Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1938)

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He was about to say something more when Mr. Foley came in. Mr. Foley nodded to me, and I thought from the look on his face that finding Mr. Padgham there irritated him. He said, "Come in, Padgham. Please see that I'm not interrupted, Miss Bell." I saw that he wasn't interrupted, to the extent of stalling off two telephone calls and a person who looked like a salesman. The telephone rang and, as I picked up the receiver, a masculine voice asked. "Is this the office of Mr. William C. Foley, the attorney?" I launched into my speech. "I'm very sorry, but Mr. Foley isn't available. If you'll leave your number, I'll have him call. . . ." "I don't want Foley," the voice said. "I want his secretary." "Oh," I said, inanely. "Are you she?" "Yes." "Hold the line, please." I felt suddenly weak. I had to prop my elbow on the desk to hold the receiver to my ear. There was no need to tell me who it was. I knew. I could hear the rustle of motion at the other end of the line as the receiver changed hands. A masculine voice which stirred me as does music from a pipe organ said, "I am trying to get in touch with a young woman who left a message for me. I am very anxious indeed to talk with her." I tried sparring for time. "Do you know her name?" I inquired. UlS voice became sharply authoritative. "A young woman," he said, "telephoned one of the principal Hollywood agencies last night about leaving a message for a gentleman whose name she mentioned. She stated the party could get in touch with her through you. Please understand that this is a matter of the greatest importance. . . ." "Yes," I said, "I understand. I know the party." "That's better," he told me. "I'll be at the Royal Hawaiian Cafe in Hollywood at twelve-thirty. Please ask this young woman if she'd care to have lunch with me. ..." "Oh, but that's way out in Hollywood!" I exclaimed. "This party works. You'd have to come in to Los Angeles to see her." "All right," he said. "I'll drive past any corner you name at any time you mention." "Make it Fifth and Spring," I said, "at ten minutes past twelve. I'll . . . she'll be on the northwest corner." "All right," he said. "Now remember this. I'll recognize her. If this is on the up-and-up, it's all right. If it isn't, there's going to be trouble." "There won't be any trouble," I said. "Very well," he said, crisply. "Now please take a message for this party. Tell her it is absolutely imperative that she say nothing whatever to anyone about anything which happened, and, if she found any of my property, she's to keep it until she can return it to me in person. Can you get that message to her?" (Continued from page 27) "Yes." "Very well. Thank you." He had no more than hung up when Mr. Foley pressed my buzzer. I GRABBED a new shorthand book and entered the office. Mr. Padgham had gone. The boss motioned me to a seat. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Fine," I said. Abruptly, he said, "Don't trust Padgham." I kept quiet. "I wanted to see you," he went on, "before you'd talked with him. How long had he been here before I arrived?" "About ten minutes." "What did you tell him? Anything?" "Mr. Padgham," I said, "of course realized that I must have been the one who telephoned for the police." "Did you tell him it was at my suggestion?" "No." "Did you tell him that you had met me out there?" "No." "Did you accuse him of taking those agreements from your brief case?" "No. I don't think he did. I thought so at first, but now I don't . . . well, I don't think he would have done it." "Why?" "Because the person who took them must have been someone who wanted to know what was in them. Mr. Padgham already knew." A look of relief came over his face. "Thank heavens, you have sense," he said. "What did you tell him?" "As I explained to you, when I left Mr. Padgham's automobile, I went down to the drugstore. He assumed this morning that I'd gone to telephone the police. I let him act on that assumption." Mr. Foley stared thoughtfully at the carpet for a second or two, then said, "Don't ever trust yourself to the mercy of a grandstander." "Is Mr. Padgham a grandstander?" I asked. "A grandstander and a fourflusher. That type of man always thinks of himself first, foremost and always. He'll sacrifice anyone in a pinch . . . You have, perhaps, noticed the way he talks?" "Yes," I said. "He usually hesitates in the middle of a sentence and then comes out with a big word which he seems to roll over his tongue with all the satisfaction of a mother cat purring over her kittens' bath." Mr. FOLEY threw back his head and laughed. "I'm going to remember that. That's priceless." "Is that," I asked, "what you wanted me to notice about his conversation?" "Yes," he said. "The sincere, straightforward man of action usually chooses short, crisp words. He never uses a long word when he can express himself with a shorter word. "Your truly erudite man uses polysyllabic words because they're necessary to mark the subtle differentiations of his meaning. But the man who uses polysyllabic words as a verbal grandstander, simply for the purpose of impressing himself with a soothing idea of his own importance, has no loyalty for anyone other than himself. Padgham talks along until he gets near the middle of the sentence and then pauses to find the most impressive word he can think of. Mind you, he already has the thought of the sentence, already has it clothed in everyday words, but he hesitates so he can substitute some longer word which will sound more impressive. When he pronounces it, he slows down the tempo of his diction slightly, so as to make the word seem longer than it really is. "Don't ever let him get anything on you. If the going gets rough, he'll toss you out to the wolves." "If it's not being presumptious," I asked, "did Mr. Padgham explain anything to you about his contract?" "He did," Mr. Foley said dryly, "and I have come to distrust his explanation." Abruptly I asked, "Do you always get your secretaries at that same employment agency?" "Yes. Why?" "And pick them in the same way?" "Yes. Why?" "It occurred to me," I said, "that someone has been particularly interested in finding out the terms of that agreement. The accident which crippled your secretary was deliberate — as the detective pointed out. Someone tried the same trick on me last night. Fortunately, I escaped. I think Miss Blair was in the car. And she certainly thought she was going to be your new secretary. If you had employed her instead of me . . . Well, you can see how simple it would have been for her to have taken your dictation, then telephoned her accomplice. . . ." "But what's in that agreement," he interrupted, "that the whole world couldn't see?" "I don't know," I told him, "but I do know it's something. Last night, someone stole the agreement. This morning, my shorthand notebook with all the notes is missing from my desk." nE stared at me and was just starting to say something when the door from the reception room opened and a fleshy woman in the late forties came sailing into the room, talking before she'd crossed the threshold. "I'm looking for Mr. Foley, the lawyer," she said. Mr. Foley gravely inclined his head and indicated a chair. "I am Mr. Foley," he said. "And I'm Mrs. Charles Temmler. You know, it was in my house the body of Carter Wright was found by the police last night." Mr. Foley's eyes indicated that I was to remain and listen. "Yes, Mrs. Temmler," he said. "Carter Wright had been employed by my husband as chauffeur and discharged for dishonesty," she said, dropping into the proffered chair. "Indeed," Mr. Foley said, inviting her to go on; and go on she did in a big way. She talked with an effortless ease and breath-taking rapidity, the words bouncing easily off the roof of her mouth, apparently originating no farther down than her throat. "My husband," she said, "had some very important papers and for reasons best known to himself placed them in a safe-deposit box in a rural bank. Carter Wright stole the key to that safe-deposit box and had it with him at the time he was murdered. I want to avoid any publicity, but that key is my property and I want you to get it for me." "Why," asked Mr. Foley, "did you come to me?" "Because," she said, "I happened to know that, before Carter Wright was discharged, he'd been in correspond 78 PHOTOPLAY