She looked at me hard. “Yes,” she said at last.
I grinned at her. “Then that ain’t a mystery to me. Your Mackenzie Fabrics pay the biggest dividend in the trade. They have more dough than all the rest put together. Why, naturally those guys wanted you to work for them. They were hoping they’d learn how the business was run.”
She looked a little blank, then she laughed. “I didn’t think of it like that,” she confessed ruefully.
“I bet you thought the boss was goin’ to come the heavy?”
“I’m afraid I did.” She coloured a little. I had to make a strong effort not to pat her.
“All right,” I said, “forget it. You know now that you can get a swell job if you want to, so let’s have the rest of it.”
She shook her head. “I can’t, that’s the trouble. When I got back to my apartment I found Lee Curtis waiting for me. He’s Spencer’s right-hand man. We don’t like him a lot in the office, and I was none too pleased to find him there. He told me that Spencer wanted me to come back. He was sorry that he’d shouted me out and would I forget it. Well, I was still sore, and I knew I could get something just as good, so I said no. Curtis started pressing me and finally persuaded me to come back and see Spencer.
“The way Spencer went on made me suspicious. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I didn’t like the way he almost begged me to come back. I turned him down.” She shivered suddenly. “I can see him now. He sat behind his big desk, his face went white and he looked as if he could strangle me. ‘You’ll be sorry about this,’ he said in a horrible, quiet voice. ‘If I were you, I’d get out of town.’
“He really terrified me and I didn’t get to sleep that night. Then from that moment to this morning I’ve been watched. A tall, thin man, dressed in black with a black slouched hat pulled over his face, always turns up wherever I go. Two days of that decided me. I packed my things, gave notice to my landlady and prepared to leave town.”
“Where were you going?” I put in.