DUMMY’S STORY
Joan continued to stare at Dummy. Could it have been his voice? As
Gertie had said, he was a creepy sort of person. While she was standing
there, the voice came again—and Dummy’s lips were moving!
“I hope you’re not carrying off that fire story, Miss Joan,” he said in
a slow sort of voice as though he were not sure of his speech. Joan
wondered whether his voice had suddenly been restored to him, but no, he
talked too naturally for that. “You’re not supposed to run off with copy
that way.”
“But—” Joan was embarrassed. It was hard to explain to him just why she
had taken the story. And hearing him speak gave her a spooky feeling all
up and down her spine. It was queer to be talking to him. She had a
feeling she should shout and her voice rose without her knowing it.
“But,” she shouted, “there’s something wrong with this story.”
“I know it,” nodded Dummy, calmly.
Yes, and she knew he knew it! But—Mr. Johnson had told her not to accuse
any one. It was hard to know what to do.
Dummy held out his hand, with bulgy blue veins. “Just let me look at
that story, please.”
But Joan clutched it to the front of her sweater. “What for?” she
demanded.
Dummy resented this. “Look here, girl, you have no right to take that
off the hook like that, and I want it.”
“But—” Well, she would tell him. “There’s a terrible mistake in it, and
you let it go through.” That wasn’t really accusing him, she defended
herself.
“I know it.” Was that a sigh that escaped Dummy’s lips? “I just realized
that there was something phony about that story. It said the fire was
caused by defective wiring and then in that last paragraph, it said
something different. It just struck me, now—and I did let it go
through.”
Forgetting all about Mr. Johnson’s caution about accusing, Joan gazed
straight into Dummy’s mild, blue eyes. “Didn’t you put it there?” she
asked as innocently as she could.
“Put it there!” Poor Dummy got red all over his face. Was it a guilty
kind of red or a mad kind? Joan decided that if he were not showing
righteous indignation, then he was one of the best actors she had ever
seen. But she knew he was a good actor. Look how he had fooled them all
into believing he was a deaf-mute.
No, he wasn’t acting. He was genuinely _mad_. “Are you—are you—” his
voice fairly shook, “are you accusing me of putting that libelous
paragraph on to that story? Why how could I, and why should I?”
“Well, the hook is right there, and you might have done it.” Joan wasn’t
going to give up without a struggle. “We—Chub and I—figured it all out—”
she might as well go on, “that you were a spy from the _Star_, to get
Mr. Hutton and the paper in bad.”
Dummy’s mouth dropped completely open, showing two gold teeth. “You
thought that! And may I ask whether you and that red-headed imp have
broadcast your insinuations?” he drawled.
“Oh, no!” began Joan, and then stopped. Chub _had_ told the office force
that afternoon, when Gertie was laughing about Dummy. “Why—” she
faltered.
“So-o!” Dummy glared indignantly. “And do you know, young woman, that I
could have you put in jail for that?”
Joan turned scarlet. Then she clutched at straws. “But,” she sputtered,
“you did act spooky. And why did you act like a Dum—like a deaf person?”
Oh, my goodness, he had often heard them all call him Dummy. Oh, how
horrid they had been!
“Go on and say it. Call me Dummy,” said the man, without a smile. “I’m
used to it now.”
He paused and seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
“Well,” she began, “we saw you with Tebbets of the _Star_ at the picnic.
It did look suspicious—because he’s such an awful man, and we thought he
had you under his thumb—because, of course, you wouldn’t do such a thing
unless you _had_ to—” she hardly knew what she was saying.
“And what else?” he asked.
“Then, I found the story about the charity play. That was another clew.
It was stuffed behind some rolls of paper in the pressroom.”
“Was it?” Dummy looked innocent. “I never did find it, though I hunted.
You thought I was a spy, did you?” His eyes were glittering as they had
the day he and Mack had been arguing over that lost story. “Well, now,
I’ll tell my story, but as long as you did your talking before the
staff, I want to tell my story to them all, too. I’ll go tell Mr. Nixon,
now.”
Mr. Nixon was sitting at his desk. Joan hated to meet him for he was
really cross, since he was thoroughly convinced that Tim had made the
mistake in the fire story.
Tim’s desk was vacant—the green swinging light above it, with the cord
knotted to make it the right length, looked mournful and lonely,
somehow. The desk was suspiciously clean and bare.
Joan, having gone to trail one mystery, was completely sidetracked by
Dummy’s proving such a stumblingblock to her theory. She still clutched
Tim’s story in her hand. She’d let Dummy tell his story, and then as
soon as he was through she’d tell her theory just the same. After all,
it looked more suspicious than ever, because Dummy had apparently only
played deaf and dumb in order to work his misdeeds.
[Illustration: “Are you a deaf-mute or aren’t you?”]
“Look here, Mr. Nixon.” Dummy went right up to the editor’s desk.
Mr. Nixon gave one look and then yelled, “Holy Moses! The Dummy can
talk.” Then he looked embarrassed a bit, as though trying to remember
what he had ever said in Dummy’s presence that he shouldn’t have. When
he got over that feeling, he demanded, “Well, what’s the big idea? Are
you a deaf-mute or aren’t you?”
“I pretended to be one, and I’ll tell you why, if you’ll only give me a
chance. It seems that this young woman has spread a malicious report
concerning me—”
“Cut it short,” ordered the editor. He was used to saying that to
reporters. It would have been natural to have him add, “Hold it down to
five hundred words.”
But Dummy, having been silent for so long a time, found it most
agreeable to talk, and he drawled worse than ever.
“Well, I’ll begin at the beginning and tell you my right name.” The
whole office force, Miss Betty, Mack, and Cookie, clustered around and
Dummy waved them into the group. Chub ventured out from the front
office, but Mr. Nixon motioned him to go back to his work. “It’s Richard
Marat,” stated Dummy.
Mr. Nixon looked as though the name were slightly familiar, and he
wrinkled up his nose a bit, trying to remember. But mostly he looked
rather bored at Dummy. He seemed to think that the _Journal_ family had
had enough excitement for one day without all this disturbance coming
up.
Cookie looked a bit puzzled over the name, but Mack and Miss Betty
showed plainly that they had never heard of the name before, as far as
they could remember.
Richard Marat! Richard Marat! The name began to burn in Joan’s mind.
Why, it did sound familiar. She was sure she had heard it somewhere—and
not so very long ago, either. There, she had it—! She remembered the
“Ten Years Ago To-Day” story.
“Why, that’s the bookkeeper who had such a large deficit!”
Every one looked at her as though she were absolutely crazy, but Dummy
leaped forward and took both her hands in his, and looked into her face.
“Just so, little maid,” he said, quaintly. “The first time I noticed you
was when I heard you say, ‘My brother wrote that!’ the first day Tim was
on the paper. I hoped then that he appreciated his sister’s great
interest in him. And when I realized what an inquisitive little miss you
were, I was actually scared that you’d somehow discover I was not a
Dummy. But it’s to you, perhaps that I owe my good fortune, for you were
the one to pick my story out of the files to reprint—but I mustn’t get
ahead of my story. Yes, I am Richard Marat, the bookkeeper, who thought
he had a deficit. I’ve always been a moody and impulsive sort of person,
and when I discovered I had—or thought I had—such a great mistake in my
books, I took the easiest way out, and ran away.”
“I remember that,” said Cookie. “It was just about ten years ago, I
guess. But you didn’t have a mistake, after all.”
“That’s why he was so quick and accurate, because he was a bookkeeper,”
Miss Betty whispered to Mack.
“Oh, lawsy!” said a voice. Bossy had come in through the swinging door,
and was standing there, his eyes getting larger and whiter all the time.
“Dummy kin talk! There’s quare goin’s on around heah. Dummy kin talk!”
No one paid any attention to Bossy.
“I was afraid of being arrested,” Dummy went on, “and I beat it, as the
saying goes. These ten years, I have been wandering, scared as a rabbit.
I began to act hard of hearing to escape what I thought might be
embarrassing questions, and gradually I pretended to be a Dummy.” He
smiled around at the _Journal_ staff when he said the nickname they had
given him. “That was easier and safest of all, just to be a deaf-mute.”
“I got to hankering for little old Plainfield,” he continued. “And so I
came back. Not a soul knew me or remembered and if it hadn’t been for
that column here, Ten Years Ago To-Day, I’d probably still be thinking I
was guilty of a mistake that never happened. One day last week the
column told of a bookkeeper named Richard Marat, who had discovered a
deficit in his books, and fearing arrest, had fled—no one knew where.
Then to-day, the paper has the story that experts had gone over my
books, had found no deficiency and reported that I had simply made a
mistake. But I never knew all this until to-day. My panic cost me ten
years of weary wandering....”
A piercing, feminine scream sounded from the front office.
“Just like a nice murder story to break after we’ve gone to press!” said
Mack.
Every one rushed to the front office. There was Amy, in her pale orchid
sweater, standing in front of the rear counter, her face frozen with
horror, her mouth open for another scream. Her hands were held, fingers
extended stiffly, out in front of her, as though paralyzed.
“What’s all the rumpus?” asked Mr. Nixon from the doorway.
Joan caught a glimpse of Chub’s grinning face. Then she saw that Amy’s
hands were held over the counter, where Chub had been inking the
hand-roller for the advertising stuff. The wide sheet of inky paper was
spread there. Amy’s palms were blacker than Em’s fur.
“He told me to hold my hands over it, and feel how the heat rushed out
from it,” sobbed Amy. “And I did. Then he slapped ’em right down on to
all that fresh ink. I’ll never speak to him again—”
“He was only fooling, Amy,” cheered Joan.
But Amy’s sobs rose higher. “Look at my hands. I’ll never get the stuff
off. I just stopped in to see if you were here, Jo, and he stopped me—”
Mr. Nixon was waving his hands about like a madman. “Such an office! One
dumb-bell reporter isn’t enough. The whole force is dumb! I won’t put up
with this. I guess I’m still city editor. Clear out of here, you kids.”
He turned from Amy to Joan. “And you, too.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“But Mr. Johnson said—” she began.
“I don’t care what Mr. Johnson said!” he cut her short. “I won’t have
this office turning into a kindergarten. Where is that boy? I’ll skin
him alive for this.” But the red-haired office boy had vanished from the
scene.
There was nothing to do but depart. Amy went ahead, stalking out with
dignity, holding her inky hands aloft, her tear-wet nose high in the
air.
Joan gave a wild glance around, appealingly. No one dared go against the
city editor. Mack was scowling. Dummy looked bewildered. Cookie was
sympathetic but helpless. Miss Betty flashed her a smile, in spite of
everything.
“I’ll see you to-morrow, Jo,” she said. “I may want you to pay a bill at
the toggery shop for me.”
“Sure,” said Joan, weakly.
The editor groaned and they all filed back into the editorial room. Joan
couldn’t follow—even though Mr. Johnson had said she could stay at the
_Journal_ as much as she liked. It was all Amy’s fault, screaming like
that and acting so silly. Mr. Nixon had just banished her, too; because
she was Amy’s friend. As they went past the front counter, there was
Gertie with an expression of horror on her face as great as Amy’s had
been over her contact with the inky roller. “To think of the things I’ve
said to that Dummy!” she was wailing. “I’ve said, ‘Oh, you dear, darling
Dummy,’ and ‘Oh, angel of light!’ and all kinds of crazy things like
that. I have, really. And he heard me all the time!”
But Joan went on. She had troubles of her own. She was anxious to tell
Tim about Dummy’s not being a dummy. She was disappointed not to find
him at home—he had stalked off for a walk, gloomily, mother explained.
Joan went on up to her own room to muse over events. She had been ousted
from the _Journal_, but she was still vitally interested in the office
and its unsolved mystery. She stood by the dresser, looking down at the
fire story she still held in her hand. The mystery of the mistakes
hadn’t been solved. She remembered now that Chub had mentioned mistakes
to her the day Tim got the job. That proved it _wasn’t_ Tim. Maybe it
was Dummy, after all. He hadn’t explained about being with Mr. Tebbets
at the picnic, anyway.
Finally, she heard the front door bang and knew Tim had come in. By the
time she got downstairs, she found him slouched in the morris chair in
the living room, his long legs stretched halfway across the room, it
seemed. He nodded sullenly and silently to her question, “Are you really
fired?”
She had to tell him the thrilling news. “Tim, Dummy’s not a deaf-mute.
He can talk.”
Tim sat up. “Are you stringing me?”
“No, really, it’s a fact. Every one was so surprised. You should have
seen Bossy! Dummy spoke to me, and I was so scared I nearly jumped out
of my skin!” she explained. “You see, I had gone to the composing room
for your fire story.” She suddenly realized that she still had it in her
hand. “I wanted to look at that extra paragraph that got stuck on there,
to see if it really was on the copy. And it was.” She held it up, and
glanced at the final paragraph to reassure herself. Then she gave a
gasp, as she gazed at the end of the long story in her hand. “Why, Tim!
The commas in this last paragraph have heads!”