During the next week the office of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. had its
usual aspect of prosperous placidity. The routine work was done in the
routine way; the porter opened the office every morning, and the
office-boy arrived a few minutes after it was opened; the clerks came
at nine, and a little later the partners were to be seen in the inner
office reading the morning's correspondence.
The Whittiers, father and son, had had a discussion with Mr. Wheatcroft
as to the most advisable course to adopt to prevent the future leakage
of the trade secrets of the firm. The senior partner had succeeded in
dissuading the junior partner from the employment of detectives.
"Not yet," he said, "not yet. These clerks have all served us
faithfully for years, and I don't want to submit them to the indignity
of being shadowed--that's what they call it, isn't it?--of being
shadowed by some cheap hireling who may try to distort the most
innocent acts into evidence of guilt, so that he can show us how smart
he is."
"But this sort of thing can't go on forever," ejaculated Mr.
Wheatcroft. "If we are to be underbid on every contract worth having,
we might as well go out of the business!"
"That's true, of course," Mr. Whittier admitted; "but we are not sure
that we are being underbid unfairly."
"The Tuxedo Company have taken away three contracts from us in the past
two months," cried the junior partner; "we can be sure of that, can't
we?"
"We have lost three contracts, of course," returned Mr. Whittier, in
his most conciliatory manner, "and the Tuxedo people have captured
them. But that may be only a coincidence, after all."
"It is a pretty expensive coincidence for us," snorted Mr. Wheatcroft.
"But because we have lost money," the senior partner rejoined gently,
laying his hand on Mr. Wheatcroft's arm, "that's no reason why we
should also lose our heads. It is no reason why we should depart from
our old custom of treating every man fairly. If there is any one in our
employ here who is selling us, why, if we give him rope enough he will
hang himself, sooner or later."
"And before he suspends himself that way," cried Mr. Wheatcroft, "we
may be forced to suspend ourselves."
"Come, come, Wheatcroft," said the senior partner, "I think we can
afford to stand the loss a little longer. What we can't afford to do is
to lose our self-respect by doing something irreparable. It may be that
we shall have to employ detectives, but I don't think the time has come
yet."
"Very well," the junior partner declared, yielding an unwilling
consent. "I don't insist on it. I still think it would be best not to
waste any more time--but I don't insist. What will happen is that we
shall lose the rolling of those steel rails for the Springfield and
Athens road--that's all."
Paul Whittier had taken no part in this discussion. He agreed with his
father, and saw he had no need to urge any further argument.
Presently he asked when they intended to put in the bid for the rails.
His father then explained that they were expecting a special estimate
from the engineers at the Ramapo Works, and that it probably would be
Saturday before this could be discussed by the partners and the exact
figures of the proposed contract determined.
"And if we don't want to lose that contract for sure," insisted Mr.
Wheatcroft, "I think we had better change the combination on that
safe."
"May I suggest," said Paul, "that it seems to me to be better to leave
the combination as it is. What we want to do is not to get this
Springfield and Athens contract so much as to find out whether some one
really is getting at the letter-book. Therefore we mustn't make it any
harder for the some one to get at the letter-book."
"Oh, very well," Mr. Wheatcroft assented, a little ungraciously, "have
it your own way. But I want you to understand now that I think you are
only postponing the inevitable!"
And with that the subject was dropped. For several days the three men
who were together for hours in the office of the Ramapo Iron and Steel
Works refrained from any discussion of the question which was most
prominent in their minds.
It was on Wednesday that the tall clock that Paul Whittier had broken
returned from the repairer's. Paul himself helped the men to set it in
its old place in the corner of the office, facing the safe, which
occupied the corner diagonally opposite.
It so chanced that Paul came down late on Thursday morning, and perhaps
this was the reason that a pressure of delayed work kept him in the
office that evening long after every one else. The clerks had all gone,
even Major Van Zandt, always the last to leave--and the porter had come
in twice before the son of the senior partner was ready to go for the
night. The gas was lighted here and there in the long, narrow, deserted
store, as Paul walked through it from the office to the street.
Opposite, the swift twilight of a New York November had already settled
down on the city.
"Can't I carry yer bag for ye, Mister Paul?" asked the porter, who was
showing him out.
"No, thank you, Mike," was the young man's answer. "That bag has very
little in it. And, besides, I haven't got to carry it far."
The next morning Paul was the first of the three to arrive. The clerks
were in their places already, but neither the senior nor the junior
partner had yet come. The porter happened to be standing under the
wagon archway as Paul Whittier was about to enter the store.
The young man saw the porter, and a mischievous smile hovered about the
corners of his mouth.
"Mike," he said, pausing on the door-step, "do you think you ought to
smoke while you are cleaning out our office in the morning?"
"Sure, I haven't had me pipe in me mouth this mornin' at all," the
porter answered, taken by surprise.
"But yesterday morning?" Paul pursued.
"Yesterday mornin'!" Mike echoed, not a little puzzled.
"Yesterday morning at ten minutes before eight you were in the private
office smoking a pipe."
"But how did you see me, Mr. Paul?" cried Mike, in amaze. "Ye was late
in comin' down yesterday, wasn't ye?"
Paul smiled pleasantly.
"A little bird told me," he said.
"If I had the bird I'd ring his neck for tellin' tales," the porter
remarked.
"I don't mind your smoking, Mike," the young man went on, "that's your
own affair; but I'd rather you didn't smoke a pipe while you are
tidying up the private office."
"Well, Mister Paul, I won't do it again," the porter promised.
"And I wouldn't encourage Bob to smoke, either," Paul continued.
"I encourage him?" inquired Mike.
"Yes," Paul explained; "yesterday morning you let him light his
cigarette from your pipe--didn't you?"
"Were you peekin' in thro' the winder, Mister Paul?" the porter asked,
eagerly. "Ye saw me, an' I never saw ye at all."
"No," the young man answered, "I can't say that I saw you myself. A
little bird told me."
And with that he left the wondering porter and entered the store. Just
inside the door was the office-boy, who hastily hid an unlighted
cigarette as he caught sight of the senior partner's son.
When Paul saw the red-headed boy he smiled again, mischievously.
"Bob," he began, "when you want to see who can stand on his head the
longest, you or Danny the boot-black, don't you think you could choose
a better place than the private office?"
The office-boy was quite as much taken by surprise as the porter had
been, but he was younger and quicker-witted.
"And when did I have Danny in the office?" he asked, defiantly.
"Yesterday morning," Paul answered, still smiling, "a little before
half-past eight."
"Yesterday mornin'?" repeated Bob, as though trying hard to recall all
the events of the day before. "Maybe Danny did come in for a minute."
"He played leap-frog with you all the way into the private office,"
Paul went on, while Bob looked at him with increasing wonder.
"How did you know?" the office-boy asked, frankly. "Were you lookin'
through the window?"
"How do I know that you and Danny stood on your heads in the corner of
the office with your heels against the safe, scratching off the paint?
Next time I'd try the yard, if I were you. Sports of that sort are more
fun in the open air."
And with that parting shot Paul went on his way to his own desk,
leaving the office-boy greatly puzzled.
Later in the day Bob and Mike exchanged confidences, and neither was
ready with an explanation.
"At school," Bob declared, "we used to think teacher had eyes in the
back of her head. She was everlastingly catchin' me when I did things
behind her back. But Mr. Paul beats that, for he see me doin' things
when he wasn't here."
"Mister Paul wasn't here, for sure, yesterday mornin'," Mike asserted;
"I'd take me oath o' that. An' if he wasn't here, how could he see me
givin' ye a light from me pipe? Answer me that! He says it's a little
bird told him; but that's not it, I'm thinkin'. Not but that they have
clocks with birds into 'em, that come out and tell the time o' day,
'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' An' if that big clock he broke last week had
a bird in it that could tell time that way, I'd break the thing
quick--so I would."
"It ain't no bird," said Bob. "You can bet your life on that. No birds
can't tell him nothin' no more'n you can catch 'em by putting salt on
their tails. I know what it is Mr. Paul does--least, I know how he does
it. It's second-sight, that's what it is! I see a man onct at the
theayter, an' he----"
But perhaps it is not necessary to set down here the office-boy's
recollection of the trick of an ingenious magician.
About half an hour after Paul had arrived at the office Mr. Wheatcroft
appeared. The junior partner hesitated in the doorway for a second, and
then entered.
Paul was watching him, and the same mischievous smile flashed over the
face of the young man.
"You need not be alarmed to-day, Mr. Wheatcroft," he said. "There is no
fascinating female waiting for you this morning."
"Confound the woman!" ejaculated Mr. Wheatcroft, testily. "I couldn't
get rid of her."
"But you subscribed for the book at last," asserted Paul, "and she went
away happy."
"I believe I did agree to take one copy of the work she showed me,"
admitted Mr. Wheatcroft, a little sheepishly. Then he looked up
suddenly. "Why, bless my soul," he cried, "that was yesterday
morning----"
"Allowing for differences of clocks," Paul returned, "it was about ten
minutes to ten yesterday morning."
"Then how do you come to know anything about it? I should like to be
told that!" the junior partner inquired. "You did not get down till
nearly twelve."
"I had an eye on you," Paul answered, as the smile again flitted across
his face.
"But I thought you were detained all the morning by a sick friend,"
insisted Mr. Wheatcroft.
"So I was," Paul responded. "And if you won't believe I had an eye on
you, all I can say then is that a little bird told me."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "Your little bird has two
legs, hasn't it?"
"Most birds have," laughed Paul.
"I mean two legs in a pair of trousers," explained the junior partner,
rumpling his grizzled hair with an impatient gesture.
"You see how uncomfortable it is to be shadowed," said Paul, turning
the topic as his father entered the office.
That Saturday afternoon Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheatcroft agreed on the
bid to be made on the steel rails needed by the Springfield and Athens
road. While the elder Mr. Whittier wrote the letter to the railroad
with his own hand, his son manoeuvred the junior partner into the
outer office, where all the clerks happened to be at work, including
the old book-keeper. Then Paul managed his conversation with Mr.
Wheatcroft so that any one of the five employees who chose to listen to
the apparently careless talk should know that the firm had just made a
bid on another important contract. Paul also spoke as though his father
and himself would probably go out of town that Saturday night, to
remain away till Monday morning.
And just before the store was closed for the night, Paul Whittier wound
up the eight-day clock that stood in the corner opposite the private
safe.