattling carelessly on again as if it had been nothing.

“Saw a great smash-up here the other night,” he announced merrily. “Girl half-stewed couldn’t work her brakes and ran into a milk truck. Gosh it was great! The milk swashed all over, and the girl was all blood; glass broke in her windshield, you know. Fella with her was dead to the world and just lay in the ditch and didn’t say a thing! Gosh it was funny!”

“Why was it funny?” asked Carol in a still voice, shrinking away from him with a shudder. What kind of a youth was this, anyway?

“Why? Oh, it was a scream! There was milk everywhere, and the girl’s hat was all blood, and her makeup was all milk.”

“I wish you would take me home,” said Carol, suddenly sitting up very straight and determined. “I don’t feel at all well. I must get back at once.”

“You’ll be all right when we get there,” asserted the youth easily. “Need a little fresh air. Here, I’ll open that window beside you,” and he leaned intimately across her and wound down the sash.

Carol shrank still farther into the cushion and looked wildly out at the darkness rushing by, wishing she dared jump out.

“Only a mile ahead now. Feel any better? Like to lie down? Put your head on my shoulder,” he suggested amiably. “I don’t mind. Do you good to rest a little. You’ve been working too hard, I guess. All work and no play. We’re going to play tonight, get me? There, put your head down,” and he attempted to draw her over to his shoulder with his one free hand.

“Oh, no thank you,” said Carol briskly, sitting up very straight and stiff. “I’ll just put my face close to the window and get the air. It is a little hot tonight. I’ll be all right now, I think.”

She was terribly frightened and sat away from him as far as she could, but it was an immense relief when they rushed out of a wooded stretch into the open and saw a burst of light ahead.

“Here we are, all okay,” announced her escort cheerfully. “Now, aren’t you glad you’ve come?”

Carol made out a long, low house with a porch across its whole front, garishly picked out in red and yellow electric bulbs and set in a grove of tall poplars. The many windows behind the lights were dark, however, with closely drawn shades. Many cars were parked around, and the whole atmosphere seemed permeated with an air of giddy mystery. She cast an anxious eye around the landscape and there seemed nothing else in sight but hills and valleys as far as she could see. A great white moon had suddenly come out from behind a bank of clouds and illuminated the world. It seemed the loneliest spot that she had ever seen.

Paisley parked his car in the line with other noble machines and helped Carol out. She was glad to get on solid ground again, no matter where she was, but she went up the steps—from the terrace to the gaudy porch with its many cretonned rockers and settees, and not a soul in sight—with a great misgiving. What kind of a place was this?

She was not a girl given to going around much to cafés and roof gardens. She had not time, money, or inclination for such things. But instinct taught her that here was a place about which there was something peculiar, and she wished sincerely that she were back in the hotel.

However, there seemed nothing to do but follow her escort. She could not very well turn and run away from him down the road, and if she did she wouldn’t be able to get very far from Paisley before he could catch her, for her knees were weak with fright and she must be miles and miles from anywhere.

When she got inside the place she was not much reassured. There was the same garishness of red and yellow around the room, and the place was blue with smoke and giddy with jazz. Strange, she had not seemed to notice the music until the door opened. The walls must be very thick. It seemed to be an old stone farmhouse extended and made over.

But there were plenty of people there, dressed more garishly than the rooms, and their voices were noisy and unrestrained.

Paisley led her to a table, one of the few unoccupied ones, and she sat down weakly and looked around her while Paisley raised his voice and called greetings to various tables far and near and made himself generally conspicuous.

Carol had never been in such an atmosphere before and she hated it. She was not one to snatch at any experience for once just to get an experience. She felt disgusted.

There was a table just to the right of theirs where liquor was flowing freely, and the six people who occupied it must have been there for some time and had a great many drinks, for they were very much beside themselves and had begun to address their conversation to the general public. As Carol sat down, one of the men turned bleary eyes toward her and began to speak to her in loud, abundant terms.

“Well, sweetie, where’d you come from? Look at those eyes. Boys, I’m smitten!”

Carol turned sharply away and looked to her weak-chinned escort for protection, but he only grinned.

“Ben Wiley,” he said. “Don’t mind him. He’s a good sport but he’s stewed tonight, really stewed he is—I’ll introduce you by and by when the dancing begins.”

“Don’t!”
said Carol sharply. “I shouldn’t care to know him.”

“Aw, he’s all right!” said Paisley, comfortably. “Got a fifteen-thousand-dollar car that’s a beaut. His uncle bought it for him, and he killed a kid the first day he drove it. Say, what’ll you have to drink?”

“Coffee!” said Carol quickly. “Very hot.” She shuddered and drew her silk coat around her neck. Would she ever get out of this terrible place?

Behind her, the young man of the convivial nature was protesting loudly against his comrades who were trying to hush the song he had begun to sing, looking pointedly and stupidly at Carol as he sang,

“Oh, I’d like to have a little sweetheart,

Just like youoooo!”

He had evidently attempted to indicate the climax by a tap on Carol’s shoulder, for she heard his voice suddenly approach her ear, and then his comrades drew him back and murmured something in his ear.

“What’s that?” he shouted. “Put me out? Why, they can’t put me outta here. Why, don’t you know I could buy two of these places and put ‘em in my pocket? Lemma alone! I like that new girl. I’m goin’ over an’ talk to her. Who’s that brought her? Paiz? Hello, Paiz, whose’s yer friend? Len’ her to me awhile?”

Carol suddenly rose from her chair and spoke to Arthwait in a tense tone.

“I can’t sit here any longer. Take me to another table or let us get out of here! I’m not used to being insulted!”

“Aw, he’s just stewed,” exclaimed Paisley, rising and trying to detain her. “Everybody understands him. Sit down, Carol. Your name’s Carol, I know. Mother saw it on a telegram they had at the desk for you. Don’t let’s be formal. You call me Paisley. Sit down. You have to. There isn’t any other place, and our order’s coming now. Besides, a friend of yours is coming who wants to have a nice little talk with you.”

“I’m going outside,” said Carol in new terror. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“No use, Carol!” said Arthwait with a leer. “They keep these doors locked fer fear of raid. You couldn’t get out unless I went with you. You don’t know the password. Did you see me use my key when I came in? Sit down, Carol, and be a good sport. You needn’t get excited. The lights all go out if anybody comes nosying around.”

And then openly she saw him give a slow, deliberate wink toward the table where his drunken friend sat.

Too frightened to speak, too weak to stand, Carol sank into the chair once more, white to the lips.

The food was brought and placed before them but she did not look at it. Liquor was poured for her, but she refused it. She was afraid even to sip the coffee which he had ordered. And suddenly as she stared blindly across the room trying to think what she could do, trying to find a face she thought she could trust—someone to whom she might appeal for assistance—she became aware of Schlessinger’s fox face smiling at her above the crowd. Schlessinger, the only man she knew in the assemblage and he a fox! Oh, what a fool she had been!

She saw it now—a scheme to take her unawares and perhaps try to bribe her to help them in their devilment, force her to give up information, turn her against Duskin again! Oh, why had she not told Duskin about that conversation she had heard in New York between Schlessinger and Blintz and used the evidence she had against them before it was too late? Could it be possible that they knew she had heard them? Oh, was she crazy to think such things? Perhaps Paisley Arthwait and his mother were just a couple of fools who really meant to give her a pleasant evening and chose this kind of thing because they liked it. Doubtless she was all upset over nothing. And yet, Schlessinger had known she was dining with the Arthwaits, and he was here himself!

As if to confirm her thought, Paisley, at that moment, babbled out, “Why, there’s Uncle Schless, now! Hello, old boy!” for Paisley had drunk several glasses of liquid already, and he had chosen some that took quick effect. She noticed with horror that his tongue was already thick and his eyes wore an unholy glitter. “Shess! Shess! Ole boy! Comme meer! Come see little Carol!”

And to her horror, Schlessinger, smiling and licking his fox-like lips, came quickly toward their table.

Carol rose up involuntarily and looked this way and that in desperation. There seemed nowhere to flee, and Paisley rose and called out to her, “Come, Caro. Come Caro corn syrup le’s dance! Le’s everybody dance.”

At that instant, as she swayed away from Paisley, there came a crash just behind her, and the lights went out in utter blackness. A strange, low whistle went around the room, and people seemed silently scuttling in the dark, crawling away over broken glass.

There was cold air rushing in behind her and a voice low-spoken, “Come, Carol!”

Someone had caught her around the waist and drawn her out of the way into the cold air, but it was too late. There was no moon anymore, and it was cold and dark and everything was gone in terror.

W
hen Duskin came down to the office a little after seven he stopped with an exclamation of contentment and looked at his cleared-up desk. It was empty, absolutely empty, of the clutter that had been there for weeks.

A typewriter neatly covered with its rubber hood sat straight in the middle of the desk, and a mahogany letter tray occupied the right-hand corner.

He opened the right-hand top drawer and found an array of stationery and pencils and erasers and the like. He investigated the other drawers and found the neat bundles of sorted letters, each with its label, the top one bearing the admonition
IMPORTANT.
Immediate.

He glanced at them and frowned to think he had forgotten them. She was a clever girl. She was going to be a great help. She had shown sense.

Then the city clock struck half past seven and he turned away, remembering that he had an important engagement to meet a man at eight and he must snatch some dinner and dress. He hurried over to the garage where he kept a cheap second-hand car, which he had purchased when he first came to town, and drove as rapidly up the street as the traffic would allow.

His way led him past the hotel where Carol was staying, and as he turned down the side street, he noticed just ahead at the side entrance of the hotel a young man helping a girl into a big car. The girl looked like Miss Berkley. It must be about time for her to be going out. He wondered what her friends were like. He spurred up his faithful flivver to catch a glimpse if he could, and looking in the backseat, found it empty. Could that be Miss Berkley in the front? The light did not shine on her face as he passed. Where had he seen that young man with the weak chin? Something unpleasant was connected with him. What was it?

The limousine lurched ahead and passed him, and again he failed to see the girl’s face, yet something in the contour of shoulders and head reminded him of the girl from New York.

Caught in traffic almost together, he again was where he could not see her face, nor identify her companion. His hands were so full steering his car out of the tangle that he could do very little looking.

Whoever the chinless young man was he was a rotten driver and was taking terrible risks. He watched the big car go lurching on through traffic until it whirled sharply away down another street, and then because he had a strong impression that the girl was his new secretary, he turned his car and followed. After all it was going in the general direction he meant to take, and a minute or two wouldn’t matter with him. He could still make his appointment.

The crazy driver ahead was holding his interest. Perhaps the man was drunk.

But when the big car turned sharply onto the turnpike and took to the country, Duskin followed only a mile or two farther and then turned back. He had decided that he was on a wild goose chase, and he couldn’t take time to keep it up any longer. He would scarcely have time to dress now. Dinner must wait until midnight perhaps. He had to meet his man.

He had gone perhaps half a mile back toward the city, pondering who that young man without a chin reminded him of, when he saw the lights of a big car coming toward him. It was a lonely road and the single big car with its arrogant lights was the more noticeable for it. As it drew nearer its lights were fairly blinding, but as it shot by, a glimpse of a fox face and a long nose gleamed against the blackness of the backseat. Ah! That was the mayor’s car! He had seen it many times! Schlessinger! Where was he going? Wait! It was with Schlessinger he had seen that young man! Wasn’t he some relation to Schlessinger? Nephew? Where were they going? The
girl
!

Duskin turned his car so quickly he nearly flipped, and took off in pursuit of the mayor. Not close on his heels. Oh, no! He kept too far behind to be studied by even the most detective of chauffeurs. He was only another car, jogging along the highway, getting out of sight as often as possible, yet keeping the mayor’s taillight always in view.