Beware the Curves by Fair A. A

Author:Fair, A. A. [Fair, A. A.]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13 …

HELEN MANNING had dolled herself up for the occasion. She had taste in selecting her garments. She’d been to the beauty parlor, and she had that indefinable something which enables some women to wear clothes so they look like Parisian gowns.

We had a couple of cocktails. She went through the motions of counting calories when it came to ordering dinner, but she surrendered easily to the waiter, the menu and my suggestions. She had a lobster cocktail, avocado-and-grapefruit salad, cream of tomato soup, filet mignon, a baked potato and mince pie à la mode.

We went to her apartment, and she brought out a bottle of crème de menthe. She turned the lights down because her eyes hurt after a long day in the office.

She crossed her knees. She had good legs. In the subdued fights of the apartment she looked about twenty- two, and she had class.

When I’d seen her by daylight banging away at the typewriter, in the office where she was working, she looked thirty-five and tired.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked.

I said, "You worked for Karl Carver Endicott?“

“Yes.”

“In what capacity?”

“As a confidential secretary.”

“How was he to work for?”

“Splendid!”

“A gentleman?”

“Wonderful!”

“Anything personal?”

“Certainly not,” she said acidly. “The relationship was on a business basis. If he hadn’t been enough of a gentleman to have kept it on that basis, I was enough of a lady to have insisted upon it.”

“You learned a good deal about his affairs?”

“Yes.”

“How about his honesty?”

“He was absolutely, scrupulously honest. It was a very fine position.”

“Why did you quit?”

“For personal reasons.”

“What were they?”

“I resigned.”

“Why?”

“The atmosphere of the office had changed in a way.“

“In what way?”

“It’s difficult to describe. I didn’t care for some of the other girls in the office. I could get a job anywhere. I didn’t have to put up with an environment I didn’t like. I quit the job.”

“Any hard feelings?”

“Certainly not. Mr. Endicott gave me a very fine letter of recommendation. I can show that to you if you wish.”

“I’d like to see it.”

She went to the bedroom and came out after a while with a letter on the stationery of the Endicott Enterprises. It was a swell letter. It recommended Helen

Manning as a competent secretary who had been with him for years. She was leaving voluntarily and he regretted losing her.

“Now then,” I said, folding the letter, “shortly afterwards you went to talk with Mrs. Endicott, didn’t you?“

“I did?” she exclaimed incredulously.

“You.”

“Certainly not!” she said. “I had seen Mrs. Endicott in the office once or twice. I knew who she was, and of course I exchanged the time of day with her, but that’s all.”

“You didn’t talk with her at all after you had quit your position?”

“I may have said good morning if I saw her on the street, but I don’t even remember that.”

“You didn’t give her a ring on the telephone and ask her to tell you where you could meet her because you had something to tell her?”

“Certainly not.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Would

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