“Would you mind seeing if the card is around? It’s fairly important.”
“Why is it important?”
“That’s a long story. But I would like very much to see that card. Will you take a look?”
He wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but he obliged. He looked among and under things on top of his desk, including the blotter, in the desk drawers, and around the room some — as, for instance, on top of a filing cabinet. I got down on my knees to see under the desk. No card.
I scrambled to my feet. “May I ask your secretary?”
“What’s this all about?” he demanded.
“Nothing you would care to participate in. But the easiest way to get rid of me is to humor me on this one little detail.”
He lifted the phone and spoke to it, and in a moment the door opened and the employee entered. He told her I wanted to ask her something, and I did so. She said she knew nothing about any card of Paul Aubry’s. She had never seen one, on Beebe’s desk or anywhere else, last Friday or any other day. That settled, she backed out, pulling the door with her.
“It’s a little discouraging,” I told Beebe. “I was counting on collecting that card. Are you sure you don’t remember seeing one of the others pick it up?”
“I’ve told you all I remember — that Aubry put a card on my desk.”