WINNITE
Dorothy looked up and smiled carelessly at the man. “You’re very polite,
Mr. Lawson. Perhaps it isn’t my place to say it to a man old enough to
be my father—but eavesdroppers rarely hear good of themselves.”
Martin Lawson, who prided himself upon his youthful appearance, grew
angrier than ever. “I—I won’t stand for such outrageous libel,” he
thundered. “I’ve always treated you as though you were my own—well,
daughter, if you like.”
“I _don’t_ like it, Mr. Lawson—but that doesn’t make any difference,”
Dorothy’s tone was one of pained acceptance. “If you listened long
enough, you will know that I didn’t bring this matter up myself. Mrs.
Lawson was asking questions and I was trying to answer them, that’s all.
If you prefer it, I’ll say that it was the wind whistling outside the
windows that made me afraid.” She looked over at Mrs. Lawson, who was
watching them through half shut eyes, as though to say, “—you
understand, of course—anything for peace.”
Martin Lawson intercepted the glance and became even more furious, if
that were possible. “You—you little viper!” he snarled. “Laura, don’t
you believe a word of it. The whole thing’s her own invention—a pack of
lies!”
“A silly schoolgirl fancy, if you like, Martin.” Laura Lawson’s tone was
expressionless. “But I can understand it just the same. Yes, I can
understand it.”
“What do you mean—you understand it?”
“I was a girl once myself,” she replied in the same colorless tone. “And
then, you see, I know you very, very well.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“He’s off again,” sighed Dorothy, but quite to herself.
“And you have the nerve to insinuate—?” the angry man went on, beside
himself with rage. “You know as well as I do, Laura, that this girl was
afraid because of what she saw and heard at the meeting. She—”
“That will be quite enough, Martin.” His wife interrupted him sharply.
“And what is more—you probably have not noticed that since Janet has
been here and with other people, she is very much herself—and afraid of
nothing at all.”
“What meeting is he talking about, Mrs. Lawson?” Dorothy pointedly
ignored the angry husband.
Mrs. Lawson stood up. “Never mind that now,” she decreed, albeit
pleasantly. “Come along with me to my office. I have some typing I’d
like you to do for me before luncheon. Martin!” She swung round on her
husband. “You will wait here for me. I’ll be back in a few minutes—I
want to talk to you.” She slipped her arm through Dorothy’s and drew her
from the room.
Once in the entrance hall, she led her back and under the gallery to a
corridor which opened at the right of the broad stairs. Dorothy saw that
there were several doors in the right hand wall. Mrs. Lawson stopped at
the second of these and opened it.
They walked in and Dorothy saw that they were in the office. It seemed
very businesslike and austere after coming from the luxury of the
library and spacious hall. Near the one window stood a broad table desk,
and opposite that a typewriter desk. Two steel filing cabinets and three
plain chairs completed the room’s furnishings. The walls were hung with
framed blueprints and a large-scale map of Fairfield County,
Connecticut.
Mrs. Lawson took some papers from a drawer in the large desk and handed
them to Dorothy. “This is in longhand, as you see,” she explained,
“please type it, double space, and I’d like to have a carbon copy.” She
glanced at a small wrist-watch set with diamonds. “It is just noon now.
Luncheon is at one. Do you think you can finish the work by that time?”
Dorothy glanced at the manuscript. “This won’t make more than four
typewritten sheets. I can do it easily in an hour and have time to
spare.”
“Good!” The older woman patted her lightly on the shoulder. “Take your
time about it. Do you think you can read my handwriting?”
“Nothing could be plainer, Mrs. Lawson.” Dorothy smiled back at her.
“Very well, then. I’ll see you at lunch. The dining room is across the
hall from the library.”
At the door, she stopped and turned as though she had just remembered
something.
“Don’t let what my husband said bother you, Janet.”
“That’s forgotten already,” Dorothy said easily.
“Like most men, he flies off the handle when irritated. Pay no attention
to it.”
“I understand.”
Mrs. Lawson hesitated for the fraction of a second. “By the way, Janet,”
she remarked. “When was the last time you walked in your sleep—that you
found your slippers pointed toward your bed in the morning?”
Dorothy pretended to think. “Let me see,” she said slowly. “Yes—it was
the night before Daddy locked me in my room! I found that I couldn’t get
out in the morning, and naturally, I wanted to know the reason why. I
still do, for that matter. Except for some foolishness about my being
ill, I’m still waiting for an explanation. As a matter of fact, I was
perfectly well. I’m terribly annoyed, of course, and it worries me to
think that Daddy should act this way, but so far as my health goes, I’ve
never felt better.”
“I’m glad to hear it, dear. We’ll check up on your father when he
returns. I’m your friend, you know. Don’t let the matter prey on your
mind.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lawson. I’ll try to do as you say.” Dorothy thought she
was going then, but it seemed that the woman had still another question
that she had been holding back.
“When you are in this somnambulistic state,” she said, “when you are
sleepwalking, I mean, doesn’t it terrify you to awaken and find yourself
out of your bed?”
Dorothy frowned and seemed puzzled. “Perhaps it would,” she admitted.
“But then, you see, I can’t remember ever wakening while I was walking
during the night. I must sleep very soundly. At school the night
watchman or one of the teachers would frequently find me walking about
the building. They would lead me back to bed, or just tell me to go
there, and I would always obey. Until they told me about it next day, I
knew nothing of course. That’s how I got onto the business of the
slippers, you see.”
“Oh, yes. I wondered how you’d been able to check on it. Well, I must
trot along now and let you get to work. Until luncheon then, my dear.”
She was gone at last and Dorothy made a face at the closed door. “Of all
the plausible hypocrites I’ve ever met,” she muttered, “you certainly
take the well known chocolate cake!”
She sat down at the typewriter desk, pulled out the machine, and slipped
in two sheets of paper and a carbon that she found in one of the
drawers. Halfway through a perusal of Mrs. Lawson’s first page, she
looked up. The door opened quickly and Mr. Tunbridge came into the room.
“I’ve just a moment,” he prefaced hurriedly. “They mustn’t find me here.
What was the row in the library?”
Dorothy explained briefly.
“Fine! Put you through the hoops, eh? I had a good idea she would do
something of the kind. You came out of a difficult situation with flying
colors, I take it. But be careful about run-ins with Lawson. He’s a
slick article—in fact, the two of them are a pair of the slickest
articles it’s ever been my misfortune to run across. And they’re going
it hammer and tongs in the library right now. I was a bit worried about
you, that’s why I took this chance.”
“When do I get my instructions for tonight?”
“Late this afternoon, probably. I’ll get them to you somehow.”
“Thanks. And here’s something else. This script I’m going to type for
Mrs. L. has to do with the properties of a highly explosive gas which
seems to burn up everything it comes in contact with and lets off fumes
of deadly poison while it’s doing that! Shall I make a copy for you?”
“Please do!” His hand rested on the doorknob. “Yes, it’s important that
we have a copy. That’s the stuff Doctor Winn has just invented, without
a doubt.”
“Awful!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Just think what would happen if that were
used in a war!”
“That’s the government’s business, Miss Dixon.”
“‘Ours but to do—and die—’” she quoted and her tone was deadly
serious.
“Quite right. But make the carbon copy just the same—and don’t let them
catch you at it.”
“I won’t, Mr. Tunbridge.”
“Bye-bye, then. I’ll get along now. There may be some home truths
floating out of the library that will give me extra dope on the
du-Val—Lawson pair.”
The door closed, and after slipping an extra carbon and a sheet of very
thin copy paper into the typewriter, Dorothy read Mrs. Lawson’s treatise
on “Winnite and Its Properties” from start to finish.
“Horrible!” she murmured, as she finished reading. “Simply horrible!”
Again her eyes sought the last paragraph. “The effect is easily
estimated of an airplane dropping a single bomb filled with the
explosive, inflammable and deadly poison gas, Winnite, upon Manhattan
Island, for instance: the bomb would explode upon detonation and within
an inconceivably short space of time, not only would the City of Greater
New York be in flames, but every living thing within that area would be
dead from the poison fumes. This includes not only human, animal and
insect life, but all vegetable matter as well.”
Dorothy sighed. “And I am supposed to help keep this terrible stuff from
the hands of thieves so that our government may use it in time of war.
Well—we’ll see—and that’s not that by a long shot!”
She put down the manuscript and began to type it.