Ruth Fielding in Alaska

While Ruth Fielding had been in conversation with those in the office she had noticed a curious thing.

A small triangular corner of glass had been broken from the upper panel of the door. For a considerable time Ruth had felt that conviction that comes to every one at times of being closely and furtively watched. Her eyes, almost against her will, had traveled repeatedly to that triangular bit of broken glass. Then suddenly she saw it! That at least could not be imagination! An ear was pressed close to that tiny aperture and while she stared, momentarily paralyzed with astonishment, an eye took its place!

With Ruth, to think was to act. No sooner was she convinced that there was a spy in the hallway outside the door than she was on her feet, tugging madly at the knob.

As the startled and astonished men in the office behind her rose to their feet wondering if she had taken leave of her senses the door yielded to Ruth’s frantic tug and swung inward.

That the spy was completely taken by surprise was evident. The man who had been stooping to the aperture jerked to an upright position as Ruth flashed upon him. For a moment he looked straight at the girl and in that moment Ruth recognized him.

“Charlie Reid!” she gasped. “What are you doing here spying?”

“None of your business!” grumbled the fellow sullenly. “Sol and I know what we’re doing——”

But just then Charlie Reid caught sight of Ruth’s companions as they hurried to the office doorway. Turning, he dashed down the almost empty corridor and, reaching the stairway, took the steps three at a time and vanished from sight.

“Seemed to be in a pretty big hurry,” observed Tom. “Didn’t wait for explanations or anything, did he?”

The men ran to the head of the stairs, but the fellow had disappeared. To follow him on foot would be useless, and if they waited for an elevator they would have no better chance of intercepting him.

Bewildered and rather alarmed, they returned to the office to talk over this startling development.

“Not a soul of us saw his face,” mourned McCarty, but Ruth was quick to contradict him.

“I did,” she said. “And what’s more, I know him—and so do you all!”

They made her sit down and explain.

“It was Charlie Reid,” she said excitedly. “And as you all know, he is Sol Bloomberg’s right-hand man. It was Charlie who, as agent for Bloomberg, first tempted Viola Callahan to break her contract with me.”

“The rascal!” cried Brun, his big hand doubled into a fist. “And to think he got away with a whole neck and his information!”

“But why should Charlie Reid want to spy on us?” asked Mr. Hammond. “Certainly our conversation has been innocent enough and has nothing whatever to do with Reid, or with Bloomberg either, for that matter.”

“It’s queer, though,” mused Ruth, as though speaking aloud. “Charlie Reid spying here, trying to find out what he can of my future plans, right on top of that threatening letter from Sol Bloomberg!”

Naturally the men were more at sea than ever over this reference, since none but Ruth herself and Helen Cameron knew anything of the threatening, venomous letter Bloomberg had sent. Ruth had not even told Tom for fear of needlessly worrying him.

Now, however, it was necessary to make a clean breast of the facts. In view of what had just happened, the letter from the disgraced producer took on an added importance.

“It looks to me,” Ruth finished, “as though the planting of Charlie Reid here to spy upon us and overhear our plans is the first step in Bloomberg’s scheme of revenge.”

“It isn’t revenge, Miss Ruth; it’s plain spite,” said Mr. Hammond disgustedly. “That fellow had nothing against you except that you succeeded where he tried to make you fail.”

“And something tells me,” Ruth said, with a little shrug of her shoulders, “that he still has my failure at heart and will leave no stone unturned to accomplish it.”

“Well,” said Tom, with a squaring of his shoulders and a yearning glance toward the spot in the doorway where Charlie Reid had been, “if either Bloomberg or that Reid chap gets ugly again and tries to start something, we’ll show them both they’ve been in a scrap!”

On the whole, however, Mr. Hammond and his associates seemed inclined to treat Bloomberg and any nefarious schemes he might concoct as beneath their notice and certainly as nothing to worry about.

“He may have guns, Miss Ruth, but he has no powder and shot,” Mr. Hammond assured her. “In other words, he is a rattlesnake with his venom removed. Don’t waste your time worrying about him. And meanwhile,” he put out his hand as Ruth rose to her feet, “please believe that we are all undyingly grateful to you for helping us out in this emergency. I feel as though a thousand tons had been lifted from my shoulders.”

Ruth smiled, with a return of the fighting gleam in her eye.

“I’m glad to be free to undertake it,” she said. “And—I’ll do my best!”

“That’s all we ask!” Mr. Hammond assured her, and this sentiment was echoed with many hearty handshakes by McCarty, Brun and the others.

After Ruth and Tom had left, there was just one among the men in Mr. Hammond’s office who was not enthusiastic over the success of the afternoon’s conference. This was Raymond Howell, the casting director.

“I’m not as confident of success as you all seem,” he told them, and the statement was like a dash of cold water upon their enthusiasm. “I admit that Miss Fielding is a good director—upon her own field. But I don’t know that our actors will take kindly to a woman director. They are not used to them, and this one is so young and good-looking that it seems impossible that she is as brainy and competent as they say.”

“As we know,” Mr. Hammond said quietly. “You have come into our personnel since Miss Fielding left it, Howell, and that is probably why you lack confidence in her ability. You said just now that this girl was a good director in her own field. You forget that this was her original field, the stepping stone to her present success. No, my dear fellow, you may safely lull your fears to rest. In my own mind I have not the slightest doubt that this afternoon’s conference has saved to the Alectrion Film Corporation a full forty thousand dollars!”

If Ruth had heard this tribute she would have thrilled with pride at such a proof of Mr. Hammond’s confidence in her. It would have done her good too, for, strangely enough, her confidence in herself had been rather severely shaken by the detection of spying Charlie Reid that afternoon.

“I don’t like it, Tom. I don’t like it at all,” she said, as they sped uptown toward the hotel at which they were stopping while in New York. “Bloomberg wouldn’t have planted Charlie Reid there to overhear our conference with Mr. Hammond if he hadn’t had a good and sufficient reason.”

“Perhaps,” said Tom, looking at her flushed face and thinking how pretty she was, “Bloomberg didn’t plant Charlie at all. How do you know Reid wasn’t there on his own business?”

But Ruth shook her head positively.

“He has no reason to wish me harm,” she pointed out. “Except as Bloomberg’s agent. Besides, I don’t believe Charlie Reid has brains enough to act on his own account. Bloomberg was always the brains, Charlie the tool. I wish,” she ended, a bit plaintively, “I knew what the real answer was!”

“Now don’t worry,” Tom protested. “If Bloomberg has any crooked little game up his sleeve, we’ll find it out soon enough. And when he starts something we’ll very soon show him who is going to finish it. You beat him once, Ruth, and that only goes to show you can beat him again, and worse.”

A dimple appeared at the corner of Ruth’s mouth.

“The law of averages——”

“Oh, bother the law of averages,” Tom interrupted, good-naturedly. “It isn’t going to work in this case. Besides, here we are at our station!”

He led her forth upon the subway platform and in a few moments they were being eagerly greeted by Helen in their suite at the Graymore.

They were to stay over in New York until the following afternoon at least, since another business conference with Mr. Hammond was imperative, for Tom, at any rate. Helen was overjoyed at this news and declared that she would spend the following morning shopping for the trip to the Yukon.

“Do you really think you ought to go?” Ruth asked, teasing her. “Poor Chess! It really is cruel to leave him all alone!”

“Oh, but think what a long time we’ll be married!” Helen protested. “Even Chess couldn’t deny me this wonderful chance for a little fun before, before——”

“The end?” suggested Tom, with a grin.

“You put it crudely, Tommy-boy,” chuckled Helen, making a face at him. “But I simply couldn’t miss this trip. Especially since our old friends Bloomberg and Charlie Reid are stepping into the limelight again, prepared to give us a few thrills.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ruth dryly, as she examined the location photographs Mr. Hammond had given her that afternoon, “if we will have more thrills than we exactly enjoy before we get through.”