“Precautions against what?”
“Against some sort of a trap.”
Her laugh was bitter. “You’re childless, unmarried, thirty-six. You aren’t responsible to anyone for your actions. Yet you worry about traps!
“Tonight at exactly five-thirty the private detective who is shadowing you goes off duty. Another one takes over for the night shift. They don’t make contact. Sometimes the night man is late. Perhaps it can be arranged for him to be late tonight. At precisely one minute past five-thirty leave your office, get in your car. Start driving west on Sunset Boulevard. Turn at Vine. Turn left on Hollywood Boulevard. Go to Ivar. Turn right, and then start running signals. Go through signals just as the lights are changing. Keep an eye on your rearview mirror. Cut corners. Make certain you’re not being followed. I think you can shake off your tail.”
“And after that?” Conway asked.
“Now, listen carefully,” she said. “After that, after you are absolutely certain that you’re not being followed, go to the Empire Drugstore on Sunset and LaBrea. There are three phone booths in that store. Go to the one farthest from the door, enter the booth and at precisely six-fifteen that phone will ring. Answer it.
“If you have been successful in ditching your shadows, you will be directed where to go. If you haven’t ditched your shadows, the phone won’t ring.”
“You’re making all this seem terribly cloak-and-dagger,” Conway protested somewhat irritably. “After all, if you have any information that—”
“It is terribly cloak-and-dagger,” she interrupted. “Do you want a list of the stockholders who already have sent in proxies?”
“Very much,” he said.
“Then come and get it,” she told him, and hung up.
A few minutes later, Eva Kane entered the office with impersonal, secretarial efficiency, and handed Conway typewritten sheets.
“A transcript of the conversation,” she said.
“Thank you,” Jerry told her.
She turned, started for the door, paused, then suddenly whirled and came toward him. “You mustn’t do it, Mr. Conway!”
He looked at her with some surprise.
“Oh, I know,” she said, the words pouring out in rapid succession as though she were afraid he might be going to stop her. “You’ve never encouraged any personalities in the office. I’m only a piece of office machinery as far as you’re concerned. But I’m human. I know what you’re going through, and I want you to win out in this fight, and... and I know something about women’s voices, and—” She hesitated over a word or two, then trailed off into silence as though her vocal mechanism had been a motor running out of fuel.
“I didn’t know I was so unapproachable,” Conway protested.
“You’re not! You’re not! Don’t misunderstand me. It’s only that you’ve always been impersonal... I mean, you’ve kept things on a business basis. I know I’m speaking out of turn, but please, please don’t do anything as ridiculous as this woman suggests.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because it’s a trap.”
“How do you know it’s a trap?”
“It stands to reason if she had any information she wanted to give you, she could simply put it in an envelope, write your name on the envelope, put a stamp on the envelope, and drop it in the nearest mailbox.”
Conway thought that over.
“All of this mystery, all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff, it’s simply a trap.”
Conway said gravely, “I can’t take any chances on passing up this information.”
“You mean you’re going?”
“I’m going,” he said doggedly. “You said something about her voice?”
She nodded.
“What about it?”
“I’ve trained my ears to listen to voices over the telephone. I was a phone operator for two years. There’s something about her voice... and I— Tell me, do you have the feeling you’ve heard that voice before?”
Conway frowned. “Now that you mention it, I do. There’s something in the tempo, in the spacing of the words more than in the tone.”
Eva Kane nodded. “We know her,” she said. “She’s someone who has been in the office. You’ve talked with her. She’s disguising her voice in some way — the tone of it. But the tempo, the way she spaces the words can’t be changed. She’s someone we both know, and that makes me all the more suspicious. Why should she lie to you? I mean, why should she try to deceive you about her identity?”
“Nevertheless, I’m going to go,” Conway announced. “The information is too valuable, too vital. I can’t afford to run the chance of passing up a bet of that sort.”
Suddenly Eva Kane was back in character, an efficient, impersonal secretary.
“Very well, Mr. Conway,” she said, and left the office.
Conway checked his watch with a radio time signal, started his car precisely on the minute, and followed directions. He went through a light just as it was changing and left a car which seemed to be trying to follow him hopelessly snarled in traffic with an irate traffic officer blowing his whistle.
After that, Conway drove in and out of traffic. At five minutes past six he was in the drugstore, waiting in the phone booth farthest from the door.
At six-twelve the phone rang.
Conway answered it.
“Mr. Conway?” a crisply feminine voice asked.
“Yes... Is this... this isn’t Rosalind.”
“Don’t ask questions. Rosalind must take precautions to get rid of the people who were shadowing her. Here are your directions. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. As soon as you hang up, leave the phone booth and the drugstore. Get in your own car. Drive to the Redfern Hotel. Park your car. Go to the lobby. Tell the clerk that your name is Gerald Boswell and that you’re expecting a message. The clerk will hand you an envelope. Thank him, but don’t tip him. Walk over to a secluded corner in the lobby and open the envelope. That envelope will give you your cue as to what you’re to do next.”
She hung up without saying good-by.
Conway left the phone booth, went at once to his car and drove directly to the Redfern Hotel.
“Do you have a message for Gerald Boswell?” he asked the clerk.
For a moment, as the clerk hesitated, Conway was afraid he might be going to ask for some identification, but the hesitation was only momentary. The clerk pulled out a sheaf of envelopes and started going through them.
“Boswell,” he said, repeating the name mechanically as he went through the envelopes. “Boswell. What’s the first name?”
“Gerald.”
“Oh, yes. Gerald Boswell.” The clerk handed Conway a long envelope, and for a moment Conway’s heart gave a sudden surge. The envelope was of heavy manila, well sealed, well filled. This could be the list of stockholders who had sent in their proxies, the list that would make all the difference in the world to him in his fight to retain the company management.
Conway moved over to a corner of the lobby, sat down in one of the worn, overstuffed chairs as though waiting for someone to join him.
Surreptitiously he sized up the other occupants of the lobby.
There was a middle-aged woman immersed in her newspaper. There was a bored, seedy-looking man who was working a crossword puzzle; a younger woman who seemed to be waiting for someone and who apparently had not the slightest interest in anything other than the street door of the hotel lobby.
Conway slipped his penknife from his pocket, slit open the envelope and slid out the contents.
To his disgust, the envelope contained only pieces of old newspaper which had been cut to a size to fit into the envelope. Nor did these bits of newspaper clippings have any significance or continuity. The sections of newspaper had been cut crosswise and evidently used only to fill out the envelope.