CHAPTER 8 OVERHEARD IN THE GATEHOUSE

“Why, where did that come from?” Sally murmured as she fingered the piece of metal. “I never put it in my locker.”

Confused, she raised bewildered eyes to Penny. Just then the locker room door opened and a forelady came in. Miss Grimley’s keen gaze fastened upon the brass coupling in Sally’s hand. Awkwardly, the girl tried to hide it in a fold of her slacks.

“What do you have?” the forelady asked, moving like a hawk toward the girls.

“Why, nothing,” Sally stammered.

“Isn’t that a piece of brass?” Miss Grimley demanded. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it in my locker.”

“In your locker!”

“I don’t know how it got there,” Sally said quickly, reading suspicion in the other’s face. “I’m sure I never put it there.”

Miss Grimley took the brass from her, inspecting it briefly.

“This looks very much like one of the parts that has been disappearing from the stockroom,” she said, her voice icy.

“But I’ve never been near the stockroom!” Sally cried. “In the few days that I’ve been employed here, I’ve barely left my machine.”

Penny tried to intercede in the girl’s behalf.

“I’m sure Sally knew nothing about the article being in her locker,” she assured the forelady. “When she opened it a moment ago and lifted her jacket, the piece of brass fell from a pocket.”

“Someone must have put it there!” Sally added indignantly. “I’m certain I never did.”

“Have you given your locker key to anyone?”

“No.”

“And have you always kept it locked?”

“Why, I think so.”

“I am sorry,” said Miss Grimley in a tone which implied exactly the opposite, “but I will have to report this. You understand my position.”

“Please—”

“I have no choice,” Miss Grimley cut her short. “Come with me, please.”

Penny started to accompany Sally, but the forelady by a gesture indicated that she was not to come. The door closed behind them.

For ten minutes Penny waited, hoping that Sally would return. Finally she wandered outside. Sally was not on the floor and another girl had taken her place at the machine.

Seeing Joe the Sweeper cleaning a corridor, Penny asked him about Sally.

“No. 567?” the man inquired with a grin which showed a gap between his front upper teeth. “You won’t see her no more! She’s in the employment office now, and they’re giving her the can!”

“You mean she’s being discharged?”

“Sure. We don’t want no thieves around here!”

“Sally Barker isn’t a thief,” Penny retorted loyally. “By the way, how did you know why the girl was taken to the office?”

The question momentarily confused Joe. But his reply was glib enough.

“Oh, I have a way o’ knowin’ what goes on around here,” he smirked. “I figured that gal was light-fingered the day they hired her. It didn’t surprise me none that they found the stuff in her locker.”

“And who told you that?” Penny pursued the subject.

“Why, you said so yourself—”

“Oh, no I didn’t.”

“It was the forelady,” Joe corrected himself. “I seen the brass in her hand when she came out of the locker room with that gal.”

Disgusted, Penny turned her back and walked away in search of Jack. It was none of her affair, she knew, but it seemed to her that Joe the Sweeper had taken more than ordinary interest in Sally’s downfall. His statements, too, had been confused.

“I don’t trust that fellow,” she thought. “He’s sly and mean.”

Penny could not find Jack, and when she returned to Mr. Gandiss’ office, a secretary told her that the factory owner and her father expected to meet her at the main gate.

Hastening there, Penny saw no sign of them. Nor was the gateman on duty. However, hearing low voices inside the gatehouse, she stepped to the doorway. No one was in view, but two men were talking in the inner office.

“It worked slick as a whistle,” she heard one of them say. “The girl was caught with the stuff on her, and they fired her.”

“Who was she?”

“A new employee named Sally Barker.”

“Good enough, Joe. That ought to take the heat off the others for awhile at least.”

The name startled Penny who instantly wondered if one of the speakers might be Sweeper Joe. Confirming her suspicion, the man came out of the inner room a moment later. Seeing her, he stopped short and his jaw dropped.

“What you doin’ here?” he demanded gruffly.

“Waiting for Mr. Gandiss,” Penny replied. “And you?”

Joe did not answer. Mumbling something, he pushed past her and went off toward the main factory building.

“He’s certainly acting as if he deliberately planned to get Sally into trouble,” she thought resentfully.

Clayton, the gateman, showed his face a moment later, and he too acted self-conscious. As he checked a car through into the factory grounds, he glanced sideways at Penny, obviously uneasy as to how much she might have overheard.

“Been here long?” he inquired carelessly.

“No, I just came,” Penny answered with pretended unconcern. “I’m waiting for my father.”

The men did not come immediately. However, as Penny loitered near the gatehouse, she saw Sally Barker hurriedly leaving the factory building.

“Ain’t you off early tonight?” the gateman asked as she approached.

“I’m off for good,” Sally answered shortly. Her face was tear-stained and she did not try to hide the fact that she had been crying.

“Fired?”

“That’s right,” Sally replied. “Unjustly too!”

“Shoo, you don’t say!” the gateman exclaimed, sympathetically. “What did they give you the can for?”

Sally, in no mood to provide details, went on without answering. Penny ran to overtake her.

“I’ll walk with you to the boundaries of the grounds,” she said quickly. “Tell me what happened.”

“Just what you would expect,” Sally shrugged. “They asked me a lot of questions in the personnel office. I told the truth—that I knew nothing about that putrid piece of brass that turned up in my locker! Then they gave me a nice little lecture, and said they were sorry but my services no longer were required. Branded as a thief!”

“Don’t take it so hard, Sally,” Penny said kindly. “Someone probably planted the brass in your locker.”

“Of course! But I can’t prove it.”

“Why not appeal to Mr. Gandiss? He likes you and—”

“No,” Sally said firmly, kicking at a piece of gravel on the driveway, “I’ll ask no favors of Mr. Gandiss. He would have me reinstated, no doubt, but it would be too humiliating.”

“Do you know of anyone in the factory who dislikes you?”

Sally shook her head. “That’s the funny part of it. I’m not acquainted with anyone. I just started in.”

“How about Joe the Sweeper?”

“Oh, him!” Sally was scornful. “He caught me in the hall the other day and tried to get fresh. I slapped his face!”

“Then perhaps he was the one that got you into trouble.”

“He’s too stupid,” Sally dismissed the subject.

“I’m not so sure of that,” returned Penny thoughtfully.

The girls had reached the street and Sally’s bus was in sight.

“What will you do now?” Penny asked hurriedly. “Get a job at another factory?”

“I doubt it,” Sally replied, fishing in her pocketbook for a bus token. “I’ll help Pop on the River Queen. If I do take another job it won’t be until after the sailboat races.”

“I’d forgotten about that. When is the race?”

“The preliminary is in a few days—next Friday. The finals are a week later.”

“I hope you win,” said Penny sincerely. “I’ll certainly be on hand to watch.”

The bus pulled up at the curb. Swing-shift employes, arriving at the factory for work, crowded past the two girls. Impulsively Sally turned and squeezed Penny’s hand.

“I like you,” she said with deep feeling. “You’ve been kind. Will you come to see me sometime while you’re here?”

“Of course! I’ve not brought back those clothes I borrowed yet!”

“I’ll look for you,” Sally declared warmly. “I feel that you’re a real friend.”

Squeezing Penny’s hand again, she sprang aboard the bus and was lost in the throng of passengers.