After he left I went to my office in the main building to find both an extended report and a short one from a man assigned to watch Becker's movements while in New Orleans, and as I began to read I could feel my hair rigidly standing on end.
My clerk, Miss Bascom, had met Becker in a private room, known to but few, back of the bar of a prominent hotel. For the purpose of detecting enemy aliens many dictaphones had been installed by the Government in such places and with a certainty, almost uncanny, the Government possessed itself of information that could not have been gained in any other way.
As soon as I reached Miss Bascom's name in the report I stopped short and looked at her at work over by the window, less than twenty feet away. If she was conscious of my undisguised wonder she gave no sign of it. She worked so fast and dexterously as to give the impression that she fully lived up to the axiom promulgated by well governed corporations:
"If you never do more than you are paid for, you will never get paid for more than you do."
As I looked upon her I decided that although Becker was exceedingly ambitious, his taste was discriminating, indeed. Miss Bascom in a good light revealed a velvety skin and a neck, rising column-like from her plump chest and shoulders as though chiseled from rare white marble. A tiny ear peeped from under a plethora of wonderful hair, tastefully arranged, and I noticed that her nose, chin and lips were perfect. I wondered why I had overlooked these points of feminine charm when she first came to me. Seemingly oblivious to everything but the work she was doing, I wondered how she could maintain the attitude after such an affair as had occurred the night before. There was no evidence of fatigue or loss of sleep, or over-indulgence of any kind. I was astounded that a woman of her general charm could fall for the Becker type, and I shuddered at the knowledge that she had gone with him to such a place. My next thought was that she might have given out some very confidential information. There was but one thing to do, and at once—find out how she came to be sent to me.
I rushed through the several pages of close typing, then began again for detail and analysis.
She drank nothing intoxicating according to the report. His brutal proposal, that came in due course, she met with astonishing diplomacy and succeeded in staving off time and place. But the details, recorded minutely, indicated that she was compelled to submit to his embrace. The record revealed that the young woman had exclaimed, "Don't—don't, Mr. Becker," indicating that the fossilized degenerate of fifty years was trying to caress her. It required little tax on the imagination to know that his big, greasy hands were drawing her tightly to his huge frame. Why had she laid herself liable to his advances? What kind of a game was she playing? I was on the point of calling her over and demanding an explanation, but there was the second report to analyze—concerning Burrell, the chief clerk. I decided to wait.
When Miss Bascom left Becker the night before at the side door of the hotel, he entered the lobby and joined Burrell in a pretty wet dinner, spending several hours thereafter at a questionable resort. Evidently Miss Bascom knew something of their whereabouts, for here she was standing at Burrell's desk in close conversation with him, occasionally laughing as though recalling some ludicrous incident. There was nothing to do but await events. She was up to something and I determined I would lose no time in arriving at the facts.