by Emma Lathen
Thatcher, who never went to specialists, agreed that he did.
“Well, then, perhaps the first thing we should get out of the way is this: how long have you been at the Sloan?”
When you are being swept along by a raging torrent, it is easier to surrender to the tide rather then struggle against it. Unless, of course, there are rapids ahead. Thatcher could see no precipices in sight, and he liked to enlarge his experience.
“Let me see,” he said, settling down comfortably in his chair. “I came to the Sloan in 1925 . . .”
“Nineteen twenty-five? Well, that’s good and bad,” Jarvey said quickly.
“You’re right,” Thatcher agreed gravely.
“And when . . . no, let’s not beat around the bush. When did you first feel that you were becoming . . . let’s say, dissatisfied at the Sloan? Or perhaps tired, is a better way to put it. . .”
“In 1927,” Thatcher said.
Jarvey started slightly, but Thatcher continued in reflective tones. “I fought it, but the feeling recurred in 1936 . . .”
“Mr. Thatcher . . .”
“In the fall of 1946 I had some distressing symptoms . . .”
“Mr. Thatcher!”
“Mr. Jarvey, I must apologize.” It was Thatcher’s turn to be warmly understanding. “We’ve been talking at cross-purposes, and wasting your valuable time. I am not trying to move from the Sloan. On the contrary, I came up here to inquire about an executive that I believe you are . . . ah . . . relocating.”
Jarvey, hovering between outrage and amusement, briefly recalled the Sloan’s last financial statement, and opted for amusement. He laughed fruitily. “Well,” he said when he had finally, and with no discernible difficulty, recaptured his self-control, “It is an amusing misunderstanding, isn’t it? But if you do try to find another position, Mr. Thatcher, I hope that you will come to Execulit. We do some very interesting work for men who are already at the top, but are still trying to find a challenge in their work. Now, who was. . .”
Thatcher, who had foreseen the request for some information, was ready and fluent, as well as flattering, with his untruthful reply as to the source of his knowledge about Execulit.
“I’ve heard some very good reports about your executive placement service,” he said, Disraeli to Jarvey’s Victoria. “And I’ve heard rumors that Harry Blaney might be looking around. It seemed reasonable, with the troubles that they’re having at National Calculating. As I said, it was on an impulse that I came up. And I’m sorry to say I was caught up in the spirit of your very able and convincing remarks . . .”
“Yes,” Jarvey said with satisfaction. “You can see how the mistake occurred. We do a sort of custom-tailoring service”—and Thatcher recognized another of his little pleasantries—“in executive placement. We really counsel with our clients, discuss their industrial experience, analyze their wants and needs. Only then do we try to place them, and of course we undertake just as serious a study of the firms they may be joining. We don’t look upon ourself as an employment service’——and he said it with distaste—“but as specialists in the placement of executives. Naturally, when you came in . . .”
“Tell me, what would you have done if I did want to leave the Sloan after thirty-seven years?” Thatcher wanted to know.
Jarvey cocked his head roguishly, as if the question held more than Thatcher had intended. “Ah-ha! Well, we would have referred you to some of our specialists . . .”
“Specialists?”
“Industrial psychiatrists, sociologists, and our Rorschach man, of course, to find out the kind of person you really are. We run tests, then ask you to come in for three or four weeks of intensive analysis. It isn’t your past, but your future that counts, you know.”
Again Thatcher recognized the speech, but this time he nodded encouragingly, and Jarvey flowed on. “Then, once we had really found the real you, we would turn to the problem of where you wanted to locate yourself. We would try to find a place that provided a challenge to your best creative talents . . .”
“What about money?”
Jarvey was pained. “We arrange a suitable fee based on your new salary, of course. But I do want to make clear that, only after we had really learned about you, would we start approaching companies. We have an extended dossier on them, but we would want to be sure that there was no change. Firms have a personality, you know . . .”
“I know . . .”
“So you see,” Jarvey wound up, “we rarely if ever have a prospective employer approaching us. It’s a more complex operation.”
“I can see that,” Thatcher said truthfully. “And Harry Blaney. . . ?”
“Well, in confidence, I will say that Mr. Blaney has been one of our clients for over a month . . .”
“So I heard,” Thatcher murmured absently, his thoughts elsewhere. If Blaney had been involved with Execulit for over a month, a substantial portion of the motive imputed to him by Richter disappeared. He certainly wasn’t going to murder to protect a position in a firm he was leaving.
“There’s been a leak,” Jarvey said austerely, making a note of it. “Well, since you know, I can tell you that we have been working with Mr. Blaney, and I have no hesitation in telling you that he’s really a first-rate man. These difficulties at National Calculating have created some problems, you know, but I think we will have no trouble in overcoming them. I tell you this, and I don’t think I can say more unless the Sloan would be definitely interested. At any event, Mr. Thatcher, I don’t think that the Sloan . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
“You’re not sure that the Sloan would measure up to your standards?” Thatcher said.
Pleased with this ready comprehension, Jarvey nodded rather sadly. “I don’t like to say it, Mr. Thatcher, but we haven’t done much in the banking field. We feel, among other things, that its compensations are not the sort to encourage top-flight men—you see, I believe in complete frankness. We might consider putting the Sloan on our A-list, sometime in the future but at the moment . . . I’m sorry.”
Thatcher rose. “I hope you’ll reconsider that,” he said with utmost seriousness. “I think I can safely say that I’d be most interested in anything you could suggest . . .”
Jarvey permitted himself a small smile. “We’ll just have to see, Mr. Thatcher,” he said rising. “But it has been a pleasure.”
How rarely, thought Thatcher, as he smiled at the blonde and descended to the street, how rarely are those words true. It had indeed been a pleasure.
And it had been informative. Harry Blaney, while revealing symptoms of premature senility by falling into Exculit’s manicured talons, was nonetheless now revealed as someone whose role at National Calculating had been persistently misinterpreted.
And if his behavior was no longer highly suspicious, it might be true that his testimony and disinterestedness were no longer suspect. Thatcher absentmindedly hailed a cab. Certainly if Harry Blaney was trying to leave National Calculating, and had been so planning even before Clarence Fortinbras hove into view, he might have some interesting comments on subsequent developments.
“Southern Bourbon Building.”
He would wash his hands of National Calculating tomorrow.
Chapter 16
Adieu, Adieu!
He was soon receiving the warmest welcome he had yet experienced at National Calculating.
“Come in, come in,” invited Blaney cordially as Thatcher hovered irresolutely on the threshold. “Glad to see you.”
Blaney was the picture of confidence, serenity, and good cheer. Nodding benignly to the secretary who sat by his desk with her notebook flat against her knee, he said, “That’s all for now, Janice. Would you type up that rough draft right away and let me see it? We should get it out today.”
Thatcher settled himself while the secretary, gathering up his hat and coat, left the room and closed the door behind her. He decided to come straight to the point. With the slightly conspiratorial air appropriate to any ex
ecutive discussion of job-hunting, he leaned forward and invested his tone with heavy significance.
“I bumped into Jarvey today. He tells me you’re one of his clients.”
“Yes. Just going off his list, as a matter of fact. Great little shop he runs, isn’t it?” Blaney was totally unabashed.
“Going off his list?”
“Didn’t he tell you? Oh, he must be playing it close to the chest. I’m going to Southern Midwest Electric as executive vice president.” A satisfied smile made its appearance. “Settled the whole thing at noon. I had lunch with their president, Jack Barnett, today. A great guy! He’s thinking of retiring in a year or two. We should work well together.” Blaney leaned back in his chair expansively.
Thatcher murmured suitable congratulations. “Does anybody here at National know yet?”
“Not yet. As a matter of fact, I was just dictating my resignation when you came in.” Suddenly he grinned boyishly. “You know, I really like writing resignations. Too many people just dash them off. It takes a little work to get one just right. I think they should be dignified but sincere. Don’t you?”
“Well, I don’t really know. Now that you mention it, I’ve very rarely resigned from anything, except formal appointments like board chairmanships and committees, that sort of thing.” Thatcher thought with some contentment of his long sojourn at the Sloan. “I’m afraid I tend to stay with things, you know,” he said apologetically.
Blaney was impressed. “Now me, I’m a mover. This is my twelfth change since the war. Always enjoy it too. There’s nothing like the first six months on a job. A new setup, new people, and new ways of doing things. I get a bang out of it,” he confided engagingly.
Thatcher decided that, if Blaney wanted to make confidences, they should not be wasted on a general discussion of the modern corporate executive and his urge to flight. Blaney could be a fruitful source of information. Furthermore, with the approaching severance of the ties that bound him to National Calculating and the relaxation induced by the knowledge that he was about to launch himself on a new career, Blaney might answer a few straight questions which would call for more disclosure than an employee whole-heartedly committed to the interests of National would care to make.
“Yes, I’m sure these changes must be stimulating. And, of course, the situation here has been rather difficult lately,” said Thatcher cautiously.
“You’re damn right it’s been difficult,” agreed Blaney readily. “Any business has its ups and downs, and you expect to be treated like a bungler if you have the bad luck to be around during one of the downs. But that’s not what’s going on here. Things were bad enough before Fortinbras showed up. You could just about hear them sharpening up their axes to get rid of me. And since Fortinbras, it’s been a question of fraud and murder. Now that,” he added reasonably, “is not what you expect when you come to a company.”
“No, but then you have to admit that things have been rather odd here. There has been a murder. And perhaps there has been fraud.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Blaney, rubbing the bald spot which was usually carefully hidden by his thinning hair. “I never have been able to figure this place out. It’s been a funny operation right from the start. Take those two plants in New Jersey. I lose money and Rutledge makes it. I can see how I do it, but I’m damned if I can see how he does it. Oh, I know what people must be saying. Either I’m a thief or a nincompoop. Well, I know I’m not a thief and, as for the other—” he paused to glare defiantly at Thatcher—“I’d like to see how young Hammond makes out after I’m gone.”
“Now that’s another thing. Hammond! He and Richter have been politicking around for the last six months. You get something like that anywhere. But not this way. Hammond’s supposed to be my subordinate. But I never could get any support from Mason in dealing with him. And of course Chip was too blind to see where the politicking was leading until the other day.” Blaney snorted with disgust and started to rummage around in his desk drawer. His hand emerged with a cigar which he started to prepare in a leisurely fashion.
“Does Mason realize the position now? I’m a stranger to the company, of course, but it has seemed as if Richter, and Hammond perhaps, weren’t particularly subtle.” Thatcher courteously declined a belated offer of a cigar.
“Oh, he knows now. Hammond had a talk with him after that Plout woman left here the other day. Hard to tell how he feels about it.” Blaney watched a thin ribbon of blue smoke make its way to the window. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Chip doesn’t even make a fight of it. He’s got money, you know, and he’s sick to death of National Calculating. What kind of a president is that? Naturally if he can’t be bothered defending his own position, he isn’t going to defend mine. But I’d still give a lot to know what’s been going on here.”
“Someone did say something about your being seen with one of National’s suppliers,” suggested Thatcher delicately.
“Oh? And left you to draw your own conclusions, I suppose,” said Blaney, with a surprising absence of heat. “Sure, I’ve been seeing a lot of Northfield Electronics. They’re looking for a vice president. Offered it to me, actually, but I turned it down. We couldn’t get together on a stock option, and the salary wasn’t good enough without an option arrangement. No money changed hands,” he added dryly.
It occurred to Thatcher that Blaney had been very active during the past six weeks. No wonder he had always been hurling himself into a coat about to depart for an appointment. It would have required a good deal of movement to keep up a pretense of full-time absorption with the affairs of National Calculating and simultaneously to submit to Mr. Jarvey’s schedule for prospective job applicants.
“You really have no idea of what’s behind Fortinbras’s murder?” he prodded. “Or for that matter this attack on young Draper?”
“What’s that?” Blaney demanded. “I thought Draper had an accident.” He raised his eyebrows. “You mean that that’s why the police have been asking everybody where they were last night?”
“Yes, I think so . . .”
“Excuse me,” said Blaney’s secretary from the doorway. “I have that draft typed if you want to look it over, Mr. Blaney.”
“Fine, fine,” declared that enthusiastic resigner. “Bring it right in, Janice. Mr. Thatcher knows all my secrets.” The secretary laid the draft on the desk and prepared to leave.
“No, don’t go. You don’t mind, do you, Thatcher? This will just take a minute, and I want to give it to Chip Mason as soon as possible.”
Thatcher agreed. With some amusement he watched Blaney lose himself in the problems of prose composition. A word was crossed out here, a substitution was effected somewhere else, and, after a few moments of frowning study, a lengthy addition was made at the bottom of the page.
“Here, listen to this, Thatcher, and tell me what you think of it. It may be a little too formal.”
“Certainly. Go right ahead.”
DEAR SIR:
This letter will serve as notice of my resignation from the position of vice president and division manager for Commercial Sales of National Calculating Corporation, such resignation to take effect immediately.
It has been a pleasure to be associated with National Calculating and to have the privilege of working with its fine management. I know that my years at National have provided me with a splendid opportunity to enrich my experience and develop my talents, and I hope that I have made some contribution in my turn.
For your information, it is my intention to take up the position of executive vice president at Southern Midwest Electric, Incorporated. I trust that this post will yield an opportunity for frequent contacts with all those colleagues with whom I have worked and whom I have come to admire. I shall continue to look back on our association with pleasure and gratitude.
Sincerely yours,
“There now, what do you think of it? Warm enough?” asked Blaney anxiously.
“Very warm . . . in fact, almost passionate.�
��
“You’re joking,” said Blaney dubiously. He proceeded to reread his resignation, this time silently. He had been only too truthful when he said that he liked to take pains with the composition of his resignations. Of course, it explained all those job changes. If a man really enjoyed writing resignations and starting new jobs, the temptation to move and to move frequently must be irresistible. What would happen if the current president of this Southern Midwest fulfilled Blaney’s expectations and retired after a decent interval, leaving Blaney as his heir apparent? Would Blaney be trapped into permanence? Would he become a secret resignation-writer? For that matter, what prompted a large utility to go out and hire as its president-elect a man in Blaney’s present position—that is, manager of a notoriously unsuccessful division and possibly murder suspect into the bargain?
It was done all the time, that Thatcher knew. Was it the selling power of Execulit? Or more simply, the unobtainability of successful men? He shook his head. The ways of modern business seemed very strange to a banker. Preserving a rigid silence out of respect for Blaney’s creative endeavors, Thatcher continued to ponder the problem. Why, for instance, did a utility go to a computer business in search of its executives? Banks were admittedly old-fashioned, but Thatcher had been reared in the belief that the way to become a banker was to train as a banker. The prevailing philosophy these days seemed to be that a management elite existed. A cadre of men trained in principles so broad that they could leap with the merriest abandon from the communications industry to the automobile industry to the steel industry. Any day now, he thought glumly, one would hear of IBM raiding the management pool at the Kroger.
Blaney had finally satisfied himself with a few last-minute insertions. “All right, Janice. Take it along and type it up. I’ll deliver it personally as soon as you’re done.”
Janice departed silently.
“A great woman,” said Blaney in his new charity for the entire personnel of National Calculating. “Knows how to keep her mouth shut too. I don’t have to worry about the whole office gabbing before I can get up to see Mason.” He was happily ignorant of the fact that Janice had already told the entire secretarial staff of his forthcoming departure. The secretaries, true to their trust, would never have dreamed of discussing the matter with their superiors until official notification of the event. So, in a sense, Blaney was right. The people who ought not to know would not know until Mason made some appropriate announcement. These things have a way of adjusting themselves.
