AN OLD ENEMY
While Ruth Fielding had been in conversation with those in the office
she had noticed a curious thing.
A small triangular corner of glass had been broken from the upper
panel of the door. For a considerable time Ruth had felt that
conviction that comes to every one at times of being closely and
furtively watched. Her eyes, almost against her will, had traveled
repeatedly to that triangular bit of broken glass. Then suddenly she
saw it! That at least could not be imagination! An ear was pressed
close to that tiny aperture and while she stared, momentarily
paralyzed with astonishment, an eye took its place!
With Ruth, to think was to act. No sooner was she convinced that
there was a spy in the hallway outside the door than she was on her
feet, tugging madly at the knob.
As the startled and astonished men in the office behind her rose to
their feet wondering if she had taken leave of her senses the door
yielded to Ruth’s frantic tug and swung inward.
That the spy was completely taken by surprise was evident. The man
who had been stooping to the aperture jerked to an upright position
as Ruth flashed upon him. For a moment he looked straight at the girl
and in that moment Ruth recognized him.
“Charlie Reid!” she gasped. “What are you doing here spying?”
“None of your business!” grumbled the fellow sullenly. “Sol and I
know what we’re doing——”
But just then Charlie Reid caught sight of Ruth’s companions as they
hurried to the office doorway. Turning, he dashed down the almost
empty corridor and, reaching the stairway, took the steps three at a
time and vanished from sight.
“Seemed to be in a pretty big hurry,” observed Tom. “Didn’t wait for
explanations or anything, did he?”
The men ran to the head of the stairs, but the fellow had
disappeared. To follow him on foot would be useless, and if
they waited for an elevator they would have no better chance of
intercepting him.
Bewildered and rather alarmed, they returned to the office to talk
over this startling development.
“Not a soul of us saw his face,” mourned McCarty, but Ruth was quick
to contradict him.
“I did,” she said. “And what’s more, I know him—and so do you all!”
They made her sit down and explain.
“It was Charlie Reid,” she said excitedly. “And as you all know, he
is Sol Bloomberg’s right-hand man. It was Charlie who, as agent for
Bloomberg, first tempted Viola Callahan to break her contract with
me.”
“The rascal!” cried Brun, his big hand doubled into a fist. “And to
think he got away with a whole neck and his information!”
“But why should Charlie Reid want to spy on us?” asked Mr. Hammond.
“Certainly our conversation has been innocent enough and has nothing
whatever to do with Reid, or with Bloomberg either, for that matter.”
“It’s queer, though,” mused Ruth, as though speaking aloud. “Charlie
Reid spying here, trying to find out what he can of my future plans,
right on top of that threatening letter from Sol Bloomberg!”
Naturally the men were more at sea than ever over this reference,
since none but Ruth herself and Helen Cameron knew anything of the
threatening, venomous letter Bloomberg had sent. Ruth had not even
told Tom for fear of needlessly worrying him.
Now, however, it was necessary to make a clean breast of the facts.
In view of what had just happened, the letter from the disgraced
producer took on an added importance.
“It looks to me,” Ruth finished, “as though the planting of Charlie
Reid here to spy upon us and overhear our plans is the first step in
Bloomberg’s scheme of revenge.”
“It isn’t revenge, Miss Ruth; it’s plain spite,” said Mr. Hammond
disgustedly. “That fellow had nothing against you except that you
succeeded where he tried to make you fail.”
“And something tells me,” Ruth said, with a little shrug of her
shoulders, “that he still has my failure at heart and will leave no
stone unturned to accomplish it.”
“Well,” said Tom, with a squaring of his shoulders and a yearning
glance toward the spot in the doorway where Charlie Reid had been,
“if either Bloomberg or that Reid chap gets ugly again and tries to
start something, we’ll show them both they’ve been in a scrap!”
On the whole, however, Mr. Hammond and his associates seemed inclined
to treat Bloomberg and any nefarious schemes he might concoct as
beneath their notice and certainly as nothing to worry about.
“He may have guns, Miss Ruth, but he has no powder and shot,” Mr.
Hammond assured her. “In other words, he is a rattlesnake with
his venom removed. Don’t waste your time worrying about him. And
meanwhile,” he put out his hand as Ruth rose to her feet, “please
believe that we are all undyingly grateful to you for helping us out
in this emergency. I feel as though a thousand tons had been lifted
from my shoulders.”
Ruth smiled, with a return of the fighting gleam in her eye.
“I’m glad to be free to undertake it,” she said. “And—I’ll do my
best!”
“That’s all we ask!” Mr. Hammond assured her, and this sentiment was
echoed with many hearty handshakes by McCarty, Brun and the others.
After Ruth and Tom had left, there was just one among the men in Mr.
Hammond’s office who was not enthusiastic over the success of the
afternoon’s conference. This was Raymond Howell, the casting director.
“I’m not as confident of success as you all seem,” he told them, and
the statement was like a dash of cold water upon their enthusiasm. “I
admit that Miss Fielding is a good director—upon her own field. But I
don’t know that our actors will take kindly to a woman director. They
are not used to them, and this one is so young and good-looking that
it seems impossible that she is as brainy and competent as they say.”
“As we _know_,” Mr. Hammond said quietly. “You have come into our
personnel since Miss Fielding left it, Howell, and that is probably
why you lack confidence in her ability. You said just now that this
girl was a good director in her own field. You forget that this was
her original field, the stepping stone to her present success. No,
my dear fellow, you may safely lull your fears to rest. In my own
mind I have not the slightest doubt that this afternoon’s conference
has saved to the Alectrion Film Corporation a full forty thousand
dollars!”
If Ruth had heard this tribute she would have thrilled with pride at
such a proof of Mr. Hammond’s confidence in her. It would have done
her good too, for, strangely enough, her confidence in herself had
been rather severely shaken by the detection of spying Charlie Reid
that afternoon.
“I don’t like it, Tom. I don’t like it at all,” she said, as they
sped uptown toward the hotel at which they were stopping while in
New York. “Bloomberg wouldn’t have planted Charlie Reid there to
overhear our conference with Mr. Hammond if he hadn’t had a good and
sufficient reason.”
“Perhaps,” said Tom, looking at her flushed face and thinking how
pretty she was, “Bloomberg didn’t plant Charlie at all. How do you
know Reid wasn’t there on his own business?”
But Ruth shook her head positively.
“He has no reason to wish me harm,” she pointed out. “Except as
Bloomberg’s agent. Besides, I don’t believe Charlie Reid has brains
enough to act on his own account. Bloomberg was always the brains,
Charlie the tool. I wish,” she ended, a bit plaintively, “I knew what
the real answer was!”
“Now don’t worry,” Tom protested. “If Bloomberg has any crooked
little game up his sleeve, we’ll find it out soon enough. And when he
starts something we’ll very soon show him who is going to finish it.
You beat him once, Ruth, and that only goes to show you can beat him
again, and worse.”
A dimple appeared at the corner of Ruth’s mouth.
“The law of averages——”
“Oh, bother the law of averages,” Tom interrupted, good-naturedly.
“It isn’t going to work in this case. Besides, here we are at our
station!”
He led her forth upon the subway platform and in a few moments they
were being eagerly greeted by Helen in their suite at the Graymore.
They were to stay over in New York until the following afternoon
at least, since another business conference with Mr. Hammond was
imperative, for Tom, at any rate. Helen was overjoyed at this news
and declared that she would spend the following morning shopping for
the trip to the Yukon.
“Do you really think you ought to go?” Ruth asked, teasing her. “Poor
Chess! It really is cruel to leave him all alone!”
“Oh, but think what a long time we’ll be married!” Helen protested.
“Even Chess couldn’t deny me this wonderful chance for a little fun
before, before——”
“The end?” suggested Tom, with a grin.
“You put it crudely, Tommy-boy,” chuckled Helen, making a face at
him. “But I simply couldn’t miss this trip. Especially since our old
friends Bloomberg and Charlie Reid are stepping into the limelight
again, prepared to give us a few thrills.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ruth dryly, as she examined the location
photographs Mr. Hammond had given her that afternoon, “if we will
have more thrills than we exactly enjoy before we get through.”