Читать книгу Tuesday to Bed - Francis Sill Wickware - Страница 6

STANTON’S secretary, Miss Rice, was in a fine flutter when he arrived at his office. She was a small, pert, birdlike girl who generated an almost incandescent enthusiasm.

“Oh, Mr. Wylie! So many exciting things are happening to us!” she greeted him. “You should see the morning mail!”

Stanton grinned at her. “You know, Helen, I wish I got as much fun out of this business as you seem to,” he said. He tossed his coat and hat onto the sofa and went over to his desk. “Well, what’s the score?”

“All sorts of wonderful things!” she gushed. “Here’s one from the Civic Improvement League of Omaha. They want you to make a speech out there the first week in November. This one’s from the Royal Canadian Society of Engineers, inviting you to attend their convention in Montreal December third and fourth, and make a speech too.”

“Gad!” Stanton protested. “There seems to be a general conspiracy to make me stand on a platform and make noises. I’m no lecturer! Anything else?”

“Yes.” Miss Rice giggled. “The Harvard School of Architecture wants to know if, as a distinguished alumnus, you would deliver a series of lectures. There’s a note from the headmaster of your old school, offering congratulations, and inquiring delicately whether your son isn’t about ready for prep school. Are you sending him to Ely, incidentally?”

“No,” said Stanton. “Mrs. Wylie decided on St. Paul’s.”

“Here’s an answer from Corning about that glass brick you wanted. They say they can’t promise anything less than eight weeks ahead. This one’s a query from something called Pacific Industries, in Los Angeles. They want to know if you will help them design what they call a packaged kitchen. They’re getting out a line of interrelated equipment to be sold as a unit. . . .” She paused for breath. “This is a letter from a book publisher, asking if you could do a book on new trends in design, what the world will be like twenty-five years from now. . . .”

“Will there be a world twenty-five years from now?” said Stanton. “That publisher is an optimist. Anyway, Walter Teague’s already written the book.”

“Well, they want another. Why shouldn’t there be a world twenty-five years from now, Mr. Wylie? Of course there will be.” Miss Rice was not notably gifted with imagination. “Oh, that reminds me—the young lady from Life called and asked what space you have on the train, so she can find you this afternoon. And a man called from the Herald Tribune asking for an interview they could print in the Sunday edition, but I told them about the Life article, so he said they’d wait awhile. We are getting famous, aren’t we?” she exclaimed, looking flushed and happy.

“Ah, yes,” Stanton agreed. “I suppose that’s the main thing, isn’t it? Well, there must be a few headaches in the midst of all this sunshine. What’s the bad news?”

“I was coming to that. Mr. Sanderson called from Long Island, just beside himself, and said the plasterers had walked off the project because of that prefabricated wall-board you ordered—honestly, after the local agreed to use it only a week ago! And the electricians are kicking because those sinks have an electric garbage-disposal unit in the drain. They claim they ought to install the sinks, not the plumbers, and the plumbers say they—— Really, it’s so infuriating! With thousands and thousands of people trying to find a decent place to live, these fools haggle over things like that!”

“I know,” said Stanton. “They’re cutting their own throats, but they don’t know it. Well—” he shrugged—“I’ll go out to the project Monday and try to persuade the plasterers all over again. If I don’t, I suppose I’ll have to cancel the wallboard order and let the boys put the houses together with sticks and mud, like the Pueblos. . . . The Pueblos at least finished theirs. I wonder whether we’ll ever finish Happy Homes. What else, Helen?”

“Oh—oh, yes, General Electric. A letter from Mr. Browning in Schenectady, about that eccentric gear you designed for the magnesium elevator. He says the engineers don’t think it’s possible to make a sintered part that large, with so many stress points.”

“I don’t agree with the engineers,” Stanton said.

“Well, they’re willing to try, but they won’t guarantee anything, and they estimate that the die alone will cost $10,000.”

“Ouch! The client won’t swallow that. What else?”

“The blueprints for the new Galveston airport building. They were blurred, and they have to be done over. . . . The model maker wants another two weeks on that truck job. . . .”

“He’s a month late now. I’ll give him one more week, no longer. What else?”

“Monsanto—positively no Lucite before the first of the year. And the Airfoam for your self-adjusting theater seat, not before April. But—” Miss Rice looked at her pad—“Lear Avia can deliver those quarter h.p. motors you wanted. I guess that’s all.”

“Hm.” Stanton glanced at the pile of letters. “I’ll call Sanderson, and you can tell Wilhelm that I want that truck model not later than next Friday, or it’s the last work he gets from me. I’ll let everything else ride over the week end. I want to work on my speech. I’d like to give you the day off, Helen, but I may need you for typing later on. But you can leave early.”

“Oh, Mr. Wylie—” little Miss Rice stood in front of the desk, twisting her stenographer’s pad between her hands—“I want to stay as long as you need me. It’s so wonderful, the way everything is clicking,” she said, rushing her words together. “I’m so proud to be working for you, and I know the speech will be sensational.”

There was an embarrassing amount of adoration in her eyes and her voice, and Stanton pretended to hunt for something in the file drawer of his desk.

“Can I help you, Mr. Wylie?”

“No, no, Helen.” He stood up. There was too much invitation in the girl’s manner; he didn’t want her behind the desk. “Jake here?” he asked casually.

“Yes, he’s in the shop. Mr. Wylie, I wondered——”

“Yes, Helen?”

“After you’ve made the speech you won’t need the manuscript any more, will you?” she said very fast, looking at the floor and twisting the pad. “I wondered—” she faltered—“I wondered whether you’d autograph the original for me and let me keep it. I’d like to have it so much,” she finished, almost with a gasp. “You see, I——”

“Helen, of course you can have it,” Stanton said gently. He thought, She’s behaving like a child, behaving the way I thought Jerry might behave, but never did. This is a bad situation, he added to himself. He turned to the windows and said, “Suppose you call Wilhelm for me now, Helen? I want to talk to Jake for a minute.”

“Yes, Mr. Wylie.”

It was a small office, too small for Stanton’s needs, but the best he could find, and the first office he ever had had for himself. The reception room was not much larger than a closet, and Stanton’s own office barely accommodated his necessary furniture and a drawing board, with a few square feet of clear space by the windows where he could pace back and forth when he had a problem on his mind. There was a third room which they called the shop, although it was too cramped for any real production. Stanton’s ambition was to get enough space so that he could have his own model department, instead of sending jobs outside, because model building was the part of the work which he most enjoyed.

He walked into the shop and greeted Jake Bundy, his young assistant who had come to him during the summer, fresh out of Harvard. Jake was an agreeably homely, pug-faced youth with black-rimmed glasses and a crew haircut. He was now rummaging about in the racks where they kept samples of new materials.

“Morning, Jake. What’s the word?”

“I’m looking for something else to try,” Jake said. “I fiddled around with spun glass, but it won’t work. See.”

Stanton went over to the workbench under the fluorescent-light fixture. There were two oblong pieces of blue Koroseal stretched across the bench, and a fluffy pile of spun glass. The bench also held a small power saw, and an electric drill.

“It’s too bulky, for one thing,” Jake said. He spread a layer of the glass over one piece of Koroseal, then placed the other strip on top of it. “You see? And I can’t figure out a way to bind the glass to the plastic. It would all bunch up every time you put the top up or down.”

Stanton usually had several experimental projects going, and this was one of them—a Koroseal top for convertible automobiles. Koroseal had any number of advantages over the conventional rubberized canvas material. It was practically impervious to weather, could be matched to any finish color, and could be kept immaculately clean with a minimum of effort. The problem was to find a durable filler material that could be used between layers of Koroseal to serve as insulation and make the top opaque.

“No, that’s no good,” Stanton said. “I heard about a new DuPont fabric that might be just the thing—heavy parachute nylon impregnated with styrene. I should think several thicknesses could be laminated.”

“Yes, that would do it. We wouldn’t have to worry about binding it, either. The Koroseal would fit over it, like an envelope.”

“Give DuPont a ring Monday morning, Jake, and have them send us some samples. I don’t know what they call the stuff, but Harrison will tell you. Now, why don’t you knock off for the rest of the day? I’m not going to do anything, and there’s no reason for you hanging around.”

“Well, if you don’t need me——”

“No, not a thing. This isn’t a good day for working, somehow. Why don’t you go out to the track?” he suggested, knowing that Jake had a fondness for improving the breed. “Where are they running now?”

“Empire,” said Jake. “I might do that. I’ve got my eye on a nag in the fifth.”

“Sure, good idea,” said Stanton. “While you’re at it, how about putting down a little bet for me?” He took out his wallet and handed Jake a ten-dollar bill. “I’ll split with you.”

“Okay. I hope the nag doesn’t run backward.”

Miss Rice appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Wylie,” she said. “The secretary of a Mr. Hazen is on the wire, and wants to know if he can come and see you at two-thirty. She says it’s very important.”

“Oh, yes,” Stanton said with a quick frown. “Tell her I’ll be expecting him. Well, good luck, Jake,” he added. “Come back from the race with a bundle.”

“I’ll try,” said Jake. “Thanks for letting me off, and the very best to you in Chicago, Mr. Wylie. Not that you’ll need any luck out there, of course, but still we’ll all be chewing our nails tomorrow night. So long!”

Stanton returned to his office and sat down at his desk. The much edited manuscript of his speech was in front of him, and he leafed through the pages, holding one of the thin brown architect’s pencils which Miss Rice kept needle-sharp for him. But he couldn’t seem to concentrate, and after a while he got up and moved to the windows. He stood there, looking out at the gray sky and listening to the muted roar of the city which ascended thirty stories from the street. What’s the matter with me? Stanton said to himself. Probably one of Hazen’s clients has some job or other, and the old man’s excited about it. But why—?

Chester Hazen arrived almost on the second of half past two. He seemed to show his age much more than he had in the morning, and there was no merriment in his face when Miss Rice led him into the office. She helped him off with his coat. He nodded thanks to her, and shook hands with Stanton.

“Sit down, Mr. Hazen,” Stanton said. “That armchair there is an odd shape, but it’s comfortable.”

“No—no, think I’ll stay on my feet. You sit down, Stanton, wherever you usually sit.” He produced a handkerchief and ran it across his forehead. “I hoped I wouldn’t have any occasion to make this visit, but I . . . well, here I am.”

“You certainly managed to puzzle me a good deal,” Stanton said. “I’ve been wondering what this is about.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for that, but I had a reason. Stanton—” the lawyer faced him across the desk—“you aren’t going to like what I have to say any more than I like saying it. In fact, it’s the hardest thing I’ve had to do for years.”

There was a tap at the door of the office, and Miss Rice entered.

“Yes, Helen?”

“There’s a man on the wire from the American Weekly,” she said. “He’s writing a feature story about the new UN development, and he wants to know whether you think there’s any way of making the buildings so that they can survive an atom-bomb attack.”

“Certainly,” said Stanton.

“There is?” Miss Rice asked in surprise. “How?”

“All they have to do is to construct the buildings so that the top stories are a quarter of a mile underground.”

“Oh, Mr. Wylie! You don’t really want to tell him that, do you?”

“No, I suppose not,” Stanton said. “Tell him—tell him there’s no possible way of building an atomproof skyscraper. And Helen——”

“Yes, sir?”

“No more calls or interruptions, please, while I’m with Mr. Hazen.”

“All right, Mr. Wylie.”

“Now?” said Stanton, when Miss Rice closed the door. He sank into his desk chair. “Go on, Mr. Hazen.”

The lawyer again used his handkerchief. “You’ll have to be patient with me, Stanton, if I seem to tell you this in a round-about way,” he said. “I can deal with proxies, and SEC filing patent litigation, that sort of thing, but this is——”

“Go on, Mr. Hazen.”

“Well, to begin with, you understand that my firm handles corporation accounts exclusively. We don’t do any criminal law, or any divorce work.”

Stanton said nothing. The office suddenly seemed quite chilly, although Hazen’s face was shining pinkly.

“But once in a while a client comes to us, and says he wants a divorce, and what should he do about it?” the lawyer continued. “And we help him out to the extent of referring him to a divorce specialist—fellow named Woods. He’s honest, and reliable. I. . . I guess I make lawyers sound like doctors, don’t I? Talking about referring people to specialists?”

He made a poor attempt at a laugh, then went on: “Anyway, this fellow Woods collects pretty heavy fees from the clients we send him, as you can imagine. It’s a valuable connection, and he appreciates it. In return—” he paused—“he occasionally passes along confidential information that he picks up in the course of his own practice and thinks we might be interested in. You follow me?”

Stanton nodded. “What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Hazen?”

The lawyer put up a hand and said, “Be patient with me, Stanton. I want you to understand how I come into this, how it all happened, do you see?”

“All right, Mr. Hazen, I’m sorry.”

“Tuesday afternoon I was talking to this Woods about something personal. He asked me if I knew you.”

“If you knew me?” Stanton repeated.

“Yes. He had read the newspaper stories about you and noticed you lived in Westport. I told him I knew you pretty well, and he came up with some news, something he’d heard by accident.”

“What was it, Mr. Hazen?”

The lawyer took a deep breath. He avoided looking at Stanton. “There is a young person in New York,” he said. “Her name is Dreamboat McKenna.” He seemed to pronounce the words with difficulty. “Dreamboat McKenna.”

“Dreamboat McKenna,” Stanton repeated.

“Yes. . . ah . . . her professional name, that is. She formerly was a dancer on the stage, in musical comedies. She now is a . . . ah . . . divorce co-respondent, for hire. You know, the lady in the lacy black negligee who is apprehended in the midtown hotel room with the erring husband?”

“I’ve heard,” Stanton said. “Go on.”

“In private life—” the lawyer hesitated—“she is Mrs. Billy Paige.”

Stanton stared at him.

“Mrs. Billy Paige,” he said. “I didn’t know Paige was married.”

“No. Well, I’m not surprised. They used to be a theatrical team, but for the last few years they’ve been separated, more or less.”

“More or less?”

“They aren’t legally separated, but they’ve been living apart, except when their . . . ah . . . mutual inclinations draw them together, if I may put it that way.”

“And—?”

“Apparently they had a bad time together when they were on the stage—starved most of the time, I gather. More than that involved, but I don’t know what. Then Paige suddenly hit the headlights, in this new play of his. What’s the title?”

“It’s called The Lonely Road.”

“That’s it. That’s the play. So it appears that Mr. Paige has been neglecting his wife, this . . . ah . . . this Dreamboat person. Financially, and . . . ah . . . in general. And she——”

“Yes?”

“She is distressed, shall we say? She is planning to do something about it, get revenge on her husband, and——”

“And what, Mr. Hazen?”

“She is getting ready to divorce Paige, Stanton, in New York. You know what that means?”

Stanton nodded.

“She has a lawyer—I might call him a scavenger of the law,” Hazen said. “Bad chap, no doubt about it. One of those people we have on the fringes of the profession. Our man Woods doesn’t know whether he’s put her up to it, or whether she thought for herself and told him to. They haven’t done anything yet.”

“What is she planning to do, Mr. Hazen? You said she was going to divorce Paige.”

“Yes, Stanton. In New York. For adultery. You know, that requires a . . . ah . . . partner.”

Stanton reflected that it inevitably took two to break the Seventh Commandment. Reflected idly, at mental arm’s length, because he didn’t connect with what Hazen was saying, didn’t quite understand what he heard.

“And this Dreamboat person is going to sue for divorce and name . . . Stanton . . . name your wife as co-respondent. Having gone that far, I’ll tell you the rest of it,” Hazen said with a rush. “Woods doesn’t know whether they have blackmail in mind, or whether she’s a jealous, vindictive woman. . . . Stanton!”

“It’s all right. Go on.”

“You looked so white, are you—?”

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“Here’s the worst of it,” the lawyer said. He was standing in front of the windows. “They’ve outlawed alienation of affection suits in New York, but there’s a law about . . . adultery. They call it unlawful cohabitation, Stanton, and it’s a criminal offense. It could mean a prison sentence, and . . . blackmail would be simpler, Stanton. But this Dreamboat person may be one of those women . . . vindictive . . . and the lawyer—— She may want most of all to put Paige in jail. And she can do it. And if he goes, there’s a chance that your wife might go with him. At least, your name would be—— It’s an awful mess, boy.”

Stanton had the stunned, dumb, uncomprehending look of an animal.

“You see, when I heard this from Woods, I couldn’t believe it. I told him it was impossible, but . . . he knew what he was talking about. We have a fellow in the office, smart fellow, use him as an investigator when we need to. I sent him out to check up, Wednesday. He gave me his report Thursday morning. I . . . I’m afraid there’s no argument, Stanton. Your wife has been coming into New York to see this Billy Paige fellow, and——” He sighed. “Don’t ask me to go into details, Stanton.”

Stanton said nothing.

“This morning, when I asked you all those questions about Paige, I wanted to find out if you knew the situation. It was a . . . possibility. I’ve been ashamed of myself for imagining it, but—well, lawyers have to think about those things. In one way I hoped you would know about it, condone and so forth, because that—— Well, I wouldn’t be here, telling you all this. But of course you didn’t, knew you wouldn’t, not a suspicion, was there? I nearly called you yesterday afternoon,” he went on hastily. “Told you that, didn’t I? But I wanted a double check before I talked to you, so I waited to get a second report from our investigator. . . . Oh, Stanton!”

“It can’t be true.” Stanton spoke from the depths of a nightmare. “It just can’t be true. Not Betsy—Mrs. Wylie——”

“I knew that would be your reaction,” Hazen said. “It does you credit. Stanton, you’re one of the best men I ever knew, last chap in the world that a thing like this should happen to. If there was any doubt whatever I wouldn’t have said a word—especially today, when you’re ready to make this speech, and all that. I wanted to put it off until next week, but Mrs. Hazen’s expecting me down South, and I wasn’t able to change my train reservations. So I came today. I thought if you had to know, it would be a little easier coming from a friend than from a stranger. Perhaps I was wrong. As I say, I’m completely out of my depth in this sort of business.”

“Not Betsy,” Stanton murmured. “Not Betsy.”

“I know. Stanton, people can be awful disappointments. Sometimes the people who owe you the most let you down the hardest. See it all the time in the law. Seen it in my own family, for that matter. . . . Take my boy Freddie—a drunkard. Never be anything else. In a sanitarium one month, out for a few weeks, back in the sanitarium again. No good to himself or anyone else. . . . Take my daughter Cynthia—she’s in Reno now for her third divorce, says she’s going to marry one of those fake cowboys who live off rich fools—I don’t mind saying it—like my daughter. That’s why I called Woods the other day,” he added. “See if he could put a stop to this cowboy idea.”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Hazen. I didn’t know,”

“Well, there you are. Children brought up with everything in the world—everything, that is, but a few guts and a few brains and a sense of decency. I know I sound bitter; I am bitter. I don’t know. Maybe it was my fault—mine and Mrs. Hazen’s. Maybe we did too much for the kids, or too little, or something. I know we did our best, though, and it wasn’t good enough.

“But I think there’s something more than that—something we couldn’t control,” he went on. “I have a feeling there’s an evil thing loose in the world. I don’t know what it is, but I see it at work all around me—my children, my friends, and——” He left the sentence unfinished. “Something chiseling away at people’s values, making a joke of honor and honesty—even of God. I suppose I’m old-fashioned,” he continued. “I know it’s smart to make wisecracks about the fuddy-duddy ideas of my generation. But at least we had standards and values that we believed in, and when I look at people today it seems to me that what most of them need most badly is faith—faith in something—yes, even the ones who would laugh loudest at what I’m saying. . . .

“We all seem to be living in the shadow of something evil, something terrible,” he said with a sigh. “Stanton, I have to leave you now. I’m very tired—an old man, you know. This has been a strain. Here—” he placed a slip of paper on the desk—“here’s Woods’ phone number, and the address of this . . . ah . . . Dreamboat person. I told Woods you might call him Sunday morning. You can reach him at home until noontime. Well, nothing more I can say, I suppose. Except—” he leaned across the desk and put his hand on Stanton’s shoulder—“don’t let this get you down, Stanton. You’re a very decent man, and there aren’t many of us left. We can’t afford to lose you.”

Stanton scarcely was conscious of the old lawyer’s departure. He sat at his desk in a trance. Miss Rice came in and said something to him, but he didn’t hear it. His eyes ran back and forth across the first line of his manuscript. “Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen . . .” but the words made no sense. He was quite surprised, presently, to find himself holding the telephone to his ear. The voice of Supreme Love cried “Peace!” He must have called his home, he supposed, but he had no recollection of it. Supreme Love repeated “Peace!” and Stanton managed to say, “Is Mrs. Wylie there?”

“Who this?” the maid demanded.

“Mr. Wylie.”

“Mist’ Wylie! Well, I never! You don’t sound like yo’self, Mist’ Wylie.”

“Is Mrs. Wylie there?”

“Mis’ Wylie? Why no, the madam ain’t home.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“You feeling all right, Mr. Wylie? You don’t sound——”

“Where is Mrs. Wylie?”

“Why, sir, I don’t know.”

“She didn’t say where she was going?”

“No, sir.” Supreme Love sounded frightened. “She came back to the house from the station and changed her clothes. Le’s see, some gent’man called on the telephone from New York, and right after that she went out again.”

“Didn’t she say anything?”

“She just said she wouldn’t be home for dinner—at least, that’s what I think she said. Is something wrong?”

Stanton didn’t answer. He looked at the receiver for a moment, then carefully put it down on its base. He pressed a button on his desk, and when Miss Rice came in he said, “Do you have a newspaper out there, Helen?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. Wylie.”

“I wonder if you would look up the theatrical section, and find out if the play called The Lonely Road has a matinee this afternoon?”

“It doesn’t, Mr. Wylie. I happen to know because my aunt wanted to see it this week, and I tried to get tickets for her, but they were sold out. Matinees are Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

“I see. Thank you, Helen.”

She hovered in the doorway, looking at him with a curious expression. “Thank you, Helen,” he said again, and she closed the door.

Somehow he found himself at the windows. He didn’t know why he was there, didn’t even remember walking across the office from the desk. He stared out, seeing nothing, not blinking his eyes. Backed by the solid gray of the afternoon sky, the window glass dimly mirrored his face. He said to himself, His Betsy. His wonderful girl. God, it was funny. Venice, and Betsy, and the music of the tango orchestra those nights at Chez Vous. Betsy, lying under the mosquito netting. Those beautiful memories of her, those thoughts of her which filled his mind every day, those dreams. God, it was funny. So she was talking with Mrs. Hazen on the telephone, about the Red Cross Drive. Hah! So she couldn’t go to Chicago with him, she couldn’t just pick up and go, like that, because she had so many things she had to do. Hah! The social-events committee. Hah! So Jeremy had to go to the concerts at Carnegie Hall, and Betsy had to take him. Hah! So she was proud of him. Hah! So they would have a little man-to-man talk and they would see that they had nothing to argue about, really, did they? Did they? Did they?

Stanton said these things to himself mechanically, with neither anguish nor passion. He felt nothing, nothing at all. He caught the faint reflection of himself in the glass and tried to find some kernel of thought, or sensation—anything—within himself. But there was simply nothing at all. Absurdly, his mind wandered back to a hot morning in August when he was very young, when he had gone to the dentist to have his first extraction. He remembered the dentist pushing the needle into the roof of his mouth with a little crunch, the acrid taste of the novocain, and everything feeling numb and strange and his tongue wandering across the unfamiliar surfaces, and . . .

The thin, sharp wail of a siren stabbed upward from the avenue. A police emergency truck was scurrying like a green beetle between the traffic lines on Lexington. Somebody is dead, Stanton thought. They send out those emergency trucks only when somebody is dead; the siren is like women keening at a wake; it must be the loudest siren in the world. Now, who can be dead? Is it a man who fell on the subway tracks? Is it someone who turned on the gas and blew up an apartment? Is it another fashionable murder in Turtle Bay? Is it a woman who jumped out a window? Is it a child who accidentally swallowed Drano instead of milk of magnesia, and they suspect infanticide? Is it a bloated corpse someone spotted bumping the piers in the East River?

Or is it me? Stanton asked himself. Are they coming for me? Am I dead?

He felt something jerking at his sleeve—didn’t feel it, really—but became conscious of it, became conscious, too, of a voice close by mounting to a scream louder than the siren.

“Mr. Wylie! Mr. Wylie! What’s the matter?” It was Miss Rice. “Oh, Mr. Wylie, are you all right?”

“Yes—yes, Helen, I’m all right,” Stanton said. “What is it?”

“Oh!” The girl gasped with relief. “You’ve only got fifteen minutes to make the train, Mr. Wylie. I came in and told you three times, and you didn’t seem to . . . I was afraid something was . . . afraid you were ill. Oh, Mr. Wylie!”

“No,” said Stanton, wondering at his ability to say anything, since he was dead. “Everything is fine. I’ll go to the station.”