Cause for Alarm Read Online Free Page B

Mr. Fitch if he would mind stepping over to my office for a moment.” He put the telephone down and turned to me again. “Mr. Fitch is our export manager. A very nice fellow, with two bonny children, a boy and a girl. His wife, poor soul, is dead. I think you will like him.”
    “I wonder,” I said, “if you would mind giving me some idea of what the post involves, Mr. Pelcher?”
    He clasped his forehead. “Good heavens, of course. I thought I’d told you. You see, Mr. Marlow”—he clutched at his collar—“we are not a very big concern. We specialise in one particular class of machine. You probably know that.” I didn’t, but I nodded. “We have,” he continued, “a slogan. ‘There is a Spartacus machine for every high-production boring job.’ It is, within limits, a comprehensive description of our activities. Actually, however, we have been concentrating more and more during the past year or so on high-speed automatic machines for shell production. About a third of our shop space is at present given over to that work. It was started more or less as a side-line. I had some ideas on the subject of that type of machine. We worked them out. They were successful. We secured world patent rights on the design of the Spartacus Type S2 automatic. Incidentally, the word Spartacus was my idea originally. It’s good, don’t you think—Spartacus the slave—neat. However, to return to the S2. We hold world patent rights, and I must say they’ve proved very valuable to us. We have licensed some of our American friends to manufacture; but we retained the European market for ourselves. I think we were wise. The Germans have produced a machine to compete with the S2, but it’s no better than ours, and we have had a good start. Business with the Continent has been really brisk. The Italians, in particular,took to the S2 immediately. The ordnance department of the Italian Admiralty were very interested. Firms installing our machines were able to reduce their costs quite phenomenally. We have, of course, been approached by British concerns, but frankly we have been kept so busy with export business that we haven’t bothered so far to cultivate the home market. The Italians have been so very helpful, too, in arranging the financial details. As a rule, you know, it’s quite difficult to get money out of Italy in these days. In our special case they pay with drafts on New York. You see, they need the machines. Very friendly of them. About a year ago we decided that it would pay us to open an Italian office. I couldn’t spare the time to keep on running over there all the time. Milan is, as you may know, the centre of things from our point of view. We got hold of a very good man for the job. You may have heard of his sad death. Ferning was the name.”
    “I can’t say that I know of him.”
    “No? It was mentioned in the trade papers. But perhaps a man of your age doesn’t read the obituary notices.” He chuckled and pulled so violently at his collar that I thought the stud would snap. He became serious again. “Poor Ferning! A nervous, sensitive sort of fellow I always thought. But then you can’t always judge by appearances. He made an amazingly good thing of the Milan office. With an order we got from Turkey, we’ve sold practically the whole of our present output of S2 automatics for the next two years. It’s a nice machine. Naturally, that is only on our present production basis. We’re putting up a new shop, and as soon as that is going we shall be in a position to accept all the orders we can get. Bad luck about Ferning. The poor chap was run over a few weeks back. A very sad affair. As far as we can gather it was foggy and he was walking home when it happened. Killed outright, fortunately. The driver of the car, whoever it was, didn’t stop. Probably didn’t even know he’dhit anybody in the fog. They’re sometimes pretty thick in Milan, you know. Unmarried, thank goodness, but he leaves a sister