Nelson’s eyes twinkled as he glanced sideways at Beam. As they went out Jim heard him say in a low tone:
“You bet he’ll do somethin’—and it’ll come sudden and astonishin’. Sudden Jim!” There was a note of affection in Nelson’s voice as he pronounced the name.
Jim settled down to think about it. That some one was planning deliberately to cripple the plant by injuring its machinery was illogical. It affronted Jim’s reason. Yet it was a theory impossible to dismiss. It must be considered. In that case, who had an adequate motive? Nobody, so far as Jim could see at first glance.
He set up the possibilities, only to knock them down one by one. It might be the work of a man with a mania for malicious destruction. Highly improbable, thought Jim. It might be workmen or a workman with a grievance practising sabotage. But so far as Jim knew there was no discontent; the crew were satisfied; there had been no complaints, no unrest. That possibility must be dismissed. It might be some individual in Diversity with a grudge to work off against the company. But Jim had never heard of conflict between the company and a citizen, nor had unfriendliness developed since his arrival. This, too, was dismissed.
Who had an interest in the failure of the concern? A thought which lay deep in his mind, which he had hoped to conceal even from himself, obtruded: the Clothespin Club. As an organization of men who had fought upward through adverse conditions, against obstacles, side by side with his father, Jim did not believe them guilty. But organizations of honorable business men often employ underlings, concerning whose methods their masters neglect to make close inquiry. Might this not be the case? It was the sole possibility to stand erect before Jim’s reason.
The Club brought up speculations on Morton J. Welliver—which led to Michael Moran and Zaanan Frame. They led to the Diversity Hardwood Company, of which Moran was now the head. Should the Ashe Clothespin Company fail, who was most likely to succeed it? Who would be in the best position to take over the wreck and operate it? To that question there was but one answer—the Diversity Hardwood Company. Now Jim became obsessed by a real suspicion—and he would act upon it until evidence showed him he was at fault. He would move on the theory that Welliver, Moran, and Frame were not clean of hand. Frame! What had he to base a suspicion of Zaanan Frame upon? Nothing but an evident acquaintance with Welliver, a patent closeness of relations to Moran. No, the old justice’s name must stand among the suspected.
“Where’s Mr. Ashe?” roared an angry voice in the outer office.
Jim heard Grierson’s parchment voice give the direction, and heavy feet pounded down the hall to his door. Watson, foreman of the veneer room, burst in, a huge veneer knife in his arms—no mean weight. “Look at that,” he said, belligerently, dropping the knife on Jim’s desk with a bang. “Look at that! Two knives this mornin’.”
There was plain to view a generous nick on the cutting edge.
“What did it?” Jim asked.