Time had dragged its slow way past six-thirty. The excuse of a flying
start on the Harris case had worn thin to the point of delicacy--to all
but one man. The rest of them hoped sincerely that _he_ was keeping
himself interested.
Westervelt sat at his desk, perusing an article in _Spaceman's_ World
about the exploration of a newly discovered planetary system. It might
come up in a conference someday, he reflected, and it might be as well
to know a few facts on the subject. No life had been discovered on
any of the dozen planets, but that did not necessarily preclude the
establishment of a Terran colony in the future. The department also had
problems with colonies, as witness Greenhaven.
He put down the magazine for a moment to review the personnel situation.
Parrish, he remembered, had expressed his intention of retreating to
his office and putting in an hour or two of desk-heeling. Under the
circumstances, he had declared, there was little point in digging
further into the files for an idea since that was not at all their
primary purpose in staying late. Rosenkrantz, of course, was on watch
in the communications room. Smith wandered in and out. Simonetta had
taken a portable taper down to Lydman's office to help organize a
preliminary report the chief had requested from him. After she had
returned, and fallen to low-voiced gossip through the window with
Pauline, Beryl had been sent back with a number of scribbled objections
for Lydman to answer.
Smith had spent all of five minutes thinking them up--before Simonetta
brought the original report. Westervelt wondered how soon Beryl would
return with the answers, because it would then probably be his turn to
ride herd.
He did not regard the idea with relish.
Smith strolled out of his office. He halted to survey the nearly empty
office with an air of vague surprise, then saw Simonetta outside
Pauline's cubicle. He went over to join the conversation.
_I should have walked out somewhere_, thought Westervelt. _Now the door
is completely blockaded._
The magazine article turned dull immediately.
Sure enough, in a few minutes Smith approached Westervelt's corner.
"Who's on watch, Willie?" he asked, attempting a jovial wink.
"Beryl, I think," answered the youth. "Must be--she hasn't been around."
"She's been there quite a while," commented Smith. "I have a feeling
that it's time for a shift. How about wandering down there and edging
in?"
"What would I say?" objected Westervelt. "He's probably dictating his
remarks and wouldn't like me hanging around."
Smith chewed on his lower lip.
"For the questions I sent him," he muttered thoughtfully, "five minutes
should have been enough. Goldilocks has been with him over half an
hour."
"But he must be tired of my face," said Westervelt.
"I don't have anyone else to send, unless you want me to think up an
excuse for Pauline. Asking him to help with her homework would be
pretty thin."
Westervelt thought it over. Parrish, in his present mood, was not
likely to be of any help. Simonetta had just done her stint, and Joe
was needed on the space set. It would have been nice if there were a
message for Lydman to listen to, but that was wishful dreaming.
"All right, Mr. Smith," he surrendered. "Maybe I can take along this
article and ask if he's seen it yet. If he's taking an inventory or
trying out something in the lab, I'll take my life in my hands and
volunteer to help!"
Smith laughed.
"It can't be that bad, Willie," he said, slapping the other on the
shoulder.
Westervelt was not so sure, but he folded the magazine open to the
beginning of his article and went out. Pauline peered at him as he
passed.
"Don't look like that!" he said. "You'll see me again, I hope!"
"You might try looking a little more confident of that yourself,"
Simonetta called after him.
Westervelt turned the corner and walked slowly down the hall, trying
out more confident expressions as he went. None of them felt exactly
right.
Passing the spare office where the dead files were kept, he heard a
sound.
_They must have come up here for something_, he thought. _That's why it
seemed so long to Smitty._
He had opened the door and taken one step inside before he realized
that the room was dark. Without thinking, he reached out to flip the
light switch.
Beryl Austin leaped to her feet with a flash of thigh that hardly
registered on Westervelt in the split-second of his astonishment. Then
he saw that she had not been alone on the settee that stood beside the
door. Parrish rose beside her.
The suddenness of their movements and the ferocity of their combined
stares had the impact of a stunning blow upon Westervelt. The
implications of the blonde's slightly disheveled appearance, however,
were obvious.
He could not, for a moment, think at all. Then he began to have a
feeling that he ought to say something to cover his escape. Beneath
that, somewhere, surged the conviction that he had nothing to
apologize for. In the face of such hostility and tension, it called for
a lot of courage.
"You little sneak!" spat Beryl.
Westervelt noted with a certain detachment that her voice had turned
shrill. Not knowing of anything else to do, he stared as she tugged
her dress into place. This seemed to outrage her more than anything
he could have said. He also saw the gleam of Parrish's teeth, and the
grimace was not even remotely a smile. The man took a step to place
himself before Beryl.
"What do you think you're doing?" demanded Parrish, with a good deal
more feeling than originality.
Westervelt had been wondering what to say to that when it came, as was
inevitable. A dozen half-expressed answers flitted through his mind.
_How do you get out of a thing like this?_ he asked himself
desperately. _You'd think it was me that did it!_
Before he could explore the implications of his choosing the words "did
it," Beryl found her voice again.
"Get out of here!" she shrilled. "Who told you to come poking in?"
"I heard a noise," said Westervelt, conscious that his voice sounded
odd. "I thought it was Mr. Lydman."
"Do I look like Lydman?" demanded Parrish, not raising his voice as
much as Beryl had. "There wasn't any light, was there? Did you think
he'd be sitting in here in the dark?"
The possibility charged the atmosphere like static electricity.
Actually, mere mention of it made Westervelt feel better because it
sounded so much like what he might have found.
"How did I know?" he retorted. "I thought Beryl was with him. Why
should I expect _you_? You said you weren't going to dig any further in
here."
Beryl had been smoothing her still-perfect coiffure. Now she stiffened
as much as Parrish. Westervelt sensed that his choice of words might
have been unfortunate.
"Well, who is with him?" he demanded, before they could say anything.
The question galvanized Parrish into action. He stepped forward to meet
Westervelt face to face.
"If you're so worried about that, why don't you go find him?" he
sneered. "For my money, you two make a good match."
"Maybe I will," said Westervelt hotly. "_You_ two don't seem to care
about what's going on. If you'll just excuse me, I'll turn out the
light and--"
"Oh, cut out the speech-making!" requested Beryl. "Get out of the
door, Willie, and let me out of here. I'm tired of the whole incident."
"Now, wait a minute, Beryl!" protested Parrish.
"Yeah," said Westervelt, "you'd better check. Your lipstick is really
smudged this time."
"Shut up, you!" Parrish snapped.
He took Beryl by the shoulders and pulled her back. She pulled herself
free peevishly. Westervelt leaned against the wall and curled a lip.
"Enough is enough!" she said. "Let me out of here!"
"You forgot to smile," Westervelt told Parrish.
The man turned on him and reached out to seize a handful of his
shirtfront. Westervelt straightened up, alarmed but willing to consider
changing the smooth mask of Parrish's face. Beryl was shrilling
something about not being damned fools, when she stopped in the middle
of a word.
Parrish also grew still. The forearm Westervelt had crossed over the
hand grabbing at his shirt fell as Parrish let him go. The man was
staring over Westervelt's shoulder. He looked almost frightened.
Westervelt looked around--and a thrill shot through him, like the shock
of diving into icy water.
Lydman was standing there, staring through him.
When he looked again, as he shrank instinctively away from the doorway,
he realized that the ex-spacer was staring through all of them. After a
moment, he seemed to focus on Beryl.
"They'll let you out, I think," he said in his quiet voice.
Parrish stepped back nervously, and Westervelt edged further inside
the doorway to make room. Beryl did not seem to have heard. She gaped,
hypnotized by the beautiful eyes set in the strong, tanned face.
Lydman put the palm of one hand against Westervelt's chest and shoved
slowly. It was as well that the file cabinet behind the youth was
nearly empty, because it slid a foot along the floor as his back
flattened against it. Lydman reached out his other hand and took Beryl
gently by the elbow.
She stepped forward, turning her head from side to side as if to seek
reassurance from either Parrish or Westervelt, but without completely
meeting their eyes. Lydman led her into the hall and released her elbow.
She started uncertainly up the corridor toward the main office. Lydman
fell in a pace or two behind her.
Westervelt heard a gasp. He looked at Parrish and realized that he had
been holding his breath too. Then, by mutual consent, they followed the
others out into the hall.
"Listen, Willie," whispered Parrish, watching the twenty-foot gap
between them and Lydman's broad shoulders, "we have to see that she
doesn't forget and try to leave. If he won't let me talk to her, you'll
have to get her attention."
"Okay, I'll try," murmured Westervelt. "Look--I was really looking for
him I never meant to--"
"I never meant to either," said Parrish. "Forget it!"
"It was none of my business. I should have shut up and left. Tell her
I'm sorry when you get a chance; she'll probably never speak to me
again."
He wondered if he could get Smith's permission to move his desk. On
second thought, he wondered if he would come out of this with a desk to
move.
"Sure she will," said Parrish. "She's really just a good-natured kid.
It wasn't anything serious. You startled us, that was all."
Beryl and Lydman turned the corner, leaving the two followers free to
increase their pace. They rounded the corner themselves in time to see
Lydman going through the double doors.
"It was too bad he came along when she was yelling to be let out," said
Parrish. "He didn't understand."
"You mean he actually thought we were trying to keep her there against
her will?" asked Westervelt.
"Well, we were, I suppose, or at least I was. He doesn't seem to think
any further than that in such situations. If someone is being held
against his will, that's enough for Bob. Did you know Smitty had to
post a bond for him?"
"A bond!" repeated Westervelt. "What for?"
"They caught him a couple of times, trying out his new gadgets around
the city jail. I'll tell you about it sometime."
Parrish fell silent as they reached the entrance to the main office.
Beryl had gratefully stopped to speak to the first person in sight,
which happened to be Pauline. As Parrish and Westervelt arrived, she
was offering to take over the switchboard for twenty minutes or so.
"Oh, I didn't mean you had to drop everything," Pauline was protesting.
"I just meant ... when you get the chance...."
She eyed Lydman curiously, then looked to the late arrivals. The
silly thought that Joe Rosenkrantz must feel awfully lonely crossed
Westervelt's mind, and he had to fight down a giggle.
"You really should get out of there for a while," advised Lydman,
studying the size of Pauline's cubbyhole. "Sit outside a quarter of an
hour at least, and let your mind spread out."
"Well, if it's really all right with you, Beryl?"
"I'm only too glad to help," said Beryl rapidly.
She wasted no time in rounding the corner to get at the door.
Westervelt closed his eyes. He found it easy to envision Pauline
tangling with her on the way out and causing Lydman to start all over
again.
The girls managed without any such catastrophe. Pauline headed for the
swivel chair behind the unused secretarial desk.
"You ought to leave that door open," Lydman called to Beryl. "If it
should stick, there's hardly any air in there. You'd feel awfully
cramped in no time."
"Thank you," said Beryl politely.
She left the door open, sat down, and picked up Pauline's headset. From
the set of her shoulders, it did not seem that much light conversation
would be forthcoming from that quarter.
Westervelt stepped further into the office, and saw that Smith was
standing in his own doorway, rubbing his large nose thoughtfully. The
youth guessed that Simonetta had signalled him.
Parrish cleared his throat with a little cough.
"Well," he said, "I'll be in my office if anyone wants me."
Rather than pass too close to Lydman, he retreated into the hall to use
the outside entrance to his office. The ex-spacer paid no attention.
Westervelt decided that he would be damned if he would go through
Parrish's office and back into this one to get at his desk. He walked
around the projection of the switchboard cubicle and sat down with a
sigh at his own place. He leaned back and looked about, to discover
that Lydman had gone over to say a few words to Smith. Pauline glanced
curiously from Westervelt to the two men, then began to shop among a
shelf of magazines beside the desk of the vacationing secretary.
After a few minutes, Lydman turned and went out the door. Westervelt
tried to listen for footsteps, but the resilient flooring prevented him
from guessing which way the ex-spacer had gone.
He saw Smith approaching, and went to meet him.
"I've changed my mind," said the chief. "For a little bit, anyway,
we'll leave him alone. He said he was sketching up some gizmo he wants
to have built, and needed peace and quiet."
"Did he say we ... were talking too loud?" asked Westervelt, looking at
the doorway rather than meet Smith's eye.
"No, that was all he said," answered Smith.
There was a questioning undertone in his voice, but Westervelt chose
not to hear it. After a short wait, Smith asked Simonetta to bring her
taper into his office. He mentioned that he hoped to phone for some
technical information. Westervelt watched them leave, then sank down on
the corner of the desk at which Pauline was relaxing.
Beryl turned around in her chair.
"Pssst! Pauline!" she whispered. "Is he gone?"
"They all left--except Willie," the girl told her.
Beryl shut the door promptly. The pair left in the office heard her
turn the lock with a brisk snap.
"What's the matter with her?" murmured Pauline.
"Nothing," said Westervelt glumly. "Why don't you take a nap, or
something?"
"I'd like to," said Pauline. "It's going on seven o'clock and who knows
when we'll get out of here?"
"Shut up!" said Westervelt. "I mean ... uh ... don't bring us bad luck
by talking about it. Take a nap and let me think!"
"All you big thinkers!" jeered Pauline. "What I'd really like to do is
go down to the ladies' room and take a shower, but you always kid me
about Mr. Parrish maybe coming in with fresh towels for the machine."
"I lied to you, Pauline," said Westervelt. "The charwoman brings them."
"Well, I could always hope," giggled Pauline.
"Not tonight," said Westervelt "Believe me, kid, you're safer than
you'll ever be!"