Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

assigned a man to watch Gil’s wife at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.”

“Oh, it’s the wife you’re suspicious of now!” The Captain pushed back his hat, singled out a lock of hair over his forehead, and tugged at it thoughtfully.

“She didn’t go out all evening.” Bunny spoke almost morosely. “I came back on a late train and Al met me at the station with the car. Norma Tredwill came out just as we were about to drive away.”

“She came back on the same train,” Maclain broke in, “and asked you to say nothing about her being away.”

“How did you know—” Bunny began.

“She told me the whole story,” Maclain continued. “Even what she asked you to say.”

“About playing bridge with Bea and me?”

“All of it.” The Captain straightened up in his seat. “I think we can dismiss Norma Tredwill—rescue her from your sea of suspicion, as it were. But this loan you made to Gilbert Tredwill still interests me. What was it for?”

“Christmas presents,” said Bunny. “I’m not worried about the money—he’ll give that back to me—but I am worried about finding a financial soft spot in my best designing engineer. As a matter of fact, it rather frightens me. He’s spending too much money on that wife of his, or she’s spending too much for him.”

He impulsively placed a hand on Maclain’s arm. “I’m beginning to wonder if she’s doing it purposely.”

“If she is,” said Maclain, “she seems to have missed her mark. I take it that you think Gilbert may have accepted some handsome offer to sell his country down the river because his foreign-born wife has him out on the limb of a financial tree.”

“Doesn’t it seem possible to you?”

“Possible,” said Maclain, “but highly improbable. Such transactions, Mr. Carter, are cash-and-carry to a high degree. The cash price of Gilbert Tredwill’s bombing sight must be a million dollars or more. I doubt if he’d sell that information on somebody’s promise to pay. Then we have to assume that if young Mr. Tredwill’s a traitor he’s a wealthy man today. Yet night before last he borrowed two thousand dollars from you. I’m afraid that clears him, Mr. Carter. I’ve talked with him a lot, and he doesn’t seem quite that subtle to me.”

2

Louis Madoc, assistant foreman of construction, was watching a workman lay tile in a difficult corner of the new addition when Bunny Carter’s Lincoln swung through the gates of the iron fence guarding International Aircraft from the state highway. It was not in the nature of Louis Madoc to miss much that went on about him. Workmen under him stuck diligently to their tasks, conscious that Louis had an ingrained instinct for loafers, and that he handled them ruthlessly. It was risky to idle on the job even when Louis was apparently far away. Too many men, stopping for a friendly chat with a fellow worker, had heard Madoc’s smooth voice behind them saying—“Draw your time, fellow, and rest at home. There’s a thousand men waiting to help build this new plant. I’ll find workers that don’t gab if I have to hire a new crew every day.”

The assistant foreman moved about the vast addition with birdlike quiet and quickness. He was much like a great bird, anyway. Neck and nose predominated, and his eyes were piercing and glittery, with wrinkled lids which had a trick of starting to close and checking themselves part way.

Engrossed in watching the workmen, Louis Madoc missed the arrival of Bunny’s car. The big limousine pulled up behind him unexpectedly. Madoc’s head swiveled, filling his lean neck with wrinkles as Bunny stepped from the car.

“How are things coming?” asked Bunny. “I’m glad to see you’re back to work after the storm.”

“Good, Mr. Carter.” Louis Madoc’s glance at the Lincoln was timed to the fineness of a hair. It was more a movement of the eyes than a look—an erratic jump of the flat black pupils to the left, a muscular reaction that brought them back into focus to rest on Bunny’s cherubic face again. “The work’s progressing fine. I hired thirty more men immediately after the storm.”

“That’s the stuff,” said Bunny. “While this addition’s under construction, we’re losing money every minute.”

Louis gave a cackling laugh. “We can’t put in much more time than twenty-four hours a day.”

His mind was working swiftly. His single photographic glance at the Lincoln had printed a picture in his brain. Al Rutgers at the wheel interested him not at all. The thing which had whipped his thoughts into action was the sight of Duncan Maclain’s lean profile glimpsed through the window of the car.

“Keep at it!” Bunny climbed back into the Lincoln and slammed the door.

“Who were you talking to just now?” asked Maclain.

“Madoc.” Bunny was watching the progress of the new buildings as the car rolled on toward the main office door. “He’s in charge of construction on Building Number Four—we’ve had some hard luck there. It’s delayed us a month or more.”

“That’s too bad,” the Captain sympathized. “That fellow has a curious trick of speech.”

“Speech?” asked Bunny idly.

“Pronunciation,” the Captain declared. “He says ‘immed-i-ately.’ I’ve only heard one person with that same habit before.”

“He’s a good man.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Maclain.

The Lincoln pulled up outside the main office door. Bunny said, “We get out here, Captain.” He slid open the glass between the chauffeur’s seat and the back of the limousine. “Al, this is Captain Duncan Maclain. I’ll want you to drive him back to The Crags in an hour or so.”

“Glad to,” said Rutgers with a grin.

Bunny gave a jocular laugh and opened the door. “Be sure you get him there. He’s a good-looking devil—and this Lincoln smells like you’d been driving a van load of women around in my car.”

3

A policeman halted them at the door, staring at the Captain and his dog inquiringly. Maclain stood slightly to one side, smiling inwardly at the volubility of Bunny’s whispered explanation, which the president of International Aircraft blissfully thought he was pouring into the officer’s ear alone.