5. The Eavesdroppers
"I suppose you have heard something about the troubles of the Motor Trust? The other directors, you know, are trying to force me out."
Rodman Brainard, president of the big Motor Corporation, searched the magnetic depths of the big brown eyes of the woman beside his desk. Talking to Constance Dunlap was not like talking to other women he had known, either socially or in business.
"A friend of yours, and of mine," he added frankly, "has told me enough about you to convince me that you are more than an amateur at getting people out of tight places. I asked you to call because I think you can help me."
There was a directness about Brainard which Constance liked.
"It's very kind of you to place such confidence in me--on such short acquaintance," she returned pointedly, searching his face.
Brainard laughed.
"I don't need to tell you, Mrs. Dunlap, that anything I have said so far is an open secret in Wall Street. They have threatened to drag in the Sherman law, and in the reorganization that will follow the investigation, they plan to eliminate Rodman Brainard--perhaps set in motion the criminal clauses of the law. It's nothing, Mrs. Dunlap, but a downright hypocritical pose. They reverse the usual process. It is doing good that evil may result."
He watched her face intently. Something in her expression seemed to please him. "By George," he thought to himself, "this is a man's woman. You can talk to her."
Brainard, accustomed to quick decisions, added aloud, "Just now they are using Mrs. Brainard as a catspaw. They are spreading that scandal about my acquaintance with Blanche Leblanc, the actress. You have seen her? A stunning woman--wonderful. But I long ago saw that such a friendship could lead to nothing but ruin." He met Constance's eye squarely. There was nothing of the adventuress in it as there had been in Blanche Leblanc. "And," he finished, almost biting off the words, "I decided to cut it out."
"How does Blanche Leblanc figure in the Motor Trust trouble?" asked Constance keenly.
"They had been shadowing me a long time before I knew it, ferreting back into my past. Yesterday I learned that some one had broken into Miss Leblanc's apartments and had stolen a package of letters which I wrote to her. It can't hurt her. People expect that sort of thing of an actress. But it can hurt the president of the Motor Trust-- just at present."
"Who has been doing the shadowing?"
"Worthington, the treasurer, is the guiding spirit of the 'insurgents' as they call themselves--it sounds popular, like reform. I understand they have had a detective named Drummond working for them."
Constance raised her eyes quickly at the name. "Was Drummond always to cross her trail?
"This story of the letters," he went on, "puts on the finishing touch. They have me all right on that. I can tell by the way that Sybil--er, Mrs. Brainard--acts, that she has read and reread those letters. But, by God," he concluded, bringing down his fist on the desk, "I shall fight to the end, and when I go down,"--he emphasized each word with an additional blow,--"the crash will bring down the whole damned structure on their own heads, too."
He was too earnest even to apologize to her. Constance studied the grim determination in the man's face. He was not one of those destined to fail.
"All is not lost that is in peril, Mr. Brainard," she remarked quietly. "That's one of the maxims of your own Wall Street."
"What would you do?" he asked. It was not an appeal; rather it was an invitation.
"I can't say, yet. Let me come into the office of the Trust. Can't I be your private secretary?"
"Consider yourself engaged. Name your figure--after it is over. My record on the Streets speaks for how I stand by those who stand by me. But I hate a quitter."
"So do I," exclaimed Constance, rising and giving him her hand in a straight- arm shake that made Brainard straighten himself and look down into her face with unconcealed admiration.
The next morning Constance became private secretary to the president of the Motor Trust.
"You will be 'Miss' Dunlap," remarked Brainard. "It sounds more plausible." Quietly he arranged her duties so that she would seem to be very busy without having anything which really interfered with the purpose of her presence.
She had been thinking rapidly. Late in the forenoon she reached a decision. A little errand uptown kept her longer than she expected, but by the late afternoon she was back again at her desk, on which rested a small package which had been delivered by messenger for her.
"I beg yon won't think as badly of me as it seems on the surface, Miss Dunlap," remarked Brainard, stopping beside her desk.
"I don't think badly of you," she answered in a low voice. "You are not the only man who has been caught with a crowd of crooks who plan to leave him holding the bag."
"Oh, it isn't that," he hastened, "I mean this Blanche Leblanc affair. May I be frank with you?"
It was not the first time Constance had been made a confidante of the troubles of the heart, and yet there was something fascinating about having a man like Brainard consider her worthy of being trusted with what meant so much to him.
"I'm not altogether to blame." he went on slowly. "The estrangement between my wife and myself came long before that little affair. It began over--well--over what they call a serious difference in temperament. You know a man--an ambitious man--needs a partner, a woman who can use the social position that money gives not alone for pleasure but as a means of advancing the partnership. I never had that. The more I advanced, the more I found her becoming a