Читать книгу The Scarecrow Mystery (Ted Wilford #8) - Norvin Pallas - Страница 5

“GET YOUR INVITATION YET TO THE NEW Year’s Eve shindig?”

This question was asked by Nelson Morgan, who was lying on the bed leafing through the pages of a sports magazine.

It was addressed to his close friend, Ted Wilford, who was sitting in front of the desk, pasting items from the Forestdale semiweekly newspaper, the Town Crier, in a little scrapbook. Ted had once been a “stringer” for the paper, and it had been necessary for him to keep track of all his published writings because he was paid by the printed inch. Now that he was paid a salary when he worked on the paper during his college vacations, he didn’t have to keep track of all items, but he liked to do it just the same. These clippings reminded him of many little incidents and adventures he might otherwise have forgotten. Besides, he liked to imagine that he could detect some improvement in his work.

“Got it,” he answered briefly.

“I’m going with Sue Anderson,” Nelson went on. “I wonder how she happened to ask me? I’ve never been out with her before.”

“Maybe that’s the reason,” Ted retorted sarcastically.

Nelson ignored this remark. “And of course you’re going with Margaret Lake.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?” Ted came back.

“Because nobody’d dare to break up that twosome. Anyway, a treasure hunt ought to be fun.”

“A scavenger hunt,” Ted corrected him.

“What’s the difference?”

“For a treasure hunt you get clues to follow, until you finally reach the treasure. In a scavenger hunt you get a list of things to bring back.”

“Sounds like almost the same thing to me. You coming along in my car?”

“No, Mr. Lake says I can borrow his.”

“Lucky dog! I’ve never been able to figure out why everybody trusts you so much. All I can say is that you’ve never yet got me into any little trouble.”

Ted turned back to his string book, frowning over a minor problem. “I wonder whether I wrote this story or not?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Nelson, puzzled.

“Not exactly. As I remember, somebody phoned in the story, and I wrote it down almost the way I got it. Does that make it my story or not?”

“Sure, it does. You’re the one who put it down on paper.”

“I put this other one down on paper, too. But we were short of space, and Mr. Dobson blue-penciled most of it and rewrote the lead. When you work on a newspaper, you don’t exactly write a story. It becomes more of a partnership.”

“Then who cares whether you wrote it or not?” Nelson demanded.

“Nobody else, I guess, and maybe a year from now I won’t care, either.”

He decided not to include these clippings in his book, closed it up, and put away the scissors and paste. Nelson tossed aside the sports magazine, sat up on the edge of Ted’s bed, and stretched.

“Sure is dull this time of year—I mean in sports. I wish I were about three inches taller so I could try out for the basketball team.”

“You’re playing intramural basketball. That’s fun, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s fun, all right, but you’ll never get your name in the paper that way. We’re lucky if the college paper prints the score.”

“Well, what’s so wonderful about getting your name in the paper? I know a lot of people who have, and wished they hadn’t.”

“Look who’s talking! Mr. Dobson’s fair-haired boy, who can get his name printed twice a week, if he wants to.”

“What do you mean? Just because I write a few little things for the paper, do you think Mr. Dobson gives me a by-line any time I ask for it? Things aren’t that easy.”

“Well, maybe you don’t every week, but you’ve had your share.”

“You must mean on the high-school paper. You know how many by-lines I’ve had on the Town Crier? Count ’em up on the fingers on your hand, and when you get to none—stop!”

“That right?” said Nelson lamely. “I thought I remembered seeing a few of them.”

“Sure, you did, and so did I—the way a thirsty man on a desert sees a lake in the distance. By-lines don’t come often with Mr. Dobson, and that big story is still in the faraway future.”

“Well, then, getting one is a good thing to put on your list of New Year’s resolutions.”

“Is it? That big story depends a lot on luck, and I don’t see how you can say, ‘I’m resolved to be lucky this year.’ I’d like to see your list, though. I’ll bet it’s something.”

“Oh, I didn’t make up any list—not really. I know something I’d like to do, though. I want to win some kind of competition with my camera. There are lots of different contests, and I’m going to see if I can’t come up with something.”

“Landscapes?”

“No, I don’t think so. There I’m up against fellows with a lot better equipment and a lot more experience than I’ve got. I’m thinking of the candid field. If you’re there at the right time, you can always beat out the fellow who isn’t there, no matter what kind of camera he’s got.”

“That takes a lot of luck, too,” Ted pointed out.

“Well, maybe. I don’t suppose a person could live without luck. But you have to be awake when your opportunity comes along. Let’s see. This is Wednesday night. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Four days more before I have to start being wide-awake, according to my resolution.”

“You aren’t going to be very wide-awake on Monday if we’re out till two-thirty.”

“No—well, then, Monday to rest up, and Tuesday we’ll start back for college, bright and early.”

“Anyway, early,” Ted agreed.

They were interrupted by the ring of the telephone downstairs, and Ted listened to see if it was for him. In a few moments his mother called upstairs.

“Ted, it’s Mr. Dobson.”

“Coming.” He started to leave the room. “Want to wait, Nel?”

“Oh, don’t mind me. I haven’t looked through your photography books for a long time, and I might pick up some pointers. Don’t hurry.”

“Mr. Dobson’s never long-winded. I’ll be right back.”

Picking up the phone, Ted wondered what his editor might want. He hoped he hadn’t pulled some boner. Although Mr. Dobson was a very considerate man, he never put up with slipshod work.

“Hello, Mr. Dobson.”

“Hello, Ted. Something has come along that I didn’t know about earlier. I’ve just learned that Mr. Prentice—you know, Albert Prentice, head of the transit union—will be in Stanton tomorrow. Of course he’ll be here in Forestdale for the court hearing on Friday morning, but that makes it too late for our Friday issue. I thought if we could get an interview with him tomorrow morning, it might give us something to peg a story on.”

“You mean a telephone interview?”

“Well, no, Ted. I prefer a personal interview when the matter is important enough, and this one is.”

“Then you want me to run down to Stanton tomorrow morning, Mr. Dobson?”

“I wish you would, Ted. You know how difficult it is for me to get away on a Thursday morning, and the two holidays have played hob with our printing schedule already. Do you suppose Nelson would drive you?”

“He’s here now. Hold on, and I’ll ask him.”

Ted went to the foot of the stairs and called up to Nelson. “Want to drive down to Stanton in the morning?”

“Sure. O.K. by me,” Nelson answered, and started downstairs to hear what it was all about.

“Yes, he will, Mr. Dobson.”

“Fine! It makes it more convenient for me if I can keep my car here, and of course we’ll pay Nelson the usual expense allowance and hourly rate. I’ve already arranged for the interview at nine o’clock at the Marquette Hotel.”

Suddenly Ted began to feel a little nervous. Interviewing people wasn’t exactly a novelty to him, for he frequently made telephone calls at the Town Crier office, and lately, during the absence of Carl Allison, the newspaper’s regular reporter, he had interviewed a few of the townspeople. But this was different. Mr. Prentice was a stranger, and this was a very important story. It wasn’t quite as easy as walking up to the fire chief, whom he had known for years, and asking if there was anything new.

“Any special instructions, Mr. Dobson?”

“You’re familiar with the general situation, Ted. Of course the most important question is whether or not there’s going to be a trucking strike, and what form it might take, though I don’t think you’ll be able to get a clear-cut answer to that. And of course everybody’s interested in whether there’s any truth to the charge that the union has a kick-back arrangement with Jed Myers, even though he’s now serving a prison sentence for extortion. That may come out in the court hearing Friday morning, but Mr. Prentice’s comments would be interesting right now.

“I’ve looked through our files here at the office, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that would help you. The city daily paper would be more useful. Do you have back copies of it there?”

“I’m pretty sure I do, but if not, I’ll find them somewhere.”

“Then check back through the last few weeks and get as familiar with the situation as you can. It doesn’t pay to go into an interview poorly informed. That’s about all I can think of, Ted. Phone in your story as soon as you get it.”

“All right, Mr. Dobson, I’ll do my best.”

Hanging up the phone, Ted turned to Nelson. “Nine o’clock interview,” he informed him. “That means we get on the road by six-thirty.”

“Six-thirty! Then what’s the use of going to bed at all?”

“Well, I don’t suppose you have to come yourself. I could rent your car. Or maybe I ought to think about getting a car of my own. You must get tired of acting as my chauffeur.”

Nelson looked crestfallen. “Oh, come on, Ted. You wouldn’t do that, would you, and spoil all my fun?” He thought about it a moment. “But maybe Mr. Dobson’s going to get tired of this arrangement before long. Why should he pay two of us, when one man could do it alone?”

“Don’t worry about Mr. Dobson. He’s pretty shrewd. He knows you’ve come in mighty handy several times, apart from driving the car.”

Nelson grinned. “All right, then. Six-thirty. What are you going to do now, Ted?”

“I want to look through the old papers in the basement, and pick up all I can on this trucking strike. Want to help me?”

“Heck, no! That sounds like work. Anyway, it looks to me like these strikes are phony.”

“How do you mean?”

“Almost every time there’s a strike, or the threat of a strike, both management and labor know ahead of time on just about what terms they’re going to have to settle. But they both have to show their muscles, make a lot of threats, and maybe go out on a short strike to show they really meant it. They couldn’t just quietly come to an agreement. The public might not realize how important the trucking business is, unless the trucks didn’t move every now and then, or there was a threat that they wouldn’t. So labor asks for twice as much as it expects to get, and management concedes only half as much as it knows it will have to concede. Then after they’ve had a big enough rumpus, they settle on the same terms they could have at the beginning, and everybody’s happy. The union officers can show their members what they got for them, and management can show the stockholders how much it saved them, and they’ve all gotten their names in the papers.”

“You think that’s all there is to it—just acting important?”

“Well, no.” Nelson looked thoughtful. “I think sometimes they really do want a strike—both management and labor. Maybe the inventory’s running high, and management would like to cut down without actually firing anyone. And maybe labor wouldn’t mind a little extra holiday—have you noticed how many contracts expire just when the hunting or fishing seasons open?”

“Then you think there won’t be any strike, because this isn’t the hunting or fishing season?”

“I didn’t say that. I suppose the trucking business does slow down after Christmas, and I suppose the workers wouldn’t mind a little extra time off around the holidays.” He studied Ted’s face for a moment. “Which side are you on—management or labor?”

Ted laughed. “I’d like to say I’m on the side of truth, but sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing. It often seems to be pretty much a matter of where you’re standing. After all, your finger looks bigger than a barn, if you hold it right in front of your eyes.”

“But a finger isn’t bigger than a barn, Ted, no matter how it looks.”

“Maybe not. But if somebody pinches it, that finger’s going to hurt more than the barn.”

“How about it, Ted—do you think the unions get a fair shake in the papers? They often complain that they don’t.”

“I know Mr. Dobson always tries to be fair, and I suppose most of the other papers do, too. But I think that often the unions get bad publicity due to something that really isn’t anybody’s fault. Usually it’s the employers who want to keep things going the way they are, and it’s the union that wants to improve things for themselves. No matter how fairly you write up that story, the casual reader is apt to blame labor. As he sees it, things were going along smoothly, and the people who want to change things are the trouble-makers.”

Nelson agreed and then decided he’d better get going if he wanted to see a television program he liked. Ted retired to the basement, where he spent a couple of hours doing some important homework.