Part 15 (1/2)
”But, Warren, the things she says are all so weird and mixed up.
Sometimes she talks of things that happened just recently and then again she babbles of things that took place a long time ago when we were kids. Once when the nurse came into the room, Helen began crying as though her heart would break and begged that we wouldn't think too harshly of her. Again she repeated over and over, 'He didn't do it--He didn't do it!'”
”Her other fears,” I replied, ”probably had to do with Woods. But that cry to Jim to 'Look out!' is a real clue and I'm going to sift it to the bottom.”
”What are you going to do?” Mary demanded.
”I'm going to accuse Zalnitch of Jim's murder--going to accuse him to his face.”
”Oh, be careful, Bupps! Nothing must happen to you!”
The tone she used, her sweet anxiety for my safety, went to my head and I reached out to take her in my arms, but with a little protesting gesture she stopped me.
”Please don't be foolish, Warren!” Then as she saw my spirits droop, she added, ”Not till Helen is well.”
CHAPTER TEN
I ACCUSE ZALNITCH
”Mr. Zalnitch is busy and can't see you.”
The girl, evidently a stenographer or secretary, looked coolly competent in her white s.h.i.+rt-waist and well-made skirt. I was surprised to find a young woman of her evident education and refinement in the employ of such a man.
”Did you give him my message?” I asked.
”Yes. He said he was not interested.”
I felt vaguely disappointed that my strategy had not worked. I had given the name of Anderson, and had represented myself as the head of the Steamfitters' Union of Cleveland, anxious for instructions on how to settle a labor problem in our local union. I had done this, feeling that if I gave my own name, he might refuse to see me. Apparently my alias was to have no better success.
”When will he be free, can you tell me?”
”I couldn't say,” the girl answered. ”He is very busy at present, but if you will come in and wait, perhaps he may see you later.”
It seemed to me there was the faintest suggestion of a smile on the girl's face as I stepped across the threshold into the small waiting-room, but I hadn't a chance to observe more closely, for she turned her back on me at once and immediately resumed her typewriting.
The room in which I found myself was one of a dingy suite in an old warehouse that had been converted into a newspaper building to house _The Uplift_, a weekly paper, edited by a Russian Jew named Borsky and financed by Schreiber. It was a typical anarchistic sheet, and had been suppressed for a time, during the war. Opposite where I sat was a door from which the paint had peeled in places. This evidently led into Zalnitch's office, for I could hear the murmur of voices behind it. The rooms were ill-lighted and unclean, and it made me mad to see as nice a girl as the stenographer working herself to death in such dingy surroundings and for such a man as Zalnitch.
I watched her as she worked and marveled that any one could make her fingers go so rapidly. I noticed with admiration and dissatisfaction, that unlike my stenographers, she didn't have to stop to erase a misspelled word every two minutes. I wondered what salary Zalnitch paid her and if she would like to change employers.
”I hope you will pardon my interrupting your work--” I began.
”You're not,” the girl responded, without even glancing up.
”May I ask if you are entirely satisfied with your employment here?”
”Why do you ask?” she inquired, stopping for a moment and fixing me with clear gray eyes.
”I am badly in need of a competent stenographer and I thought you might prefer working in a place where the surroundings are pleasanter and the pay probably higher.”
She studied me a moment, as though card-indexing me, then having apparently decided that I was in earnest and not merely trying to flirt, that elusive smile again played about her mouth.