Read Recoil for Free Online

do.”
    “But, dammit!” He stared at her helplessly, swallowing whatever else he had been about to say.
    “It’s my fault, Doc,” I said. “I saw her get those papers out of the car, and I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
    “And I was nasty to him,” said Madeline, “in my own peculiar way.”
    “I can imagine,” Doc said. “Well, I guess I’m as much at fault as anyone. I’d forgotten about Pat waiting there at the entrance. By the way, you two had better meet each other.”
    He introduced us, casually, and opened the door of the car. “Make another copy of those contracts tonight, Madeline,” he said. “And bring them out here in the afternoon. Same place. Same time. On time!”
    “I was going to a show tonight.”
    “Go ahead. Get up early in the morning and work. I don’t care when you do them.”
    “Well—” she stood near the door, pouting. And with her left hand she scrawled an address in the dust on the car’s side and wrote “4-noon” beneath it. “Well, you and Mr. Cosgrove can drive me home, then.”
    “We’ve something important to do,” said Doc, coolly. “Come along, Pat.”
    I rubbed out the writing, nodded to her, and walked on around the car. As I drove away, she put her hands behind her and stuck her tongue out at Doc.
    “That woman,” he muttered. “If she wasn’t so valuable to me…”
    “She’s your secretary?”
    “Call her that. She’s actually a great deal more; does things that aren’t ordinarily included in secretarial work. She knows—well, you heard her. She knows.”
    “I see,” I said.
    “There’s a perfect example of what being sorry for a person can get you into,” he went on, wearily. “When I first ran into her I thought she was one of the most pitiable, helpless little tykes that ever came out of business college. Raised by an aunt who kicked her out when she was sixteen—I can understand why, now! Worked her way through school as a waitress with all the big bad men insulting her. Just wanted to work real hard for a nice fatherly man like me who would give her good advice. Well…”
    I laughed appreciatively. “Isn’t she a pretty disrupting influence to have around?”
    “She gets on my nerves plenty, yes. But she’s smart and fast, and people like her in spite of themselves. They let their guards down around her before they realize she’s not half as giddy as she appears to be. She—”
    “Excuse me, Doc,” I said. “Where did you want to drive to?”
    “Why, home, I suppose. Unless you’ve got some place you’d like to go.”
    “Not at all,” I said. “I just thought I understood you to say that—”
    “That was a brush-off. I have to use her in my business. I don’t have to cart her around—give her any kind of a personal hold on me. Incidentally, Pat…”
    “Yes,” I said, knowing what was coming.
    “I want you to keep away from her, too. I know you’re loyal and grateful to me, that you wouldn’t deliberately do anything that might injure me. But it’s simply a bad idea for two people so close to my affairs to get on an intimate basis. You understand, Pat? I won’t tolerate it.”
    He turned to look at me. I nodded emphatically, not trusting my voice.
    He said, “I’m counting on you.”
    I let him out at the front of the house, and drove the car on back to the garage.
    Then another car—the sports roadster I’d seen the night before—swept down the driveway. It shot into the stall next to the sedan, tires sliding, and banged noisily, but apparently harmlessly, against the rear of the garage.
    A woman got out and came swiftly toward me, smiling, hand extended.
    She was above average height, and slender, yet there was a soft billowy look about her. Her hair was ash blonde, and she had the smooth flawless complexion which should, but so seldom does, accompany it. She wore a tailored, fawn-colored suit with a fox fur scarf around the shoulders.
    Briefly, she was a very beautiful woman of thirty or