The Danger Zone and Other Stories

Complete Designs

Peter B. Strickland looked like a typical salesman as he barged toward the desk marked “INFORMATION.” That was because John Du Nord had insisted the employees were not to know a detective had been consulted.

“Mr. Du Nord,” he said.

The blue eyes behind the telephone switchboard grew slightly scornful as they drifted over Pete Strickland’s massive frame, and rested momentarily on the battered, leather sample case.

“Mr. Jocelyn does all the buying,” she said, “and his hours are two to three-thirty.”

Strickland sighed wearily, the sigh of one who has learned not to expect too much of his fellow men. It would, after all, be just in the nature of things that Du Nord should go to all the trouble to impress upon the agency that the detective they sent, to cover the case, must keep his identity sufficiently concealed to fool the employees, and then make no arrangements by which the man could be received, without disclosing his errand and the nature of his business.

Yet there was no rancor in Pete Strickland’s manner, just a great weariness, a resignation to mediocrity.

He fished a leather card case from his pocket, took out a card, held it so the girl at the desk couldn’t see it.

“An envelope?” he asked.

She hesitated a moment, then with curiosity in her eyes, handed him an envelope.

“We can take your card in,” she said, “but it won’t do any good.”

Strickland pushed the card into the envelope, carefully sealed the flap into place.

“Take that,” he said, “to Mr. Du Nord. Tell him I’ve got a special proposition to make him.”

“Mr. Jocelyn,” she began, “is—”

“Mr. John C. Du Nord,” Strickland interrupted, and there was something in the impact of his eyes upon hers which led her to press a button without further comment. A sluggish office boy lounged into view from around the corner.

“Mr. Du Nord,” she snapped at him and thrust the sealed envelope into the boy’s hand.

The boy flashed Strickland a glance filled with the insolence that only youth can muster, and listlessly vanished around the corridor.

Ten seconds later there was a swirl of motion. A short, paunchy individual with the manner of one who is restlessly pushing time before him, as the bow of a steamer pushes up water, propelled his bulging stomach toward Strickland with piston-like strides of short, active legs.

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he said. “Come right in. Come right in.”

Strickland’s voice held a note of warning.

“Got some fine price bargains,” he said, as he stooped for his worn, leather sample case.

Du Nord looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded his head in vehement assent.

“Oh yes. Yes, of course,” he bubbled with too much emphasis and too much cordiality. “Of course, of course, come right in, Strickland. Come right in.”

The blue eyes of the girl back of the telephone board turned to the baffled countenance of the office boy. She pursed her lips in a silent whistle and said “Gee,” in an awed undertone.

From which it was to be inferred that John Du Nord reserved such effusive courtesy only for bank presidents and the buyers of the largest customers.

Du Nord bustled down a corridor, flung open a door and said, “Step right inside, Strickland.”

Pete Strickland looked around him at the big desk, the thick oriental rugs, the massive leather chairs. His eye spotted the envelope in which his card had been enclosed, and on it, the card itself.

He fished a leather card case from his pocket.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said to Mr. Du Nord, picking up the card and replacing it in the card case. “The agency makes us pay for our cards out of our own pockets, and I’m Scotch.”

Du Nord laughed nervously, adjusted himself in a big, swivel chair, motioned Strickland to a seat.

“I take it,” he said, “the agency manager has told you why you are here. We’ve got four of the highest priced garment designers in the business. They work in a room which is isolated. Each one of the four is above suspicion. Their finished designs go into our vault. Aside from Mrs. Carver and myself, three employees have access to those vaults. There is a very definite leak in our proposed designs. I happen to know that in at least two instances they’ve been in the hands of our competitors within twenty-four hours of their approval by us.”

Du Nord’s glasses quivered with indignation.

The president of the Du Nord Sincere Service Stores could consider a leak in his organization as a major catastrophe. To Pete Strickland it was just another case.

“Who’s this Mrs. Carver?” he asked.

Du Nord’s eye beamed.

“A most wonderful woman,” he said, “a psychologist. She has charge of our personnel and placement. It’s surprising what she can tell about you just from looking at you. Most of your work on the case will be with her. In fact, I’ve got to leave within half an hour. My son arrives from Paris. He’s taking a trip to the Orient. He arrives on the President Coolidge.”

Pete Strickland made polite conversation.

“Going to be here for awhile before he starts for the Orient?” he asked.

“No, he sails on the same boat,” Du Nord cleared his throat, and went on hastily, “He’s young, impressionable. I want him to take the tour to get perspective. There was a woman in Paris — wanted his money, of course. It was serious — Dane intended to marry her.”

Du Nord jammed a suddenly savage thumb against a bell button.

Almost immediately a swinging door was pushed open by a woman, a pair of granite hard eyes surveyed Pete Strickland in swift appraisal, a pair of hands that seemed about ten years older than the face, made swiftly fluttering gestures, a voice that rattled effortlessly from between two layers of even, glistening teeth, struck Strickland’s ears with the rapid fire rattle of a boy running a stick along the pickets of a fence.

“Don’t tell me who you are; I know. I can tell from the slow appraisal of your eyes. I can tell from the cynical twist at the corner of your lips, and yet you’re not the type I expected at all. I would think a detective would be more the deductive type. Your training was acquired. You didn’t take up the profession because of a natural aptitude. It shows in a hundred unconscious mannerisms. You’re a big man, physically strong. You hold your hands awkwardly, as though you didn’t know what to do with them. That’s merely the external manifestation of a subconscious condition. You have learned to make a livelihood by deductive reasoning. You are naturally fitted to engage in a business calling for more physical activity. Therefore, your mind finds your body in the way. It’s too big, too strong — that’s the reason you hold your hands the way you do.”

She stopped, stepped back, tilted her head from side to side, as a canary might appraise a dish of bird seed, nodded her head and smiled in self-satisfied triumph.

“See that!” exclaimed Du Nord triumphantly. “Isn’t that wonderful? Give her one of your cards, Strickland, and see how much she can tell about you from your business card.”

Strickland took a card from his card case, handed it to her. Mrs. Carver pounced upon it, held it in her bony-fingered, blue-veined hand.

“Ha,” she said. “Scotch — economical — this card has been used several times — very loyal to your employers — self effacing — that’s apparent from the modest manner in which you have the name, ‘Peter B. Strickland,’ down in the left hand corner, while the words ‘MANUFACTURER’S INVESTIGATING BUREAU’ are prominently displayed.”

Strickland nodded, reached for the card, took it from her hand and replaced it in his case.

“Oh,” she beamed, “I was just joking about the Scotch part; that’s an old joke.”

“It ain’t a joke with me, ma’am,” Strickland said, “the agency makes us pay for our own cards.”

She laughed, flashed a glance at Du Nord.

“And tell me, Mr. Strickland,” she said, “do you go in for the study of applied psychology?”

“Not the way you do,” he said, “mine’s sort of a rule of thumb business. The man on the street didn’t know what psychology was when I was getting my education.”

She graciously indicated a chair, snapped her left elbow into a position to consult her wristwatch, rattled on with swift efficiency. “Sit down, Mr. Strickland. Mr. Du Nord, your boat docks in exactly twenty-seven minutes. I have instructed your chauffeur to be in readiness at the Market Street entrance, and—”

She broke off abruptly, glanced through the glass partitions of the office to a corridor where a young woman with very blue eyes, an impertinent nose, and a chin that was tilted aggressively forward, was walking with quick purposeful steps.

“Quick,” she said, “look at her, Mr. Strickland, that’s the one. That’s Anita Lyle. Note the characteristics of the clenched hands as she walks. That shows a furtive disposition. That shape of the nose indicates one who wants the good things of life and doesn’t care how she gets them. She’s the one you’ve got to convict. She’s the one that did it.”

Du Nord frowned as the swiftly walking figure vanished beyond the edge of the glass partition.

“She’s got her hat on. What’s she doing going out? I wanted her to be here so Mr. Strickland could observe her habits, and arrange a plan of campaign.”

“We can’t help it,” Mrs. Carver said. “It’s not her afternoon off under our new schedule of hours, but she had traded with one of the other girls. She said she wanted to get off particularly this afternoon, and I couldn’t have upset the arrangement with out making her suspicious.”

Both of them looked at Strickland. Strickland said nothing.

“You tell him, Mrs. Carver,” Du Nord said.

Mrs. Carver needed no second invitation; her voice rattled on Strickland’s eardrums.

“There are three of the trusted employees,” she said, “who have access to the vaults. Anita Lyle, Nell Brent and Mabel Walker — those are the only three. We know that one of them must be dishonest. I made a test of their honesty. I left rings in the wash-room, a purse on the sidewalk. I slipped an extra twenty dollar bill in Anita Lyle’s cash drawer, so that her cash would be twenty dollars over at night. All of them responded satisfactorily to the honesty test except Anita. She didn’t report an overage in cash. Therefore, she was dishonest and kept the money. To my mind, the evidence is conclusive. It’s up to you now to catch her red handed.”

“If you know who it is,” Strickland said, “why not fire her?”

“We can’t; she’s under contract. She’d sue us. We’ve got to have something specific.”

“Maybe it’s a leak from the designing room,” Strickland suggested.

“It can’t be. The designers are well paid and above suspicion. They work at a long table under the constant supervision of a foreman. Even the wastebaskets are not emptied into the general hopper, but the contents are collected and burnt. Jacqueline — that’s my own daughter — has charge of the room; I mean keeping it clean and so forth. After the designs are created, they’re submitted to us for approval. Those we approve are placed in the vault.

“No, Mr. Strickland, unfortunately there can’t be the slightest doubt about the identity of the culprit. The habit of walking with clenched hands shows a furtive, secretive disposition. If she had been honest she would have reported the cash overage. My applied psychology has definitely picked out the criminal for you. It’s up to you to get the evidence to convict her.”

“Maybe someone slipped the twenty out of the cash drawer before she made up the cash,” Strickland suggested.

Mrs. Carver’s significant, scornful silence branded the remark as being puerile.

“If you’ll step this way,” she said, “I’ll show you the room where the designers work... Ah, there’s my daughter now. Jacqueline! Jacqueline, come here please. Yes, step right in this way.”

A slender girl with a flat chest, her mother’s eyes, and a quick restlessness of manner, which had also been inherited, opened the door just far enough to enable her slender body to slip into the private office.

“Jacqueline,” said Mrs. Carver, “this is—” She broke off, as an office boy carrying a file of papers entered through another door. She frowned at the office boy, paused for words, then had a sudden inspiration.

“Show her your card,” she said to Strickland.

Strickland sighed once more, took a card from his card case, and handed it to the young woman.

Jacqueline Carver studied the card. Her face showed sudden comprehension.

“Oh,” she said, and nodded, then set the card down on a corner of Du Nord’s desk.

“I understand,” she said.

Strickland leaned forward, retrieved the card, started to put it back in the card case, then frowned as he saw a black, grease-like smear on the back of the card. He ran his thumb over it in frowning contemplation, sighed, and dropped the card into the wastebasket.

Mrs. Carver tittered.

“So sorry,” she said, “it only did its duty twice, didn’t it, Mr. Strickland?”

“Three times,” he corrected her. “I sent it in to Mr. Du Nord — and I guess I hadn’t better leave it around in the wastebasket either.”

He leaned forward, picked up the card, and pushed it carelessly into his side pocket. Jacqueline Carver inspected her right hand, frowned, and scrubbed at the fingers with a handkerchief, wiping a black smudge from her right thumb.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve been greasing my typewriter.”

“I want you to show Mr. Strickland the designing room,” said Mrs. Carver. “Make it snappy, Jacqueline, because Mr. Du Nord is going to the boat to meet his son. I think it might be well for Mr. Strickland to ride down as far as the dock in Mr. Du Nord’s car. They can talk during the trip. You see,” she explained to Strickland, “Mr. Du Nord has an important appointment at four o’clock, and that won’t leave him much time to see Dane and get back from the boat.”

Strickland nodded, permitted himself to be led like some big Newfoundland dog, along a glass enclosed passageway, to a room, the door of which was locked. Jacqueline Carver selected a key, unlocked the door. Four men seated at a long table looked up.

The table, covered with green imitation leather, held taut by wooden strips screwed along the side, was illuminated by huge drop-lights. In front of each of the men was a sheet of paper, fastened to the table by thumb tacks. The table itself was littered with pages clipped from fashion magazines with photographs of smart women.

“You see,” said Jacqueline, “they work in absolute privacy. The best points of all the styles are combined and then submitted to Mr. Du Nord himself for approval. It’s all very confidential.”

Strickland nodded, turned away from the door.

“Yeah,” he said, and looked at his wristwatch.

“Don’t worry,” said Jacqueline, with the quick efficiency so characteristic of her mother, “I am watching the time. You will have plenty of time for your conference with Mr. Du Nord. And there goes Nell Brent. She’s another of the possible suspects, only mother says she responded okay to the honesty test.”

Strickland looked through the partition window at a tall woman who, suddenly becoming conscious of his appraisal, flushed a bright scarlet.

“Looks like she knows who I am,” he said, “and why I’m here.”

Jacqueline Carver tittered. “Mother says you can’t disguise a detective — she does look guilty, doesn’t she?”

Strickland grunted.

Du Nord grew confidential as the huge limousine purred down Market Street.

“Part of the credit for this,” he said, “should go to Mrs. Carver, but personally, I think it’s a fine scheme. It’s rather a clever trap—”

“Listen,” Strickland said, “I’m a rule of thumb detective. I don’t judge people by the fact that they walk with their hands closed, or the shape of their noses. I like to get evidence before I accuse anybody of crime. There is a crook somewhere in your organization. Those dishonesty tests don’t mean a thing — particularly that one you tried on the girl you suspect. The real crook must be smart enough to know what’s going on in the joint. She could have taken the twenty bucks out of the cash drawer before cash was made up in the evening.”

Du Nord nodded, leaned forward.

“To some extent,” he said, “I agree with you.”

“What I’m trying to tell you,” Strickland blurted, “is that I sympathize with that Anita girl.”

“No, no,” Du Nord said, “you mustn’t do that. She’s beautiful, magnetic, attractive. You mustn’t be influenced by that.”

“I’m not influenced by that, I’m influenced by the fact you’re all picking on her without giving her a chance to defend herself.”

“Well,” Du Nord said, “I’ve thought up an idea of my own. It’s so confidential that I’m not even telling Mrs. Carver about it, and she knows everything that I do.”

“What’s the idea?” Strickland inquired.

“A crook,” said Du Nord, “is dishonest. A crook is after money. A crook who would sell me out to my competitors here, would be that much more eager to sell out information to a foreign competitor. I have some very valuable process secrets that are in my vault. I have decided to get a clever man to impersonate a foreign buyer. I am going to arrange things so that Anita Lyle will be called back to work tonight. She will actually catch this man rifling the vault. If she is dishonest, she will make him a proposition to share in his profits if she turns him loose; otherwise, she will report him. That generally is my scheme. The point is, do you speak a foreign language, Strickland?”

Strickland sighed.

“I don’t speak a foreign language,” he said. “In fact, I don’t even speak your language.”

Du Nord frowned.

“That,” he said, with an edge to his voice, “makes you unavailable. I shall have to get someone else. Good heavens — my son! I can use Dane. No one will know him. He has foreign labels on his baggage and speaks French like a native.”

Strickland sighed.

“While you’re doing all that,” he said, “would you mind getting me a screw driver?”

“A screw driver? You mean now?”

“No,” said Strickland, “when we get back to the plant.”

The big liner nosed its way into the dock, a blunt-nosed tug pushing at the bow to overcome the effect of the swirling tide at the stem. Men and women waved arms, handkerchiefs and hats.

Du Nord gripped Strickland’s arm, waved frantically.

“There he is,” he said, “up on the boat deck, with the binoculars. He’s looking the crowd over — looking for us. Hi, there, Dane! Here I am, Dane — down here. Hello — hellooo!”

Strickland nodded.

“Good looking boy,” he said.

The lenses of the binoculars swung down, fastened upon them in appraisal. The young man took off his hat, waved it frantically. The father dislodged his glasses, juggled his paunch as he waved his arms in almost hysterical violence.

The detective watched the thin figure of the young man as the binoculars were lowered, listened to the shouted greetings lost in the hoarse bellow of a roaring steam whistle. Then, as the boat edged in closer to the dock, as lines thudded to the pier and winches started warping the ship through the last few feet of water, to snug it up against the pier, Strickland saw the lenses of Dane Du Nord’s binoculars swinging about in the casual appraisal of a curious tourist anxious to be home, curious to look over the faces of his fellow countrymen, in search, not so much of a familiar face, as to feast upon the general familiarity of all faces — the kinship of a country.

Abruptly, the lenses fastened in rigid, steady appraisal. There was a swirl of motion in the back of the crowd. Pete Strickland saw a young woman, with firmly clenched, defiant little fists, slipping rapidly through the open door, to the interior of the huge shed. She was almost running.

The detective’s finger started to tap Du Nord on the shoulder then was arrested mid-motion. Slowly, the huge, awkward hand dropped back to his side.

“When we get back to the plant,” he said, “don’t forget that screw driver.”

Pete Strickland groped, with his big, awkward hand, for the ringing telephone. The instrument was cold to his touch. He pressed the receiver to his ear and said in a thick voice. “Yeah?”

The voice of the manager of the detective agency smote his eardrum in a metallic rattle. Strickland was advised to get out of bed and down to the main office of the Du Nord Sincere Service Stores. Hell, it seemed, had broken loose. Burglar alarms were ringing. The police were rushing reserves down, and Du Nord, himself, was hysterical.

Strickland made tasting noises with his mouth.

“Okay, chief,” he said. “God, I got an acid stomach! Yeah, I’ll get down there right away. I got the flivver in the garage. G’bye.”

He groped for and found the light, got into his clothes in the wearily philosophical manner of one who is accustomed to midnight emergency calls, flivvered through the fog-swept streets to the side entrance of the Du Nord Sincere Service Stores.

A police radio car was at the curb. A watchman at the door scrutinized Strickland’s badge and moved to one side. Strickland’s big feet pounded down an echoing corridor, the midnight silence contrasting to the humming activity of the daylight hours. Lights blazed in an office on the mezzanine floor. Strickland wearily climbed the stairs.

Du Nord was standing in front of a safe door. Lights shone upon a glistening array of nickeled knobs, shining wheels. To one side was the grimly disapproving countenance of Mrs. Carver, her blue eyes staring reproachfully at the excitement-distorted features of the president of the company.

Strickland arrived in the middle of Du Nord’s impassioned explanation.

“...my own son! He just arrived on the boat today. He’s spent the last year in France. I left orders that the vault wasn’t to be locked tonight and arranged that the party we suspected was to be sent to the store by Mrs. Carver on an errand. I didn’t take Mrs. Carver fully into my confidence as to the scheme. My son was to be caught by this person in the vaults, apparently having mastered the combination. And now they’re both in there — shut in!”

“What is it?” asked the radio officer. “A time lock?”

“No, no, no,” Du Nord explained hastily. “There’s a time lock on the outer door, but it’s open. See? We can open it.”

He pulled back the massive doors.

“It’s the inner sealed doors. There’s an inner and an outer lock, so that a person in the vault couldn’t be surprised by thieves. It’s locked from the inside. Can’t you see what’s happened? She’s killing him or something. She won’t come out.”

Du Nord ran to the door and banged on the metal with his fists. One of the officers pounded with a night stick.

“She’s trapped him in there! Killed him!” Du Lord screamed. “Break the doors down! Do something!”

One of the officers inspected the doors.

“Had this vault made to order?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Better get a representative of the manufacturer and see if an acetylene torch will cut through them.”

He banged once more on the doors with the point of his night stick.

“You’re trapped!” he shouted. “We’ll cut through the doors with a torch if we have to. If you’re alive, come out!”

Mrs. Carver gave a gasp.

“Perhaps,” she said, “it’s murder and suicide.”

She had hardly spoken when there was the sound of a rasping bolt. The doors swung open. Those who had been prepared to see the evidences of murder stood dumbfounded before the pair who stood in the entrance to the vault. Dane Du Nord, his eyes beaming with a strange, misty happiness, stood with his arm around Anita Lyle, whose lips were half parted, revealing the tips of her teeth. Her shoulders heaved with her breathing, as though she had been running.

“Damn it, Dad!” said Dane Du Nord. “You took her away from me once — you can’t do it again! Let us out of here! We’re looking for a preacher.”

“Stop!” Du Nord cried. “She’s a thief? We have the proof.”

Pete Strickland pushed his way forward.

“Can I say something?” he asked in a voice that was strangely without emotion.

Perhaps it was the very lack of emotion in his voice which compelled attention. They turned to him.

“That little stunt of mine,” he said, “about the cards, is something I always use on a job to get fingerprints. The cards are coated with stuff that gives me the prints of the people who handle them. I always seem to give the same card out two or three times. I don’t — I put it back in my case and give out another one. You take on a job of this kind, people like Mrs. Carver and Mr. Du Nord would resent it if I asked for their fingerprints. So I use the card trick. Of course, I don’t get a complete set of ten fingerprints, but I get enough to get a pretty general classification of the kind of prints, loops, arches, whorls or composites.

“You folks figured the designs had been stolen after they got in the vault. I wasn’t so certain; particularly after I handed one of my cards to Jacqueline Carver, and when she handed it back there was a smear on the back that was oily to the touch — something like graphite. I pretended to think it wasn’t of any importance, but I knew right away it came from a very soft carbon paper that had smeared on her thumb.

“So I got a screw driver, and when I got an opportunity, after we came back from the boat and the designers had gone home, slipped into the room, unscrewed the strips that held the imitation leather cover in place on the designing table and found just what I’d expected — a whole bunch of soft carbon paper underneath.

“There were fingerprints on the carbon paper. They all came from the same person — Jacqueline Carver.”

“What?” screamed Du Nord.

Strickland nodded gloomily.

“Fact,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Du Nord asked. “Why didn’t you report immediately?”

“Because,” Strickland said, “I wanted to find out whether she was working alone,” and he glanced meaningly toward Mrs. Carver. “Of course, we can probably get it out of her by using a little — persuasion, but if you hadn’t forced my hand I’d have been able to give you a complete report tomorrow. I’m telling you now because of Miss Lyle.

“And you’d better be sort of careful how you treat her, because she’d have a suit against you for defamation of character if you went too far.

“Personally, I don’t go for this fancy psychological stuff. Maybe people clench their hands when they’re trying to conceal something, but they also clench them when they’re mad or when they’re getting a rotten deal, or when they’re determined to do something.

“Now maybe this Anita Lyle knew that the father of the man she loved disapproved of her, and she decided she’d get a job in his company and work so hard that he’d have to respect her. And all that time, the man’s son was chasing around Paris, trying to find what had happened to the woman he loved, and then when the son finally did show up to report to his father, the girl got some time off and sneaked down to steal just one heart-hungry glance at him.

“You see, it hadn’t been easy going for her. She tried to make the man’s father respect her, but there had been a psychological expert in charge of the personnel, who hadn’t liked the way this girl had made herself almost invaluable in the business, and this psychological expert had a daughter. And that’s why the poor kid walked around with her fists clenched.”

Strickland ceased speaking, raised his arms above his head and sucked in a prodigious lungful of breath as he yawned. “So,” he said wearily, “I guess I can go back and get the rest of my sleep. God, but my stomach’s sour! You can’t get jerked out of bed and—”

Mrs. Carver, who had been glowering at him with speechless indignation, shrilled into high-voiced accusation.

“It’s all some kind of frame-up! You and this creature framed—”

Strickland’s big forefinger, rigidly extended, stabbed at her chest.

“Look out, sister,” he said, “you’ve got your hands clenched. That’s a sign of secretiveness, you know.”