A Candle in Her Heart Page 6

  “It wasn’t anything really,” Jane said. “Just a kind of shock. That man’s voice—it was like hearing Douglas Clayton speak again. And Doug’s voice coming from that strange face, so unlike Doug in every way—it rocked me.”

  “Me, too,” Doris admitted.

  “You noticed it?”

  Doris described the incident in Grand Central Station. She hadn’t heard his voice then, but the way he held himself, the way he ran his fingers through his hair—she had thought, until he turned around and she saw his face, that it was really Doug.

  Jane did not speak again until Doris stopped the car in front of the Blake house to let Leslie out. Then she said, “There’s something queer about that man.”

  “How do you mean—queer?” Doris asked, a note of protest in her voice. “To my mind he’s one of the best-looking human beings I’ve ever seen.”

  “I don’t mean that.” For once Jane’s manner and voice were incisive. “You can’t tell me coincidence goes that far. A man who talks like Doug and walks like him and uses his mannerisms and comes here, of all places, to work for the Company. I simply don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t you trust your own eyes?”

  “There’s something wrong about him,” Jane insisted stubbornly. “Something terribly wrong. I wish he weren’t coming to your house tonight, Leslie. I wish he weren’t going to stay in Claytonville. All I say is—keep an eye on him.”

  6

  At six o’clock that evening Donald Shaw had finished shaving and he was reaching for a black tie when the telephone rang. He picked it up in some surprise. He was a stranger in Claytonville. No one was likely to call him.

  “Shaw speaking.”

  “Oh, Shaw.” The easy arrogance of the voice identified its owner at once. “Oliver Harrison speaking. Sorry to put you to work ahead of time and all that; I realize you won’t be on my payroll until tomorrow.”

  My payroll. Donald Shaw’s eyebrows rose in a questioning arc.

  “But I know you won’t mind. Some ass has mislaid all the notes for the job we’re working on at the moment. I’d like you to try to find them tonight.” Rapidly he described the papers to be looked for. “I’ve already telephoned the guard, who’ll let you in and show you where the laboratory files are kept. Much obliged.”

  “Just a moment,” Shaw said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you out but I’ve accepted Miss Blake’s invitation to a buffet supper at seven.”

  “That’s all right. Don’t give it a thought. I’ll explain to her that I had a job for you to do. See you in the morning. Nine sharp, please.” The telephone was replaced with a click.

  For a long moment Shaw stared at his own telephone. Thoughtfully he set it down. Harrison hadn’t wasted a moment in showing the new chemist clearly that he was in a subordinate position. He whistled soundlessly, running his fingers through his hair. Then he made up his mind. The Japanese wrestler had a clever trick of using his opponent’s own strength to throw him. He grinned, put on his tie and adjusted his dinner jacket.

  He ran down the stairs to the main floor of the inn. At the moment it appeared to be empty. The usual bevy of elderly women were still preparing for dinner. Then the door of a telephone booth in the corner banged open and the redheaded girl who had arrived the day before came out, spots of angry color burning in her cheeks. She was startled when she saw him and went swiftly up the stairs, high heels clicking. For a moment he wondered idly why she preferred to use a public booth instead of the telephone in her own room, unless, of course, she was afraid the switchboard operator would listen in on her conversation. Then he forgot her.

  Out of doors he stopped abruptly. He had overlooked the fact that he had only the motorcycle as a means of transportation. He could hardly ride that when he was wearing dinner clothes. But, after all, the Company was barely half a mile away, across the river, and he set off briskly on foot, walking toward the covered bridge.

  The sky was still blue and water lapped gently against the props of the bridge. His footsteps echoed on the rough boards. Then he was on the road that led to the Company buildings. The laboratory, he recalled, was the one farthest to the right.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He wheeled at the challenge and saw the man behind him. He was heavy-set, in his fifties, wearing a uniform, a cap adjusted at a rakish angle on his grizzled head. His features had a strong Scandinavian cast. There was a revolver in a holster and he carried a powerful flashlight.

  “My name is Shaw. A new chemist. Mr. Harrison called—”

  “Oh, yeah. He told me. Okay. I’m to let you in the laboratory and show you which files you’re to check.” Shrewd small eyes measured Shaw with open curiosity. Then the man nodded. “I’m Nors Swensen, the guard. I’ll know you next time. I have a good memory for faces.”

  Shaw accompanied him to the laboratory. “A guard,” he commented, “sounds more impressive than a watchman.” His friendly grin took any sting out of the words.

  “A guard has a lot more responsibility than a watchman,” Swensen retorted. “I’ve been on this particular job for the past six months, ever since they got started on something new, something they’re scared their competitors might want, so we’re keeping a sharp eye on the place.”

  “Six months. Then you are practically a newcomer, too, like myself,” Shaw said pleasantly.

  Swensen snorted. “Newcomer I been working here for thirty-five years, man and boy. I was here when the name Clayton meant something. But they’re all gone now.”

  He unlocked the door of the laboratory and led the way down the corridor to a room at the back. He switched on the lights and indicated a row of filing cases.

  “Those three on the left, he said. I could leave you here alone, he said.”

  Something in the guard’s tone, in the stress he put on the words “he said,” rang a warning bell. If Harrison really wanted to railroad him out of the Company, what better plan than to give him free access to the secret formula? Particularly if anything were expected to happen to it.

  He ran his fingers through his hair. Oh, nonsense. His dislike and distrust of Harrison were making him ridiculously suspicious. Nevertheless—

  He looked up to find Swensen staring at him, a queer expression on his face.

  “Do you keep a regular schedule of rounds here?” Shaw asked casually.

  “Nope. I know where to keep a lookout without going through all that hocus-pocus, punching clocks, and all that.”

  “Then why not pull up a chair while I’m working? I’m new to all this. I’d be grateful to learn something of the history of the outfit, especially from an old-timer like you.”

  “Well, now.” Swensen took his time, considered deliberately, and then straddled a chair, his arms folded across the back. “Claytons always owned it,” he began. “In the early days, long before my time—”

  While he talked, Shaw tackled the first filing drawer. Within five minutes he was convinced that, with the highly efficient filing system which had been installed, it was most unlikely the missing pages of data would be out of place. However, he went doggedly ahead, looking for the blue sheets, stapled together, described by Harrison. They should be easily detected among the white pages.

  “Doug—” Swensen said abruptly, and Shaw looked up. Swensen went on slowly, “Doug was the last one. I called him that. He called me Nors. Knew him from the time he was in diapers. I taught him how to swim and fish and sail a boat. He went off to college and then entered the Company. His father died that year and Doug took over. A big responsibility for a kid his age, but he handled it like a veteran. Then he was caught up in the war. He could of stayed out on account of his job being essential, but he wasn’t that kind. So then—you’ve heard of the Tower Heights offensive during the Korean War?”

  “I saw the documentary of it recently, an old war film.”

  “So did I.” After a long pause Swensen said, “So he never came back.”

  Shaw moved on to the second
file, then to the third.

  At length Swensen continued, “Then Corliss Blake inherited the whole works. He’s about a fifth cousin, I guess, and a good twenty years older than Doug. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”

  “Is he a good man?” Shaw asked.

  Swensen thought with his usual deliberation. “I’d say he is, on the whole. He expects a lot but he’s fair enough. Far as I know, he’s done his best. I hear he’s raised the pay of the department heads and the other employees time and again, but never upped his own salary. Course, his wife’s a gold mine and he don’t need it.” A pause. “They do say it’s ‘Yes, yes’ at home with his missus.”

  “I suppose there have been a lot of changes.”

  “Some. The Company is growing fast. Needs new blood.” Swensen watched sleepily while Shaw closed the third file drawer and looked around the room. “No luck?”

  “The papers aren’t in these files,” Shaw answered. “That’s for sure. Now where—” His eyes traveled from wall to wall.

  “Want to let it go for the night?” the guard suggested. “Could be that Mr. High-and-Mighty Harrison slipped up for once.”

  Shaw shook his head. “No, I won’t give up. I have a hunch that it would be a good idea to find the data, if it can be done. It won’t be in a desk. Too obvious.” He was thinking aloud now. He got up to open and then clap shut some large reference books. “If I were hiding those papers, I’d—” He broke off abruptly. “What about the locker room? Is that off bounds for newcomers?”

  Swensen gave him a queer look of speculation. “Over in the main building,” he said laconically. “Everybody checks in there. Always has. C’mon.”

  The two men left the laboratory, which the guard locked behind him, and they walked side by side to the main building. Again Swensen used his heavy bunch of keys, opened a door. “Room on the right.”

  The locker room was long and narrow, with the lockers in four rows, each bearing an employee’s name. A wide ledge ran around the room on a level with the top of the door. Judging by a couple of forgotten hats and a package or two, it was used by the employees to hold miscellaneous items.

  “When I was a kid,” Shaw said, “I used to have a favorite hiding place. There was a wide shelf that extended out over my bedroom door, just like this one. No one ever thought of looking up there.” He stretched out his arm, groped along the shelf over the top of the door, and pulled down a sheaf of blue papers.

  “You—musta been quite a kid.” Swensen’s small eyes searched Shaw’s face for a long time. A twinkle lurked in their depths.

  “I had a friend who taught me most of the tricks I know. He was a great guy.” Shaw grinned. Then he glanced at the first page and nodded. He handed the papers to Swensen. “I am turning these over to you for safekeeping. You can swear, if you have to, that I have not looked through them.”

  “I’ll keep ’em in my pocket until I hand ’em over to Mr. Important Harrison in the morning.” Swensen locked the door of the main building behind them. In the growing dusk he chuckled. “Seems like Harrison has met his match. But watch your step.”

  “I intend to,” Shaw said grimly.

  In a casual tone the guard added, “Speaking of steps, you’ve had an accident or something, haven’t you? Act like you’re too tired to crawl right now.”

  “I’m practically well. Just need to pick up a little more staying power. If I walk for more than half a mile, I seem to play out.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I don’t own one.”

  “Tell you what,” Swensen said, diving into a capacious pocket, “here’s the key to my Chevy, that gray job over there. You can bring the heap back in the morning when you come to work. Just leave the key in it.”

  Shaw laughed. “Aren’t you rather trusting with strangers for a guard?”

  “It’s not thieves the Company worries about. Smart guys like the Gypton people don’t send out thugs. Easier to put in a trained chemist who knows what to look for.”

  The eyes of the men met in a flash of understanding. Then, before Donald Shaw could speak, the guard was off at a sturdy stride. At the corner of the building the big flashlight was switched on as Nors Swensen started back toward the laboratory.

  7

  Leslie turned for a final look in the mirror. As a rule, she spent only a minimum of time dressing, but tonight she found herself taking more trouble than usual, dissatisfied with her appearance, remembering Donald Shaw’s eyes when they had rested on Jane Williams’s face. They had revealed more than the normal admiration that Jane aroused. They had looked at her with a kind of rapt wonder.

  For the first time in her life, Leslie was aware of a sense of rivalry. Not, she knew, that she could equal Jane’s serene beauty. But Jane, after all, had made clear that she had no personal interest in Donald Shaw, not merely because he did not have the financial standing that she required; there was something more: a distrust, a kind of antipathy, almost a fear of this stranger.

  “Something queer,” she had said. “Something wrong.” The voice, the gestures that reminded her of the man she had loved so long ago. Something wrong.

  No one had ever accused Jane of being psychic. She had no imagination. This kind of reaction was not in the least typical of her and therefore it was the more disturbing.

  Leslie saw the girl in the mirror who looked back at her, brows drawn together as she tried to cope with the puzzle. Then she remembered Donald Shaw’s smile and her heart was warmed again. She dabbed perfume on her throat and at her temples, eying herself dubiously. “Well,” she decided, “it’s the best I can do.”

  She was all in soft greens, even to the corsage of orchids, which brought out the exquisite texture of her skin, the copper splinters in her hair and the amber lights in her eyes. A vivid lipstick accentuated the lovely curve of the sensitive mouth above her resolute dimpled chin.

  A car door slammed as she ran downstairs, announcing the first arrivals. Agatha took up her station at the drawing room door. Tonight she was magnificent in a black lace dress, a Parisian model that slimmed her large figure and accented its stateliness. She took a quick survey of her husband, immaculate in his dinner clothes, and turned to her stepdaughter. She nodded her approval.

  “You really look very nice,” she said.

  Blake’s hand rested lightly on his daughter’s shoulder. “You’re spring itself,” he told her.

  She smiled at him and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. Seeing the display of affection between father and daughter, Agatha turned away, her lips compressed.

  The guests arrived almost together and Agatha passed them along with the speed of a practiced White House handshaker. They might, Leslie thought, have been so many robots on an assembly line. In contrast, Corliss Blake had a firm handshake and a personal greeting for everyone who passed him. Leslie herself, gay and natural and unselfconscious, had an intuitive awareness of how to make people feel at home. From top executive to stenographer, she welcomed them all with warm friendliness.

  A smooth voice greeted Agatha. “You are queenly tonight.”

  “Dear Oliver!” she exclaimed, delighted. “How sweet of you. Oh, you must be Miss Allen.”

  Heads turned quickly. Jane’s redheaded vixen was also in green, but a deep lustrous green that made her eyes glitter and her hair spectacular. The sleeveless, high-necked dress had a cape that swung over one shoulder and arm. Green satin slippers with high spiked heels made her seem unusually tall and slim.

  “How kind of you to let me come, Mrs. Blake.” She had a throaty contralto voice. The green eyes surveyed the room. “That dress of yours alone—”

  Agatha, at the peak of her good humor, said, “Do let me present my husband, Miss Allen. And his righthand man, Mr. Harrison.”

  Miss Allen held out her hand to Corliss Blake, who bowed gravely. She said coolly, “How do you do, Mr. Harrison?”

  Oliver gave her one of his attractive smiles. “Are you visiting here, Miss Allen?”

>   “Temporarily.”

  “Not on business then.”

  She smiled. “Business—always.” The smile deepened.

  Oliver moved on, exchanged a greeting with Blake and said a few words that Leslie did not catch. Then he was smiling down at her.

  “You’re beautiful,” he told her, his voice pitched too low for her father to hear. “Save me most of the dances, won’t you?”

  “Hey,” Paul Logan protested as he came up to them. “No unfair competition or I’ll picket this joint.”

  Leslie laughed and turned to welcome Jane and Doris. Apparently, Jane had decided that she could cope with her competition. She wore sheer white and she had parted her hair in the middle, combing it smoothly to the sides, with a soft loose knot in back. No one else would have dared do it, but she looked like a madonna, with the lovely pure oval of her face and her big appealing blue eyes. On her right hand she wore Douglas Clayton’s huge solitaire diamond and around her slim throat the double strand of matching pearls that had been her husband’s wedding gift.

  The waitress came in with a tray of small glasses of sherry. The guests had begun to form little groups. There was an unwritten law that members of one department were not to gather together, that office rank was abolished, and no business was ever discussed at the buffet suppers. As a result, there was an unusual degree of camaraderie among the personnel in all brackets.

  Leslie, as usual, shook her head as the maid passed with the sherry. Her eyes moved around the room. Surely she could not have missed Donald Shaw’s arrival. She slipped out into the hallway for a surreptitious look at the big grandfather clock. Seven-twenty. He wasn’t coming!

  She had moved quietly. That was how she happened to stumble on a curious scene. Felice Allen and Oliver Harrison stood side by side in the hall, engaged in a low-toned conversation. As the waitress offered the tray, Oliver reached carelessly for a glass, tipped it, and the liquid splashed over the lustrous green dress.

  “Oliver! You stupid!” the girl snapped, her voice rising in an unexpectedly strident way, as though anger had stripped her of her pretensions to good breeding. “Look what you’ve done to my dress.”