CHAPTER VIII

A PUZZLING SITUATION

Mayberry glanced up swiftly as she entered the office at his response. He was rolling a cigarette which he finished and lighted, vouchsafing her merely a casual nod. Very different treatment, this, from Frank Barton’s unfailing courtesy.

“What’s on the docket, Ethel?” Mayberry asked, eyeing her through the smoke that circled from his lips. “Anything wrong?”

“I am not at all sure that there is anything wrong, Mr. Mayberry,” she replied, ignoring the chair he twisted about for her to occupy, and standing at the end of the desk. “I have found something which puzzles me so much that I thought it best to have you ratify the order before it is sent.”

“What order?”

She placed before him the schedule for supplies which he had given to one of the other girls to copy. “These are the items that puzzle me,” she said, pointing to several which, in summing up, amounted to several thousand dollars.

“Well?” he said, his gaze direct and not at all reassuring.

But Ethel Clayton was not to be easily put down. “I was not aware,” she said quietly, “that any of our contracts now under way called for goods of that grade.”

“Well?” he said again and in the same sneering tone.

“So I investigated,” Ethel pursued, apparently unshaken, “and I found this.” She placed before him the papers relating to the Bogata order which she felt so sure Mr. Barton had refused to consider.

“Huh? Why shouldn’t you find it?” Mayberry asked in apparent surprise. Yet he flushed slightly, too.

“I have every reason to suppose that order refused. You know it, too. You remember that Mr. Barton asked me to write a letter to that end. I did so.”

“I remember there was something said about it,” Mayberry reflected. “But I heard nothing more about it. Frank said nothing further to me.”

“No. Because it was settled, Mr. Mayberry,” the girl said more confidently. “We cannot fill this order.”

“Indeed? Are you sure about that?” he asked, eyeing her with perfect composure now.

“Why shouldn’t I be sure?” she retorted.

“Well--I don’t know,” he drawled. “If you wrote a letter refusing this order, Frank saw it, of course?”

“He O.K.’d it,” she said.

“And it was sent?”

“So I presume.”

“It looks to me as though Frank must have changed his mind,” the superintendent said with a sly little smile. “He said nothing more to me about it. He would, it seems to me, if the order was finally refused. Having once discussed the matter with me, seems to me he would have done that.”

“But he thought you understood,” cried the girl, both puzzled and alarmed. “You know he said the Bogata Company’s credit was involved. It was not whether the order should be accepted or not that was under discussion, Mr. Mayberry. It was merely how the refusal should be couched--in what terms. Don’t you remember?”

“I admit you seem to have a clearer remembrance of the circumstances than I,” said Mayberry. “But it looks to me as though Frank had changed his mind about it without referring to the matter again to either of us. He probably found out that his fears regarding the Bogata Company’s credit were unfounded. Otherwise how would I have found the order on file? We have got to get right to work on it, too. That is why I am ordering these particular supplies.”

“But, Mr. Mayberry!” she gasped, “I am quite sure a mistake has been made. Mr. Barton never intended this order to be filled.”

“How do you know?”

“The letter I wrote----”

“Pooh! I suppose Frank was trying you out--seeing what you could do in an emergency,” and the superintendent laughed. “He never sent your letter. The Bogata people are old customers. It would not do to offend them.”

“That is just it, Mr. Mayberry,” she cried. “It was a serious matter. I feel sure--Why! I put the letter in the mail myself.”

Mayberry sat up straighter in his chair and his gaze became more intent. He dropped the butt of his cigarette in the ash tray that was never on the desk when the general manager was there.

“You mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you posted that letter after Barton signed it?”

“No. It was after John made his last trip to the post-office. When Mr. Barton had signed the letter I sealed it in the envelope, affixed the stamp, and placed it in the letter basket on my desk with other late mail.”

“Humph! Did those letters go out that evening?” Mayberry asked.

“No. John always takes them when he goes to early post--before I arrive at my desk.”

“Then Frank could have regained the letter without your knowing it.”

“But, Mr. Mayberry! surely he would have said something.”

“Are you sure? He was not in the habit of taking you--or even me--into his confidence in most matters, was he?” and Mayberry looked at the girl keenly. “Where’s the carbon copy of that letter?”

“I’ll get it,” she said, turning swiftly to the door.

“And I say, Ethel!” he said. “Bring the Bogata Company’s letter as well, will you?”

She resented his familiar way of speaking; but never had she been able to break Jim Mayberry of calling her by her given name. And he had, after all, known her when she was still a child. She was gone some minutes from the private office--long enough for Mayberry to smoke a second cigarette. She appeared with the proper drawer of the file cabinet and her countenance had fallen. She had run hastily through the Bogata correspondence. Here was the letter which had accompanied the order from the Bogata Company. The copy of the answer she had written at Frank Barton’s behest, and which he had approved, was not to be found.

“I do not understand it, Mr. Mayberry,” the girl declared in a worried tone.

“Pshaw! easily enough understood,” the superintendent rejoined. “He probably conferred with somebody who knew the Bogata people are as safe as a stone church. So he withdrew the letter from your mail basket after you went home.”

“Oh, Mr. Mayberry!”

“Sure.” Mayberry laughed. “You’ve stirred up a mare’s nest. Don’t worry.”

“But I can’t accept your assertion as at all plausible,” the girl said earnestly. “He surely would have spoken to me about it. The next day----”

“His mind was full of army stuff. He did not know half the time what he was doing here for a week before he went.”

Ethel knew that was not at all true. But she was not here to quarrel with the superintendent. However, she said:

“I remember clearly that Mr. Barton did not remain here later than I did that evening, Mr. Mayberry. I saw him on the street after I left the factory by the side gate.”

“Huh!” Mayberry’s cheeks suddenly burned again and his eyes glittered as he gazed loweringly upon her. “You seem to remember mighty well what happened. I remember that evening, too, come to think of it. I was waiting out in front for you in my car. You stood me up.”

Scorn leaped suddenly into the girl’s eyes. “I do not understand you, Mr. Mayberry,” she said tartly.

“Oh! you don’t, hey?”

“We are not discussing personalities,” she said, dropping her gaze and ignoring his ugly look. “This is business. I fear there has been a serious mistake made.”

“Nothing of the kind, that _I_ can see,” Mayberry rejoined. “Barton changed his mind. Why should you bother _your_ head about it further?”

His sneer bit like acid in a fresh wound; but Ethel checked her temper.

“I do not mean to interfere in the slightest with your work, Mr. Mayberry. Mr. Barton brought me into the affair himself. I feel that all is not right. Let us communicate with Mr. Barton before this order for stock is sent. It may save the Hapwood-Diller Company several thousand dollars.”

“It won’t save us a cent.”

“But--”

“I’ve got it all figured out. You see, I’ve had this on my mind a long time.”

“Yes, that may be true, still--”

“It won’t save us a cent, Ethel,” the superintendent drawled again, having recovered his own temper. “This Bogata order’s got to be filled. It will do no good to delay the purchase of supplies. It’s Friday now. If we wrote to-night we could not expect an answer before Tuesday or Wednesday from Barton. And I can point out to you why even he cannot change matters now.”

“Why?” she demanded sharply.

He picked up the letter which had accompanied the schedule of the order from the Bogata Company of Norville. If he smiled Ethel did not see it, for she was eagerly scanning the paragraph to which Mayberry’s finger pointed:

“Prices and terms as agreed upon in our last two orders. If we hear nothing to the contrary within ten days shall consider the order and terms accepted and will look for delivery of first quota of goods within ninety days.”

“Actually,” drawled Mayberry, “this order was accepted by us more than a month ago. It was evident that Barton did not send the letter you wrote, and removed the copy of it from the file. The schedule came to me in the usual way. There is nothing more to be said about it, Ethel. I believe that Frank himself said something about The Hapwood-Diller Company never reneging on a job. It would be a bad precedent to do so when he is absent from his post.”

He said it so that the girl actually winced. To think of Jim Mayberry pointing out to her the ethics of the matter!

“The fact is,” he pursued, coolly, “I have got to get a hustle on to make the first delivery within the specified time. I have already arranged to increase the output of Shop Number Two in order to do this. We shall run four or five hours overtime five days a week, beginning Monday. We’re crowded with work as it is; and this Bogata order is a big one.”

Ethel listened to him in silence. She realized that it was useless to say anything more. Her heart pounded in her ears, but her countenance remained pale. She felt the approach of disaster when she turned away from his desk with the letter file-drawer in her arms.

“Don’t trouble your head about it, Ethel,” he called after her. “You take everything too blamed seriously--just as I told you before. It won’t get you anywhere----”

But she had closed the door between them. Had she turned to answer she realized very clearly that she would have said something for which she might be sorry afterward.