Constance Dunlap Part 16

"It's very kind of you to place such confidence in me--on such short acquaintance," she returned pointedly, searching his face.

Brainard laughed.

"I don't need to tell you, Mrs. Dunlap, that anything I have said so far is an open secret in Wall Street. They have threatened to drag in the Sherman law, and in the reorganization that will follow the investigation, they plan to eliminate Rodman Brainard--perhaps set in motion the criminal clauses of the law. It's nothing, Mrs. Dunlap, but a downright hypocritical pose. They reverse the usual process. It is doing good that evil may result."

He watched her face intently. Something in her expression seemed to please him. "By George," he thought to himself, "this is a man's woman.

You can talk to her."

Brainard, accustomed to quick decisions, added aloud, "Just now they are using Mrs. Brainard as a catspaw. They are spreading that scandal about my acquaintance with Blanche Leblanc, the actress. You have seen her? A stunning woman--wonderful. But I long ago saw that such a friendship could lead to nothing but ruin." He met Constance's eye squarely. There was nothing of the adventuress in it as there had been in Blanche Leblanc. "And," he finished, almost biting off the words, "I decided to cut it out."

"How does Blanche Leblanc figure in the Motor Trust trouble?" asked Constance keenly.

"They had been shadowing me a long time before I knew it, ferreting back into my past. Yesterday I learned that some one had broken into Miss Leblanc's apartments and had stolen a package of letters which I wrote to her. It can't hurt her. People expect that sort of thing of an actress. But it can hurt the president of the Motor Trust--just at present."

"Who has been doing the shadowing?"

"Worthington, the treasurer, is the guiding spirit of the 'insurgents'

as they call themselves--it sounds popular, like reform. I understand they have had a detective named Drummond working for them."

Constance raised her eyes quickly at the name. "Was Drummond always to cross her trail?

"This story of the letters," he went on, "puts on the finishing touch.

They have me all right on that. I can tell by the way that Sybil--er, Mrs. Brainard--acts, that she has read and reread those letters. But, by G.o.d," he concluded, bringing down his fist on the desk, "I shall fight to the end, and when I go down,"--he emphasized each word with an additional blow,--"the crash will bring down the whole d.a.m.ned structure on their own heads, too."

He was too earnest even to apologize to her. Constance studied the grim determination in the man's face. He was not one of those destined to fail.

"All is not lost that is in peril, Mr. Brainard," she remarked quietly.

"That's one of the maxims of your own Wall Street."

"What would you do?" he asked. It was not an appeal; rather it was an invitation.

"I can't say, yet. Let me come into the office of the Trust. Can't I be your private secretary?"

"Consider yourself engaged. Name your figure--after it is over. My record on the Streets speaks for how I stand by those who stand by me.

But I hate a quitter."

"So do I," exclaimed Constance, rising and giving him her hand in a straight-arm shake that made Brainard straighten himself and look down into her face with unconcealed admiration.

The next morning Constance became private secretary to the president of the Motor Trust.

"You will be 'Miss' Dunlap," remarked Brainard. "It sounds more plausible."

Quietly he arranged her duties so that she would seem to be very busy without having anything which really interfered with the purpose of her presence.

She had been thinking rapidly. Late in the forenoon she reached a decision. A little errand uptown kept her longer than she expected, but by the late afternoon she was back again at her desk, on which rested a small package which had been delivered by messenger for her.

"I beg you won't think as badly of me as it seems on the surface, Miss Dunlap," remarked Brainard, stopping beside her desk.

"I don't think badly of you," she answered in a low voice. "You are not the only man who has been caught with a crowd of crooks who plan to leave him holding the bag."

"Oh, it isn't that," he hastened, "I mean this Blanche Leblanc affair.

May I be frank with you?"

It was not the first time Constance had been made a confidante of the troubles of the heart, and yet there was something fascinating about having a man like Brainard consider her worthy of being trusted with what meant so much to him.

"I'm not altogether to blame." he went on slowly. "The estrangement between my wife and myself came long before that little affair. It began over--well--over what they call a serious difference in temperament. You know a man--an ambitious man--needs a partner, a woman who can use the social position that money gives not alone for pleasure but as a means of advancing the partnership. I never had that. The more I advanced, the more I found her becoming a b.u.t.terfly--and not as attractive as the other b.u.t.terflies either. She went one way--I, another. Oh well--what's the use? I went too far--the wrong way. I must pay. Only let me save what I can from the wreck."

It was not Constance, the woman, to whom he was talking. It was Constance, the secretary. Yet it was the woman, not the secretary, who listened.

Brainard stopped again beside her desk.

"All that is neither here nor there," he remarked, forcing a change in his manner. "I am in for it. Now, the question is--what are we going to do about it!"

Constance had unwrapped the package on her desk, disclosing an oblong box.

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

"Mr. Brainard," she answered tapping the box, "there's no limit to the use of this little machine for our purposes. We can get at their most vital secrets with it. We can discover every plan which they have against us. We may even learn the hiding place of those letters Why, there is no limit. This is one of those new microphone detectives."

"A microphone?" he repeated as he opened the box, looked sharply at the two black little storage batteries inside, the coil of silk-covered wire, a little black rubber receiver and a curious black disc whose face was pierced by a circular row of holes.

"Yes. You must have heard of them. You hide that transmitter behind a picture or under a table or desk. Then you run the wire out of the room and by listening in the receiver you can hear everything!"

"But that is what detectives use--"

"Well?" she interrupted coolly, "what of it? If it is good for them, is it not just as good for us?"

"Better!" he exclaimed. "By George, you ARE the goods."

It was late before Constance had a chance to do anything with the microphone. It seemed as if Worthington were staying, perversely, later than usual. At last, however, he left with a curt nod to her.

The moment the door was closed she stopped the desultory clicking of her typewriter with which she had been toying in the appearance of being busy. With Brainard she entered the board room where she had noticed Worthington and Sheppard often during the day.

It was, without exaggeration, one of the most plainly furnished rooms she had ever seen. A long mahogany table with eight large mahogany chairs, a half inch pile of velvety rug on the floor and a huge chandelier in the middle of the ceiling const.i.tuted the furniture. Not a picture, not a cabinet or filing case broke the blankness of the brown painted walls.

For a moment she stopped to consider. Brainard waited and watched her narrowly.

"There isn't a place to put this transmitter except up above that chandelier," she said at length.

He gave her his hand as she stepped on a chair and then on the table.

There was a glimpse of a trim ankle. The warmth and softness of her touch caused him to hold her hand just a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. A moment later he was standing on the table beside her.

"This is the place, all right," she said, looking at the thick sc.u.m of dust on the top of the reflector.

Quickly she placed the little black disc close to the center on the top of the reflector. "Can you see that from the floor?" she asked.

"No," he answered, walking about the room, "not a sign of it."

"I'll sit here," she said in just a tremor of excitement over the adventure, "and listen while you talk in the board room."