Sound of the Trumpet (26 page)

Moreover, Victor was missing. Also his secretary. It was thought they had gone away together. Victor had often been missing in the early morning and had turned up later with a heavy hangover from drinking all night. But the secretary had always been on hand. Now, upon inquiry, it developed that she had gone to New York to see a friend who was dying. She had been careful to leave this word with the people at her apartment. Everything seemed to be all right in her direction, although the Vandingham family were sorely worried, for fear that Victor had gone with her. But a telegram addressed to him from Erda presently arrived, stating that her friend was dying and she would probably have to remain away until after the funeral. The detective tried to trace that telegram to its source, somewhere in the outskirts of New York, but it was hard to trace. Erda had been most careful in all her small details. That was one of her strong points, never to consider anything unimportant. But nothing was heard from Victor until late in the afternoon, when he turned up heavy-eyed and said he was sick.

They were so relieved that he had come at all that his father refrained for a time from the severe tongue-lashing his son ought to have had.

Victor verified the fact that Erda had been called away by a telegram to the bedside of a dying friend. But he hadn’t seen the telegram. He had no clue to her whereabouts, and he began to learn that the business he was supposed to have “taken over” was really something quite serious. He was questioned by the police, and an official from Washington arrived and took him in hand, looking at him keenly and asking him about his whereabouts last night when the robbery took place. It further developed that he had been with a young girl named Cherry, a waitress at the big department store restaurant during most of the evening, and thus Cherry was brought into the picture and questioned. She wept and declared her innocence, and finally was able to bring witnesses to prove that she had not been about the plant, not
ever
. She knew when she was dismissed that the police intended to keep an eye on her, and she wouldn’t be very safe anywhere until this affair was over. She was just a silly, pretty girl, who quietly carried on a good many escapades with rich patrons of the restaurant, unknown to her quiet, respectable little mother at home who was working hard to keep her daughter respectable. She had yet to learn that rich young men who made up to waitresses entirely out of their social class were not usually to be depended on when real trouble came, and a girl was safer to stay in her own realm and not get her silly head turned by attentions that flattered.

Victor, sullen and unhappy, thought back to the days when he and Lisle Kingsley used to be companions and wished he could turn the calendar back to that time and have things go peaceably and happily on the pattern his parents had set for his life. After all, these wild nights he was practicing nowadays always left a bad taste in his mouth, and nobody was quite as pretty and well-bred as Lisle. Why had he quarreled with her? He could have been more discreet about that. He could have kept his criticisms to himself until he had her in his power. He could have let her go to any old college she wanted and trusted to making her over to his plan after they were married.

He sat in his luxurious office and meditated. Cursed his luck. Decided that it was all Lisle Kingsley’s fault. If she had just taken his advice and not acted so bull-headed. If she had changed her college and learned a few things, she wouldn’t have declined to marry him. She wouldn’t have acted like a stiff little icicle at the party and spoiled all his prospects. They would have been married by this time and everything would be going fine. It was all her fault!

Then his father came in and began to berate him. His father had usually been rather easy on him, leaving his upbringing mostly to his mother. Perhaps because that was the easy way, for Mrs. Vandingham was a very determined woman. But now Victor was a man, and in a supposedly important position in the business. Even more important now, because the government was behind it and had the power to revoke contracts and make a great deal of trouble for them. Mr. Vandingham was greatly worried by what had happened, a “calamity” he called it, and he gave Victor a piece of his mind, straight out from the shoulder. He told Victor he couldn’t be a mere playboy any longer. He had to grow up and take responsibility or he would find himself behind prison bars pretty soon, and he wasn’t joking either.

Victor at last looked up with a sneer. This kind of talk irked him.

“Oh, now, Dad, let up on that line, can’t you? You make as much fuss about a little thing as if it were an irreparable loss. They made it in one day, didn’t they? They got the machine all set the way to made it, haven’t they? Why can’t they make another and nobody be the wiser? The government needn’t ever know anything about it. Just go ahead and work this out the way you planned. Where you made your mistake was in letting the workmen all know anything had happened. They didn’t need to know. But you can tell them you’ll skin them alive if they mention it, can’t you? And suppose the blueprints are gone? The enemy will be some time getting machines ready to duplicate the gadgets, and by that time you can get some other new invention going. I think it’s time this nonsense stopped and the men got back to work again. It isn’t necessary to carry on so when something like this happens. It’s bound to happen sooner or later with all these foreigners around the country, and of
course
some of them might be spies. I think it’s ridiculous to make such a fuss and act as if the heavens were falling! I wish you’d let up.”

“Be
still
!” said his father. “Not another word like that out of your mouth! You’re an ignorant little upstart! That kind of talk is dangerous. Besides, it isn’t true! The government already knows all about this affair and has taken steps accordingly. What do you suppose all those extra soldiers are coming into the plant for, guarding every building?”

“What?” said Victor, starting to his feet and looking wildly about. “You don’t mean you told the government? Or did the foreman get rattled and go blabbing it before you knew?”

“Certainly I told the government. Didn’t you know that I am under oath to carry on this business openly with the government and report every possibility of trouble as soon as it comes? And didn’t you know that
you
are under the same oath?”

“Oh, rats!” said the youth arrogantly. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more about this. I’ve got a headache, and you’re a pain in the neck. What’s an oath? Nobody pays any attention to that. It’s just a form. You can get by any oath that was ever taken. If you’re going to talk like this, you can get right out of my office. I’ve got work to do, and I can’t be bothered with you anymore.”

“Victor? What do you mean by speaking that way to me?”

“I mean just what I say,” said the angry young man. “This is
my
office, isn’t it? Didn’t you make me the first vice president of the plant? Well, I say get out! You can’t interfere with me, even if you are my father.”

For answer the father rose and seized his son by the coat collar, jerked him across the room to the door, and opening it, flung him out forcibly. Then he locked the door and put the key in his own pocket. Victor’s father was a large man and strong, and it was all done so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that the boy, flabby from overindulgence and heavy drinking, had no chance to defend himself. He crumpled like a piece of pie crust and huddled in the corner where his father had flung him, blinking up at the astonishing spectacle of his father in a righteous rage.

He lay still for a minute or two, completely abashed by this sudden onslaught from a father who had always been so kind and loving. And the father walked back and forth in the handsome room, his hands clasped behind him. After a turn or two he came out and stood before his prostrate son.

“Now,” he said, with an air of finality. “You can lie there and decide what you’re going to do. I’ll give you five minutes to make up your mind whether you’re going to get up and act like a man and a patriotic citizen of the United States. If you do, very well. We’ll try to go from there in good form and weather this thing together. Otherwise, I’ll hand you over to the government to put a uniform on you and make a buck private of you, unless they first decide that you belong behind bars!”

“Dad!” said Victor, aghast, his face white and frightened. “You wouldn’t do that!”

“Yes, I would, if you ever talk to me like that again. I won’t have a son who is an utter disgrace to the family and the community.”

“Dad! What do you think Mother would say to you if she heard you talking this way?”

“That gag doesn’t work anymore, Son! Your mother has protected you all your life from real discipline, and the time has come for you to step out from behind that sort of camouflage and see what’s in you. And I’ll tell you another thing. You’ve seen the last of this fancy office and that little dressed-up doll you call your secretary. I’m done with all that nonsense, and so are you, if you expect to stay here. You’ve got to get down to real work and show what’s in you, or
out
you go!”

There was silence in his father’s plain little office for a few seconds while Victor tried to work this out. Gradually he rose, first to his elbow, then upright on his feet, and stood uncertainly, wavering, and blinking at his father.

“Do you understand?” thundered his father, in a tone reminiscent of the day when Victor was a little boy caught stealing apples by the police and brought to his father for accounting, with his mother far away at a summer resort for a week.

Victor’s eyes were downcast under his father’s steady gaze.

“Yes sir!” he managed tremblingly.

“Well, sit down then. I want to ask you a few questions. Just where is that girl of a secretary of yours?”

“I told you, Dad, she went to the bedside of a dying friend who sent for her.”

“But where?”

“She said she was going to New York.”

“
Where
in New York?”

“I don’t know. She was in a hurry. She went right away.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you let her go without getting her address?”

“Why, Dad, I didn’t think that was important. She promised to be back as soon as possible. She said she might even come this afternoon. She was in a hurry to catch her train.”

“Yes, I guess she was. Well, you certainly proved your inability to run any kind of a business, even just an office. But that settles it. We’ll put the police and detectives after her right away!”

“Dad! You wouldn’t do that! She was away. She wouldn’t know anything about what went on here.”

“Wouldn’t she? It’s an extraordinary coincidence that the most important thing that we were making should be stolen the night she went away. I always suspected that little dolly. She has sly eyes. She was out to get something, and I guess she got it. I ought not to have given in and let you take her. Even your mother questioned the wisdom of having her here.”

“Now, Dad, she’s a good secretary! Hurried as she was to catch her train, she waited to finish a letter I had just dictated.”

“Yes?” said the father dryly. “What was that letter about? Some nightclub bill you hadn’t paid?”

Victor’s eyes went down and his face flushed angrily. He opened his lips to speak and then closed them fearfully as he saw the glint of anger in his father’s eyes and the sneer on his lips. Perhaps, just possibly, his father knew more about his private, personal affairs than he had thought.

“She’s a good secretary, all right,” said Victor. “The letter was some business about that steel that hasn’t shown up yet. I think that was it.”

“Oh no,” said his father. “I came into your office and got that memoranda and answered it myself two days ago, and the steel has already arrived. You’ll have to get a better alibi than that. Remember you haven’t been here for two days, and you don’t know what has been going on. Now, if that is settled, and you actually don’t know where this excellent Miss Brannon is hiding herself in New York, suppose you go into the little side office over there and have an interview with the government man who is waiting for you. And be sure you speak the truth, remember, for I have a Dictaphone over there and I’ll go over the interview afterward. So be careful. Your future rests largely on this interview.”

Thoroughly scared, with white face and trembling hands, Victor went out, wishing there were some other exit through which he might vanish until this man from Washington was gone. What was coming now? And wouldn’t his father come to the rescue if they began charging him for any connection with this robbery?

Of course, he didn’t know anything about it, and, of course, his father must know he didn’t. It was likely some of his own pet workmen, fellows too old to really work, who wanted to feather their nests. Or more likely still, foreigners who were somehow connected with the enemy. He had told his father he ought to get rid of all foreigners, just in case.

With this reflection, he stepped into the little waiting room designated and met the eagle eye of the government detective, and so his grilling began.

Victor put on his most arrogant air and endeavored to awe the government detective with a good dose of the lofty Vandingham manner, but the keen eyes did not flinch, the hard line of the man’s mouth did not soften. He was definitely unfriendly and unbelieving. And Victor, mindful of his father’s warning about a Dictaphone, and extremely conscious of the unbelieving attitude of his tormentor, had a hard time. He emerged from that interview minus most of his dignity, and certainly not any further from the doubts of his examiner. It was perhaps the first time that Victor had ever been up against any person who utterly frightened him. At school when the professors had been strict, he always had recourse to complaining to his family and having himself removed from school. This had been extremely successful during his childhood days when his mother was the arbiter of his fate. Later, in college, there had been other ways to manage. His father would promise a big donation for a new building or something of that sort if they didn’t anger him by complaints of his son. Of course, not every college was open to such bribery, but most of them could be managed along such lines and be made to forget their grievances at himself. But this was the government, and this would be law, and he must go cautiously. So he stumbled along from question to question until he got himself pretty well tangled up, and if his father had been present, even
he
would have felt sorry for the boy who had always been so hard to manage.