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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..946cee1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51970 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51970) diff --git a/old/51970-0.txt b/old/51970-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a6d6a6c..0000000 --- a/old/51970-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11610 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Plunderers - A Novel - -Author: Edwin Lefevre - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51970] -Last Updated: March 16, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - -THE PLUNDERERS - -A Novel - -By Edwin Lefevre - -Harper & Brothers Publishers - -New York And London - -1915 - -[Illustration: 0012] - -[Illustration: 0013] - - - - -THE PLUNDERERS - - - - -I--THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA - -ON the day before Christmas a man of middle age, middle height, and -middle weight, smooth-shaven, dressed in black and wearing black gloves, -walked into the business office of the New York _Herald_. He approached -the first “Advertisements” window, looked at the clerk a moment, opened -his mouth, and said several words-at least, so the clerk judged from the -motion of the man's lips. - -“I didn't hear that, Cap,” said the clerk, Ralph Carroll. - -The stranger thereupon made another effort. - -“You'll have to come again,” Carroll told him, kindly, at the same time -leaning over the counter and presenting his left ear to the voiceless -talker. He heard: - -“How much to print this ad under Male Help Wanted, in big type, so it -will make about two inches?” - - -I - - -He handed a slip to the clerk, which the clerk read, counting the words -from sheer force of habit: - -Wanted-A Man With St. Vitus's Dance and an Introspective Turn of Mind. -High Wages to Right Party. Apply Saturday Morning, Room 888, St. Iago -Building. - -“Four-sixty-four,” said the clerk. - -The man raised his eyebrows inquiringly. - -“Four dollars and sixty-four cents,” repeated Carroll. - -The man took out a wallet and tried to pull out a bank-note, but could -not because of his gloved hands. He took off the right glove, fished -out one five-dollar bill and gave it to the clerk, who handed him -back thirty-six cents. As the man took the change the clerk distinctly -noticed that he had a big ivory-colored scar which ran from the knuckles -to the wrist and disappeared under the cuff. He remembered it by reason -of the freak ad and the man's voice. - -The advertisement appeared in the _Herald_ on the next day. Being -Christmas, the one day of nonreading in America, few people saw it. -Nevertheless, at nine on Saturday morning, ten men with spasmodically -twitching necks or limbs waited for the advertiser to open the door of -Room 888, on which they saw in gilt letters: - - -ACME VIBRATOR COMPANY - -W. W. LOVELL, MANAGER - - -The elevator man was heard to tell an inquirer, “Here's Lovell!” And -presently the voiceless man, dressed as usual in black, with black -gloves, stepped from the elevator, nodded to the waiting men in the -hall, and opened the door of 888. At first they thought he was a mute, -but realized later that he was merely saving his bronchial tubes, just -as asking men to come Saturday forenoon--pay-day and pay-hours--would -save effort by bringing only men without employment. - -Lovell and the afflicted entered. The outer office had half a dozen -chairs, and a table, on which were some medical magazines. Lovell -scrutinized the ten applicants keenly, and finally beckoned to a tall, -well-built chap with a blond mustache, whose unfortunate ailment was not -so extreme as the others, to follow him into the inner office. The -man did so. There were a desk, three chairs, a table, and a dozen -polished-oak boxes that looked as though they might contain vibrators. -Lovell closed the door, sat down at the desk, motioned to the blond man -to approach, and whispered: - -“What's your name?” - -“Lewis J. Wright.” - -“Age?” - -“Thirty-six.” - -“Working?” - -“Not steadily.” - -“Profession?” - -“Cabinet-maker.” - -“Family?” - -“No.” - -“Do you object to traveling?” - -“No; like it.” - -“We pay sixty dollars a week, all traveling and living expenses. Will -you go to London, England?” - -“To do what?” - -“Nothing!” - -“What?” - -“Nothing!” again whispered the manager, very earnestly. He seemed -anxious to convince Mr. Wright of his good intentions. “Nothing at all! -Sixty a week and expenses!” - -“I don't understand,” said Mr. Lewis J. Wright, with an uneasy smile. -His excitement aggravated the malady and his neck jerked and twitched -almost constantly. - -“I want a man with St. Vitus's dance.” - -“That's me,” said L. J. Wright, and proved it. - -“And with an introspective turn of mind. Understand?” - -“Not quite,” confessed the cabinet-maker. - -“A man who likes to think about himself.” - -“I guess I can fill the bill all right,” asserted L. J. Wright, -confidently. Sixty a week, all expenses, and a trip to London began to -look very attractive. - -“Then you're engaged.” The manager nodded. - -“I don't know yet what I'm to do,” ventured Wright. - -“Nothing, I tell you.” - -“Well, I'll do it, then!” And L. J. Wright smiled tentatively; but the -manager of the Acme Vibrator Company looked at him seriously--almost -reprovingly--and whispered so hoarsely that Wright felt like going after -cough-lozenges for him: - -“Listen, Wright. You will go to London with a letter to Dr. Cephas W. -Atterbury, 23, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. Every day you will sit -down in a comfortable chair in the doctor's anteroom, where the patients -wait, from nine to eleven a.m. and five to seven p.m. You will think of -your St. Vitus's dance. For doing this you will get sixty dollars a week -from us and your hotel bill will be paid by the doctor. You may not have -to sail for a month, but your salary begins on Monday. Come here every -Saturday and get twenty-five dollars on account. When you sail you will -get all that's owing to you besides four weeks' salary in advance, and a -round-trip ticket, first-class.” - -“But if I get stranded in London--” - -“How can you, with three or four hundred dollars in your pocket, a -return-trip ticket, and no need to spend except for clothes, which are -very cheap there? Come next Saturday, but leave your name and address in -case we need you. Can we depend on you?” He looked searchingly into the -grayish-blue eyes of Lewis J. Wright, and seemed comforted when Lewis J. -Wright answered: - -“Yes. I'll go on a minute's notice.” He wrote his name and address on a -slip, gave it to the manager, and went out. Lovell followed him to -the outer office and, beckoning to the afflicted nine to draw near, -whispered: - -“I've hired a man, but I shall need more soon. Write your names and -addresses and leave them here. Don't come unless I send for you,” and he -distributed printed blanks on which each applicant wrote out his name, -address, and answers to the questions: - -1--Do you object to traveling alone? - -2--Do you object to sitting in comfortable chairs? - -3--Do you object to people making remarks about you? - -4--Do you object to minding your own business or earning your wages? - -One of the applicants spoke: - -“Mr. Lovell, I'd like to know--” - -Lovell, however, cut him short with a hoarse but peremptory “Don't -talk! Can't answer!” pointed to his throat, and disappeared in the inner -office, the door of which he closed. - -Whereupon the disappointed applicants, expressing their feelings in a -series of heartrending jerks, twitches, tremors, and grimaces, trooped -out into the hall. There they cross-examined Wright and arrived at the -conclusion that they were to be used as living advertisements for the -Acme Vibrator. Doctors were employed to boom it and the company supplied -dummies or “property” patients. - - - -II - -To the same clerk in the _Herald_ office, a fortnight later, came the -same man in black, and whispered something. The clerk recognized him, -leaned over, and asked, pleasantly: - -“What is it this time?” He had a good memory. He afterward remembered -thinking that the hoarseness was chronic. - -“How much for one inch in Help Wanted, Male?” - -“Pica caps?” - -The man nodded eagerly, half a dozen times. - -“Two dollars and thirty-two cents.” - -The stranger, in trying to take the exact amount from his pocket, -dropped a dime on the floor and had much difficulty in picking it up by -reason of his black gloves. This naturally made the clerk remember -about the scar, which the man evidently desired to conceal. Carroll, the -clerk, alert-minded and imaginative--as are all American Celts--caught -a glimpse of the scar between the end of the glove and the beginning of -the cuff. - -On the next day, the unemployed males of New York read this in the -_Herald_: - -_Wanted--A Brave Man. Wages One Hundred Dollars a Day. No Questions -Answered. Apply Room 888, St. Iago Building._ - -There are many brave men in New York. When W. W. Lovell stepped from the -elevator at the eighth floor he had almost to force his way through a -crowd of men of all kinds--brutes and dreamers; sturdy animals, and boys -with romance in their eyes; fierce-visaged, roughly dressed men, and -fashionably attired chaps, with high-bred, impassive faces; young men -seeking adventure and old men seeking bread. Lovell was darting keen -glances at the men. He let his gaze linger on a man neither short nor -tall, of about forty, who suggested determination rather than reckless -courage. He was shabby with the shabbiness of a man who not only has -worn the clothes a long time, but has slept in them. Lovell approached -him and whispered: - -“Come about _Herald_ ad?” - -“Yes.” Others drew near and listened. - -“Are you really brave?” He looked anxiously into the man's face. The -man, at the question and at the grins of his fellow-applicants, turned a -brick-red. - -“Try me!” he answered, defiantly. - -“Before all these men?” There was a challenge in the hoarse whisper. - -“If you want to,” answered the man, with quick anger. He clenched his -fists and braced his body, as for a shock. - -“Come in!” and W. W. Lovell opened the door of 888. - -“I'm braver than that guy!” interjected a youth, extremely -broad-shouldered and thick-necked. - -Mr. Lovell looked at him coldly, steadily, inquisitively, as though he -would read the man's soul. He stared fully a minute and a half before -the thick-set youngster dropped his gaze, whereupon Mr. Lovell pushed -in the man he had picked out, followed him, and slammed the door in the -faces of the others. They tried the door-knob in vain. It was a spring -lock. - -Mr. Lovell sat down at his desk, motioned to the man to draw near, and -said, sternly: - -“No questions answered!” - -“I'll ask none.” - -Lovell gazed at him intently. He nodded to himself with satisfaction, -and proceeded, in a painful whisper: - -“Your name is W. W. Lowry.” - -The man hesitated. Lovell frowned and, leaning forward, said: - -“One hundred dollars a day!” - -“My name,” said the man, determinedly, “is now W. W. Lowry.” - -“Do you know anything about travelers' checks used by the American -Express Company?” - -“Yes.” - -“Ever used any yourself?” - -“No.” - -“Ever in Paris?” - -“Yes.” - -“When?” - -“When I was--er--years ago.” - -“How many years?” - -“Ten; no--eleven!” The man's face twitched. Remembrance was evidently -not pleasant. - -“I'll pay you one thousand dollars for eight days' work in Paris.” - -“I'll take it.” - -“Listen carefully.” - -“Go ahead.” The man looked alert. - -“You will get a first-class ticket from New York to Paris and return, -and hotel coupons for ten days in the Hotel Beraud, in Paris. You will -leave, in all probability, on February first, arrive on the eighth. On -the ninth you will go to the American Express office and cash some of -your checks. They will serve to identify you. Do it again on February -tenth. At exactly eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh you will -whisper to the mail clerk: 'It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. -Give me the eleven letters for W. W. Lowry.' If you do not receive -eleven letters, don't take any, but return the next day at precisely the -same hour, and say exactly the same words. What was it I said you should -say to the correspondence clerk?” - -“It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven letters -for W. W. Lowry,” repeated the man. - -“Right! When you get the eleven letters you will bring them unopened to -me--here. Now go to Mrs. Brady's boarding-house, 299 East Seventy-third -Street; tell her you are Mr. Lowry. Your room and board are paid for. -Make it a point to be at the house every day at eleven in the morning -until after luncheon and at six p.m. You must not go out evenings under -any circumstances. I'll allow you eleven dollars a week for tobacco -and will bring you some clothes. Come back Wednesday at eleven-thirty. -Here's this week's eleven dollars. That will be all.” - -“That's all right, my friend; but--” began the man. - -Lovell frowned and interrupted sharply: - -“No questions answered.” - -“I wasn't going to ask; I was going to remark that you would have to -show me that one thousand dollars for the week's work.” - -“Next Wednesday I'll take you to the American Express Company. I'll give -you one thousand dollars and you will buy the checks yourself and sign -them. I'll keep them until sailing-day and I'll give them to you on the -steamer. Forging,” he went on with a sneer, “is signing another man's -name with intent to defraud. You will sign your own name--your own -signature--on travelers' checks that you yourself have paid for. See? A -thousand dollars for asking for eleven letters and bringing them to me, -unopened, is good graft, friend. If you make good I'll keep you busy.” - -“You are on!” said W. W. Lowry. - -“No drinking. Above all things, no talking! I may be crazy, my friend; -but what would you be if you gave up a job worth a thousand dollars a -week and all expenses paid? Remember our motto: No questions answered!” - -“Damned good rule!” agreed W. W. Lowry, with conviction. - -“Look out for reporters and for men who say they are reporters!” warned -W. W. Lovell. “When you go out, close the door quickly behind you and -hang this sign on the door-knob. I don't want to see anybody.” - -W. W. Lowry obeyed. The sign said: - -POSITION FILLED - - - -III - - -A particularly beautiful limousine stopped before the door of Welch, -Boon & Shaw, the renowned jewelers, on Fifth Avenue. There alighted from -it, on this cold but bright January day, a tall, well-built man, erect, -square-shouldered, head held high. He wore a fur-lined overcoat with -a beautiful mink collar, and a mink cap. He was one of those -blond-mustached, ruddy-complexioned, daily-cold-plunge British officers -you sometimes see in Ottawa. He walked quickly into the shop and spoke -to the first clerk he saw. - -“Where's the proprietor?” - -“Who?” - -“The proprietor of the shop!” He spoke with a pronounced English accent. -His eyes were gray and cold. They looked a trifle close together, but -that may have been from the frown--said frown impressing even a casual -observer as a chronic affair. His appearance, even without the frown, -was aristocratic. - -“Do you wish,” said the clerk, politely, “to see Mr. Boon or Mr. Shaw?” - -“I wish to see the man who owns this shop; the--ah--boss, I think you -call it here.” - -“Well, Mr. Boon--” began the clerk, about to explain. - -“I don't care if it's Mr. Loon or Mr. Coon. Be quick, please!” he said, -peremptorily. - -The clerk, now resenting the stranger's words, tone, manner, attitude, -nationality, and ancestry, turned to a floor-walker person and called: - -“Mr. Smith, this--ahem--gentleman wishes to see one of the firm.” - -Mr. Smith came forward, smiling suavely. - -“You wish to see one of the firm, sir?” He bowed in advance. - -“Yes. That's the third time I've said what I wish. I have no time to -lose and not much patience, either!” He twitched his neck and twisted -his head as though his collar were too tight. It was a habit, and it -became more pronounced with his annoyance. All the clerks noticed it. - -Mr. Smith bit his lip and said, very politely: “Yes, sir. It happens -that none of them is in at present. If you will tell me what you wish to -see them about I may suggest--” - -The fur-coated man turned on his heel, his face dark red with annoyance, -and started to leave the shop. - -“Good-by, old Jerk-Neck!” muttered the offended clerk. - -Mr. Boon entered at that very moment. - -“Here's Mr. Boon, our senior partner,” said Mr. Smith, with an -irritation in his voice that he could not conceal, and that now gave Mr. -Boon his cue. - -“You wish to see me?” Mr. Boon asked it very coldly, ready to say no. - -“You have an annoying set of clerks here,” said the fur-coated stranger. -“I wished to see one of the firm and--” - -“You see him now,” interrupted Mr. Boon, letting the words drop out with -an effect of broken icicles. “I am Mr. Boon.” - -“My good man, I came after some pearl necklaces and a few rings, and -trinkets. Do make haste! I am Colonel Lowther.” - -“Indeed! Well, what if you are Colonel Lowther?” - -In Mr. Boon's eyes was a look that made all the clerks in the store -busy themselves with their own affairs. Explosions scatter dangerous -fragments that may injure lookers-on. The fur-coated Englishman stared -at the sizzling jeweler in amazement. - -“Damme!” he sputtered. “Do you mean to say--Oh--I see! Yes! I am -the secretary of the Duke of Connaught. The jewels are for his Royal -Highness.” - -The change was instantaneous and magical. They all understood now, -and forgave. There wasn't a clerk in the store who did not stare -with unchecked interest at the fur-coated member of the royal party, -concerning which the newspapers were printing columns and columns. - -The man opened his coat, took a card from a Russia-leather case, which -he gave to Mr. Boon. - -“Colonel the Honorable H. C. Lowther, K.C.B.,” it read, “Private -Secretary to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught.” - -“Colonel Lowther,” said Mr. Boon, in a voice from which all the icicles -had melted and turned into warm honey, “I regret exceedingly that -you have had to wait. Had I known you were here, or if you had only -mentioned who you were--” - -“Exactly so. Yes! And now I'll have a few words with you in private, -Boon.” - -The colonel could not know that Mr. Boon was not a misterless Bond -Street tradesman, but a millionaire expert in gems and human vanity. So -Boon forgave the omission of “Mr.” and magnanimously said, “This way, -Colonel Lowther, please!” - -In the office Mr. Boon opened a box of his good cigars--and they were -very good, indeed--and held it toward the colonel, who took one with his -gloved hands, lit it at the flame of the match which Mr. Boon himself -held for him, and puffed away, with never a “Thank you.” - -Again Mr. Boon was magnanimous. - -Colonel Lowther wiggled his neck as if his collar were uncomfortably -tight, and then shot his head forward with a motion that made the chin -go up six inches--a nervous affliction that Mr. Boon politely ignored by -looking exaggeratedly attentive. - -“His Royal Highness wishes to leave some remembrances to gentlemen he -has met, you know--chairmen of committees and presidents of clubs, and -others who have been very nice to him. At home he would have given them -snuff-boxes or cigarette-cases, with his arms on them; but there won't -be time to engrave them, so he will give scarf-pins.” He paused, puffed -at his cigar, and cleared his neck of the constricting collar. - -“I understand,” Mr. Boon assured him, deferentially. - -“And the duchess will give rings -and--ah--lorgnette-chains--trinkets--ah--you know. Everybody in New -York has been so kind to the party. 'Pon my honor, Boon, I really think -Americans are keener for royalty than the British. I do! What?” - -“Blood,” observed Mr. Boon, with the impressive sententiousness of a man -inventing a proverb, “is thicker than water!” - -“Eh? What? Oh! I see! Yes! Quite so!” - -“Our people,” pursued the encouraged Mr. Boon, “have always thought a -great deal of the English--er--British royal family.” - -“Oh, indeed! Now, Boon, I didn't think you showed great affection for -George III! What?” - -Mr. Boon blushed to think of Bunker Hill. His daughter was a D. A. R., -too! He hastened to change the subject. - -“You mentioned,” he said, as though he were reading aloud from one of -the sacred books, “some pearl necklaces. At least, I think you did.” He -put on the tradesman's listening look in advance. It is the look that -courtiers assume when they listen to his Majesty excitedly telling how -once, on a hunting-trip, he almost dressed himself. - -“Oh yes! The pearls are for the Princess Patricia. A necklace to cost -not over ten thousand. You see, the duke is not one of your Pittsburg -millionaires. He's not what you'd call rich, in America!” He smiled, -democratically, as a man always does when he is pleased with his own -wit. Mr. Boon smiled uncertainly. - -“You can't, of course,” he said, regretfully, “do much with ten thousand -dollars.” - -“Not dollars--pounds! Perhaps we may go up to fifteen thousand; but his -Highness would prefer to keep at about ten thousand pounds. That's fifty -thousand dollars.” - -“I am sure we can please his Highness,” said Mr. Boon, with impressive -confidence. There fleeted across his mind the vision of the tremendous -value of the advertisement which the royal patronage would give him. The -papers were full of the doings of the distinguished visitors. He himself -on his way to the office had been guilty of the pardonable curiosity -which the lower classes call rubber-necking; and he had even -discussed--in common with 89,999,999 fellow-Americans--the personal -pulchritude of the royal ladies. Usually democracy is enabled to -apologize to itself for its undemocratic interest in feminine royalty -by saying, “She isn't at all goodlooking.” That excuse, however, did not -serve in this instance. The Princess Patricia was the most popular girl -in New York--with the classes because she was the princess, and with the -masses because she was so pretty! And to think of selling pearls to her! - -He closed his eyes and ecstatically read what the papers would print -about the sale! He heard himself saying to Mrs. Carmpick, of Pittsburg: -“This necklace is handsomer than the one we sold to Princess Patricia!” - He heard the rattle in the throats of Johnson & Pierce, of J. Storrs' -Sons, of the sixteen partners of Goffony's, dying from apoplexy -superinduced by envy, or from starvation following the loss of all the -swell customers! - -“Ah, you realize, of course, Boon, that his Royal Highness's patronage -is worth many thousands to your firm. What?” - -The colonel's eyes, Mr. Boon thought, were cold and greedy, as befitted -a common grafter. Mr. Boon resented this, having himself been caught -red-handed getting something for nothing. If he had to pay a -commission--“We appreciate the honor, of course, Colonel Lowther,” he -said, deferentially--and non-committally. - -“Quite so! You ought to, considering how the newspapers will mention -your shop.” - -“I may suggest, Colonel Lowther, that our firm's reputation--” - -“I know its reputation. That's why I am here”--the colonel's voice -seemed colder than a Canadian cold spell--“but it is no better than your -competitors'--Goffony, Johnson & Pierce, or J. Storrs' Sons. I figured -that the duke's patronage should be worth thousands to Welch, Boon & -Shaw; so you must make me a special price.” - -“We have but one--” - -“I've heard all that, Boon,” the colonel interrupted, angrily. “If you -are going to talk like a bally ass I'll waste no more time here. Bring -in the pearls. I can't take over a half-hour to this.” - -Mr. Boon's hard sense and knowledge of advertising values triumphed over -his injured dignity. He excused himself, and presently returned with a -tray full of pearl necklaces. - -“I say, Boon, on second thought, you must not reduce your prices. It's a -bad principle.” - -“Yes, it is,” agreed Boon, cordially. - -“Therefore, my good fellow, name me one price--the lowest possible after -considering how much the duke's patronage is worth to your house. The -very lowest! Put it in plain figures on new price-tags. The duke is -accustomed to the prices across the pond, you know; so don't frighten -him. Now that one?” - -He picked up at once the most beautiful necklace--and also the most -valuable, though by no means the most showy. Mr. Boon's respect jumped. -He looked at the colonel, whose neck and head were twitching and -twisting violently. - -“This one--” he began. The colonel interrupted him: - -“Now, Boon, think carefully--the very lowest price,” he said, sternly. -“If you name a really reasonable figure I'll pledge you my word to -recommend its purchase and not visit the other shops. Take your time!” - -Thus placed on the rack, Mr. Boon figured and cut and restored and -reduced again until he was angry at the torturer and at the opportunity -for a glorious advertisement. Finally he said, vindictively: - -“This I'll sell for sixty-five thousand dollars!” Immediately he -regretted it. Perhaps he was overestimating the advertising value of the -Princess Patricia's beautiful neck to exhibit his pearls on. The price -was exactly thirty-five thousand dollars less than he had expected to -get for it during the next steel boom. - -“Oh, come now, I say,” remonstrated Colonel Lowther, impatiently. -“That's thirteen thousand pounds. It's too much, you know.” - -“Colonel Lowther,” said Boon, pale but determined, “I am losing -considerable money on this, which I am charging to advertising account -and may never get back. If the price is not satisfactory, I'm sorry; -and I can only suggest that you'd better go to the other firms you've -mentioned. They are all,” he finished quietly, “very good firms.” - -Colonel Lowther, who had not taken his keen eyes off the jeweler's face -during the speech, appeared impressed by Mr. Boon's earnestness. His -neck jerked spasmodically half a dozen times before he said: - -“I believe you. I'll take it. But first mark it--in pounds; thirteen -thousand pounds.” And he looked on, eagle-eyed, while Mr. Boon himself -wrote out a new price-tag. Evidently he would take no chances with -sleight-of-hand substitutions. “Put it here,” he said, “beside me.” - -It made Mr. Boon say, half angry, half amused: “We won't change it for -an imitation string. We are really a reputable firm, Colonel Lowther.” - -“Oh! Ah! Really, I--ah!” stammered the colonel, “I wasn't thinking of -such a thing!” He looked so absurdly guilty, however, that Mr. Boon -forgave him. “I think you'd better show me others--ah!--cheaper, you -know, in case the duke should not wish to go above ten thousand pounds. -Say, that one--and this!--and this!” - -He had selected the three next best; but Boon figured very closely and -in all instances named a price below cost: fifty-seven thousand five -hundred dollars, fifty thousand dollars, and forty-five thousand -dollars. - -“Put them here also with the first one,” said Colonel Lowther.. - -“Don't you wish us to put them in boxes?” asked Mr. Boon. - -“Ah--ah!--I say, bring the boxes in and I'll put them in. We'll do it -more quickly,” he finished, lamely. - -There flashed across Mr. Boon's mind the possibility of crookedness. -Colonel Lowther did not trust them--perhaps because he hoped to avert -suspicions by that same attitude of distrust! Mr. Boon determined to -watch closely. He asked a clerk to bring some cases for the necklaces. - -“You fix them, Boon,” said Colonel Lowther, who was watching the -jeweler's hands as children watch the hands of a prestidigitator. - -It actually eased Boon's mind to be taken for a crook. He arranged the -necklaces, each in its own Russia-leather case, and then gratefully -helped Colonel Lowther to select two dozen scarf-pins, amounting in -value to eighteen thousand dollars, a score of rings worth in all a -little over twenty-five thousand dollars, and a few lorgnette-chains -and other trinkets. Once all these were duly price-tagged, packed, and -placed beside the necklaces, Colonel Lowther, after a series of mild -cervical convulsions, said, calmly: - -“Now, Boon, you and I must settle a personal matter. You know, of -course, the royal party never pays cash.” - -“Then,” said the impetuous Mr. Boon, “the deal is off!” - -“Silly ass! The royal family of England always pays. You know very -well that the jewels bought by King George for gifts for his coronation -guests have not been paid for yet. It's all a matter of red tape. The -money is as safe as the Bank of England! Any banker here would be glad -to guarantee the account--only that would never do, of course. Now you -know I can't take any commission. I've made you give me the lowest -prices for the duke, haven't I? What?” - -“Yes, you have; and therefore I can't--” - -“If I were a bally Russian I'd have made you name a price twice the -usual figure and I'd have taken the difference as a commission. It's -what you Americans call graft, I believe. What?” - -“Of course,” said Boon, coldly, disgusted with the venal aristocracy, -“we'd never have done such a--” - -“Tut, tut! It's done everywhere; but not to me!” Colonel Lowther said, -so sternly that Mr. Boon considered himself accused of unnamed crimes. -He resented this, but, being unable to fix the exact accusation, -contented himself with remarking, diplomatically: - -“Of course not! But at the same time--” - -“Yes, yes,” rudely broke in the colonel, with a silencing wave of his -gloved hand. “Now I can myself pay you in cash for whatever the duke -buys--say, up to twenty thousand or twenty-five thousand pounds. For -advancing this money, which will not be paid to me for months, I ask -you to allow me a half-year's interest. That,” finished Colonel Lowther, -impressively, “is banking. What?” - -“At what rate?” - -“Oh, eight or ten per cent.” - -“Impossible!” - -“Then, Mr. Welch, Boon, or whatever your name is, I wish you a very good -morning!” - -“But we'll allow you interest at the rate of six per cent, a year.” - -“But I myself have to pay five for the use--ah!--that is--er--” - floundered the Englishman. Mr. Boon perceived instantly that the colonel -borrowed the money from Canadian bankers at five per cent, and got ten -per cent. It was not a bad scheme for high-class aristocratic graft! -Even a jeweler could philosophize about wilful self-delusion, the point -of view, custom, and so on. “Make it seven per cent. What?” - -Mr. Boon could not help admiring the persistency of the Englishman in -coating his graft-pills with the sugar of legitimacy. Doubtless the -colonel had really convinced himself this was not graft! - -“Very well,” said Mr. Boon, with a smile. “I'll take three and a half -per cent, off for cash.” - -“But we agreed on seven!” remonstrated the Englishman. - -“Well, three and a half per cent, of the whole is the same as six months -at seven per cent.” - -“Oh!” The colonel began to figure in his mind. His cervical contortions, -twitchings, and jerkings were painful to behold. Mr. Boon thought it was -a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. It would enable him to recognize the -colonel in a crowd of ten thousand. - -“Quite so! Yes--three and a half per cent, of the total bill. It will -be at least twenty thousand pounds--that's one hundred thousand dollars. -Not half bad! What?” - -“Do you mean your commission will be one hundred thousand dollars? I'm -delighted to hear it!” Mr. Boon was so pleased that he jested. He would -play up the royal patronage to the limit. - -“Oh no! I meant the total amount, you know,” corrected the colonel, -earnestly. He saw that Boon was smiling, and gradually it dawned on him -that the jeweler was an American humorist. “Oh! Ah! Yes! Very funny! -Quite so! I wish it were! How many millions would the bill have to be -for the cash discount to be twenty thousand pounds? What? -Right-O! Well, now bring the pearls and the other things to the motor. -I shall show them to his Royal Highness at once. I can let you know in a -half-hour which he will keep.” And he rose. - -“Ah!--er--Colonel, you know we don't like to--ah!--there's over two -hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, worth four hundred thousand -dollars in any other place in New York; and if anything happened--” - -“Nothing will happen,” said the colonel, with assurance. - -“And then, it will take a long time to prepare the memorandum of--” - -“Why do you need a memorandum?” inquired the colonel, coldly. He looked -as if he began to suspect that Mr. Boon distrusted a member of the suite -of his Royal Highness, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T., -K.P., P.C., G.M.B., G.3. S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., Duke of -Connaught and Stratheam, Earl of Sussex, Prince of Coburg and Gotha, -Governor-General of Canada, and potential customer of the world-renowned -firm of Welch, Boon & Shaw. - -Reading the emotions on the colonel's face and not desiring to offend, -but at the same time determined not to deliver two hundred thousand -dollars' worth of goods to a stranger, who might be the duke's -secretary, but might not be a reliable man financially, for all that, -Mr. Boon groped for an excuse. But Colonel Lowther pursued, frigidly: - -“Why should you need a memorandum if you yourself will bring the jewels? -Did you think I was a bally clerk to sell your jewels for you? You do -the talking--and don't change the prices!” - -So profoundly relieved as not to resent the last insult, Mr. Boon smiled -pleasantly and said, “I must take a man to carry them.” - -“Take a regiment if you wish; but there's room for only three in the -motor,” said the Englishman, his neck twitching and twisting and jerking -quite violently. Anger seemed to aggravate his nervous malady. Wherefore -Mr. Boon hastily gathered up the packages, put them into a jeweler's -strong valise, and followed the colonel, accompanied by Terry Donnelly, -the store's private policeman, who carried the precious satchel in one -hand, and in the other--in his overcoat pocket--an automatic pistol of -the latest model. - -One of the clerks must have told of the affair, for there was an eager -crowd on the sidewalk. They had heard that the Duke of Connaught's -secretary was in the store, buying diamonds. By the time it had passed -seven mouths it was the duke himself. Mr. Boon heard: “There he comes!” - and, “Is the princess with him?” and, “Which is the duke?” And he had -pleasant visions of free reading-notices and renewed popularity among -the ultra-fashionable. One of the traffic squad was trying to make the -crowd move on--in vain. - -The colonel good-naturedly forced his way through the mob to the motor, -followed by the jeweler and the store policeman, who saw on the door of -the limousine the letters “W. R.” And both of them concluded that this -stood for the well-known initials of the duke's host. - -A short woman, with red hair and a self-assertive bust, stared boldly at -the colonel and said, “He don't look like his pictures.” - -“Say, are you the duke?” asked a messenger-boy. - -However, the colonel merely said “Home!” and entered the motor, followed -by Mr. Boon and T. Donnelly. The store footman closed the door as if it -were made of priceless cut-glass. The traffic policeman touched his cap -and the motor went up the Avenue. - -The colonel picked up a newspaper from the seat and turned to Mr. Boon. - -“See!” he said, “our pictures. Your reporters are--ah!--very -enterprising and clever. But the photographers are worse!” He laughed -and went on: “The pictures don't look like me, d'ye think?” - -“I recognize the coat and the fur cap,” laughed Mr. Boon. - -“Oh, do you?” said the colonel, seriously. He looked at it and -said: “But it might be my other fur cap, you know. What?” He looked -challengingly at the jeweler. - -“It might be,” admitted Mr. Boon, diplomatically confessing his error. - -“Quite so!” said the owner of the fur cap, triumphantly. - -Mr. Boon, finding himself nearer the house of the duke's host, began to -feel more confident of putting through the epoch-making deal. It is not -often that a New York jeweler sells pearls to an uncle of the King of -England, to be used by the king's most beautiful cousin! He would have -the princess's photograph in his window. It should show the famous -necklace! - -The motor took its place last in the long string of automobiles and -carriages that were creeping toward the door of the house which his -Royal Highness was honoring. - -“Democracy meekly leaving its card at the house of royalty,” laughed the -colonel, pointing to the twoscore vehicles ahead of theirs. - -“Americans paying their respects to an Englishman who is honored even in -his own country,” said Mr. Boon. - -“Oh, now, I say, Boon, that's uncommonly neat, you know. What? But -perhaps we'd better get out and walk; otherwise it may be a half-hour -before--” - -A footman in livery came up to their motor, touched his hat with a -respect that entitled him to a bank president's wages, and said to the -colonel: - -“I beg pardon, sir, but 'is Royal 'ighness 'as gone to Mr. Walton's, -sir, at number 899 Fifth Avenue. I was hinstructed to tell you to go -there, sir.” - -“Tell the chauffeur where to go,” said the colonel, briefly. - -“Yes, sir--very good, sir.” The man touched his hat and told the -chauffeur. - -Their motor pulled out of the line and turned to the west. - -“Mr. Walton was at Eton with the duke,” explained the colonel to Mr. -Boon. - -“J. G. Walton?” asked Mr. Boon. - -“Yes.” - -“I didn't know he was educated in England,” said Mr. Boon in a tone that -implied he knew Mr. Walton well. - -“Didn't you?” said the colonel, more sharply than the occasion -warranted. - -“But then, we never discussed the subject,” apologized the jeweler. - -“Do you know the house?” - -“Yes. I've been in it several times. I understood Mr. Walton was in -Florida and had rented his residence for the winter.” - -“I don't know a bally thing about his private affairs,” said the -colonel, coldly; “but I do know the duke intended to visit him, and I've -been told to go there.” - -It occurred to the store detective that if the Englishman was rude to -Mr. Boon it was altogether likely the duke treated his private secretary -as a servant. It gave the detective pleasure to imagine this, for -whenever the colonel had looked at Mr. Donnelly it was with the casual -indifference with which men look at chairs or cobblestones. This made -T. Donnelly feel that he was not alive, and he disliked the aristocratic -undertaker. - -The motor turned into Fifth Avenue, sped northward, and halted before a -house. Mr. Boon recognized Mr. Walton's residence. - -The colonel alighted quickly and said “Come with me!” in the tone -foreigners use to menials, and didn't even turn his head to see if he -was followed, but walked up to the door and rang the bell. - -A man in livery opened the door. - -“I am Colonel Lowther!” - -“Yes, sir. His Royal Highness said you were to wait in the drawing-room -unless there was somebody with you; in which case you were to be taken -to him, sir.” - -“Come on!” said the colonel to Mr. Boon and the private policeman. The -footman preceded them to a door at the back of the foyer hall, opened -it, drew back heavy portières, and announced, solemnly: - -“Colonel Lowther!” - -The colonel entered. So did Mr. Boon and Donnelly. A man stood gazing -out of a window. His back was toward them. For the first time Mr. -Boon--so he said later--felt that something was wrong. Yet he made no -effort to protect himself. - -“Your Highness, here are the pearls.” - -The duke turned round. He had a kindly face, had white hair and -mustaches. - -“Let me have them!” said his Royal Highness, in the husky whisper of a -man suffering from acute laryngitis or partial paralysis of the vocal -cords. - -“I know that voice!” shouted Donnelly, and the jeweler knew he might -fear the worst; but, before they could put their hands in their pockets -for their revolvers, strong fingers took strangle-holds on their -throats, a spray of ammonia had been squirted into their nostrils and -eyes, and they were helpless. In a jiffy their wrists were handcuffed -behind their backs, their feet were fastened with leg-irons, their -mouths pried open with a bowie-knife blade that made them cease -struggling. Pear-gags were inserted into their mouths. Donnelly squirmed -and carried on like a frightened child--but at the same time kept -unfrightened eyes on the duke. Not so Boon, who was as pale as ivory. - -The duke turned his back on his captives and put on a black cloth mask, -but the watchful Donnelly noticed that he put into his pocket what -looked like false mustaches. He also donned a pair of black gloves, but -not before the policeman had seen a long, white scar, beginning at the -knuckles and disappearing up the wrist into the cuff. Donnelly recalled -having heard or read a description of a professional crook that tallied -with what he had seen. It would make the work of capture easier. - -The masked duke picked up the precious valise and said, “Take them to -the others.” - -The four men who had nearly strangled the jeweler and the policeman were -dressed in overalls and jumpers, had on black masks, and wore gloves. -They carried the helpless victims into what seemed to be the servants' -dining-room. - -Propped up in high-backed chairs, Mr. Jesse L. Boon, of Welch, Boon -& Shaw, saw Mr. Wilfred Gaylord, president of Goffony's, Mr. Percival -Pierce, of Johnson & Pierce, Mr. J. Sumner Storrs, of J. Storrs' Sons, -and five of their clerks. Beside Mr. Pierce was an empty chair. Mr. Boon -was placed on it. The detective was dumped on one near Goffony's clerk. - -“Tie 'em in couples,” whispered the duke. Each man was tied to the back -of his chair--and the chairs themselves were tied back to back. - -“That,” explained the colonel, “will prevent you from hurting yourselves -by toppling over in regrettable efforts to reach the door. We wish no -harm to befall you. What?” - -The masked men in overalls left the room like perfectly trained -servants. - -“You are a damned fool!” whispered the duke, angrily. - -“Why?” amiably asked the Englishman. - -“The only people that don't talk are those that can't.” - -“I know--but murder will out! Never knew it to fail. We have--ah!--you -might say--ah!--borrowed a few trinkets from these gentlemen. They may -get them back, possibly; but you can't ever bring back the breath of -life if you decapitate them. What?” - -“I tell you I will not leave them here to blab!” hissed the duke; -and Boon could not help thinking of the anger of a rattlesnake with -laryngitis. “A slight nick in the jugular and they'll bleed away -painlessly. Just before the end they will begin to dream. By------, I'll -do it! Right now!” - -The duke pulled out a barber's razor, opened it, and approached Boon. - -Something about his manner told the jeweler that this creature was about -to cut their throats as much for the pleasure of it as because of -the supposed safety. It was confirmed when the masked fiend wheezed, -malignantly: - -“It's sterilized!” - -Mr. Boon was suddenly conscious of an extreme cold, as if he had been -thrown naked into an ice-cave. On Pierce's face, grown gray, the sweat -stood in a microscopic dew. Gaylord's florid face was livid and tense; -J. Sumner Storrs had closed his eyes and seemed asleep, but the breath -whistled unpleasantly through his nostrils. - -“Stop!” said the colonel so sharply that the duke turned like a -flash--to look into the barrel of a blue-steel automatic. - -“Drop the razor, old chap! I can't let you kill the beggars in cold -blood. Upon my soul, I can't, you know!” His head was jerking and -twisting at a furious rate, but the revolver was as steady as a rock. - -“It's our only chance. It won't hurt them. They won't feel it any more -than a feather--it's so sharp,” whispered the black-masked devil. - -“Drop it, I say!” said the colonel, peremptorily. They heard a gritting -of teeth from behind the mask as the duke closed the razor and dropped -it on the floor. Still covering his accomplice, the colonel put his foot -on the weapon. “Thanks, old chap!” he said, pleasantly. At that very -moment he could have capitalized the gratitude of the ten prisoners at -many thousands. - -“Fool!” came in a husky whisper. - -“Oh, now! I say!” - -“What's the difference between twenty years in the pen and twenty -seconds in the electric chair? I myself prefer the chair. But I'd rather -cut their throats and keep out of danger. I tell you, it's tempting -Providence to leave these men--” - -“Is it as much as twenty years, old fellow?” queried the colonel, -obviously perturbed. - -The duke nodded. - -“I say, gentlemen, I don't want to stay twenty years indoors, you know. -Really, it's not a pleasant thought. What? If I give you your lives you -must not take away my liberty. So I will go out now and leave you here -with my friend, unless you promise not to tell the police anything that -will serve as a clue and yourselves do nothing to harm us. If you -will act like gentlemen I'll undertake to prevent my friend here from -severing your respective jugulars. Nod for 'Yes' and shake your heads -for 'No.' Promise not to talk?” - -Ten heads nodded vehemently. - -“Come, old chap; you must take their words. Gentlemen, you will be -released this evening without fail. We must have time to leave New York. -Avoid the reporters as you would the plague. It would not be wise to -publish the facts! Think of it--the heads of the great firms! In parting -from you, gentlemen, I wish to thank you in behalf of the Plunder -Recovery Syndicate, to the success of whose operations you have in this -instance so generously contributed. Gratitude surely is not incompatible -with business methods. Gentleman, again I say, Thank you kindly, and-- -why not?--_au revoir!_” - -And that was the last the captives saw of the man who, on behalf of -the Plunder Recovery Syndicate, had reduced the holdings of pearls and -trinkets of New York's most famous jewelers by a trifle over one million -dollars' worth. - -It was nearly closing-time--midnight--that night when two men entered P. -T. Ayres's corner drugstore. One of them wore a fur overcoat and a silk -hat. The other was dressed in black, had a mourning-band about his hat, -and wore black gloves. He carried a bag on which the sleepy lady cashier -saw the “L” and the cabin tags of a transatlantic line. The man in black -said to her: - -“May this gentleman telephone for me, miss? My throat is in pretty bad -shape, and I don't want to use it.” - -It was in bad shape, indeed. She could hardly hear him. - -“But, I say, dear chap--” remonstrated the fur-coated man, whose collar -was so tight that he wiggled his head violently as if in search of -comfort. - -“This is as good a place as any,” whispered the man in black, -impatiently. “Call 'em up! I say, miss, have you got any slippery elm or -some kind of troches good for laryngitis?” - -She remembered afterward that when she said she would call the -proprietor he kept her from it by engaging her in conversation, which -likewise prevented her from trying to hear what his companion was -saying. - -The fur-coated man had called up Spring 3100, which is police -headquarters. - -“Are you there? I say, are you there? Yes, I know this is not London. -You know Mr. Pierce and Mr. Storrs and Mr. Boon and Mr. Gaylord? Well, -tell your men they are in a residence on Fifth Avenue, in the servants' -dining-room. It's Colonel Walton's house. Right-O! That's not your -business. Go to the devil!” He came out of the booth with an angry face. -“Confound their impudence! Where is my friend?” - -“He's gone,” said the cashier. “Here--come back and pay for that call; -five cents!” - -The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of -the whereabouts of the missing jewelers--for whom the star men had been -searching six hours diligently and secretly--and then tried, through the -telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which -the “tip” had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason -Ayres's drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his -ignorance had disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. -The detectives said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and -their construction. - -The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the -jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because -it was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As -a matter of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the -miscreants shortly--for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth -Avenue? - -The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their -lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and -the fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the -back of his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. -The Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated -with the _Ruritania_ by wireless, and asked the purser if among the -passengers were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years -of age, with paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute -laryngitis, and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a -nervous affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. -Within twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: “St. Vitus -here, under name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis.” - -So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted -with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of -Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's -clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J. -Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request -than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas -W. Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of -introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The -New York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they -were on the right trail. - -Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the -American Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering -Willie, who had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris -police reported that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the -scar on his hand vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew -normal when questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story -of having been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask -in a whisper for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office -on February 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer -bade him good-by on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his -hand and told him always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the -description of Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police -found that the whisperer's trail led a second time to the _Herald_ -office. The clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very -well indeed. Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the -police they had rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. -J. C. Atkinson, an Englishman who had given as references a firm of -international bankers on whom his letter of credit for five thousand -pounds was drawn. The bankers knew nothing about him personally or -socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the entire five thousand pounds. He had -occupied the house two months, paid his rent promptly, and had given -a satisfactory deposit against possible damage happening to any of the -furniture. - -The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues -that merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the -paralyzed vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling -himself W. W. Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. -Longworth, alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman -was not known to any member of the New York police force, but -fortunately he had a nervous affliction which would betray him without -recourse to the third degree. - -Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from -New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, -and Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, -typewritten on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton: - -_Having disposed of the pearls of the Princess Patricia at a price only -eight per cent, below that at which you offered them to H. R. H. the -Duke of Connaught, we beg to suggest that it is a waste of money for you -to encourage the detectives and downright dishonesty for the detectives -to encourage you. You have caused to be arrested unfortunate men -suffering from chorea in Liverpool, Bremen, Genoa, Buenos Ayres, and -Panama, as well as Mr. W. W. Lowry in Paris and W. W. Longman in the -City of Mexico. For the last eleven months Whispering Willie has been -in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he is Number 317. Our Colonel -Lowther has not St. Vitus's dance, is not an Englishman, and has not -left New York! The Duke of Connaught, otherwise W. W. Lovell, of the -Acme Vibrator Company, has a fine, strong barytone voice, has no scar on -the back of his right hand, is too young to have gray hair, and his nose -is not what it was when he was known as Mr. Lovell. We needed time to -move about unwatched in New York, hence the elaborate false clues. We -always plan our deals carefully and we are uniformly successful. We may -inform you, in selfdefense, that we operate only on the rich enemies -of society. Pearls and diamonds have ruined as many women as drink has -ruined men or Wall Street has destroyed souls! We regard them as plunder -to be recovered. You may be interested to know that we propose to -induce one of our most famous high financiers to contribute a couple of -millions to our surplus this month. At the proper time we shall supply -the name and the particulars, in order that you may compare notes with -the other patrons of_ - -_Yours truly,_ - -_The Plunderers._ - -The jewelers were inclined to regard the letter as a jest in very bad -taste perpetrated by one of their number. But all denied it, and the -communication was turned over to the police. The detective sergeant who -was in charge of the case also thought the letter was a joke--until -Mr. Boon told him he didn't see anything funny in the loss of a million -dollars' worth of gems and a score of false arrests. He wondered, like -the rest, whether there really was a syndicate, and presently found -himself waiting for the news of the second exploit. “He fooled _me_” - Boon confided to Donnelly. But what he really meant was that the man who -impersonated the private secretary of the Duke of Connaught could fool -anybody. - - - - -II-THE PANIC OF THE LION - - - -I - -A MAN walked into the office of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and -brokers, members of the New York Stock Exchange. All he could see was -a ground-glass partition, with little windows only a trifle larger than -peepholes, over which he read, “deliveries,” “comparisons,” “telegrams,” - and “cashier.” If you had business to transact you knew at which window -to knock. If you had not you should not disturb the unseen clerks by -asking questions that took valuable time to answer. It was a typical, -non-communicative, non-confiding Wall Street office. - -The man approached the “cashier” window because it was open. He was -tall and well built, with unmyopic eyes that looked through -tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses. The brim of his high hat, the cut of his -coat, the hang of his trousers, the hue of his necktie and the gray, -waxed, needle-pointed mustaches proclaimed him unmistakably Parisian. - -“I wish to see Mr. Richards,” he said, in a nasal voice, so like the -twang of a stage Yankee that the cashier frowned and twisted his neck to -see if some down-easter were not hiding behind the Frenchman. - -“You what?” asked the cashier, and looked watchful. - -“I wish to see,” repeated the stranger, with a formal precision meant, -to be rebuking, “Mr. George B. Richards, senior member, I believe, of -this firm.” - -The cashier, with a frown that belied the courtesy of his words, said: - -“Would you be kind enough to tell me the nature of your business, sir?” - -Gourley, the cashier, insanely hated book agents, and his one pleasure -in life consisted of violently ejecting them from the office. When a man -clearly established his innocence Gourley never forgave him for cheating -him out of the kicking. - -The stranger said, very slowly: - -“The nature of my business with Mr. Richards is private, personal, and -urgent!” - -The stranger might, be a customer, and customers make brokers rich and -give wages to cashiers. - -“Mr. Richards is very busy just now, sir, with an important conference. -It would be a favor if you could let me have your name.” - -“He doesn't know me and he has never heard my name.” - -“Would any one else do?” - -The stranger shook his head. Then: - -“Say to Mr. Richards that a gentleman from Paris wishes to give to -him--personally--ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one -life secret.” The man's gaze was fixed frowningly on Gourley. - -“Ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret!” - repeated Gourley, dazedly. “Here, Otto. Hold the fort. I'll go myself.” - -The cashier's place was promptly occupied by a moon-faced Teuton. -Presently Gourley, whose misanthropy had in this instance merely made -an office-boy of him, returned to the window and said, in the insolent -tones of a puglistic _agent provocateur_: - -“He says to send in the letters of introduction.” - -“My friend,” said the stranger, so impressively that the cashier was -made uneasy, “are you sure Mr. Richards said that?” - -“Well--ah--he said,” stammered Gourley, “to ask you--er--would you -please send in the letters. He will read them, and as soon as possible -he will--ah--see you.” - -“H'm!” muttered the stranger, skeptically. Then, as a man rids himself -of angry thoughts, he shook his head and, without another word, went -out. - -“Ha! I knew it all along,” said Gourley, triumphantly, to his assistant, -Otto. “It beats the Dutch what schemes these damned book agents get up -to see people during business hours. But I called his bluff that time!” - -Less than ten minutes later the French-looking man with the down-east -voice opened the door, tapped at the cashier's window, and told Gourley, -sternly: - -“Here are the ten letters and the one card. They are very important! -I'll be obliged, sir, if you will yourself give them into Mr. Richards's -own hands. The life secret I, of course, will impart to him myself. Make -haste, please. I have only five business days and three hours left.” - -Gourley laid the letters on Mr. Richards's desk and said, in the -accusing tone old employees use when they are in the wrong: “Here are -the letters of introduction from the book agent I spoke to you about. He -acts damned impudent to me, but I didn't want to make any mistake.” - -Richards, a man of fifty, fastidiously dressed, but relieved from even -the implication of foppishness by a look in his eyes at once shrewd and -humorous, said, with a smile, “Well, he certainly has enough letters to -be anything, even a rich man.” - -“Funny letters of introduction,” said the cashier--“all sealed and--” - His jaw dropped. That made him cease talking. - -Mr. Richards had taken from the first envelope not a letter, but a -ten-thousand-dollar gold certificate! - -The cashier closed his mouth with a click. “What the--!” he muttered. - -“Next!” said George B. Richards, cheerfully. He opened envelope number -two and pulled out another ten-thousand-dollar bill. One after another -he opened the letters until he had laid in a neat pile on his desk ten -ten-thousand-dollar notes. - -“The letters of introduction are from the Treasury Department,” said -Richards, laughing. “Now let us see whom the card is from.” - -“I don't care whom the card is from. I know the man is crazy,” - said Gourley, in the defiant tone of one who expects not logic, but -contradiction. “It is as plain as the nose on your face.” - -“Maybe they are counterfeit,” teased Richards; he knew they were not. - -The cashier snatched one from the desk, looked at the vignette of -Jackson, and examined the back. “It's good,” he said, gloomily. - -Richards opened the eleventh envelope and took out a card. - -“From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet,” he told Gourley, and read -aloud: - -_Dear George,--The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France, a -friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some -highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you. -Deal with him as you do with_ - -_Yours,_ - -_Amos F. Kidder._ - -“Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've -signed the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. -Those fellows,” said the cashier, indignantly, “will do anything to get -your money.” - -“You forget I've got his,” suggested Richards. - -“That's a new one on me, I admit,” said the cashier; “but I'll bet a -ten-spot--” - -“I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if -Kidder should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him.” - -The waxed-mustached man, preceded by Otto, the moon-faced clerk, entered -the private office of Mr. George B. Richards, who rose and smiled -pleasantly even as his keen eyes quickly inventoried Mr. Robison. - -“Mr. Richards?” twanged the stranger. That Yankee voice issuing from -between those unmistakably French mustaches made Richards start; and yet -the vague atmosphere of disquietude and suspicion that the ten letters -of introduction had created seemed to be dispelled by the man's Yankee -twang. It was so genuinely down-east that it humanized Mr. Robison and -made his eccentricity less eccentric. Also, the eyes gleamed not with -the fire of insanity, but with a great earnestness. - -“Yes. And this is Mr. Robison?” - -“Yes, sir!” Mr. Robison bowed very low, like a man who has lived abroad -many years. - -“Won't you be seated, sir?” - -“Thank you, sir.” There was another bow of gratitude, and Mr. Robison -sat down by Richards's flat-topped desk. - -“What can we do for you, Mr. Robison?” asked Richards, amiably polite. -His course of action would be determined by the stranger's own words. - -“You can help me if you will.” Mr. Robison spoke very earnestly, after -the manner of strong, self-reliant men when they ask for favors. - -“We shall be glad to if you will tell me how.” - -“By being patient. That's how.” - -Richards laughed uncertainly. Mr. Robison held up a hand as if to check -unseemly merriment and said, very seriously: - -“I have lived alone too long to be politic or diplomatic or evasive. I -wish to ask you a question.” - -“Ask ahead,” said Richards, with an encouraging recklessness. - -“Tell me, Mr. Richards--what is the most difficult thing in the world?” - -Mr. Robison was looking intently at the broker's face, as if he -particularly desired to detect any change in expression. This intentness -disconcerted Richards, who had at first intended to answer jocularly. He -now said, distinctly apologetic: - -“There are so many very difficult things!” - -“Yes, there are--a great many indeed. But of all things, which is by far -the most difficult?” His eyes held Richards's. - -“I shall have to think a little before I can answer that question.” - -“Take all the time you wish!” and Mr. Robison leaned back in his chair, -his attitude somehow suggesting a Gibraltar-like ability to withstand a -three years' siege. - -It made Richards do much thinking very quickly: Here was a man who was -not crazy; who had lying on the desk a hundred thousand dollars in cash -to which he had not even casually referred; who probably intended to do -business that would prove a source of profit to the firm of Richards & -Tuttle. He might be a crank or a crook, but against either contingency -the firm could and would protect itself. It was just as well to humor -this man until he proved himself unworthy of humoring. The problem of -the moment, therefore, became how to raise the siege politely. - -“I suppose,” began Richards, trying to look philosophical, “that telling -the truth always and every-, where is about as difficult a thing as--” - -“It isn't a question,” interrupted Robison, with a polite regret, “of as -difficult a thing as any, but of the most difficult of all!” - -“I am afraid I'll have to ask you to tell me what you consider the most -difficult thing in the world.” - -Brokers have to earn their money in more complicated ways than by -shouting “Sold!” or “Take it!” on the floor of the Stock Exchange. They -have to listen to potential customers. - -“The most difficult thing in the world, Mr. George B. Richards, is for -a man to give money--in cash--to a woman who is not his wife or his -mistress or a blood-relation or a pauper!” - -“That _is_ difficult!” acquiesced the broker. - -“It is what I have to do. That is why I am here.” - -“You mean you wish us to give this money--” - -“No--no! How can you, pray, give money to a lady any better than I?” - -“I wondered,” said Richards, patiently. He was beginning to fear that -Robison might be one of those mysterious people out of whom no money is -to be made. - -“Would you mind hearing my story?” Mr. Robison looked at Richards -pleadingly. - -“Not at all,” politely lied the broker. - -“There is a lady in New York--to be explicit, an old sweetheart--” Mr. -Robison paused, bit his lip, looked away, bit his lip again and cleared -his throat loudly. He did all these things so untheatrically that they -thrilled the keen-eyed Wall Street man. Presently Mr. Robison went on -in that Yankee nasal voice of his that somehow sounded like the extreme -antithesis of sentiment: “The only woman I ever loved! I have never -married! She did--unfortunately; and now, this girl, this woman, -accustomed to every comfort and every refinement, has to earn her own -living! She has five children and she is earning her living!” He rose -and walked up and down the office like a caged wild animal. Then he -sat down again and said, determinedly, “Of course I simply have to do -something for her!” - -“I appreciate your position,” said Richards, tenderly. He was a very -good stock-broker. - -“Thank you. You cannot imagine what she was to me! I came to America to -find her. I have found her. I wish to give her money or securities that -will insure a comfortable income, and I have to do it circuitously. I'd -give half a million to anybody who killed her damned husband! Yes, I -would!” He looked at Richards with a wild hope in his eyes. He calmed -himself with an obvious effort and proceeded: “Knowing her as I do, and -because of--of certain circumstances of our early affair, I know she -will never accept any help directly from me. Last night I was calling -on her. Other friends of hers were present, among them a man who called -himself a lawyer. His name is W. Bailey Jackson. Know him?” - -“No, I don't. I think I've heard of him, though.” Richards lied from -sheer force of professional habit. - -“Well, I led the conversation round to Wall Street and incidentally said -I didn't know which was easier for a man, to be a fool or to make money -in the stock-market. I, myself, I hastened to add, had always found -folly extremely easy--but successful stock speculation infinitely -easier. That, I may remark to you in passing, sir, is gospel truth.” - -“You are right,” agreed Richards, heartily. It did not behoove a -stock-broker to point out the difficulty of making money in Wall Street. -Moreover, Mr. Robison showed so quiet a confidence that Richards had -lightning flashes of memory, and recollected every story he had ever -heard about queer characters who had taken millions out of the Street. - -“This Mr. W. Bailey Jackson jeered and sneered, however, until I said I -would bet him fifty dollars to fifty cents that I could double a sum -of money in the Street in one week, in a reputable broker's office, -operating on the New York Stock Exchange in a reputable and active -stock--no bucket-shop, no mining-stock, and no pool manipulation. But -I made this point: The trick was so easy that it was not interesting. -I didn't wish to do it to make money, but if Mrs.--if my friend would -accept the profits, I would prove that I knew what I was talking about; -and, besides, would keep the children in candy for a month. And, of -course, everybody laughed and urged her to consent--especially the -Jackson person. In the end she gave in, doubtless thinking I'd win a few -dollars--if I won at all. Also my offer was accepted in the presence and -by the advice of men and women who could stop Mrs. Grundy's mouth.” - -“Very clever!” said Richards, with the enthusiasm of a man who sees -commissions coming his way. - -“It was love that made me so ingenious,” explained. Mr. Robison, very -simply. “I've got her written acceptance in my pocket as well as that -damned W. Bailey Jackson's bet, duly witnessed by the two gossipiest -women there. And in this envelope you will find instructions for your -guidance in case of my sudden death. So I now wish to double the money.” - -He looked inquiringly at Richards, who thereupon felt the pangs of -disappointment. Neither crank nor crook, decided the broker, but simply -_Suckerius Americanus; genus_ D. F. - -Mr. Robison evidently was going to ask Richards & Tuttle to take the -one hundred thousand dollars and double it for him, which meant that Mr. -Richards would have to inform Mr. Robison that the firm was not in the -miracle business; and that would make Mr. Robison go away mad. Total--no -commissions! - -“Well,” Richards said, just a trifle coldly, “did you come to us to ask -us to double your money for you?” - -“No, indeed,” answered Robison; “I came here to do it.” - -“When?” - -“In one week--or, rather, in five days and two hours.” - -“How are you going to do it?” The broker's curiosity was not feigned. - -“I propose to study the Menagerie.” - -Richards said nothing, but looked “Lunatic!” - -“That way inevitably suggests the combinations to you.” Mr. Robison -nodded to himself. - -Richards, to be on the safe side, did likewise and muttered, absently, -“That's so!” - -“Do you care to come with me?” asked Mr. Robison, with a politeness that -betrayed effort. “Thank you, no. I am very busy, and--” - -“And you didn't cut me short!” said Robison, his voice ringing with -remorse. “I'll come in tomorrow morning. Good afternoon--and please -forgive my theft of your time, Mr. Richards.” - -“One moment. Do you wish this money--” - -“I'll get the receipt to-morrow. I am going to see Kidder now. I didn't -mean to take up so much of your time.” And before the banker could stop -him Mr. James B. Robison was out of the inner office and out of the -outer office and out of the building and out of the financial district. - -Shortly afterward Amos F. Kidder, financial editor of the _Evening -Planet_, west into Richards's office. He was thirty-five years old, a -trifle under six feet, had light-brown hair and the eyes of a man who -is a cynic by force of experience and an optimist by reason of a perfect -liver--the kind of man who is fooled by strangers never and by intimate -friends always. If what he had seen of Wall Street gave him a low -opinion of men's motives he had the defect of steadfast loyalty. Having -imagination and a profound respect for statistics, he wrote what might -be called skilful articles on finance. - -“Your friend Robison was here to-day. What do you know about him?” asked -Richards. He would not take a stranger's account, but he did not relish -losing an account he already had. - -Kidder took a letter from his pocket, gave it to the stock-broker, and -said: - -“Smiley gave him a letter to me and in addition sent me that one by -mail.” - -Richards read: - -The New York Planet, 5 Rue de Provence. - -Paris, February 18, 1912. - -_Dear Kidder,--I've given a letter of introduction to a Mr. James B. -Robison, who comes originally from some manufacturing town in -Massachusetts, like Lynn or Lowell--I've forgotten which. He is well -liked by the colony here and, I am told, has been kind to poor art -students and other self-deluded compatriots. He is queer; is suspected -of being rich--which he must be because he never borrows, lives well, -and says moneymaking is too easy to merit discussion when men can -discuss the eternal feminine or the revival of cosmetics. His trip to -New York is prompted, he tells me, by the receipt of a letter from an -old flame of his whom he warned against marrying her present husband. -She would not listen to Robison, accused him in choice Bostonian of -being a short sport, and now after long years she writes him, asking for -forgiveness, being at last convinced that her husband is all that -Robison said--and then some. He is off to try to find her; she is -somewhere in New York. Put him in touch with some private detective who -won't rob him too ruthlessly._ - -_I don't think he'll want to borrow money, as I know he is taking a -letter of credit on Towne, Ripley & Co. for fifty thousand pounds; and -they told me at his bankers'--Madison & Co.--that he owns slathers of -gilt-edged bonds and that they cash the coupons for him. They also tell -me he carries more cash about him than is prudent. You might suggest -to him that the New York banks are safe enough. You'll find him a -character--odd but charitable. Knowing your fondness for fiction in real -life I commend Mr. Robison to you. Regards to the boys. Why don't you -make a million and come over to spend it in the company of Yours as -ever,_ - -Lurton P. Smiley. - -Richards handed the letter back. “He came here with ten -ten-thousand-dollar gold certificates.” - -“Yes; he got 'em from Towne, Ripley & Co. I went with him. They had -instructions to pay any amount he might call for, and they did. He asked -for large bills.” - -“He got 'em!” said Richards, greatly relieved at seeing no necessity why -he should refuse Robison's account. - -“What's he going to do?” asked Kidder. - -“I don't know. He told me he had found his old sweetheart and that he is -going to give her all he makes in Wall Street. He expects to double the -one hundred thousand dollars in a week.” - -“For Heaven's sake, George, find out his secret! Half a million will do -for me,” laughed Kidder. - -“He gave me an envelope,” said Richards, taking it from his desk. On it -was written: - - -PROPERTY OF JAMES B. ROBISON - -To be Opened by Richards & Tuttle In Case of Sudden Death - - -“What do you think?” asked Richards. - -“You really mean do I advise you to open it, don't you?” asked Kidder.. - -“Not exactly; but--” - -“Of course,” said the newspaper man, “it does not say it is _not_ to -be opened in case of _living_. That is sufficient excuse--that and your -curiosity.” - -“I don't like to open it,” said Richards, doubtfully. - -“Don't!” - -“Still, I'd like to know what's inside.” - -“Then open it.” - -“I don't think I have a right to.” - -“Don't, then!” - -“Oh, shut up! I won't open it! I don't know whether to take the account. -You don't know anything about this man--” - -“You broker fellows make me tired--posing as careful business men. All -Robison has to do is to go to any of your branch offices or anybody's -branch office, say his name is W. Jones and that he keeps a cigar-store -in Hackensack or Flatbush, and your branch manager will never let him -get away. And afore-mentioned manager will swear, if you should be -so mean as to ask who W. Jones is, that he and W. J. went to school -together--known him for years!” - -“After all,” said Richards, a trifle defiantly, “there is no reason why -I shouldn't do business for Robison that you know of?” - -“Not that I know of--but if he buncoes you out of a big wad don't blame -me.” - -“He is welcome to anything he can make out of us,” smiled Richards, -grimly, and Kidder laughed so heartily that the broker looked pleased -with himself and his witticism. He rang for the cashier, gave him the -one hundred thousand dollars, and had the amount credited to James B. -Robison, address unknown. - - - -II - -After leaving the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. James B. Robison -went to the Subway station at Wall Street, rode up-town as far as -Forty-second Street, walked to Sixth Avenue, took a surface car, jumped -off at Forty-eighth, walked to Forty-ninth, waited there for the next -car, and, being certain he was not shadowed, rode on to Fifty-sixth -Street. He got off, walked north on the avenue and, half-way up the -block, paused at the entrance of the employment agency of “_Jno. -Sniffens, Established 1858_.” On the big slate by the door he read that -there was wanted a coachman--careful driver; elderly man preferred. - -He walked up-stairs one flight and accosted the agent. - -“Good morning, Sniffens.” - -“Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” answered Sniffens, son of the original -Jno., very obsequiously. - -“Are they here?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“How many?” - -“Seven.” - -“I've seen fifty-six so far--haven't I?” - -“No, sir,” contradicted Sniffens with the air of a man who will tell the -truth even if death should resuit. “Fifty-five. You forget you saw the -Swede twice.” - -“That is true, Sniffens. You are an honest man! Here!” And he gave ten -dollars to the agent. “Send in the men.” - -He sat down in the inner office and Sniffens went out, presently to -return with an elderly man. “This is Wilkinson--worked twenty-nine -years--” - -“Sorry. Won't do. Here, my man! Take this two-dollar bill for your -trouble. Next!” - -Much the same thing happened with the next four applicants. The fifth -man, however, made Robison listen patiently while Sniffens finished his -elaborately biographical introduction. The man's name was Thomas Gray; -age fifty-eight; worked twelve years for General James Morris and -fourteen for Stuyvesant R. Morris. Very careful. Excellent references. -Morris family went abroad to live. Gray had not done anything for five -years, but was willing and anxious to work. - -Robison, who had been studying Gray keenly, said sharply, and not at all -nasally: - -“Height and weight?” - -“Five foot eleven and a half inches; one hundred and seventy pounds, -sir.” - -“Deaf?” - -“No, sir.” - -“No?” - -“No, sir; but I don't hear as well as I did.” - -“Can you hear this?” And Robison whispered, “Constantinople!” - -“Beg pardon, sir!” Gray looked at Mr. Robison's face intently, but -Robison shook his head and said: - -“No fair looking! That isn't hearing, but lipreading. Close your eyes -and listen!” And he whispered, “Bab-el-Mandeb!” No one could have heard -him three feet away and Gray was across the room. Robison raised his -voice and said, “Did you hear that?” - -There showed in Gray's blue eyes a pathetic struggle between telling the -truth and getting the job. “I--I only heard a faint murmur, sir.” - -“Try again. Listen!” Mr. Robison moved his lips soundlessly and asked, -“What did I say, Gray?” The old man drew in a deep breath. It was not so -much the money, for the Morris family gave him a pension; but he wished -to feel that he was not yet useless, that he was still worth his keep. -However, he shook his head and said, determinedly: - -“I heard nothing.” - -“Open your eyes! You get the job, Gray,” said Mr. Robison. “Come here!” - -As Gray approached his new employer Sniffens left the room. - -“You are not to tell any one for whom you are working, or where, or why, -or for how long, or for what wages. There will be no night work. Are you -very careful?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“You'll have to take some children to school every day--poor children to -a public school in the morning. You are not to ask their names. Do what -you are told, no matter how queer it seems to you, so long as you are -not asked to break the law of the land or the rules of the road.” - -“Very good, sir.” - -“I shall send people to ask you questions, and I warn you that I'm going -to put you to various tests. I want a man who is honest enough to trust -with valuables, wise enough to mind his own business, and faithful -enough to do what his employer tells him.” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Until you prove you are the man I want you will be paid by the -day--five dollars. You will feed yourself and sleep home. I supply -the livery and a second man. If after one month's trial you are found -satisfactory you will get your wages by the month. It's big wages, but I -want an honest man!” He looked at Gray sternly. - -“Yes, sir. I'm careful and honest, sir. I think you will find that to be -true, sir.” - -“I trust so. The stable is on Thirty-first Street, near Avenue B. Here -is the number.” He gave a card to Gray. “Be there at eight sharp. You -will drive a coupé; quiet horse; New York City.” - -“Yes, sir. I'll be there, sir.” - -“Here's five dollars for you. You don't have to pay any fee to Sniffens. -I've paid him.” - -“Thank you, sir. Good day, sir.” - -At seven-thirty the next morning Gray was at the stable. It was not -a very good-looking place. He rang the bell, feeling vaguely -uncomfortable. No one answered. He rang a second and a third time, and -still there was no answer. He listened, his ear close to the door. He -heard the muffled sound of a horse pounding in a well-littered stall. - -At eight o'clock--Gray heard a clock within chime the hour--the door -opened. Gray entered. A man was hitching up a dark bay horse to a coupé. -Mr. Robison was sitting in a sumptuous green-plush armchair in the -carriage-room. Behind him, on a mahogany table, was a small valise, -opened. - -“Good morning, Gray,” said Robison. - -“Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” said Gray, respectfully. - -Robison took a clean white-linen handkerchief from his pocket and said: - -“See that brick over there?” He pointed to a common red brick on a -little shelf near the street door. - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Well, wrap it up in this handkerchief--here on this table. No--don't -dust it. Just as it is!” He watched Gray's face keenly. The old man's -countenance remained English and impassive. - -“Put it in the valise.” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“In yonder box you'll find some tenpenny nails. Fetch three and wrap -them up in the sheet of paper you'll find in the valise. Then lay them -on top of the brick.” - -Gray did as he was bid. If he thought his employer was crazy he did not -look it. - -Robison then took from his pocket a sealed envelope, threw it into the -valise, and closed the valise. - -“You will find your livery in the dressing-room--door to your left. Put -it on. Then drive so as to be before 197 West Thirty-eighth Street at -exactly nine minutes after nine. Compare your watch with that clock. -Wait there--Thirty-eighth Street--until a footman in dark-green livery -comes out alone. If he asks you, 'James, did Ben win?' you will say -to him, 'The answer is inside. Take it!' You will then return to this -stable, fasten the horse to that chain, put on your street clothes, go -home, and return to-morrow at eight sharp. But--” He paused. - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Pay attention, Gray! If, instead of the servant alone, the servant -comes out of, 197 West Thirty-eighth Street accompanied by a gentleman -who gets in, you will drive him to my office.” - -“Where, sir?” - -“This is my office--here. You will drive back here quickly and disregard -everything your passenger may say or whatever orders he may give you. -You understand? These are your orders that I now give you. They are not -to be changed under any circumstances, no matter what happens. Have you -understood?” - -“Yes, sir. I'll follow orders, Mr. Maynard.” - -“See that you do.” And Mr. Robison walked out of the stable. - -At nine-nine sharp Gray stood in front of 197 West Thirty-eighth Street. -At nine-fifteen a footman in dark-green livery came out of the house. -He was followed by Mr. Robison himself. The man opened the door of the -carriage and Gray's employer got in. - -“Will you go to the office, sir?” asked the footman. Gray heard him. - -“No! Metropolitan Museum!” answered their master, distinctly. - -“Metropolitan Museum!” said the footman to the coachman. - -Gray was torn by doubt, anger, and fear. Should he drive to the -Metropolitan or back to the stable? - -He decided to go back to the stable. If he were discharged he would not -regret losing so unsatisfactory a job. If, on the other hand, driving -back should prove to be the right thing he would greatly strengthen his -position. - -He arrived at the stable, fastened the horse to the chain, and went to -change his clothes. He heard Mr. Robison tap on the glass of the door -and saw him beckon to him and then heard him shout, “Open the door!” But -Gray went to the dressing-room and changed his clothes. As soon as he -was done the second man came in, showed him two envelopes, and said: - -“You win! You get the ten dollars! I get the five-spot. That's how -he pays. You obeyed orders. You are the first man that's succeeded in -holding the job over one day. The Lord only knows what test Mr. Maynard -will prepare for you to-morrow! It may be the children's lunch stunt or -the runaway lunatic. Run out! Mr. Maynard won't like you to be here when -he comes in. You can go out into the street by that door without going -through the carriage-room.” - -Gray put the ten dollars in his pocket and walked out. “Rum go, that!” - he muttered. It was indeed. He nodded his head with a sad sort of -triumph to show that though he had not solved the mystery he had at all -events grasped the situation and was, moreover, ten dollars to the good. - - - -III - -It was after the opening of the stock-market and most of the early -orders had been executed. The rush had given place to the calm -efficiency of a well-organized broker's office. Mr. Robison walked into -the Customers' Room, approached Gilbert Witherspoon, a valued customer, -touched his hat-brim with two fingers in the French military fashion, -and said: - -“Please, where's Mr. Richards?” His nasal twang and his Parisian -appearance produced the usual impression of striking incongruity upon -all men within hearing distance. Everybody frankly listened. - -“That's his private office,” answered Witherspoon, non-committally, -pointing his finger at a door. - -“Thank you very much!” said Robison and bowed. Then he knocked, heard a -peremptory “Come in!” and disappeared within. - -Witherspoon, who cultivated a reputation as a wit--there is a buffoon in -every stock-broker's office--shrugged his shoulders Frenchily, and, in a -nasal voice obviously in imitation of Robison, said: - -“Another world-beater!” - -“You never can tell,” retorted Dan McCormack, oracularly. He was fat, -always played “mysteries” in the market--traded in those stocks -the movements in which were unaccounted for--and he did not like -Witherspoon. - -Inside Mr. Robison had said “_Bon jour!”_ and bowed so very low that Mr. -Richards immediately thought of the language of a fashionable bill of -fare. - -“_Wie geht's?_” retorted Richards, jocularly. Then, nicely serious, -“How are you this morning?” - -“Don't I look it?” said Mr. Robison. “I am, of course, perplexed.” - -“What's the trouble?” - -“The usual trouble when I try to beat the stock-market--_embarras de -richesses_.” - -“It is an embarrassment that most people would welcome.” - -“Tut! The more elaborate the menu is in a good restaurant the greater -your indecision as to which particular dish you will order! Well, I went -through the Menagerie!” There was a catarrhal despair in his voice. - -“Yes?” - -“And I am undecided between four.” - -Robison looked anxiously at the broker, and Richards felt such an -annoyance as a man might feel if compelled at the point of a pistol to -listen to the reading of one hundred pages of the city directory. But he -smiled tolerantly, for he had the professional amiability indispensable -to men whose business consists of making money and of consoling clients -for losing money. - -“Four what?” he asked. - -“Four sure ways.” - -“Which four?” asked Richards. He managed to convey both that he was -dying to listen and that the rest of the world did not exist for him. - -“The Ant, the Spider, the Beaver, and the Lion. Out of the nineteen -combinations in the Menagerie I've narrowed my choice to these four. You -know conditions better than I and probably have seen the Cribbage Board. -Have you a choice?” He looked at Richards so eagerly, and withal so -shrewdly and sanely, that in self-defense the broker said: - -“I can't say that I have. Of course I am bullish--” - -“Of course. But the question is: Which--in a week?” - -Richards had no idea what was meant by this man with the sane eyes who -said crazy things through his nose--a man who had one hundred thousand -dollars to his credit with the firm. Perplexed to the verge of -exasperation, Richards was stock-broker enough--when in doubt, -bluff!--to say, with a frown, “Yes, that's the question: Which--in a -week?” He shook his head as though he were trying to pick out the best -for his beloved Robison. - -“I never was so puzzled in my life, and I want you to know that I've -made money even in Rumanian bonds!” - -“I'm afraid I can't help you much.” - -“What does the I. S. Board say?” - -“Mr. Robison, exactly what do you mean by the I. S. Board?” - -“What? You don't know the International Syndicate Cribbage Board! Then -how in Hades do you pick your combinations?” - -“We buy and sell stocks on our judgment of basic conditions or for -special reasons.” - -“Ah, yes--like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess. Well, -_I_ don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full in a week. -Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with him. And -yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest corner -he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess we'll -dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger group.” - -Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But -Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, -“I think you are right.” - -Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: “The situation in the -Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the -Dam in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the -Rothschilds worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too -many people who have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all -this, but,” he finished, with profound regret, “it _is_ such a cinch!” - -“Yes. But--” Richards shook his head in sympathy. He felt that he ought -to humor this man; moreover, business was quiet, and this man was -saying incomprehensible things that would be repeated by Richards, with -sensational success, at luncheons and dinners for weeks. - -“Of course, the Spider is the oldest stand-by. Personally I never liked -it. In the Governor Flower boom and, indeed, up to the Northern Pacific -panic, its popularity was due to John W. Gates. But do you know, Mr. -Richards, I have always believed that in the first two Steel and Wire -coups and in the Louisville & Nashville affair, Gates hit upon it by -accident. Else,” pursued Mr. Robison, controversially, “why was he -pinched so badly in 1901 and again in 1907? He hit upon it, after he got -out of Federal Steel, by accident, I tell you! He was a man of genius -and courage, but it was all instinct with him. He was no student, -sir--no student!” - -“I've always said,” observed Mr. George B. Richards, “that Gates was not -a student!” He glared, thereby successfully defying contradiction. - -“It leaves the Lion!” muttered Robison. “Should I try it? And which -Peg?” - -“I'd try it!” counseled Richards, who was not only intelligent, but had -a sense of humor. - -“Would you, really?” - -“Yes, I certainly would!” And the broker looked as if he certainly meant -it. - -“It's the Dutch favorite,” said Robison, musingly. “And they are a very -clever people. You know Van Vollenhoven in his book says that once a -year, for thirteen consecutive years, the great Cornelius Roelofs, of -Amsterdam, made a million gulden in London by the Lion--the most hopeful -pessimist in the history of stock speculation! It comes easy to the -phlegmatic Hollanders, but Americans are too nervous to take kindly to -it. I once begged the late Addison Cammack to join me in a Lion deal, -but he didn't. He was not very well at the time. Anyhow, he was too -American.” - -“Did you know him?” - -“Like a book! Dangerous man to follow! Cynicism sounds impressive, but -is wind. You don't win in the stock-market with catch phrases, but with -combinations.” - -“Do you use charts?” - -“A stock speculator is not a navigator, but all commission-houses should -have a chart. With some customers, after you have exhausted every other -invitation, you can use the chart to get them trading. But not for us, -Mr. George B. Richards. I think you will soon realize that I am in this -affair not to lose money, but to make it. I shall, therefore, either -buy Dock Island, sell Middle Pacific, buy National Smelting, or sell -Consolidated Steel. I'll have a pad of special order-slips made so you -will not mistake my orders for those of any one else. You will execute -for me no order that is not written and signed by me on such a slip. -I'll keep up my margin. We'll operate on a ten-per-cent, basis; and -I hereby authorize you to sell me out when my margin is down to six -points. That gives you ample safety. It is really unnecessary, as I -never lose; but I always protect the broker. The sudden death by heart -disease of Baron Lespinasse in 1883 sent into bankruptcy the great -firms of La Croissade et Cie. and Mayer, Dreyfus et Cie., of Paris, -Ver-brugghe Frères, of Brussels, and about a dozen smaller houses. Mine, -to be sure, is a trifling operation, designed to supply a modest income -to an old flame. But I may--who knows?--decide to take a few millions -back with me. And your firm, Mr. Richards, will be my principal -brokers.” - -Mr. Robison said this so impressively, so much as though he had made the -firm of Richards & Tuttle rich beyond the dreams of avarice, that George -B. found it easy to look grateful as he said, “Thank you, Mr. Robison.” - It would be worth while watching this mysterious man, to see, first, if -he made money; and if he did, how! - -“I'll write it here and now. If my margins are down to six points at any -time close me out, for I shall have been mistaken, which is a sign I've -gone crazy; or I shall be dead, in which case protect yourself!” - -Mr. Robison wrote out the instructions, signed them, and gave them -to Mr. Richards. He must have noticed a look of uncertainty or -dissatisfaction on the broker's face, for he said: - -“I have no desire to pose before you as an unfailing winner, though I -assure you I seldom lose. It is not brains, but carefulness. If you -know nothing about the International Syndicate's information collecting -machinery, why, just take my word for it that there are people in this -world who don't work on the hit-or-miss plan. We don't eliminate all -possibilities of failure; we merely reduce them to a negligible minimum. -We cannot prevent all accidents, but we can and do foresee some of them. -This sounds crazy to you, I know--no, don't deny it!--but all I can say -is that your natural suspicions don't affect your kindness and courtesy, -and I am more grateful than I can say. Of course, my own operations -here will be conducted with your approval, in strict accordance with the -rules of the New York Stock Exchange.” - -“Oh, I am sure I haven't doubted your sanity,” said the broker, who had -been much reassured by Mr. Robison's look of frankness and earnestness -as he spoke. “I have merely suspected the depths of my own ignorance.” - -“Your retort is both kind and clever. I thank you. I shall have to -borrow one of your clerks or office-boys between nine-forty and ten a. -m., to whom I may give my orders to bring to this office, and also ask -you to recommend to me some young man who is intelligent but honest, -wide awake but deaf to the ticker.” - -“I beg your pardon?” - -“I shall need a young man who can watch certain developments and at the -crucial moment will hasten to me without stopping on the way to take -advantage in the stock-market of what he has learned while working for -me.” - -“I shall let you have one of my own clerks. He'll do as he is told.” - -“That is not always to be taken as praise--but I thank you. There will -be some telegrams come for me. Will you kindly see that they are held? -Good morning!” And he left the room. - -An hour later cablegrams and telegrams by the dozen began to come in for -Robison, care Richards & Tuttle. But Robison did not return to the -office until after the close of the stock-market. - -“Any messages?” he asked Richards. - -“Not over a hundred!” answered the broker, smilingly. He felt less -suspicious after the telegrams began to arrive; they were tools he -understood. - -“I used the Triple Three,” explained Robison, opening telegram after -telegram; the cables he seemed to leave for the last. The telegrams -were, as Richards later ascertained, from San Francisco, Seattle, -Tacoma, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and other points west of -the Rockies. Each contained but one word, but always the word ended in -“less,” such, for example, as Headless, Toothless, Tailless, Nerveless. -All were signed in the same way, to wit: Three-Three-Three. - -“No Beaver! I'm just as glad,” Robison mused aloud and took up the -cablegrams. They were from London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and -Amsterdam. They were in code, but he seemed to have the key by heart. -The very last one made him thoughtful. - -He handed the cablegram absently to Richards and said, “The Lion after -all--and artificial at that!” He seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious -of his whereabouts, as Richards read: - -Robison, care Richtut: - -Mogulgar wind Lloyd Vast Nigger Shaw twice home urban sweet Edward. - -“Code, hey?” - -“Lion! Oh! Code, did you say? No. Code is too risky. Plain reading! Of -course I have more practice than you. Give it to one of your office-boys -to decipher. If he succeeds give him fifty dollars and charge it to my -account. But what I can't tell is the politics of it. Is it collusion, -philanthropy, or fear? Is it wise? After all, the unusual is not -necessarily dangerous. I shall double my money within four days and you -will make the commissions in a perfectly simple, legitimate way; and -you will think I am a pretty sane lunatic; and you will respect me for -having such sources of information; and if I can induce Mrs. Le--my -friend to take it, I'll make a million for her in a month, and you will -get the benefits accruing from having the market named after you--a -Richards & Tuttle market, the papers will call it. Thank you very much -for your kindness. I'll be down to-morrow before the opening. Good day, -sir!” - -And Mr. Robison left the office with a calm, confident look in his -face. Richards gazed after him, a look of perplexity on his own face. -Presently he shook his head. It meant that he gave up efforts to solve -the puzzle, but that he would wait until commissions began. - - - -IV - -From Richards & Tuttle's office Robison went to the nearest Western -Union office and gave a letter to the manager. - -“Send this at once! City editor, _Evening World_, Park Row. No answer. -How much?” - -The manager told him. Robison paid him and then went to the -Postal-Telegraph office and sent a message to the city editor, _Evening -Journal_. Inside of each envelope was a letter. Both read alike, as -follows: - -_Dear Sir,--Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good turn. -In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big piece of -news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things looked -pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his name. -He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot -ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore -eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking -cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving -Bank. Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being -good to me. Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and -promoter, is going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be -held for one hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to -him, because he will be sure to pay._ - -_Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it -and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, -but it will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance -relaxes, as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy -yan! Don't print anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of -Garrettson, his home, art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, -and corporations controlled by him, and so on. Keep this letter for -reference, and just before you throw it into the waste-basket remember -this: It costs you nothing; it commits you to nothing, involves no -expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no fool joke. Remember my -writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I shall send you if I -possibly can, so that you alone publish the news._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - -The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but -each made a mental note--in case! Also they did not “tip off” anybody. -They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson, because if -they acted on every freak missive they received half the city would not -sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great Garrettson. - -At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied -by an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed “From J. B. R., -for Richards & Tuttle,” went to the Broad Street entrance of the New -York Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or -so it seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: “There -he is!” - -The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing -but hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so -disappointed that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, -“Who, sir?” - -“Nobody!” answered Mr. Robison, shortly. “Go back to the office and tell -Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me--the clerk with the -ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here.” - -The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers. - -“Here is Mr. Manley,” the office-boy told Mr. Robison. - -“Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office.” - -The office-boy put the five-dollar bill in his pocket, said “Thank you” - in a voice celestial, and hurried away before the crazy Frenchman with -the Cape Cod voice discovered the size of the tip. To Manley, the clerk, -Mr. Robison said: - -“Look across the street--W. H. Garrettson & Co. You can see Mr. -Garrettson by the window. See him?” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Well, just you stay here and watch him; and if you see him do anything -unusual or if anything happens in Garrettson's office that you think -strange, run to our office and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. -Don't be afraid to say so if you think something unusual is going on, -because I tell you now that Mr. Garrettson never does anything unusual.” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“Now what would you call unusual?” - -“What would you?” - -“If a bareheaded man came out of the office, stood at the head of -the steps and threw an egg into the middle of the street, I'd call it -unusual.” - -“So would I.” - -“Especially if I went up to the smashed egg and found the insides were -of ink. It might be red ink or black.” - -“That would be queer!” - -“Exactly. You watch. Go to lunch at twelve-thirty and be back at one. -Remember! Watch closely, and if anything unusual happens look carefully -and then come and tell me. Here's ten dollars for you.” - -“Thank you, sir.” - -“It's only a beginning,” smiled Mr. Robison, promisingly. - -Manley, the clerk, put the money in his pocket and began to think he -might be able to buy the motorboat next spring if this business kept up. - -Between what Sweeney, the office-boy, suspected aloud and what Manley, -the clerk, confirmed the office force of Richards & Tuttle discussed Mr. -Robison with the zest of the deciding baseball game. - -Richards had confided to his intimates some of his experiences, and Amos -Kidder, the _Evening Planet_ man, was as interested in the mystery as -if he had not been the man who first let loose the flood of surmise by -introducing Robison to the brokers. - -Nothing happened on Tuesday more exciting than keeping tally on -the telegrams and cables received by Mr. Robison, which amounted to -thirty-seven in all. The object of so much conjecture--and hero of -the office-boy's improvised dime novel--spent the day in an arm-chair -looking at the blackboard, making elaborate calculations that convinced -other customers he must be a “chart fiend.” At three o'clock sharp he -went home. - -He stopped long enough to send by messenger-boy a letter to the city -editor of the _Evening World_ and another to the city editor of the -_Evening Journal._ They bore the same message and said: - -_Refer to my letter of yesterday. To-night W. H. Garrettson goes to the -opera to see “The Jewels of the Madonna.” He will leave the Metropolitan -in his automobile. In it will be his wife, his daughter, and his friend, -Harry Willett. And he will not arrive at his house--Lexington Avenue -and Thirty-eighth Street. Somewhere between the Opera House and his -residence he will vanish! It will be the most mysterious kidnapping -on record. Follow the Garrettson motor and have your reporters watch -carefully._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - -Whatever the city editors may have intended to do in the matter is of no -consequence, because at seven o'clock messages were received as follows: - -_Kidnapping of W. H. G. postponed. Will keep you posted._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - - - -V - -At nine-forty-five on Wednesday morning Mr. James B. Robison entered -the office of Richards & Tuttle, sought the senior partner, and said: - -“I shall both buy and sell Con. Steel--or possibly sell first and buy -later. The order clerk knows about my printed slips. The orders will go -to you first. If at any time you are worried about margin, remember to -tell me at once, because, as you know, I have not yet used half of my -letter of credit; and, besides, the cables are working. I'd like to see -Amos Kidder.” - -“He's in his office.” - -“Would you mind having some one telephone to him? Thank you.” - -Mr. Robison promptly left the office, followed by his faithful attendant -Sweeney, the office-boy. They took their stand just north of the Broad -Street entrance of the Stock Exchange. - -It was not long before Amos Kidder, of the _Evening Planet_, who -had received the message, found Mr. Robison in the act of gazing -unblinkingly toward the Subtreasury. - -“Good morning, Mr. Robison.” - -Mr. Robison started as if he had been rudely awakened out of a profound -reverie. - -“Oh! Kidder! How d'ye do? Ah, yes! Ah--I'd like you to dine with me and -a few friends--interesting people. You will--don't be offended!--you -will learn why all newspaper articles on the stock-market arouse mirth -among the people who pull the wires. What do you say?” - -“I say,” replied Kidder, with a good-natured smile, “just this: When and -where?” His smile ceased. Mr. Robison had turned his back on his friend. -Kidder heard a nasal mumble and made out: - -“Here in eight minutes.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I shall learn if the Lion ate the man or if it's a case of another -day.” - -“Mr. Robison, I don't understand--” - -“I beg your pardon. I was thinking of the old man who was seen in a -front seat at the circus every day. They asked him what he found so -interesting, and he said that some day the lion would eat the man and he -wanted to be a spectator. Well, one day he was sick. That day the lion -ate the lion-tamer. Well, I am here waiting to see Garrettson come out -of the cage.” - -“Garrettson?” - -“The great W. H. Garrettson! I am planning a campaign in Con. Steel. -Garrettson's health is important. I must consider the state of his liver -as carefully as the condition of the iron trade, because it is not only -a question of the dividend rate, but of the price per share--not alone -an investment, but a speculation. You can't lose all your mills -and furnaces in one minute and you can't destroy all your customers -overnight; but Garrettson can die in a second!” - -“Of course that contingency has been provided for. His firm would -undoubtedly be on the job.” - -“So would the undertaker. As a matter of fact everything to-day depends -upon the character of Garrettson's life. Have you ever stopped to think -of how much depends upon the character of his death?” - -“All deaths are alike. You talk like a novelist unaware of the resources -of a firm like Garrettson's.” - -“And you talk like a plain ass or a bank president, my boy. Is there -no difference to the stock-market between the death of Garrettson by -pneumonia and his death by lynching at the hands of a thousand indignant -fellow-citizens? Stop and think.” - -“Oh, well, that will never happen.” - -“I cannot swear that it will, but you cannot guarantee that it never -will. Stranger things have come to pass. By Jingo! it's three minutes to -ten! Would it not be curious if something had happened?” - -“How do you mean?” - -“I have studied the great Garrettson and his habits, that I may, in -my operations in Con. Steel, know on what to bank and against what to -guard. He leaves his Lexington Avenue house every morning at nine and -arrives at his office not later than nine-fifty. He is like the clock. -All his life he has come down-town in his coupé, driven by a coachman -who has been in his employ thirty years. In this age of novelties -that old-fashioned coupé suggests a stability and solid respectability -comparable to _Founded 1732!_ on a firm's letter-head. However, just as -the wireless has introduced a new element into maritime life, so has the -automobile changed the character of street traffic. Do you remember the -case of James M. Barrier, the famous sculptor, smashed in his taxicab -on his way to his studio? You remember the insurance advertisements, -and how he carried a two-hundred-and-seventeen-thou-sand-dollar accident -policy? Well, it's ten o'clock. In one minute, if Garrettson is not -here, I shall sell short one thousand shares of Con. Steel. For each -delay of one minute, one thousand shares.” - -Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed. - -“You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your -operation is of the kind that sounds wise.” - -“How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A -fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five -or ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, -boy, rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall -need another boy besides you, for a few minutes only.” - -Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand -shares of Con. Steel “at the market.” - -“There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair,” - observed Kidder, pleasantly. “In assuming that disaster has overtaken -Garrettson--” - -“I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What -the nature of it is I know not--nor whether it is capitalizable, sight -unseen. Here, boy!” Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison -sent the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of -Steel. Watch in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the -north. Kidder also looked up Nassau Street, expecting and--such, alas, -is human nature!--hoping to see Garrettson's familiar coupé. - -“Here, boy!” And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up -until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares. - -At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder: - -“Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder.” - -“He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping--” - -“Well, that's a story! Any deviation from the normal is, even though it -may not be tragedy. The delay may mean--” - -“Nothing whatever,” finished Kidder, a trifle exultingly. “There comes -Garrettson's carriage. I guess you'd better cover!” - -And the _Planet_ man laughed. - -“Kidder, you'll never be rich! Of course I shall not cover until I know -the reason for the delay. Make haste! I ought to take a good look at his -face. I want to see how he looks and notice how he walks up the steps -to the office. One glimpse of Harriman getting off the train once put a -cool quarter of a million in my pocket.” - -“Stocks went up when he died. People sold them thinking--” - -“When you know a man is dying and you know that the rabble doesn't know -it, you don't always sell stocks short, Kidder,” anticipated Robison, -with a gentle smile. - -“Hello!” said Kidder, and ran forward. - -Robison followed. The coupé had stopped before the door of the banking -firm's offices. The herculean private policeman in gray had hastened -to open the door of the chief's carriage and had staggered back as if -horrified by what he had seen. - -“Murdered!” thought the newspaper man in a flash. “What a story!” - -The policeman turned an alarmed face toward the coachman and asked: - -“Where's Mr. Garrettson?” - -“What!” Lyman, the coachman, who had been in Garrettson's employ -thirty-odd years, turned livid. He stared blankly at the big man in the -gray uniform. - -“He isn't here!” said Allcock, the policeman. Kidder and Robison heard -him. - -The coachman looked into the coupé. - -“Good God!” he muttered. - -“Are you sure he was inside?” asked Allcock. “Sure? Of course! There's -the newspapers. Look at the cigar-ashes on the floor.” - -“Did you see him get in?” persisted the policeman. “Of course I saw him! -I heard him call to the footman, who was going back to the house without -leaving the newspapers.” - -“And you didn't stop anywhere?” - -“No. I was delayed a little at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, and -again--” - -“Are you sure he didn't jump off?” - -“What would he be jumping off for?” queried the old coachman, irritably. -“And wouldn't I have heard the door slam? I can't account for it! My -God! Where's Mr. Garrettson? Where is he? Where is he?” He repeated -himself like one distraught. - -“Could he have jumped out without your knowing it?” queried Kidder. - -“Shut up, Jim. That's a reporter!” the policeman warned the coachman. -“Wait here and I'll tell Mr. Jenkins.” - -The private policeman rushed into the bank, and rushed out, followed by -William P. Jenkins, junior partner of W. H. Garrettson & Company. - -“What is all this about?” Mr. Jenkins, who had been speaking in a sharp -voice to the coachman, caught sight of Kidder. Nothing concerning Mr. -Garrettson's whereabouts could be discussed by or before newspaper men. - -“Come with me, James,” Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old -coachman. - -“Get on the job!” whispered Robison to Kidder. “Don't be bluffed. -You've got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a -lifetime!” - -Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's -eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great -financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but -all efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see -perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that -Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall -Street and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was, -moreover, fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary -say: “Mrs. Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about -nine-twenty in the carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the -footman helped him into the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I -said, 'Nothing that I know of.'” - -Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and -hastened back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the -coachman--a man above suspicion--was carried on by the other partners. - -Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the -patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin: - -_W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near -Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James -Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family -from boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. -He was smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily -newspapers. These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the -coupé when it reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, -where the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are -unable to say where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. -Garrettson is equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as -usual. The butler saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes -this remarkable is that Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and -not once in forty years has he failed to reach his office before ten -o'clock. His disappearance from the coupé is not thought to be a joke; -but, on the other hand, there is no reason to apprehend a tragedy. “It -is mysterious--that's all,” remarked a prominent Wall Street man; “and -mysteries are not always profitable in the stock-market!”_ - -“How long,” inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth, -“will it be before the _Evening Planet_, with your account of the -non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?” - -“Well,” said Kidder, looking a trifle important, “if it had been any one -else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in -verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!” - -“As quickly as that?” - -“Well, maybe seven minutes--but that,” said Kidder, impressively, “would -be slow work for the _Evening Planet!_” - -“Amazing!” murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. “And did you make -it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of--” - -“I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad -daylight in the city of New York--taken out of his own cab and -carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if -unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!” - -“No, it can't,” agreed Robison. “Nevertheless, it has been done.” - -“How could--” - -“Kidder, the taxicab has introduced a new and easily utilizable -possibility into criminal affairs, against which the police cannot -yet protect the public. I can see one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen -different ways in which Mr. Garrettson could have been abducted from his -own carriage, put into a taxi, and carried away. Suppose there are six -taxis. Three are in front to prevent the coachman from passing them. -The coachman is also compelled to regulate his speed according as they -desire. Then put one taxi on each side and one behind. These taxis not -only escort the cab; they pocket it and keep out help. At one of the -many halts the cab door is opened and Garrettson induced to enter one of -the side taxis while the coachman is occupied taking care of his horses -because one of the taxis in front threatens to back, which will crush -the prancing beasts. Do you suppose the coachman, especially if he is -elderly and somewhat deaf, as all old people are, could hear a cry -for help with six taxis making all the noise they can, muffler cutouts -going, or backfiring, or--” - -“Do you think that is--” - -“I think nothing! I cited it as one of fourteen--indeed, -twenty--possible ways,” said Robison, quietly. - -“It's funny--I mean it is a curious coincidence that on the one day you -had sold Steel short--” - -“My young friend,” interrupted Robison, gravely, “I sold after -Garrettson was late! Wisdom is always accused of unfairness. A man whose -mind enables him to win steadily at cards is invariably suspected of -marking them. I had planned to buy Con. Steel provided Garrettson's -health, state of mind, and trade conditions satisfied me! Instead I -sold a little because of his delay. Why, man, we did that in London -once--Cecil Rhodes and I--when Barney Barnato, at the height of the -Kaffir craze, suddenly decided--” - -“Wait till I get a piece of paper,” said Amos Kidder. He saw a big -story. But Robison said: - -“I'll tell you all you wish to know--if you promise not to use names--in -Richards's office later, when Garrettson's disappearance is officially -admitted. You should hang round Garrettson's office. Don't lose sight of -it for one minute! Your office will keep in touch--” - -“Yes; they are sending three men down to work under me.” - -“Keep me posted, will you? I am going to Richards's office and watch the -market.” - -Kidder nodded and hurried to the Wills Building. Robison went to the -office of his brokers, stopping previously at a telephone pay-station -to telephone to the city editors of the _Evening World_ and the _Evening -Journal_. This was his message: - -_The Evening Planet is getting out an extra about the disappearance -of W. H. Garrettson. Send your men to Garrettson's office and also his -residence. Hurry!_ - -The _Evening Planet_ story was on the street before Robison returned to -Richards & Tuttle's office, and five minutes later _World_ and _Journal_ -extras were selling in the financial district. Curiously enough, both -papers used the same scare-head, and that fact had a great deal to do -with the acceptance of the story by many people. The heading was: - - -HELD FOR RANSOM!! - -And each stated it had information that W. H. Garrettson had been -kidnapped and was held for one hundred million dollars ransom. The -Wall Street news agencies sent out the news on the tickers. One of them -subtly finished: - -_Those who know Mr. Garrettson state that the two things the greatest -financier of our times cannot do are: first, take advice; and second, -be coerced. A man who has compelled a President of the United States to -come to him for advice, and who has flatly told a reigning monarch, No! -is not going to do as he is told by any band of crooks! The worst is, -therefore, to be feared!_ - - - -VI - -For one brief dazed moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly -the ticker stopped, as it did in the old days whenever a member's demise -was announced. The ticker's silence, with its suggestion of death, -did in truth strangle bull hopes. Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost -stopped when the ticker did. Then the storm burst, increasing in -violence as corroboration came from newspaper extras, from the Wall -Street news agencies and the news tickers, from brokers and bankers who -had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company and had rushed -out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal moment the great house of -W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the capital crime--in high -finance--of indecision. - -The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir--: the selling-power -is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice--a -beginning!--and it will itself complete the havoc. - -Inside support--that is, buying by Garrettson's firm--would have been -the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the -brief instant that saw absolutely no “support” forthcoming the flood of -selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big -margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and -reputations. - -The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume -of selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the -hillside. From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to -sixty-five by fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time--to sixty; -to fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital -stock, of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen -million dollars--one million a minute! A psychological statistician -would have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of -the moneyed world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial -invulnerability; it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result -of his partners' inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the -firm's existence. The partners would have understood death and could -have provided against it, stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even -might have capitalized their senior partner's demise had it come from -typhoid, tuberculosis, or taxicab. But the disappearance of the great -Garrettson, the fatal incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing -and the hoping, paralyzed the faculties of the junior partners of Wall -Street's mighty firm. And the costliness of their indecision was raised -into the millions by the fact that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, -the junior partners, agreed that Garrettson, though absent, was well, -and were about to take steps to check the gamblers' panic, the telephone -summoned Jenkins. - -“Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to -Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B--D! Say nothing to -the family! Hurry!” And the speaker rang off. - -His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still -unrelieved uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest -and--Wall Street said--the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and -repeated the message. - -“Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?” asked Johnson. - -“I don't know--yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,' and -I didn't suspect--yes; I think it was.” After a second's pause, “I know -it was Pierson!” - -“Then, for Heaven's sake--” began Lane. - -“Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious -wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!” said Johnson. - -“Meantime we are losing precious time--” Johnson had already gone to -the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he -said, the receiver at his ear: - -“We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if--” The emphasis -on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that there -was no need to say it. “You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and we -hoping and expecting and uncertain if--Hello! Dr. Pierson's office? This -is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the doctor there? -Out? Where did he go? Speak out--I am Mr. Garrettson's partner. Hotel -Cressline, Suite D? Thank you.” Johnson turned and said: “Dr. Pierson -was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to attend Mr. -Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask--” - -“And meantime,” said Jenkins, excitedly, “he might be dying or dead; and -we--” - -“Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive -use. Hurry!” - -Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone -once more. - -“Give me the Hotel Cressline!” And presently, “Hello! Cressline? This is -W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes--Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's partner. -Is Mr. Gar--... Yes--yes--I want to talk to him.... Why not? Is it our -Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You will tell me!--or, by -Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!” - -“What did they say, Walter?” asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law -of Garrettson. - -“He said I could go to hell!” growled Johnson, his face brick-red from -anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great -Garrettson. “He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled -lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not -to be interrupted under any circumstances--no cards sent up, no -telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!” - -The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was -something like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though -each expected the other to say he did not expect a terrible final -chapter. In the veiled woman each feared what was worse than mere -death--scandal! Of course, much would be suppressed, as had been done in -the case of Winthrop Kyle or of Burton Willett, to whom death had come -suddenly and under dubious circumstances. - -“William is not that kind!” said Lane, loyally. “He has never--” - -“I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!” repeated -Walter Johnson, vehemently. - -“Neither do I,” agreed Lane. “But--” He looked furtively at Walter -Johnson. - -Johnson nodded, and said, “Yes, that's the devil of it!” He lost -himself in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved -Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced -his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have -posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson. - -That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving -off a panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied -themselves to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and -such was the discipline of the office that no word was brought to the -palefaced partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or -of the newspaper extras. - -It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or -force of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic -message of the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in -stocks had taken on the proportions of a panic. - -“Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!” - -“No!” incredulously shouted Lane. - -“It'll never do!” - -“Yes, but--” - -Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to -do things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began -to give out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson -brokers--they kept some of these for the effect of obvious “Garrettson -buying.” It was all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter -what had happened, the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! -Silence, yes; untruth, never! And yet silence might be taken as -corroboration of the awful stories. He could not say that the great -Garrettson was alive and could not say he was dead. He must not mention -Hotel Cressline. A trying situation! To the news-agency men, who would -put out the news on the Street, from whom also the daily papers would -get it, he said, very calmly and impressively: - -“I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The -iron trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest -business in its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we -consider the stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent -speculative movements. They are designed to frighten timid holders. I -advise every man who owns Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it. - -“But about Mr. Gar--” - -“Not another word!” he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece -of will-power. - -The newspaper men translated it: “Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!” - And in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the -message. What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was -dead or not--the kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!--and if -so what would be done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. -Wherefore the traders sold more of the same stock--short--and the -bona-fide holders could develop no conviction strong enough as to the -wisdom of holding on, so long as the price continued to go down. - -Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in -a fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send -up any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent, -succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after -repeated knocking brought no response from within. - -They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they -found on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil. - -Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length -Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson: - -“I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and--” - -“I never telephoned you!” interrupted Dr. Pierson. - -“Why, you said--” - -“I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the -hotel--or so the voice said--to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken -suddenly ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him.” - -“Damn!” said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the -office, hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the -fake messages and Dr. Pierson's story. - -“That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, -and--” - -“It's a bear raid then!” - -“Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry -down!” - -Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully -following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the -higher Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and -the office-boys. - -In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in -a voice which one might say sweated respect: - -“What do you think now, Mr. Robison?” - -The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the -quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These -customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened -to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of -Steel, and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger -had scented a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street. - -“Yes?” said Mr. Robison, absently. - -“What do you think now?” - -“What do I think now?” repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically. - -“Yes, sir,” said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an -office-boy about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at -the broker. Then, with a little start, he said so distinctly that every -listening customer heard very plainly: - -“I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know.” - -“It looks to me,” persisted Richards, fishing for information, “that -they can't keep on going down forever.” - -“No--not forever,” assented Mr. Robison, calmly. - -“Maybe the bottom is not far off.” - -“Maybe not.” - -“If a man bought now he might do well.” - -“Then buy 'em.” - -“Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to -go long.” - -“In that case,” said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, “don't -buy 'em.” - -Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to -say “Thank you!” in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed -customers drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, -but any experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more -important to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken -Profit is the jeremiad of the ticker-fiend. - -Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show “resiliency,” - as financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. -Robison's side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of -money-making news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, -whose paper profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand -dollars. - -“Mr. Robison!” he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is -accustomed to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The -other customers, who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to -cover, looked at the boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his -whispered words. - -“Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing,” said Mr. Robison -through his nose, with a pleasant smile. - -The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness -which would give them the tip they all expected. - -“The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed.” - -The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, “Stung again!” - -“Wait a minute my lad. Here!” and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar -bill and a small envelope. - -“Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy. He put the five dollars in -his pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the -customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, “Mr. Richards.” - -He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private -office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on -which was written: - -_Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market._ - -_J. B. Robison._ - -Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the -price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the -empty place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite -customers moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen -just the same. - -“Your order is executed, Mr. Robison.” Mr. Richards whispered it out -of a corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking -meditatively at the quotation-board. - -“Got the whole twenty?” - -“Yes.” - -“Good!” - -“Do you think--” began the broker in a voice that would make flint turn -to putty. - -“I do!” cut in Robison. “I do, indeed! There is no telling what has -happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts.” He -had unconsciously raised his voice. - -A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen -customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces -drew nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other -listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably: - -“By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. -Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be -because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in -the stock-market--failure, for instance.” - -“Oh, but that's out of the question.” - -“Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the -best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very -efficiently policed city thoroughfare.” - -“Yes; but a failure--” - -“When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't -believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!” - -“Do you think--” - -“No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions -so characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I -ascribed the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull -cards, as you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. -Now it isn't likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. -Garrettson. There would be no sense in murdering him--not even by a -stock speculator; but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson -specialties has by now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I -should say prices ought to be touching bottom; and what ought to be -generally is, in the stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or -another, very soon now. If the news is good the price of Steel will -rebound smartly. If it is bad we'll at least know what to look to, and -with the elimination of the mystery there should be a cessation of the -selling. There will follow a rush to cover and then--There you are! I -believe it's begun already. Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! -Get 'em back!” - -The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover -and gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in -figures on the quotation-board. - -Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before -the newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H. -Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly -now. Somebody must pay---and it wouldn't be the firm. - -Amos Kidder rushed into the office. “He's found!” he yelled, excitedly, -addressing Mr. Robison. - -“Where was he?” asked Mr. Robison, very calmly. - -“At home--damn 'im!” - -“Why that, my boy?” - -“He won't talk--says he was in his library all the time.” - -“We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?” said Robison, with a -smile. - -“Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it -were the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove -that he wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth--” - -“The whole truth?” echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile. - -“Don't you know it?” Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously. - -“Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about -anything. Take dinner with me to-morrow night--will you?” - -“Yes.” There was a smoldering defiance--it wasn't suspicion exactly--in -the newspaper man's voice and eyes. - -“Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel.” - -“Now that Garrettson is--” - -“Yes, now--at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a week?” - -“Yes.” - -“I told you I would.” - -“An accident is not a fair test of--” - -“An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such -thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact -seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I -must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen.” - -As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been -figured out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was -informed by Mr. George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of -$268,537.71 with the firm. - -“I've won my bet!” murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker. - -“You have indeed, Mr. Robison.” Richards spoke deferentially. - -“H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to--Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to sign -this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs.” - -This was the document: - -_To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:_ - -_This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened -an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, -members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the -sum of $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net -profit of $168,537.71._ - -_A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks -and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order -from Mr. James B. Robison._ - -_For Richards & Tuttle:_ _George B. Richards._ - -When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison -said, amiably: - -“If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the -pleasure it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers -more than double their money in one week.” - -“Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account.” - -“And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new, -clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I -told you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have -given me a certificate of sanity a week ago. What?” - -“Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent--” - -“All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and -intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent.” Mr. -Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered -enough to blush. - -“Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand--” The broker -paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a -profitable customer. He did not wish commissions to stop. - -Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn -to speak, said: - -“It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't -understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind -healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in -life. Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life -interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so -little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death -you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of -the first chapter of a big, black book--Mystery!” - -“Yes,” murmured the dazed broker. - -Robison continued, cheerfully: “My dear Mr. Richards, by all means -don't understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand -dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but -interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James -Burnett Robison.” With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude -and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose -speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five -thousand dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers. - -A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, -which he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a -check for his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and -lachrymosely hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close -the account, Mr. Robison answered, very impressively: - -“My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a -glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the -marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I -personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through -Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the -state tax. Good day, sir!” And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just -afterward and wondered, without shaking hands. - - - -VIII - -Amos Kidder dined with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel, -the Regina. - -“Americans,” explained the host, “always flock to the newest hotel on -the theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest -thing is necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary -plumbing; it is an art! I am here not because of the journalistic, -Sunday-special character of the filtered air and automatic temperature -adjusters of this hotel, but because I discovered it had the best -chef of all New York here. The food,” he finished, with an air of -overpraising, “is almost as good as in my own house. Have you any -favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?” - -“No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order,” replied -the newspaper man. - -“Thank you, Kidder--thank you!” said Mr. Robison, with an air of such -profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. “I was hoping you would -leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!” - And he beckoned to the _maître d'hôtel_, who immediately hastened to the -table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. “You -may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine,” said Robison, simply. - -“Dewey at Manila!” thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His -Wall Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him -to all sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never -eaten so unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and -the heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man -who said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things -in a remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the -coffee: - -“I'd like to ask you two questions--just two.” - -“That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to -ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'” - -“O king, live forever!” said Kidder, saluting. “Thanks. Shoot ahead.” - -“Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the -chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?” Kidder was -looking at Robison with a steady gaze. - -“There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have -invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my -boy!” And Robison nodded. - -“Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious,” said Kidder, with an -accusing tone of voice he could not quite control. - -“So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious.” - -“And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International -Cribbage Board--” - -“But not exactly criminal, eh?” - -“No; but--” - -“Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose -you call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the -inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the -mind of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than -on the possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to -tell you that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I -sha'n't! But that I go about my business scientifically you yourself -have seen. At least you are witness that I have won.” - -“Yes; but--” - -“What's the second question?” - -“There isn't a second if you won't answer the first,” said Kidder, with -the forced amiability of the foiled. - -“I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose -we imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now -let us wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here -is an incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of -a panic--short-lived though it was--that caused mental anguish to -his friends, relatives, and associates; and yet that great genius of -finance, Wall Street's demigod, says nothing.” - -“He says he was in his library.” - -“We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What -compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to -lie?” - -“I don't know.” - -“You ought to; there is only one thing.” - -“Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?” - -“No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he -protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something -else. It's fear!” - -“Of the alleged kidnappers?” - -“No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear--” He paused. - -“What?” eagerly asked the newspaper man. - -“Ridicule!” - -Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. -Robison. He discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his -philosophical eyes. - -“It's too much for me,” finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the -frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on. - -Robison smiled forgivingly, and said: - -“You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual -things in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known -principles to well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most -unusually. Now what do you gather from the Garrettson episode?” - -“Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be -a most unusual succession of coincidences.” - -“Your voice,” said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, “exudes -suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an -instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It -puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids' -millennium--or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and--” - -“And newspaper men--what?” Kidder prompted, pleasantly. “Don't mind me. -I enjoy it.” - -“Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a -letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave -me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is -an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are -an irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours -about me?” - -“I did not have it. I have it now, however.” - -“If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and -my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left -his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive -at his office. We have the evidence of his coachman--a man above -suspicion--of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for you -heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home. -We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming -circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to -allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares--led, I -am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed -up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson -there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or -suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of -the obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity -I found out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling -himself W. H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It -wasn't Garrettson, though.” - -“How do you know?” - -“It was clearly a ruse--having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip -that would--” - -“Very ingenious; but--” - -“At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners, -and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to -say the least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but -Garrettson, Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his -highly inconvenient disappearance.” - -“Yes, yes; but--” - -“Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form -a syndicate of intelligent men!” He made a motion with his hand as if -waving away the necessity of further elucidation. - -“Friend Robison,” said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's -manner, “you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than -his silences. _Continuez, s'il vous plaît._” - -“Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate -accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their -object.” - -“A band of robbers?” - -“No; an aggregation of philosophers.” - -“None the less crooks.” - -“No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class -of wealth which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the -plunderers, themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the -syndicate a confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that -would make success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street -contribute to the fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's -life was a bull factor, and his death a bear card. But they had -old-fashioned, unphilosophical scruples against murder. Moreover, the -sensational disappearance of Garrettson would serve even better than his -death. Problem: How to kidnap Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make -Garrettson kidnap himself? Simplicity itself!” - -“It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you -with admiration. And so--” - -“The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con. -Steel and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H. -Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand -shares, studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for -millions! They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The -rest is obvious, even to you--isn't it?” Mr. Robison gazed benignantly -at his guest. - -“No; it isn't obvious to me--or to any one else,” retorted Kidder, -sharply. - -“You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you -ask me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an -obvious way?” - -“Insult ahead.” - -“Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter -of collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house--an -impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic -attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture. -He tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr. -Garrettson. The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The -stranger says to the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning. -Tell Mr. Garrettson he will see me at once or not at all. Give him this -paper and show him this sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives -Mr. Garrettson the paper, which is apparently the first page of -the _Knickerbocker History of New York_. The memorandum informs Mr. -Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the MSS. of this history, -Cooper's “Spy,” Poe's “Goldbug,” three love-letters of George Washington -to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed letters of Thomas -Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence whose autograph -is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the stranger!” - -“The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving's _Knickerbocker -History_ is a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to -make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken -into the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of -which the stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation, -particularly since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger -has prepared himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a -lunatic, for he wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and -five fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue -and haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic -are quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting -outside as usual. - -“As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is -the usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man -running from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with -a horsewhip; also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This -attracts the coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street -from the Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the -coachman has turned his head away from his master's house on the left to -the horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé -slam--a rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and -prepares to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always -the office. While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has -come out of the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done -every day for thirty years. - -“Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to -the house--a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery, -a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns -round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him -say, 'Beg pardon--here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand -papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. -H. Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives -away, sure that his master is within. His customary route has been -studied and it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage -arrive at the office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because -he was in the library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has -in readiness an exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, -and even of the coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do -come out, Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is -driven away--but not to his office! And there you are.” - -“Do you really think that is what happened?” - -“It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.” - -“It is very fine--only it cannot happen.” - -“Why not?” - -“The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.” - -“If you knew the history of our old New York families you would -recall the episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English -and stiff-necked, one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, -thinking he carried his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed -in the carriage by the footman before the old lady had gotten in--and -usually the old lady got in first and the lap-robe followed.” - -“But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the -cigar-ashes were there on the floor!” - -“The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of -making Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled -newspapers clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered -seeing Garrettson get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of -memory.” - -“Oh, well--” - -“Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here, -let me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist, -better known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted -compatriots like you, has to say about this. I copied it: - -“_Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and -under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of -us realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in -connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals -of any actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a -memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought, -accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past -life. When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has -suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'_” - -_“The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a -misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience, -but one by which we are led to make a false judgment--and this because -the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably -fully justified._ - -_“A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in -regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation -in fact.”_ - -“But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he -wouldn't notice a different coachman?” Kidder looked incredulous in -advance of the answer. - -“He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he -wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing -unusual, nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops -introspective misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of -course the coachman drove to some place or other and left the great -financier a prisoner in the cab.” - -“How?” - -“By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside, -so that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a -matter of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you -know.” - -“I don't.” - -“I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that, -since there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate -continued to be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it -impossible for Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the -private stable whither he was taken, carriage and all, except by going -through a lot of cobwebs and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged -from the coal-chute a photographer could take pictures of him--no hero -of a thrilling escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump, -full of dirt and soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed! -A quickly developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two -would, of course, make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of -the most gigantic of his promotions--the Intercontinental Railway -Consolidation. Indeed, Garrettson can use the break in prices and the -recovery of the market to increase his prestige by pointing out how -important not only his life is, but, indeed, his physical presence.” - -“But the syndicate--” - -“It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson -stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well, -my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of -Bohême. Come on!” - -Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making -dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked -a great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally -knew. - -One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson -in the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and -his face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself -of cobwebs and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why -Garrettson had not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful -forenoon--and why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for -his misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter: - -_Sir,--We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall -Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain -morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the -house. We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon -by what you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was -formed to reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still -operating successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read -it by taking the first two letters of each word--except only the first -word, which is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to -tell you this because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended -it should be, and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You -might compare notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you -for your benevolence, we remain,_ - -_Respectfully,_ - -_The Plunder Recovery Syndicate._ - -Kidder showed this letter to Richards. “Let us see,” said Richards, -“whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the -office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator.” - -He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked! - -“Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street,” - said Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover -the obvious. - -“Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it -really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram. -Possibly Robison himself faked it.” - -“Why don't you find out?” suggested the broker. “I will,” said Kidder, -and he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable -companies had any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison -in the brokers' office. - -“They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality,” said -Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation. - -“Yes, yes,” acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; “but what astonishes me is -the syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next.” - -“I wonder,” echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the -market was going up or down. - -Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he -knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch, -Boon & Shaw “had lost a few pieces”--but not for publication. Such -things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss. Kidder -knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might again -cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself Robison. - - - - -III--AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT - - -I - -THE bell of the telephone on the desk of the alert city editor of the -New York _Planet_ rang twice. The alert city editor did not instantly -answer it. He was reading a love-letter not meant for his eyes. It had -been sent in with his mail by mistake. The bell rang again. - -“Yes?” he said, angrily. “Who? Oh, hello, Bill!” There was a pause. -Then: “Shall we? Why, friend, he's already started. Thanks awfully! Sure -thing!” - -He swung round and cast a roaming glance about the big room. It was -Sunday, the sacred day when nothing happened. - -“Parkhurst!” he called. - -Parkhurst, one of the _Planet's_ star men, sauntered over to the -desk. He had planned to do other things with his time this nice Sunday -afternoon. Monday-morning stories are not apt to be exciting. Therefore -he limped pathetically in anticipation of the excuse he proposed to make -to get off. He was Williams's chum. - -“Jimmy,” said the city editor, with his habitual air of giving -assignments as though they were decorations awarded for distinguished -services, “I just had Bill Stewart, of the Hotel Brabant, on the -telephone. He says there is a man there who has seven million dollars in -gold-dust in the engine-room of the hotel. Klondike mine-owner. Does not -believe in banks, I guess. Takes mighty big stocking to hold the cash--” - -“Do you want _me_ to write the story?” interrupted Parkhurst, coldly. It -was his way of showing his city editor his place. - -“Coal-Oil Johnny up to date! Don't fall for any press agent--” - -Parkhurst forgot the excuse he was going to make. His limp vanished. The -story promised well. He hastened to the Brabant and saw the room clerk, -Stewart, who had tipped off the city editor. - -“Yes; he is in,” said Stewart. “But if you think it is another case -of Coal-Oil Johnny you've got another guess coming. Not that he is a -tightwad; he is liberal enough with his nuggets, the bell-hops say. But -he is no fool. And yet--think of it!--he takes into Seattle with him -from Nome eight or ten millions of gold-dust! There he hires a special -train to bring him and his gold-dust to New York. He arrives at the -Grand Central in the early morning. They hustle round and find seven -trucks to carry the boxes of gold-dust for him. He follows in a taxicab. -He comes straight to this hotel--” - -Stewart here swelled up his chest. It made the reporter say, amiably: - -“It was considered a good hotel once; but news travels slowly in the -frozen North.” - -“He comes up here, registers, and then expects me to let him take the -whole fifteen tons of gold up to his room. What do you know about that? -Well, then he wanted to hire a whole floor so as to distribute the -weight. But you know it is a highly concentrated weight. No floor would -stand it. Gold is the heaviest thing there is.” - -“It is,” agreed Parkhurst, hastily. “It is, dear friend. That's why I -never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and--” - -“Let me tell you,” cut in Stewart, full of his story. “So, being Sunday -and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs -in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, -worth, he says, about eight million--” - -“Lead me to it before you hand in your bill,” entreated the reporter. - -“There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the -job of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights, -Jimmy,” said Stewart. “I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I -think he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always -writing about--don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the -polite hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of -eighteen seventy-four?” - -“What's the full name?” asked the reporter. “There it is!” and Stewart -pointed to the autograph in the hotel register. - -“Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G.” - -There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two -personal servants. - -“Looks like a school-boy's writing.” - -“He is about forty,” said the clerk. - -“Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was -about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at -home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore--” - -“Here he comes,” interjected Stewart. “I'll introduce you.” - -J. Willoughby Parkhurst, the reporter, was startled by the change in -Stewart's face. It had taken on the ingratiating soul-sweetness of one -who enjoys your story with all his faculties--the complete surrender of -self, soul, and hopes of heaven. The clerk exuded gratitude from every -pore. - -“Gosh!” exclaimed J. Willoughby Parkhurst in amazement, and turned -quickly to see who it was that had made Stewart's greed-stricken face -turn itself into a moving-picture film of all the delights. - -A man was approaching--a man of about the reporter's height, -square-shouldered, smooth-shaved, strong-chinned, with an outdoor -complexion, and the clear, clean, steady eyes of a man without a liver. -There was a metallic glint to the gray-blue of the iris that made the -eyes a trifle hard. The lips were not only compressed, but you guessed -that the compression was habitual. Even a private detective could have -told that this man had made up his mind to do one thing, and therefore -he would do it. There was no doubt of it. - -“Oh, Mr. Jerningham!” The name issued like a stream of saccharin out of -the eddying smiles on Stewart's face. - -“The expectation of twenty millions of gold, at least, on that face!” - thought Parkhurst, more impressed by the smile than by the cause -thereof. - -“Here is that nugget I promised you.” And Mr. Jerningham dropped -four-and-three-quarter pounds troy of gold into the clerk's coy hand. -“It is the largest I ever found in six years' mining on the Klondike.” - -The reporter later told the city editor--he did not print this--that -Stewart, as he got the nugget, showed plainly on his face his -disappointment that Jerningham had not come from the South-African -diamond-fields. A carbon crystal weighing four pounds and -three-quarters--that would have been worth a real smile! But the clerk -said, gratefully: “It's very good of you. Thank you ever so much! I'd -like to introduce to you my friend, Mr. Park-hurst.” - -“Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. Parker, did you say?” - -The Klondiker spoke coldly. It made the reporter say, subtly -antagonistic: - -“Parkhurst!” - -“Any relation to--” - -“Haven't a relation in the world.” - -“Shake again, friend,” said Jerningham, warmly. “I am in the same boat -myself!” - -They shook hands again. - -“Do you want to be very nice?” asked Jerningham, almost eagerly, of the -reporter. - -“It is my invariable custom to be that,” Parkhurst assured him, gravely. - -“Dine with me to-night.” Jerningham looked expectant. - -“I have an engagement with my friend the bishop,” said the reporter, who -hated clergymen for obvious reasons. “But--let me see!” Parkhurst closed -his eyes the better to see how he could break his engagement. “I'll send -regrets to the bishop and dine with you with pleasure.” - -“Mr. Parkhurst is on the _Planet_” put in Stewart. It was the way he -said it! - -“Ah, yes,” said Jemingham, vaguely. - -“In fact, Mr. Jemingham,” said Parkhurst, “I was sent to interview you.” - -“Huh?” ejaculated the Klondiker, blankly. It was plain he was virgin -soil. - -“All to myself!” thought J. Willoughby, with a mental smack of the lips. -Then he began, in that congratulatory tone of voice with which practised -interviewers corkscrew admissions out of their victims: “We heard about -your trip from Seattle, and about your--er--baggage. Would you mind -telling me a little more about it? We could”--with a honeyed grin at -Stewart--“sit down in a nice little corner of the café and have a nice -little chat.” - -“I don't mind--if you don't,” said Jemingham, with one of those -diffidently eager smiles of people who are doing you a favor and do not -know it. - -The reporter led the way to the café, selected a small table in the -farthest corner, beckoned to a waiter, pointed to a chair, and nodded -toward the Alaskan Monte Cristo. - -“Thank you!” said Jemingham, with real gratitude, and sat down. Then he -looked at his watch, saw that it was only four o'clock, and said to the -waiter, “A cup of tea, please.” - -“Huh?” It was all J. Willoughby could rise to. A miner and tea? What -about the free champagne for the hundreds? A tea-drinker would not -scatter walnut-sized diamonds along the Great White Way. - -“I got used to it. My pal was English. We found it preferable to -whisky in the Klondike.” Mr. Jerningham made no effort to disguise the -apologetic tone. - -“I'll have the same,” cleverly said J. Willoughby. Then, to clinch it, -“Of course you know that in the exclusive clubs to-day men drink more -tea than liquor!” - -“It's the proper thing--eh?” said Jerningham, with a sort of head-waiter -deference that made the reporter stare in surprise. “I am glad you told -me that.” - -“Oh yes. It is no longer good form to get load--er--intoxicated. It's -one of the few good things we've got from England--tea-drinking,” the -reporter said. “And, Mr. Jerningham, to get back to our subject, just -how did you happen to go to the Klondike?” - -“It began in New York,” said Jerningham, and drew his lips together. It -was clearly not a pleasant memory. - -“It did?” You could tell that J. Willoughby was grateful. “Well, well! -And--” He frowned as though a date had escaped him. He really suggested -time to the miner, for Jerningham volunteered: “When I was twelve years -old.” - -“That's about twenty years ago,” ventured the reporter in the -affirmative tone of voice that inevitably elicits contradiction and the -exact figures from the victim. - -“Thirty-two years ago, sir.” - -“Well, well! And--How did you say it began?” The reporter put his hand -to his ear to show that his hardness of hearing had prevented him from -getting Jerningham's previous answer to the same question. - -“My father!” Mr. Jemingham nodded twice, to show that those two words -told the whole story. - -“Ah, yes! And then?” The reporter looked as if instant death Would -follow the non-receipt of information; and Jerningham, as though against -a lifelong determination to be silent, spoke--and frowned as he spoke: - -“My father! He was a coachman in the employ of old David Soulett, who -was the son of Walter and the father of Richard and David the third, and -of Madge, who married the Duke of Peterborough. Old David Soulett--the -second, he was--was my father's employer. My father was English. He came -to New York when he was eighteen. He went straight into the Souletts' -stable, became head coachman, and lived with the family for fifty years. -They pensioned him off. I grew up with the boys--called one another by -our first names. Do you get that?--by our first names!” - -Jemingham compressed his lips tightly and nodded. His eyes filled with -reminiscence--sweet, yet sad. - -“You did, eh?” said the reporter. - -If J. Willoughby had been addicted to slang he would have used the same -wondering tone of voice and would have exclaimed, “What do you know -about that!” - -“And that is why I went to the Klondike!” - -There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking -in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be -said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination -that Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving -grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful -reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was -bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, “Did they send you away?” - -“They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It -was enough.” - -“Yes, of course!” The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. “But I -don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say.” - -“They were!” explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. “They -were Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had -everything I did not have. So I went to the Klondike.” - -“Yes?” - -“Is it not clear?” - -“No!” said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain -negative. - -“They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were -good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But -if they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not -been the son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they -wouldn't have been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. -Policemen at the corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove -by and seemed really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You -felt the cops would never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the -station-house--always to the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point -to it--the Soulett mansion--with an air of pride, as though they owned -it! Clerks in shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts -walked in, and later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, -they said; and he said, said he--and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?” - -“Why?” repeated the reporter, hypnotically. - -“Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to -digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's -proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two -people, including the very best there were in literature, art, -science, theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, -thirty-eight pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among -grave-diggers, laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his -great-grandchildren! Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. -The only thing that didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. -Genius for real estate they call his madness to-day. But it was an -obsession. He bought a farm in what is now the swell shopping district; -and another where the Hotel Regina is; and another beginning where the -Vandeventer houses are. The old lunatic's mad purchases are now worth -one hundred and fifty million dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, -with fake portraits showing an intellectual-looking country squire. -Grave-digger--that's what! But the money really began with him and the -near-gentleman with Walter, who knew the best families because his father -buried them one after another. By the time the real-estate market got -to going in earnest David was born--of course a gentleman! What did it? -Unearned money!” - -“Yes. But what's digging graves got to do with your going to the -Klondike?” - -“Everything. It gave me the secret of it--the unearned part. Don't you -see?” - -“No.” - -“My dear sir, I loved the company of the Soulett boys and I enjoyed the -society of their equals. So I naturally desired to become their equal. -To become a gentleman I had to become rich. But the money must not be -earned; so I couldn't make it in trade--which, moreover, was too slow. -The careers of butcher, plumber, and liquor-dealer, that might have made -me rich quickly, were closed to me by the social disqualifications they -carry. And the careers of Jim Sands and Bill Train in Wall Street were -too malodorous; besides which, you can't make very much money on the -Stock Exchange without treading on influential social toes. Hence the -Klondike. Do you see now?” - -“I'm beginning to.” - -“Well?” - -“Do you mean,” said the reporter, to get it straight, “that you went -to the Klondike to make money so as to climb--I mean, so as to go into -society?” - -“Exactly so! Yes, sir! And I tell you, Mr. Parker--” - -“Park-_hurst!_” said J. Willoughby, with a frown of injured vanity. - -“Mr. Parkhurst, a man has to have some strong motive to enable him to -conquer success. In all my wanderings for twenty-five years, prospecting -in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, the Southwest, Nevada, California, -Oregon, and Washington, and finally all over Alaska, I had but one -object in mind, one purpose. It sustained me. It gave me courage when -others despaired; it kept me marching onward when others fell by -the wayside and died or became sheep-ranchers. I had no thought for -amusement, none for pleasure, none for love. I simply kept up my search. -It was the search for happiness that the old knights used to go out on. -It was a search, Mr. Parker-hurst, for the yellow admission ticket to -the Four Hundred!” - -“Have you found it?” J. Willoughby could not help it. - -“Let me tell you,” pursued Jerningham, ignoring the question. “I used to -read the society columns of the New York papers whenever I felt myself -growing discouraged; and that always revived me. Up in the Klondike I -had saved fifteen hundred dollars and I paid one thousand dollars in -gold-dust for a six-months-old copy of a society paper which had an -account of Mrs. Masters's ball. To me, 'among those present' meant more -than a list of gilt-edge bonds. I've got it yet.” - -He paused to take from his pocket-book a tattered clipping and showed -it to the newspaper man with a mixture of pride and tenderness and -solicitude lest it be harmed, as a father shows the only extant -photograph of the most wonderful baby in captivity. - -“I thought my name would fit in very nicely between the Janeways and the -Jesups. It was a good investment, that one thousand dollars, for I -felt I had to get a gait on, and that very same day I went on that -prospecting trip to the Endicott Mountains which changed my luck for me. -Everything came my way then--I mean, in mining. I am getting six hundred -thousand dollars a year out of my claims; and that is because I believe -fifty thousand dollars a month enough for a bachelor. More would -be--er--sort of ostentatious. Don't you think so?” - -“Yes, indeed,” agreed J. Willoughby Parkhurst, with a shudder. - -“When I marry I'll make it one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars -a month.” - -“I agree with you,” said Parkhurst--“because, really, two cannot live as -cheaply as one.” He thrilled when he thought how he would play up that -promised income in his story. - -“That's what I say,” Jerningham said, gratefully. “Of course there's -the seven millions and a half of gold-dust I have brought with me. It's -downstairs.” His grim mouth became more determinedly grim than ever. -This man was the kind that gets what he wants, with or without money. He -will not climb, thought Parkhurst; he will vault into society. He asked -Jerningham: - -“Have you really got that much down-stairs? I mean,” he hastily -corrected himself, “have you no fear of the danger of going about with -that much loose change?” - -“No. It's guarded by men who are getting big pay for being honest. You -can buy honesty--if you treat it as a luxury and pay for it as such. -Each box weighs one hundred and fifty pounds, for convenience in -handling. Would you like to see the stuff?” He could not hide a -boyish eagerness--not at all offensive--to impress his new friend. -J. Willoughby Parkhurst forgave him in advance, and to prove it said, -heartily: - -“Very much indeed!” - -“Very well. Please come with me.” And he led the way to the engine-room. -They went down two flights. At the door of the engine-room they met -the engineer, who bowed with an obsequiousness that indicated sincere -gratitude and renewed hope--as of a man who has received a handsome -gratuity and is expecting another. - -In the middle of the concrete floor, of the engine-room, piled up in an -amazingly small mound of boxes, was the gold. - -“Each box has about fifty thousand dollars in dust,” explained -Jerningham, with what one might have called a matter-of-fact pride. -“Would you like to open one?” - -“I don't want to put you to any trouble--not for worlds; but I do want -to see the inside of one like anything.” - -“No trouble. I say, Mr. Wilkinson,” to the hotel engineer, who had -followed them, a deferential smile fastened to his face, “could you get -me a hammer and chisel and a screw-driver?” - -“Certainly, Mr. Jerningham,” said the engineer, with obvious pride at -being part of an extraordinary adventure. He reappeared presently with -the tools and a burly assistant. They pried off the steel hoop and -cracked off the sealing-wax from over the heads of the screws that held -the lid in place. They then unscrewed the cover--and there before their -wide-gaping eyes was a boxful of yellow Yukon gold. - -Jerningham smilingly looked at J. Willoughby Parkhurst and waved his -hand toward the treasure--a gesture that said Help yourself!--only it -said it humorously. And so the reporter smiled indulgently and plunged -his hand in it. - -“How heavy!” he exclaimed, involuntarily. He had meant to be witty, as -penniless people always are in the presence of great wealth to show that -they are not impressed. - -“It will be light enough to blow away here,” said Jerningham so -seriously that nobody smiled--indeed, everybody hoped for a blast in -the direction of his own pocket. Put Jerningham merely said: “Thank you. -Will you screw it on again?” And the engineer did. Jerningham did not -stay to see the rescrewing finished. He took Parkhurst's arm and walked -out. The reporter told him: - -“I can't help thinking it was imprudent. The detectives now know they -can open the boxes and--” - -“It isn't likely that all eight will be dishonest at the same minute. -That's why I got eight instead of four. But, even if they all wanted -to, how much could they get away with? With the contents of one of the -boxes, fifty thousand dollars? Well, that isn't much. I can't afford to -let that gold be a bother to me. I brought it along so that it could be -my servant--not for me to be its slave.” - -“I've heard others make that selfsame remark,” said J. Willoughby, -cheerfully, “but they never struck off the aureate shackles!” - -“My friend, it's not in striking off shackles; that is always difficult. -The secret is in not letting them become shackles!” said Jerningham, -grimly. “A man does not confidently expect during twenty-five years to -strike it rich some day without very carefully thinking of what he is -going to do with the gold after he gets it.” - - - -II - -The story, as James Willoughby Parkhurst wrote it, and even as the -_Planet_ printed it, was a masterpiece. It was far more interesting than -a fake. The truth often may be stranger than fiction, but it is seldom -so exciting. With the generous desire to repay Jerningham's hospitality -with kindness, to say nothing of an eye for the picturesque, the -reporter made his victim an Admirable Crichton. Parkhurst's -Jerningham was very distinguished-looking, which every woman knows is -better for a man than being handsome. He not only was “probably the -richest man in the world,” but a fine linguist--indeed, a philologist. -You saw Jerningham digging in his gravel-bank by day---spadeful after -spadeful of clear gold-dust--and at nights reading Aristophanes in the -original by the flickering and malodorous light of seal-fat lamps. - -On the same day that Jerningham learned that his own wealth was -practically inexhaustible, and decided to limit his income in order that -gold might not be demonetized, he--the philologist in him--discovered -also amazing analogies between certain Eskimo and Aleutian words and -their equivalents in Tibetan. This and a monograph on “Totemism in -the Light of Its Undoubted Babylonian Origin,” he would read in London -before the Royal Society. Of Jerningham's ancestry the article said that -the erudite Croesus was “of the Long Island Jerninghams.” - -At three separate and distinct places in the article, each time -differently worded, but the intention and purpose thereof being the -same, the writer said that for generosity, lavish extravagance, capacity -for spending, and deep-rooted belief that there was no difference -between gold coins and stage money, the learned Klondiker was a -combination of Monte Cristo, Boni de Castellane, Coal-Oil Johnny, and -Alcibiades--only more so. But his feverish efforts were all in vain--he -only grew richer! If he decided to give a million to a newsboy who was -polite, that same moment he would be sure to get a cablegram from one of -his superintendents that the vein had widened to three miles and the -assays jumped to three hundred thousand dollars a ton. - -Parkhurst finished by saying that Jerningham had no use for women. In -divers countries world-famous sirens had sung to him--in vain. He -was the kind that registered zero, even though plunged to the chin in -Vesuvian lava. So the dear things might as well save time, breath, and -muscular exertion; he would have none of them, no matter what their age, -color of hair, temperament, accomplishments, or even faces might be. -He was arrow-proof and Cupid had given up trying. Still, there must be -One--somewhere! - -When J. Willoughby Parkhurst went to the Hotel Brabant on Monday morning -in the hope of a second-day story, he was not sure how Jerningham would -take his masterpiece. He was going so early in the hope of shunting -off the head-line artists of the afternoon papers, for all that he had -begged Stewart to fix it so that nobody got to Jerningham before the -_Planet_ man turned up. - -As he entered the lobby he saw in a corner lounge five reporters -from the yellows, three photographers from same, a professor from the -Afternoon Three-Center, and a “psychological portraitist,” feminine and -fat, but dressed with unusual care and even piquancy, from a magazine. -He saw Jemingham's finish--not! - -The competitors were too busy talking to see J. Willoughby Parkhurst, -author of the day's sensation, walk up to the desk and greet Stewart -affectionately. They did not see J. W. P. turn sharply, approach a -well-built, square-shouldered man, with an outdoor complexion, who had -just emerged from the elevator, and shake hands warmly. - -After one and a half seconds of dialogue, consisting of “Good morning!” - and “Good morning!” J. Willoughby cleverly realized that Mr. Alfred -Jemingham could not possibly have read the article. On general -principles he took the Klondiker to one end of the corridor, out of -sight of the other reporters. - -“I am very anxious to make arrangements to store my gold in some bank's -vaults. I don't know any bank--that is, I have no account in any; and I -wondered if I needed to be introduced.” - -Jemingham looked anxiously at Parkhurst. - -“Of course!” said J. Willoughby, and immediately looked alarmed. “Of -course! They are very particular--very! The good ones, you know. A man's -bank is like a man's club--it can give him a social standing or it can -prove he hasn't any.” He looked at his Klondike friend with a frown of -anxiety. - -“I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what -you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company.” - -“Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he -will make the trust company take it--unless he thinks there is another -still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and we'll -tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us--what?” - -J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive -property of the _Planet_. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called up -the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take -pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great -vaults, escorted by the _Planet's_ special commissioner in one of the -armored automobiles which the _Planet_ supplied to its bright young men. - -Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the _Planet's_ financial editor; -and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller -Trust Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all -arrangements, including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy -O'Loughlin, who did all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson & -Company, Wolff, Herzog & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms. -Photographers were duly stationed at the various points by which the -aureate procession would pass. - -Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the -ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be “tipped off” by -hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to -the Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the -_Planet's_ automobile and followed the trucks. - -In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder, -and Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was -carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the -heap. - -“I'd like to have these cashed,” he said, with that delightful humor of -all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody -always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was -not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark -at home that night. - -Word of what was happening went about, and soon the great little narrow -street was blocked by people who wished to see six or eight millions go -into a place where there were one hundred and fifty. But there was this -difference--the one hundred and fifty already there would stay there; -but a handful or two of the six or eight might be distributed among -those present by the latest Coal-Oil Johnny from the Klondike. The hope -of a stray nugget or two kept two thousand busy people about the doors -of the VanTwiller Trust Company nearly two hours. - -As for Jerningham, the trust company was to send the twenty boxes of -gold-dust to the Assay Office and credit Mr. Jerninghan's account with -the proceeds of the sale thereof. Two days later Mr. Alfred Jerningham -had to his credit in the VanTwiller Trust Company $1,115,675.28; and -in the vaults boxes containing, as per his most conservative estimates, -gold-dust valued at six millions and a half. And everybody knew -it--the Planet saw to that. Great potentialities in that golden fame of -Jerningham's--what? - - - -III - -The _Planet's_ official version of the Jerningham affair, and the flood -of sensational literature turned loose on the community by the other -papers, made the Klondiker's name as familiar to New-Yorkers as a -certain breakfast-food advertisement. - -His daily mail was enormous, especially after the newspapers said that -he was looking for a house in which to entertain. “The richest bachelor -in the world,” he was called, and the real-estate agents acted -accordingly. So did no end of unattached females of dubious age, but -of not at all dubious intentions. Also it became known that he needed a -social secretary to guide him in two things--the two things being -whom to invite and how to spend six hundred thousand dollars a year in -entertaining those who were invited by the social adviser. - -The applications came by the dozen--in the strictest confidence. If -somebody had said this aloud in the hearing of society, society would -have laughed scornfully. A gentleman was always a gentleman, and could -never, never be secretary to a parvenu! But, for all that, there were -scores of well-born men who appeared willing enough--don't you know?--to -help spend the six hundred thousand a year. Or else some historic names -were forged by dastards. The _Planet's_ society editor, who would never -allow herself to be called editress, proved invaluable as a living Who's -Who, and demonstrated her worth to her paper by making connections that -would further her work; for she was much sought by people who wished -introductions to Mr. Jerningham. - -They would trade with her--items for letters. - -It helped all concerned that not only Parkhurst, but the rest of the -kind-hearted space-grabbers, informed the world that the possessor of -the income of six hundred thousand a year was a fount of erudition, and -withal a man of the world, with exquisite manners--invulnerable to the -optical artillery of the fairest sirens on earth. And always the six -hundred thousand dollars a year to spend, so that the beastly stuff -would not accumulate and choke up the passages of the palace he proposed -to build! That was how Francis Wolfe came to be introduced to Mr. -Jerningham by J. Willoughby Parkhurst, and how the position was -delicately offered to him, and how F. Wolfe delicately accepted. - -A fine-looking, well-built young fellow, this Frank--dark-eyed, -black-haired, with a wonderfully clean pink but virile complexion that -made him physically very attractive. In those Broadway restaurants that -have become institutions Francis Wolfe was himself an institution. His -debts were discussed as freely as the cost of gasoline. And yet the -chorus contingent and their lady friends, consisting of the most -beautiful women in all the world, not only preferred, but publicly and -on the slightest provocation proclaimed their preference for, Frank -Wolfe penniless to almost any one else--short of millions. But if Frank -Wolfe was the chorus-girls' pet, Mr. Francis Wolfe was the only brother -of Mrs. John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham, and favorite nephew of old -Mrs. Stimson. And everybody knew what that meant! - -J. Willoughby Parkhurst left them alone, even if he was a reporter. - -“If you do not mind talking business,” said Jerningham, with a -deprecatory smile. - -“Not at all,” eagerly said young Wolfe, who was consumed by curiosity -to listen to the golden statistics. “In fact,” he added, with a burst of -boyish candor, “I'd be glad to have you.” - -“You are a nice boy!” said Jemingham, so gratefully and non-familiarly -that Frank could not find fault with him. - -“I need a friend,” continued Jerningham. “I know friendship cannot be -bought. It grows--but there must be a seed. It may be that after you -know me better you will give me your friendship. That is for the future. -I also need a man! A man whom I can trust! A man, young Mr. Francis -Wolfe,” he said, with a sternness that impressed young Mr. Francis -Wolfe, “who will not laugh at me!” - -Frank was not an intellectual giant, but neither was he an utter ass. He -said, very seriously, “Go on!” - -“I am willing to pay such a man twenty-five thousand a year--” He paused -and almost frowned. - -“Go on!” again said young Mr. Wolfe, looking the Klondiker straight in -the eyes. - -“Twenty-five thousand dollars--to begin with!” - -“Yes?” said young Mr. Wolfe, quite calmly. - -“The duties of such a man--and keep in mind I mean a man when I say a -man!--entail nothing whatever of a menial or dishonorable character; -nothing to which a gentleman could possibly object. But it would -necessitate a certain spirit of good-will toward me. I am not only -willing, but even anxious, to pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year, -and all traveling expenses, to a clean-minded young man who, for all his -wild-oat sowing, is a gentleman and will learn to like me enough not to -laugh at me when I intrust him with the secret desire of my heart.” - -Before Frank's thoughts could crystallize into the definite suspicion -that Jerningham wanted to be helped to climb socially, Jemingham went on -so coldly that again young Wolfe was impressed: - -“You will admit, Mr. Wolfe, that a man who has prospected all over -North America from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle, and who has, -unfortunately, been compelled”--he rose, went to his bureau, brought -out two revolvers of a rather old-fashioned kind--“compelled against his -will to draw first”--he showed the young man about a dozen notches in -the handle of one of them--“one who fears no man and no government and -no blackmailer; who owns the richest placer mines in the world--is not -apt to be an emotional ass!” There was a pause. But Jemingham continued -before young Wolfe could speak: “Neither is he a damned fool--what?” - -Mr. Francis Wolfe felt he had to say something, so he said, “I -shouldn't think so.” - -He felt that Jemingham was not a man to trifle with--a tough customer -in a rough-and-tumble fight; a man who had taken life in preserving his -own; altogether a man, a character, who would make an admirable topic of -conversation with both men and women--therefore a man to be interested -in. - -“Do you know Mr. Ashton Welles?” asked Jer-ningham, almost sharply. - -“Not intimately.” - -“Do you know Mrs. Ashton Welles?” - -“Same answer.” - -“Ever dine at their house?” - -Frank thought a moment. He had dined at so many people's houses. “No,” - he answered, finally. “Could you?” - -“How do you mean?” - -“Are your relations with Welles such, or could they be cultivated so, as -to make him invite you--not me--you!--to dine at his house?” - -“Look here, Mr. Jerningham,” and young Mr. Wolfe's face flushed, “a -fellow doesn't do some things for money; and this is one--” - -“I know it! Not for money. For friendship, yes! That's why--you -understand now, don't you?” He looked so earnestly at young Wolfe that -Frank absolved him of wrong-doing. - -“No, I don't!” said the young man. - -“Did you ever know Randolph Deering, who used to be president of the -VanTwiller Trust Company?” - -“Do you mean Mrs. Welles's father?” - -“Yes.” - -“I don't recall speaking to him more than to say 'How do you do?' I -don't remember when or how I met him.” - -“Do you know Mrs. Deering, Mrs. Welles's mother?” - -“No.” - -“Do you know anybody who does?” - -“I suppose I do.” - -“Anybody who would give you a letter of introduction?” - -“I don't know. If my aunt or my sisters know her it would be easy. But, -of course, I should have to know first why I should want to meet her.” - -“Of course. Did you ever hear anything about Mrs. Welles's sister, Naida -Deering?” - -“Didn't know she had a sister.” - -“Then, of course, you never saw her.” - -Francis Wolfe thought a long time. His mind did not work very quickly -at any time. At length he said: “I don't think there could have been -a sister, for I never heard of her having any; indeed, I distinctly -remember hearing that she was an only child. Maybe she was a cousin -or--er--something of the sort.” - -“No; Naida was a sister; a good deal older and--But we are drifting -away from business. Will you accept my proposition to be my--er--adviser -in certain matters on which I think you are qualified to give advice, -and accept twenty-five thousand dollars a year?” - -“Do you mind if I speak frankly?” - -“Certainly not. Speak ahead.” - -“Are you offering me this--er--salary when, of course, I know I am not -worth a da--a cent in business; I mean, isn't it really in exchange for -what I may be able to do for you in a--a social way? You know what I -mean.” - -“No, sir!” said Jerningham, decisively. “Not for an instant! I do not, -dear Mr. Wolfe, give an infinitesimal damn for what is called society.” - -“But I thought Jimmy Parkhurst told me--” - -“I cannot help what Jimmy Parkhurst told you; but I tell you that I like -interesting people, and I don't care who or what they are socially. I -hate bores--whether they are hod-carriers or dukes. If I can meet people -who will instruct me when I want to learn, or amuse me when I want to -laugh, I'm satisfied. And I can always meet that kind without anybody's -help. You know how it is.” Then he spoke perhaps thirty words in a -foreign language that Frank thought must be Hungarian. “You remember -your Latin, of course. That's from Petronius.” - -“I thought so!” said Frank Wolfe, the pet of the chorus-girls, laughing -to himself. Remember his Latin! He? Haw! - -“It is from his 'Cena Trimalchionis.' The _arbiter elegantiarum_ knew -what social climbers might be expected to do, though I neither boast -of my money nor do I eat with my knife. The Latin of the 'Cena' is -difficult--too slangy, full of the _sermo plebeius_.” - -“Yes, it is,” agreed Frank, so gravely that it was all he could do to -keep from laughing at himself. This Klondiker was not only a gun-fighter -and richer than Croesus, but also a highbrow! Could you beat it? - -“Will you accept my offer? Will you try to be my friend?” - -“Suppose I find I can't?” - -“I'll be sorry. The money is nothing. The inability to make a friend -will be my real loss.” - -“Well, we might try six months.” He looked inquiringly at Jerningham. “I -don't exactly know what you wish me to do.” - -“Become my friend! You yourself said some things cannot be done for -money by a gentleman; but there is nothing--so long as it is not -dishonorable--that a gentleman may not do for a friend. Shall I explain -a little more?” He looked anxiously at young Mr. Wolfe. - -“Yes--do,” said Frank. It occurred to him that this singular man was in -reality proceeding with a curious delicacy. - -“Just as soon as you feel you know me I will ask you to help me. Mrs. -Deering is now abroad. Mrs. Welles may be of help to us. Mr. Wolfe, now -that I am not so poor as I was, I want to find Naida Deering, the only -woman I ever loved--and, God help me, the only woman I still love!” - -Jerningham rose hastily and walked up and down the room, his face -persistently turned away from Wolfe. He walked to a window and stared -at the sky a long time. Finally he turned to the young man, who was -watching him, and said, with profound conviction: - -“_Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur!_” - -Young Mr. Wolfe at first felt like saying, “Yes, indeed!” which would, -as a matter of fact, have been a very pat retort. But he weakened and -said, “What is that quotation from?” - -“Publilius Syrus. Mr. Wolfe, I must find her. And of course I can't -employ a private detective. You understand?” - -“Yes. That is true,” said Frank. - -“In her youth something happened.” Young Mr. Wolfe sat up straight. Here -at last was something really vital! Jerningham proceeded: “She was a -high-strung girl--pure as gold. Her very innocence made her indiscreet. -There was no scandal--no, indeed! But she disappeared. And now, when I -have more than enough money for the two of us, I wish to find her. If I -don't--of what possible good are my millions? Tell me that!” - -Jerningham glared so angrily at young Mr. Wolfe that young Mr. Wolfe -felt a slight spasm of concern. The Klondiker had a metallic gray eye -that at times menaced like cold steel. - -“Excuse me!” said Jerningham, contritely. “My dear boy, do you know what -it is to go chasing over the landscape for years and years in the hope -of striking it some day so as to be able to go back to your native city -and marry the one woman in all the world--particularly when she was one -whom her parents, not understanding her nature, practically disowned? In -all my prospecting what I wanted was to find Naida's mine--gold by the -ton--so I could buy back her place in society!” - -There was such determination in Jerningham's voice and look that young -Wolfe felt a thrill of admiration and, with it, a distinct masculine -liking. - -“That's a great story!” he said. “I never heard of your--er--Miss Naida. -She never married, I suppose?” - -“I don't know! I don't know! She promised to wait for me. The Deerings -used to live in Jersey; and living in Jersey when I was a kid wasn't -what it is to-day. They were not prominent in society. Of course the -Deerings kept it quiet. I think Mrs. Welles may know where her sister -is--the sister who is never mentioned by her own flesh and blood! Mrs. -Deering, of course, does; but she is abroad somewhere. I must find -Naida, I tell you--and--” Jerningham was silent, but Wolfe saw that he -was breathing quickly, as though he had been running. Frank never -read anything except the afternoon papers, love-letters, and the more -romantic of the best-sellers. He now very laboriously constructed a -romance of Jemingham's life that became so thrilling it took away -his own breath. It made him feel very kindly toward the new -Jerningham--everybody feels kindly toward his own creations; and so he -said, in a burst of enthusiasm: - -“By George! I'll help you!” - -And thus was begun the pact between the two men. - -IV - -On the very, next morning Mr. Jerningham, instead of going to Wall -Street as was his custom, went instead to Mrs. Charlton Morris's Agency -for Trained Nurses. - -An empress--no less--sat at a desk. She was not, however, one of those -empresses who change the destiny of nations by their beauty. She had -merely an arrogance more than royal. - -“I should like to see Mrs. Charlton Morris,” said Jerningham, briskly. - -“I am Mrs. Morris,” she said. - -You at once perceived that she was even more than imperial. She was a -woman of forty, dark, slender, with shell-rimmed, round lenses that gave -her that look between a Chinese philosopher and an ancient owl, which -those tortoise-shell goggles always do. You also obtained the impression -that a completely successful operation had removed Mrs. Morris's sense -of humor. - -“I should like, if you please--” began Jerningham; but Mrs. Morris -interrupted with an effect as of thrusting an icicle into the interior -mechanism of a clock. - -“I beg your pardon, but we must know with whom we are dealing. What is -the name, please?” - -“I prefer not to give you mine yet.” - -“Oh no, sir; I must know.” - -“Suppose I had given you a false one, how would you have been the -wiser?” - -“Oh, but also you must give me the name of your doctor.” - -“He sent me here.” - -“And who is he, sir?” - -From her voice and her look you gathered that she was in charge of a -hospital and was obtaining indispensable clinical data. - -“Madam,” said Jemingham, very coldly indeed, “you talk like the census -man. Would you also like to know my age, sex, and color?” - -“We never,” retorted Mrs. Morris, imperturbably, “do business with -strangers.” - -“Do you want me to get a letter from the President of the United States? -I know him pretty well. Or from my bankers? They are known even in -Brooklyn.” - -“We are here to supply trained nurses to people whose physicians we -know.” - -A trained nurse must have unfailing good humor--it is part of her -professional requirements. But a purveyor of trained nurses may permit -herself much dignity, as though her mission in life consisted, of -fitting nurses to cases--the best nurse for the worst case. - -“My doctor,” said Jerningham, “is Dr. Jewett.” It was the name of a very -great surgeon. - -“Ah, yes. Surgical case! Yes! I have Miss Sennett and Miss Audrey. Dr. -Jewett knows them very well.” - -“Kindly wait a second! I must see them myself. And it is not a surgical -case. It is no case at all--yet. Show me the girls!” - -“Sir, this is not an intelligence-office; but--” - -“I know there is no intelligence in this office. This is merely the -anteroom of a hospital and you are the superintendent. By rights you -ought to be on the faculty. I am perfectly willing to pay for any loss -of time or trouble to which you and the young ladies may be put.” - -“Must she be young?” asked Mrs. Morris. - -Her voice was at least thirty degrees below zero, for all that there was -no devilishness about Mr. Jerningham. He said: - -“Yes; and good-looking--not a girl in her teens, but a young woman. -I should say, without meaning to be personal, about your age, Mrs. -Morris.” - -It was plain that Mrs. Morris had almost superhuman control over her -facial muscles--she did not beam on him! - -“I understand,” she said, in a quite human voice. This man was, after -all, neither rude nor blind. “A woman--” - -“About thirty--or a little less,” said Jerningham. He looked at Mrs. -Morris's face and nodded confirmatively. - -“Exactly,” said Mrs. Morris, genially. First impressions are so apt to -be unfair! - -“I'll be more than satisfied with one of your age and good -loo--and--er--appearance “--here the Morris smile irrepressibly made -its début--“and also tactful. It is an unusual case. It will necessitate -going to Europe.” - -“With the patient?” - -“For the patient,” said Jerningham, and waited. - -“If you will tell me a little bit more about the case--” said Mrs. -Morris, encouragingly. She had just taken a good look at the pearl in -the scarf of this delightful judge of ages--at the lowest estimation, -five thousand dollars! - -“My--I--We have reason to believe that a--friend is ill in London. -Kidneys. We wish her to take care of herself. She is a woman of -fifty-odd. We want a nurse, refined, well-bred, good-looking, and -competent--like yourself; so that she could be a companion and at home -among wealthy people. You know what I mean.” He paused. - -“Perfectly, sir!” said Mrs. Morris, veraciously. Did she not know Mrs. -Morris? - -“It would be nice to find such a nurse--and, if possible, also one to -whom the fact that she is going to visit England, and possibly other -countries, may be a sort of compensation for her sudden departure -from New York. Of course she will be paid all her traveling and living -expenses--first-class all through--and her regular honorarium. I believe -it is thirty-five dollars a week. As I am leaving New York myself soon, -I'll pay in advance, and will leave instructions with my bankers to -honor any of your drafts, Mrs. Morris. It will be a good opportunity for -the young lady to know London--and you know how attractive it is--and -Paris!” - -“Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Mrs. Morris, suddenly looking like Baedeker. - -“The young lady--I am sorry you could not go in her place! Yes, I -am!--will live at the same hotel with the patient and become acquainted -with her--and advise her to see a physician regularly--a specialist in -kidney diseases. We think her only daughter ought to be with her. But -you can't say anything to either of them, because if the mother doesn't -think she is ill the daughter cannot know it, either. We only suspect it -is Bright's. You can't afford to wait until you have to go to bed with -Bright's--can you?” - -“No, indeed!” gravely agreed Mrs. Morris, specialist. - -“So now you know what sort of a girl I wish--one who will be there if -the trouble should take a sudden turn for the worse; one who will induce -the old lady to consult a physician. Do I have to give a preliminary -fee?” - -“Not at all. Call this afternoon at four and I'll try to have one of my -best nurses here. She is--well, quite young; in fact”--with what might -be called a desiccated archness--“she is a little younger than I and -quite pretty. I call her handsome!” - -Some women are so sure of their own position that they do not fear -competition. - -“Thank you! I'll be here at four, sharp.” And Mr. Jemingham went away -without having given his name to Mrs. Morris. - -At four o'clock Mr. Jemingham called at Mrs. Charlton Morris's agency -and had an interview with Miss Kathryn Keogh. Mrs. Morris gave them the -use of her own little private office; Jemingham very impressively waited -for Miss Keogh to sit down and then did so himself. - -He threw at Miss Keogh one of those inventorying looks that women find -so difficult to appear unconscious of, probably because they know their -own weak points. - -Miss Keogh was beautiful--and when an Irish girl is beautiful she is -beautiful in so many ways! She had the wonderful complexion of her race -and a mouth carved out of heaven's prize strawberry. Her eyes were an -incredibly deep blue when they were not an incredibly deep pansy-purple, -and they were abysses of velvet. In the darkness, without seeing -them--just by remembering them--you loved those eyes. In the light, when -you could see them, you simply worshiped! Her throat was one of those -paradoxical affairs, soft and hard, which made you think at one and the -same time of marble and rose-leaves--Solomon's tower of ivory, crowned -by the glory of golden-brown hair, so fine that you thought of clouds of -it! - -If you looked at her eyes you suspected, and if you looked at her throat -you were certain that you, a respectable married man, had in you the -makings of a criminal--the crime being bigamy. Also you would have -sworn to her only too cheerfully that she was the only girl you had ever -loved. With one look, remember! - -Jemingham looked at her with a cold, impersonally appreciative eye, as -he might have scrutinized a clock that was both beautiful and costly. - -Miss Keogh understood it perfectly. It piqued her, accustomed as she was -to instant adoration. Yet it was not entirely displeasing. This man knew -as a connoisseur knows--with his head. That he had not permitted the -silly heart to disturb the critical faculties was less flattering, -of course. It deferred the inevitable triumph and thus would make it -sweeter. - -“Has Mrs. Morris told you what I should like you to do?” Jemingham's -voice was coldly emotionless, and his gray eyes showed frosty lights. - -“She has told me what you doubtless told her. But I must confess I am -not very clear in my own mind,” answered Miss Keogh. - -Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to -give her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard -the voice you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your -own lips! - -Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she -were anybody--a woman of forty, for example, “Will you listen to me -carefully?” - -“Oh yes!” - -“I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five -dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel -expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will -depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp--but we are not -throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But -forget all about it.” - -“I have--in advance,” said the marvel, calmly. - -Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet -not at all defiantly as a lesser person would. - -“If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's -Hotel--an old-fashioned but very select hotel--where you will find a -nice room reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a -guinea a day--for the room and table board. You will thus have five -dollars a day for cabs and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. -Margaret Deering, an elderly American widow, who looks healthy enough. -We fear she is not so strong as she looks, and don't want her to be -alone. But she will not take hints. I wish you to make friends with her, -so that if she should become ill enough to need attention you may see -that she gets proper care and induce her to cable to her only daughter.” - He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh inquiringly, as if to convince -himself that Miss Keogh had understood. - -“What,” said Miss Keogh, calmly, “is the rest of it?” Her eyes were very -dark. They always seemed to deepen in color when she frowned. She always -frowned when she concentrated--all women do, notwithstanding their dread -of wrinkles. - -Jerningham stared at her. Then he said, “The lady is not insane.” - -“Nervous?” - -“Not yet!” - -“Ah!” Miss Keogh nodded her head. Her color had risen somewhat. - -“Is there anything in what I have said so far that makes you unwilling -to take this case?” asked Jerningham. - -“Nothing--so far,” she said, looking steadily into his cold, gray eyes. -She was, of course, Irish. - -“Very well. You can save her family much worriment by suggesting to Mrs. -Deering that she ought to have a trained nurse in constant attendance.” - -“By the name of Keogh?” interjected the most wonderful. - -“No. You are supposed to be a young lady with an income of your own. -You might explain that you took up trained nursing to help your only -brother, a physician.” - -“Very well. And--” - -“After you meet Mrs. Deering you might make judicious remarks about her -health.” - -“For example--” - -“Well, at breakfast you say: 'You didn't sleep well last night, did -you?' If she says no, you can immediately suggest a physician. If she -says she did, you say: 'Well, there is something wrong with you! Did you -ever have your kidneys examined?' A simple remark in the proper tone of -voice sometimes does it--like, 'Whatever in the world is the matter with -you, dear Mrs. Deering?' You understand?” - -“If you mean that I must suggest to her that she is ailing--” - -“Precisely. The idea is not to frighten her to death, my dear young -woman with the beautiful but suspicious eyes, but simply to induce her -to send for her only daughter, so that afterward the two will not be -separated. And the old lady, I may say for the benefit of your still -suspicious eyes, is not very rich, though the daughter is. So your -imagination need not invent any devilish plot. I think you can -accomplish your work in six weeks. For every day under the six weeks -you will receive five pounds. That's twenty-five dollars a day. That is -intended, Miss Keogh, to make you hurry. But you must be tactful.” - -“Make it a fixed sum. You look like a clever man.” - -She looked at him challengingly. He stared back, and gradually a look of -admiration came into his eyes. He said, with a smile of appreciation: - -“You win! You are certainly the most wonderful girl in the world! I'll -make it one thousand dollars, win, lose, or draw. But the quicker the -cablegram--” - -“--grams,” she corrected--“plural. For greater effect at this end!” - -“--grams!” he echoed. “And now you must come with me to the bank to get -your letter of credit and some English money. I'll pay in advance.” - -He rose. Miss Keogh motioned to him to sit down again. He did so, and -looked at her alertly. It might have disconcerted some girls--but not -the only absolutely perfect one. Not at all! - -“There remains something,” she said. - -“What?” he queried, sharply. - -“You forgot it!” she told him, with one of those utterly maddening -smiles of forgiveness with which beautiful women rivet the fetters and -make one grateful. - -“What? What?” he asked, impatiently. - -“Why?” she answered. “That is what! Why?” - -Her beautiful head nodded twice with a birdlike gracefulness. Her eyes -were very blight--and very dark! Her cheeks were flushed. Her ripe lips, -slightly parted, were overpoweringly tempting. - -Jerningham stood up again and stared fixedly at her as though he would -read miles and miles beyond her wonderful eyes--into the very depths -of her soul! He approached her and held out both his hands. After a -scarcely perceptible hesitation she placed hers in his. He shook them -with profound gravity; then bowed and raised her right to his lips--and -kissed it twice. Still holding her hands in his, he said to her, -earnestly: - -“My dear child, you are the most wonderful woman in all the world. You -are simply the last word in utter perfection. I am a millionaire, but -not a crook. I am forty, but still strong. I have never been in love -with a woman; but I now know I could be. If you ever wish to marry for -the ease and comfort that great wealth gives, or if you ever feel like -using your wonderful gifts to make a man who has both money and brains -become an important personage in the world--just say the word. There is -nothing--nothing, do you hear?--that we could not do together, you and -I. My name is--” He paused and looked at her as if to make sure again. - -“Yes?” she said, in her most heavenly voice. She released her hands, but -her eyes never left his. “Jerningham.” - -“The Klondike millionaire who--” - -“The same!” - -“Ah!” said Miss Keogh, calmly, but her flowerlike cheeks were -azalea-pink, and her eyes were full of light. She had read the -_Planet's_ articles. She did not remember how many million dollars -Jerningham was supposed to have; but she did remember how the fairest of -the fair had tried--and failed! - -“Remember--any time, with or without notice. My offer is open until you -accept it or definitely refuse it. Perhaps I never could make you love -me; but I know I could love you if I let myself go.” - -“You have not answered me,” said Miss Keogh. “Ask again,” he smiled. - -“Why?” There was no smile in her eyes. - -It made him serious. He answered: - -“For friendship.” - -“To a woman?” - -“To a man.” - -“Again I ask, Why?” - -There was a pause. Then he said: - -“Mrs. Ashton Welles is the only daughter of Mrs. Deering.” - -“And--” - -“She is twenty-two.” - -“And--” - -“Her husband is fifty-two. That's all!” - -“Is it?” - -“So far as I am concerned, it is--really!” - -“Is Mr. Ashton Welles your friend?” - -“No. But he is no enemy, either.” - -“No? But you have a friend, a Mr. Wolfe--a Mr. Francis Wolfe?” She knew -it from a newspaper item. - -But Mr. Jerningham jumped up from his seat. “Marry me, dear girl! Marry -me, I beg of you! You are the only woman in the world! You are the most -beautiful ever created and, beyond all question, the cleverest. You are -a genius! Why isn't all mankind on its knees worshiping? Will you marry -me? Wait! Don't speak. I know what your answer will be.” - -“You do?” She smiled inscrutably. - -Imagine the Sphinx--if the Sphinx were Irish and very beautiful--with -those eyes and those lips! Guess? You couldn't guess where your soul -was--or whose! - -“Yes, I do,” answered Jerningham, confidently. “I will write it on a -piece of paper and prove it. But first tell me this: Will you take Mrs. -Deering's case?” - -She looked at him, and said, “Yes.” - -“Very well.” He wrote something on one of his cards, doubled it so she -could not see what he had written, and gave it to her, saying, “Now -answer me: Will you marry me?” - -She looked at him a long time. He met her gaze squarely. Presently she -said, very seriously: - -“Not yet!” - -“Look in the card,” he said, also very seriously. - -She did. It said: _Not yet!_ - -A vague alarm came into her purple-blue eyes. She was on the point of -speaking, but he held up his hand, and said, earnestly: - -“Please don't say it. We'll meet in London. You will enjoy the -Continent later on. Now let us go and get your letter of credit, and see -whether you like the stateroom that I ordered reserved.” They did. - -On the next day Jerningham's limousine took Miss Keogh and her -hand-luggage to the steamer.-Jerningham was there to see her off. -She had invited a dozen of her friends to do the same, and they were -there--all of them women and most of them frankly envious, for her -stateroom was full of beautiful flowers and baskets of wonderful -fruit--quite as if she already were a millionaire! - -As she said good-by to Jerningham there was in her eyes a look of -intelligent, almost cold-blooded, gratitude which seemed to embrace Mr. -Jerningham's kindness, his thoughtfulness, and his bank account. - -“I wish you a very pleasant voyage!” he said. “Think over my offer. When -you get to London will you mail these letters for me? Remember, you are -to cable if you need anything, money or advice--or a husband. And cable -at once if Mrs. Deering cables. Good-by! _Bon voyage!_” - -When Miss Keogh came to open the package of letters she found in it -thirty-three, stamped with British stamps, on stationery of Thornton's -Hotel'! They were addressed in a woman's handwriting to various business -houses, some of which she recognized as manufacturers of medical goods -and agents of mineral waters of the kind used by people who suffer -from kidney diseases. It made her think that if--between the deluge -of medical prospectuses and Miss Keogh's efforts--Mrs. Deering did -not cable for her only daughter it would be a wonder! Jerningham was -neglecting nothing to succeed. - -V - -Frank Wolfe's first task in his new and now famous job consisted -of helping Jerningham buy two automobiles. Then, when the weather -permitted, they toured Westchester County and Long Island. - -Usually they took along some of Frank's men friends. It was pleasant -work---at the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. - -Jerningham did not again refer to his love-affair, and Frank could not -very well allude to it; but it was perfectly plain to the young man that -within a very short time their friendship would be sufficiently strong -to justify Mr. Jerningham in asking Frank to help actively in the search -of the vanished Naida Deering. - -One day Mr. Jerningham waited in vain for young Mr. Wolfe. They had -planned to go to Mount Kisco to look at a farm that was offered for -sale, Mr. Jerningham having developed the usual millionaire's desire -to own an estate. At one o'clock the telephone-bell rang. Jerningham -answered in person. He heard a feminine voice say that Mr. Wolfe -regretted that a severe indisposition had prevented him from going -as usual to Mr. Jerningham's rooms, but he hoped to be sufficiently -recovered to have that pleasure on the next day. - -Jerningham merely said, “Say I hope it is nothing serious--and ask him, -please, whether there is anything I can do.” - -Silence. Then: “He says, 'No--thanks!' It is nothing very serious.” - -“Tell him not to come down until he has entirely recovered and to take -good care of himself. Good-by!” - -If Mr. Jerningham heard the tinkling music of an irrepressible giggle at -the other end of the wire he did not show it. His face was serious as -he found an address in the telephone-directory. He called up the -Brown Lecture Bureau and made an appointment to see Captain Brown, the -manager, at 3 p.m. At that hour, to the minute, he was ushered into the -private offices of the world-famous manager of the lecture bureau. - -“Captain Brown?” - -“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?” - -“I should like to know what lecturers you have available at the moment,” - said Jerningham. - -The Klondiker did not look like the chairman of a church entertainment -committee or like a village philanthropist. So Captain Brown asked: - -“Where is the--er--Is it a club?” - -“No. It is myself. Here in New York.” - -“Well, we provide speakers and lecturers, not exactly entertainers, -to--” - -“I know all that. I wish to know whom you could send me to entertain me. -Let me see! Is Commander Finsen, the explorer, here now?” - -“Yes.” - -“And his terms?” - -“It depends upon where it is.” - -Evidently Jerningham did not think Captain Brown realized what was -wanted, for he said, earnestly: - -“Captain Brown, get this clearly fixed in your mind, if you please: I -am anxious to hear some of your lecturers by myself alone, in my own -apartments. I wish men who have done things--men who are, above -all things, brave and resourceful. I don't want decadent poets, but -explorers, gentlemen adventurers, humanists, or scientists, who have a -knack of imparting their knowledge in such a way as to interest men who -are neither old nor scientific. I am perfectly willing to pay your usual -rate. What's the odds if one of your clients spends an evening with -me or whether he spends it in Norwalk, Connecticut, or Boundbrook, New -Jersey? Do you get me?” - -“Oh, perfectly. I might suggest--” - -Here the genial manager ceased speaking to smile, grateful that so -unusual a man as Jerningham should condescend to listen. It was a -habit--this thankful smiling--that came from having dealt with geniuses -for thirty years. Then Captain Brown permitted himself to suggest a -dozen or more men who had very interesting stories to tell. Jerningham -asked him to make a memorandum of the men and their specialties, and -agreed to call on Captain Brown when he needed entertainment. After -Captain Brown had given him the names and prices, Jerningham gave his -own name and address. - -Captain Brown looked grieved. He read the newspapers. He might have -asked double the fees from the Alaskan Monte Cristo! - -On the next day, when Mr. Francis Wolfe showed up with never a trace of -anything but good health on his pleasing face, Jerningham invited him to -spend the next evening in the apartments and hear Finsen tell how he had -discovered the tribe of Antarctic giants, the shortest of whom was seven -feet three inches; and how he had captured alive, thirty-three white -bears. He asked Frank to invite five friends who might be interested, -first, in dining with Jerningham and Commander Finsen, and then in -hearing Finsen spin his yarn. - -Frank gladly undertook to find the audience. - -So they had a very nice little dinner, with just enough to drink and no -killjoys in activity. And later, in Jerningham's little sitting-room at -the hotel, they heard the great Dane, who was a prosaic viking with -iron muscles and pale-blue eyes that made you uncomfortable for reasons -unknown, tell them all about his remarkable voyage of discovery and his -hunts--no end of things that he could tell them, but could not tell -a mixed audience: perfectly amazing details, of which Frank and his -friends talked for weeks. - -Then there was a little midnight supper, at which they all told stories -that left no unpleasant aftereffects. - -One day after luncheon Jerningham, who had been in a particularly jovial -mood, suddenly became very serious. He aimed at Frank one of those -searching looks that seemed to go to the young man's soul. Then he said: - -“My boy, I'd like to say something to you.” - -“Say it.” - -“I shall probably hurt your feelings, so you must be prepared to keep -your temper well in hand.” - -“You ought to know me better than that by now, Jerningham,” retorted -Frank. He had grown not only to like, but even to admire, this strange -miner. - -“Wolfe,” said Jerningham, slowly, “you are one of those unfortunate -chaps who are cruelly handicapped by perennial youth. It is doubtless a -pleasing thing to feel at fifty as you did at twenty. Nevertheless, -it is bad business. It is all very nice to shun responsibility, but it -makes you careless; and you can't expect to saddle consequences on your -guardian after you are twenty-one. A boy of forty can't be trusted to -take care of his own property.” - -“I can take care of mine,” laughed Frank, “without any trouble.” His -property was about minus thirty thousand. - -“Your property now--yes. But suppose you had a million or two left -you--or even more? Do you know what would happen to those millions, and -do you know what would happen to you?” - -“I know--but I won't tell.” - -“Will you let me tell you?” asked Jerningham, so earnestly that Frank -almost stopped smiling. - -“I'll hear you to the bitter end.” - -“The millions would go from your pocket into the pockets of--well, you -know whose pockets! And your life would go into the Big Beyond by the W. -W. route.” - -“I bite. What's W. W.?” - -“Wine and woman. You would last perhaps five years. You would die a -dipsomaniac at thirty or thereabout. The chief folly of fighting booze -when you are rich is that it renders wealth utterly futile.” - -“How?” - -“Well, you can get just as drunk on ten dollars a day as you can on one -thousand dollars--with this difference, that in the one case you would -have to get drunk on whisky by yourself and in the other you might get -drunk on vintage champagne in the company of paid parasites. The morning -after is the same in both cases: you don't remember any more of the -ten-dollar jag than of the thousand-dollar orgy! When a drunkard sets -out to squander a million all he really does is to carry a sign on -his back with letters a mile high--the sign reading, 'I am a d------d -fool!”' - -Frank took it good-naturedly because he liked Jemingham and because he -was not a millionaire. It really would be asinine to be a millionaire -and try to drink all there was; so he said, amiably: - -“Having downed the Demon Rum, then what?” - -“I'll put it up to you this way: I have no family and I may never marry. -I certainly won't if I don't find my first and only sweetheart. Suppose -I felt like leaving you some of my money? You are a nice boy, but you -also have been a D. F., and you must admit that no man likes to see his -friend trying to beat all D. F. records. Don't get mad and don't look -indignant! I want to make a proposition to you: I'll agree to deposit to -your account in a trust company one hundred dollars a day for every day -you don't touch a drop! I don't want to reform you. I merely want to -train you--in case! There will be some times when you will forfeit that. -It will amount to paying one hundred dollars for a Martini. It will -become a luxury.” - -“Too expensive for me!” said Frank, seriously. “And, my boy, it is more -than being on the water-wagon--it's being able to stay on! Booze is so -foolish! I want to give you some business matters--for you to handle for -me.” - -“You know what I know about business--” - -“Can't you do as you are told? Don't you know enough to look clever and -say, 'Sign here!' in a frozen voice?” - -“Oh yes. But--” - -“I know you will miss your evenings at first. But I'll tell you what to -do. I am no killjoy. Well, you spend as many evenings as you wish with -me. Invite as many friends as you please--sex no bar. Will you?” - -“Jemingham, you are a nice chap. I'll do it. But you must not think of -that one hundred dollars--” - -“Tut-tut! Can't you understand that I want to do it--that I love to see -your bank account grow? Run along now. I want to read Lucretius.” - -From that day Francis Wolfe became Jemingham's inseparable companion. -Every night they went to the theater together or else they spent the -evening in Jemingham's rooms, listening to celebrities. Their evenings -soon became famous. Indeed, people began to talk about Frank Wolfe's -reform. Even his fairest and frailest friends, knowing that Frank -forfeited one hundred dollars a day by falling off the water-wagon, -kept him firmly on the seat--and borrowed the hundred. In due time -the miracle reached the ears of Frank's sisters and of his aunt, Mrs. -Stimson. They had a talk with Frank. They were first amazed, then -delighted, when they saw Frank and when they heard about Jerningham's -intention of making him his heir. - -Thus it came about that, out of gratitude for the man who was making a -man of their brother, Mrs. - -John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham accepted Mr. Jerningham's -invitation and attended one of the lectures at the Klondiker's -apartments. The little supper that followed was a great success. Mr. -Jemingham talked little, but extremely well--as when he said to Mrs. -Jack in a low voice that he loved Frank Wolfe and some day everybody -would be sure of it! - -“I am merely training him. But don't think I am asking the impossible. I -wish him to know enough to hold on to what I'll leave him.” - -Of course after that Mr. Jerningham was not only in society, but even -in a fair way of becoming a fad. Gerald Lanier, the short-story writer, -said that Jerningham was society's gold cure and had climbed into the -inner circles on a ladder made of tightly corked wine-bottles; in fact, -he wrote what his nonliterary friends called a skit--and Frank's friends -a knock--entitled: “How to Capitalize Intemperance.” But that did not -hinder Jerningham from receiving invitations from families with thirsty -younger sons. - -VI - -One morning Jemingham, who had seemed preoccupied, said to Frank: - -“I wonder if I can ask you--” He paused and looked doubtfully at Frank. - -“What?” - -“A favor.” - -“Of course. Why, you can even touch me if you want to.” - -“I wonder if your--if Mrs. Burt would invite Mrs. Ashton Welles to -dinner?” - -“I guess so. I'll ask her.” - -“That way you could meet Mrs. Welles, and--” - -“You mean,” said Frank, trying to look like Sherlock Holmes, “I could -ask her about your--about her sister?” - -Jerningham jumped to his feet in consternation. - -“Great Scott, no! No!” he shouted. - -“Why, I thought--” - -“You can't ask her that until you know her so well that you can take a -friend's liberty. Promise me you won't ask her until I myself tell you -that you may! Promise!” - -There was in his eyes a look of such intensity that young Wolfe was -startled. - -“Of course I'll promise.” - -“You must make friends with her first. She must learn to like you--” - -Francis Wolfe smiled a trifle fatuously. It was merely boyish. A little -more, however, would have made the smile ungentlemanly. Jerningham -continued, very earnestly: - -“Listen, lad. She will have to do more than merely like you--she will -have to trust you. And the only way to make a young and pretty woman -trust a _young_ and not unattractive man is by having that man never, -never, never fail in respect of her. He may be in love with her, or -he may only pretend to be in love with her; but he must act as if he -regarded her with such awe that he dare not make direct love to her. Do -you get it?” - -“Yes. But--” - -“There is no but. She must first like you, which is not difficult; and -then she must trust you as a true friend, which is, to say the least, a -slower matter. Be a brother to her. Do you think you like me well enough -to do this for me now?” - -Jerningham looked at young Wolfe steadily--a man's look. - -Frank said: “I'll do it gladly. And my sisters--” - -“They must never know about--about Naida!” interrupted Jerningham, -hastily. - -“Of course not. But they will do anything for me--and for you, too!” - -That is the true story of how it came about that Mrs. Ashton Welles was -taken up by the Jack Burts; and how she met Francis Wolfe; and how Mrs. -Stimson invited Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Welles to one of her old-fashioned -and tiresome but famous and very formal dinners; and how Frank again -took in Mrs. Welles. Thereafter they met often. At some of these dinners -they met Jerningham. - -The Klondiker paid his court to Mr. Welles. Indeed, he seemed to have -for the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company an admiration that -closely resembled the worship of a matinée girl for an actress like -Maude Adams. It was an innocent sort of worship, but, nevertheless, not -displeasing. In men it sometimes makes the worshiped feel paternally -toward the worshiper. - -Jerningham developed a habit of going every day to the trust company; -and he made it a point always to see Ashton Welles, if only to shake -hands. One morning he told Mr. Welles he desired advice about an -investment. Jerningham, it must be remembered, had on deposit with -the trust company over a million dollars, and there were six or seven -millions in gold-dust in the company's vault. - -“Mr. Welles, I--I,” said the Klondiker, so earnestly that he -stammered--“I should like to buy some VanTwiller Trust Company stock, to -have and to hold as long as you are president.” - -There was in Jemingham's eyes a look of that admiration that best -expresses itself in absolute confidence in the infallibility of a very -great man. Welles was a very cold man; but flattery has rays that will -thaw icebergs. - -Welles nearly blushed and smiled one of his politely deprecating -smiles--as if he were apologizing for smiling--and said: - -“Why, Mr. Jemingham, I'll confess to you that I myself think well of -that stock. I guess we'll keep on paying dividends.” - -Jemingham smiled delightedly--the king had jested! Then he said: - -“I'll buy as much as I can, but I don't want to put up the price on -myself. Who can give me pointers on how to pick up the stock quietly? Do -you think I should see Mr. Barrows or Mr. Stewardson?” - -He looked so anxiously at Mr. Welles that Mr. Welles said, kindly: - -“Oh, see Stewardson. I'll speak to him, if you wish.” - -“Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Welles,” said Jer-ningham, so gratefully -that Welles felt like a philanthropist as he rang the bell to summon the -second vice-president. - -“Mr. Stewardson, Mr. Jemingham, wants to buy some of our stock. I want -you to help him in any way possible.” - -“Delighted, I'm sure!” said the vice-president, very cordially. He was -paid to be cordial to customers. - -“If I had my way I'd be the largest individual stockholder,” said -Jerningham, looking at Welles almost adoringly. - -“I hope you will,” said Welles, pleasantly. “Mr. Stewardson will help -you.” - -Jerningham and Welles shook hands. Then Jerningham and Stewardson left -to go to the vice-president's private office. - - - -VII - -The remarkable Miss Keogh was one of those remarkable people who are -really remarkable. Within three weeks came a cablegram from her to Mr. -Jerningham to the effect that a letter had been sent by Mrs. Deering to -her daughter--the first. Mrs. Deering had begun to doubt her own health. -Then came cablegrams from her to Mrs. Welles; and in a few days, before -Ashton Welles could think of a valid excuse for not letting his wife -go to England, Mrs. Welles told him to engage passage for her on the -_Ruritania_. - -It was very unfortunate that he could not accompany her; but the annual -meeting was only three weeks away, and the minority, never strong enough -to do real damage, always was devilish enough to be very disagreeable to -the clique in control. Ashton Welles, after the extremely stupid fashion -of all strong men, had always kept the absolute control of the company's -affairs in his own hands. It was the one thing he refused to share with -his subordinates. He was a czar in his office. He was, in reality, the -trust company--or he so believed and so he made others believe. His -vice-presidents were merely highly paid office-boys, according to the -gossip of the Street, which was not so far out of the way in this -particular instance. - -Ten minutes after Mrs. Ashton Welles engaged Suite D on the _Ruritania_, -due to sail on the following day, Jerningham said to Mr. Francis Wolfe: - -“My boy, I should like you to go to London on business for me--and for -yourself. You've got to represent me in a deal with the Arctic Venture -Corporation. You will have my power of attorney and you will sign -the deed for one of my properties, as soon as they have deposited two -hundred and fifty thousand pounds to my credit in Parr's Bank. And also -you will call on the prettiest girl in the world--the prettiest, do -you hear?--who unfortunately is also the brightest and cleverest. Her -name--” He paused and looked at Francis Wolfe meditatively, almost -hesitatingly. - -“Go on!” implored Francis Wolfe. - -“Her name is Kathryn Keogh and she is stopping at Thornton's Hotel. She -will help you find Naida. Miss Keogh is a friend of Mrs. Deering.” - -“She is Irish--eh?” asked Frank. - -“Mrs. Deering?” - -“No; the peach--the--Miss Keogh?” - -“She is of the Waterford Keoghs, famous for their eyes and their -complexions. But business first. You are not to fall in love with Miss -Keogh until after my two hundred and fifty thousand pounds are safe in -bank. I'd go myself, but I have a still bigger deal on here in New York. -I've taken the liberty to engage a stateroom on the _Ruritania_, sailing -tomorrow, and a letter of credit has been ordered for five thousand -dollars. Have I taken too much for granted?” - -“No; but you know perfectly well that I don't know a thing about -business, and I'd be afraid--” - -“My solicitors in London will call on you when they are ready for you. -I shall give you a memorandum for your own conduct; you will find there -instructions in detail--just as though you were a ten year-old boy; but -that is really for your own protection, and I don't mean to imply that -your mind is ten years old--” - -“No feelings hurt,” said Frank, who in reality was much relieved to -learn that the chances of his making a mistake had been intelligently -minimized. - -“I'm glad you take it that way. Now we'll go down-town to Towne, Ripley -& Co. and give them your signature for the letter of credit; from there -we'll go to the British Consulate and have my own signature on my power -of attorney certified to by the consul, and then you can skip up-town -and say good-by to your friends.” - -Frank left Jerningham at the consulate and went home to pack up and -arrange for his more pressing adieus. Jerningham went into a public -telephone-booth and called up the offices of _Society Folk_. When they -answered he asked to speak with the editor. - -“Well?” presently came in a sharp voice. - -“This is Mr.--er--a friend.” - -“Anonymous! All right. What do you want?” - -“To give you a piece of news.” - -“We verify everything and take your word for absolutely nothing. I tell -you this to save your telling me a lie.” - -“That's all right. You'll find it true enough. I--” - -“One minute. Where is that pencil? All right! Now the name of the -woman?” - -“How do you know I want to--” - -“All you fellows always do. What's her name?” - -“Mrs. Ashton Welles.” - -“The wife of the president of the VanTwiller--” - -“Correct!” said Jerningham. - -“Now the name of the man?” - -“Francis Wolfe,” answered Jerningham, unhesitatingly. - -“The chorus-girls' pet?” asked the voice. - -“The same!” - -“Has it happened yet? Or do you merely fear it? Or is it a case of -hoping?” - -“I don't know what you are driving at.” - -“Then you don't read _Society Folk_” - -“Well, I don't--regularly. All I know is that Frank has been very -assiduous in his attentions lately. He's shaken the Great White Way and -hasn't been in a lobster-palace in two months. He and Mrs. Ashton Welles -are sailing on the _Ruritania_ tomorrow.” - -“Under what name?” - -“Their own.” - -“Thank you, kind friend. Thank you!” - -“Why do you say that?” - -“Because we can now use names. Does Mr. Welles also go?” - -“Of course not!” - -“Excuse me for asking such a silly question. What other crime has he -committed besides being old?--I mean Mr. Welles.” - -“Stupidity is worse than criminal.” - -“Aye, aye, sir!” - -“When does your paper come out?” - -“Day after to-morrow. Much obliged. You are a friend in need. Don't ring -off yet. Listen! You are also a dirty, low-lived, sneaking, cowardly -dog, and a general, all-round, unrelieved, monumental--” It was the -one way the editor had of showing that he was better than his anonymous -contributor. - -Jerningham, of course, went on board the _Ruritania_ to see Frank off. -Ashton Welles was also there to say good-by to his young and beautiful -wife. It was their first separation, and Welles did not like it. He -seemed to feel her absence in advance; it was really that, as the hour -drew near, he realized more vividly how lonely she would leave him! They -have a saying in Spain that a man may grow accustomed to bearing sorrow, -but that nobody can get used to that happiness which comes merely to -disappear immediately after. A cigar manufacturer from Havana had once -quoted this to Ashton Welles, and Ashton Welles was impressed less by -the saying than by the fact that the Spaniard was so serious about it. -But now he remembered it. - -He was very uncomfortable and this discomfort made his mental machinery -act queerly; it seemed to tint his thoughts with strange, unusual hues -that made them almost morbid. He would have felt contempt for his own -weakness had he not been so full of half-angry regret at being left -alone in New York--this man who never had possessed an intimate friend; -who not even as a boy had a chum! - -Of course it was only a coincidence that young Mr. Francis Wolfe was -to be young Mrs. Ashton Welles's fellow-passenger; and it was also a -coincidence that Mr. Wolfe's stateroom was just across the passageway -from Mrs. Welles's suite. Indeed, neither of the young people had picked -out the cabins--but there they were. And there, in Ashton Welles's mind, -was another unformulated unpleasantness. - -Frank's sisters were so proud Frank was going to put through an -important business deal that they showed it. But if they were glad that -Mrs. Welles was also going they did not show it. They recalled Frank's -desire to meet the pretty young matron whose husband was thirty years -older, and they were rather ostentatiously polite to her. Ashton Welles, -in his disturbed state of mind, somehow felt that the attitude of Mrs. -John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham was one of blame-fixing; but he -could not definitely understand why there should be any blame to fix! -He dismissed his semi-suspicions with the thought that women had petty -minds. His wife was very pretty and Wolfe's sisters were not as young as -they used to be. And youth is a terrible thing--to lose! It is hard to -forgive youth for being, after one is past--well, say, past a certain -age. And to prove that he himself had nothing to fear--absolutely -nothing--he even smiled and said to young Mr. Wolfe: - -“I feel certain, of course, that if Mrs. Welles should need anything--” - -It was the season of the year when east-bound liners carried few -passengers. The young people were bound to be thrown together a great -deal. - -“Of course, Mr. Welles. Only too delighted, I'm sure!” said Frank, very -eagerly. - -He was a fine-looking chap, with that wonderfully clean, healthy pink -complexion which suggests a clean and healthy mind. His eyes were full -of that eager, boyish light that makes the possessors thereof so nice to -pet, small-child wise. - -Ashton Welles received an impression of Frank Wolfe's face that was -photographic in its details. - -The floating hotel moved off slowly. Ashton Welles, on the pier, -watched the fluttering handkerchief of his wife out of sight. He had -the remembrance of her beautiful young face framed in Siberian sable to -cheer him. She certainly looked heavenly. She had cried at leaving -him. She had waved away at him vehemently, and there was the unpleasant -suggestion that always attends such leave-takings--that the parting was -forever. A frail thing--human life! A little speck of vitality on the -boundless waste of grim, gray waters! And she seemed so sorry to go away -from him! And she waved and waved, as if she, also, feared she might -never see him again! And Francis Wolfe stood beside her, very close to -her, and waved also--to Jemingham, who stood beside Ashton Welles. - -Ashton Welles accepted Jerningham's invitation and rode to his office -in the Klondiker's sumptuous motor in the Klondiker's company. Ashton -Welles looked at the flower-holder. Instead of the white azaleas he saw -two white handkerchiefs waved by two young people. - -“You are very friendly with young Wolfe?” said Ashton Welles, carelessly -inquisitive--merely to make talk, you know. All rich old men who marry -young women have ostrich habits. They put an end to danger by closing -their eyes to the obvious. That is why they always discover nothing. - -“Rather--yes. I think he is a fine chap--one of those clean-cut -Americans of the present generation that European women find so -perfectly fascinating.” - -Ashton Welles instantly frowned--and instantly ceased to frown. - -“Yes,” he said, and grimaced, thinking it looked like a smile. -“What business is taking him to London? I thought he was a young man -of--er--elegant leisure.” - -“He was that until very recently; but he has turned over a new leaf. He -has forsworn his old and, I suppose, rather disreputable companions. I -find him rather serious.” - -“What has changed him?” Ashton Welles was foolish enough to be brave -enough to ask. When a question can have two answers--one of them -disagreeable--it is folly to ask it. - -“I don't know,” answered Jerningham, as if puzzled. “He has acted a -little queerly and secretive-like; but it is, I admit, a queerness that -other young men would do well to imitate, for it has made him cease -drinking, and cease--er--you know. I rather suspect it is his sister, -Mrs. Burt. He is very fond of her. A man will do things for a good woman -that he won't for his best man friend, or for his own sake. You saw him. -There is no viciousness or dissipation in that face. Damned handsome -chap, I call him!” - -“H'm!” winced the glacial Ashton Welles. He could not help it. - -There came upon him a strange mood, almost of numbness, that made him -silent against his will. He answered by nods--the nods of a man who -does not hear--to Jerningham's chatter. He gathered in some way that -the Alaskan Monte Cristo was talking of buying VanTwiller Trust Company -stock, and that he would ask Stewardson how much he could borrow on the -stock. - -“Yes--do!” said Ashton Welles as the motor stopped in front of the -imposing entrance of the trust company's marble building. - -They stepped out; Welles excused himself almost brusquely and went into -his own private office to think all the thoughts that a millionaire of -fifty-two thinks when he thinks that he married at fifty a girl thirty -years his junior, with cheeks like flower petals and eyes like skies, -who is going to spend the best part of a week on a steamer in the -company of a man who is much worse than handsome--young! - -Mr. Jerningham, who did not seem to have noticed the near rudeness of -Mr. Ashton Welles, promptly sought the second vice-president and asked -how much the company would lend on its own stock. - -“It is against the law for us to lend money on our own stock,” said the -vice-president, who did not add that this provision had prevented many -an inside clique from eating its pie and having it too. - -“Will the banks loan money on V.T. stock?” asked Jerningham. He had -already bought three thousand shares at an average of four hundred -dollars a share. - -“Well, I guess so.” - -“On a time loan?” - -“No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say.” - -“That is not much,” objected Jerningham. - -“No, it isn't. But--May I ask you a question?” - -“Two if you wish,” said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles. - -“Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold -you have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your -boxes?” - -This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash -the trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's -iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them. - -“Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson,” said Jerningham, with that -curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not -really understand--“let me tell you this: The time is coming--and coming -within a few months!--when good, hard gold is going to command a premium -just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in 1896. I -am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take advantage -of--” - -“But present conditions are utterly different--” - -“They are always different--and yet the panics come! You thought that -after 1896 there would never again be any need for clearing-house -certificates; and yet, in 1907--” - -“They were unnecessary--” began Stewardson, hotly. - -He had been left out of all conferences among the powers at that trying -time, and naturally disapproved their actions. - -“But they happened, just the same! I know myself. If I cash in now I'll -buy something with the money. I don't want to buy now. No, sir! If I -should happen to need a million or two I prefer to borrow it for a few -weeks until my next shipment comes in. There will be two millions coming -in about the middle of next month. I've sent word to get out as big an -output as possible. See? You bet your boots Wall Street is not going to -get either my cash or my mines, as they did Colonel Cannon's. You know -he was The Mexican copper king' one day and That jackass from Chihuahua' -the next! See?” - -The vice-president looked at him and said “I see!” in a very flattering -tone of voice; but in his inmost mind he was thinking that such a thing -was precisely what doubtless would happen to Mr. Alfred -Jemingham, late of Nome. It is always the extremely suspicious, -too-smart-for-you-by-heck! farmer who buys the biggest gold brick. - -“They'll find out I'll never let them change my name into That -blankety-blank-blank from Alaska!'” And Jemingham put on that look of -devilish astuteness that buyers of stocks always put on when they buy at -top prices. - -He left the vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company and called -on the vice-presidents of several other trust companies and banks, and -found out that he could borrow, more than three hundred dollars a share -on his V.T. stock. And he did--then and there. He impressed the genial -philanthropists on whom he called as being a child of Nature--a great -big boy playing at being a financier. There was in consequence much -smacking of financial lips. It was morsels like this naïve and honest -Alaskan miner with the millions that helped to reconcile men to living -the Wall Street life. - - - -VIII - -On the day after the _Ruritania_ sailed Ashton Welles, whose first -wifeless evening at home had not been pleasant, found on his desk a -marked copy of _Society Folk_. These were the four marked paragraphs: - -The man who first said there was no fool like an old fool had in mind -that form of folly which consists of the purchase of a beautiful girl by -a man who endeavors to span a difference of thirty years in age by -means of a bridge of solid gold. It is unnatural, unwholesome, and even -immoral. The sordid romances of high life that begin in a Fifth Avenue -jewelry-shop are apt to end in a Reno divorce-mill. Why shouldn't they? - -A girl who marries once for money is always ready to marry again -for more money--or for more love--for she always wants more than the -desiccated ass who first bought her can give her. - -A girl of twenty who is famous for her good looks is always a beautiful -young woman, no matter what else she may be. But a man close to sixty, -whether he is the head of a big trust company or a poet, is nothing -but an old man. Speaking of remarkable coincidences, is it not odd that -both Fool and Financier should begin with an F? And Frailty, too, whose -other name is Woman? - -If there are some things that gold cannot do it is perfectly wonderful -how many things love can do! It bridges all chasms with kisses, and -solves all riddles--with glances. It even defies the high cost of living -and makes men think themselves demigods. It has been known to make -champagne drunkards swear off long before they are bankrupt. It even now -depopulates the lobster-palaces. It turns dining-room navigators into -fearless vikings, braving the wild Atlantic and its midwinter gales in -order to be by their lady-loves. It may even reform Tammany leaders--for -we know it can transform young asses into handsome Lancelots. - -Among the passengers on the _Ruritania_, sailing for Liverpool at this -unfashionable season of the year, were Mrs. Ashton Welles, who has the -gorgeous Suite D all to herself, and young Mr. Francis Wolfe, who is -content with the more modest stateroom across the way. Frank's friends -are always singing his praises these days. He never looks at a -chorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has not taken -anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to -advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the -handsomest bachelorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has -not taken anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not -averse to advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe -is the handsomest bachelor who ever sidestepped matrimony. - -It takes more than money to keep the Wolfe from the door--eh? What? - -The Ashton Welles who finished reading the beastly paragraphs of -_Society Folk_ was not the same Ashton Welles who began them. He was -no longer an efficient financier, but a man benumbed, whose brain had -turned to plaster of Paris. His mind at once lost all elasticity, all -power to functionate. And, since he could not think, he could not act. -That wonderful world, which financially successful people create for -themselves with so much pride, tumbled about his ears. Out of the chaos -made by a few printed words, only one thing was certain--he suffered! - -Men are always wounded in a vital spot when they are wounded by -jealousy, and Ashton Welles was particularly vulnerable because he -lived in only two places--his office and his home. He did not have -other houses of refuge to which his soul could retreat--like music or -literature or art--in case of need. He had been so busy winning success -that he had not had time for anything else. He had worked for -the aggrandizement of the personal fortune of Ashton Welles. When -circumstances and that reputation for luck, shrewdness, and caution, -which is in itself a golden sagacity, finally placed him, still a young -man, at the head of the VanTwiller Trust Company, David Soulett, one of -the directors, remarked: “Welles has married the company; but we don't -yet know whether he is to be the company's husband or whether the -company is to be his wife!” And a fellow-director, who had been in -profitable deals with Welles, retorted, “Well, I call it an ideal -match!” - -Welles brought to the company what it needed and the presidency brought -to Welles many opportunities--none of which he neglected. He saw the -deposits increase tenfold--and his own fortune twentyfold. What -might not have been politic in an individual playing a lone hand -was altogether admirable in the head of a financial institution--his -cold-bloodedness, for example, and the dehumanized attitude toward -life habitually assumed by the principal cog-wheel in that intricate -aggregation of cog-wheels known as a modern trust company. Being an -excellent money-lender, he was an uninteresting human being. You lose -much when you win money--for gold is hard and cold, and the enjoyment of -life calls for softness and warmth. It is the appalling revenge capital -takes on its self-called masters. - -As he approached his fiftieth year Welles began to find that -his isolation might be splendid, but that it was also damnably -uncomfortable. Did you know that in certain millionaire households, -where everything always runs very smoothly, the master gets to long for -a burnt steak or the spilling of soup by the very competent servant? -Welles, accustomed to the wonderfully comfortable life of a very rich -bachelor in New York, desired a home where everything need not be so -comfortable. And as his fortune became a matter of several millions it -began--as swollen fortunes always do, also in revenge!--to take on the -aspect of a monument, something to admire during the monument-builder's -lifetime and to endure impressively afterward! With the desire of -permanence came the dream of all capitalists that makes them dynasts -of gold--an heir to extend the boundaries of the family fortune! It was -inevitable that Ashton Welles should grow to believe that, though the -trust company's deposits were in other people's names, they really -belonged to Ashton Welles, because they were merely the marble blocks -of the Welles monument. The name of Welles must never cease to be -identified with the work of Ashton the First! - -Wherefore the need of an heir became almost an obsession with him, and -with it came a quite human dissatisfaction with hotels and clubs, and -trained nurses in times of illness. When a capitalist realizes clearly -that, apart from his money-lending capacity, he has absolutely no power -to bring tears to human eyes, he grows jealous of his own money. He -wishes to be feared, though penniless, just as he would be loved, though -a pauper. All these desires combined to force Ashton Welles into a -decision. He had kept up a desultory sort of friendship with Mrs. -Deering, the widow of his predecessor in the presidency of the trust -company, and Anne Deering was the girl he knew best of all--though he -really did not know her at all. - -The Deerings had not been fortunate in their investments; in fact, the -Deering holdings of Van-Twiller stock had been benevolently assimilated -at one-fifth of their value by Ashton Welles himself during one of those -panics that make reckless persons cease being reckless ever after. It -was not very difficult for Anne Deering to be made to feel that she -could save her mother's life and assure ease and comfort for herself -forever by marrying Mr. Ashton Welles, who at fifty was one of those men -whom old friends invariably classify as well-preserved. To be just, he -was really distinguished-looking and had a sort of uniform urbanity that -made him at least unobjectionable. - -He was also very rich. She married him. She learned to like him. He grew -to love her! - -She was a doll--beautiful and utterly useless; but it was this very -uselessness that made Ashton Welles worship her. This financier, who -in his office was not only a skilful bargain-driver, but preached and -practised the religion of efficiency, in his home plunged into an orgy -of utterly juvenile lovemaking. He reveled in his wooing, which he had -to do after his marriage. He did not merely desire to have a wife--he -must have a wife of an extreme femininity; she must be one of those -womanly women who exist only in the imaginations of men of a tyrannical -cast of mind. His life having been for years exclusively a money-making -life, he became very selfish. And he continued to find his greatest -pleasure in pleasing himself--only that he now best pleased himself by -being a boy sweetheart; by achieving his puppy love at fifty and deeming -it marvelously rejuvenating and therefore altogether admirable. - -Very well! Now imagine that man, living for two years amid those -pitifully evanescent illusions so cherished by middle-aged men of money -who marry very young women of looks--imagine that man suddenly informed -that he is no longer to be anything but an old man! And not only old, -but deserted! Imagine that selfsame man brought face to face with the -invincible Opponent of all old men--youth! - -To Ashton Welles, sitting in his office, surrounded by glittering -millions, there came the deadly chill of age--doubly cold from being -surrounded by gold. In the twinkling of an eye all young men suddenly -became redoubtable warriors, love-conquerors, irresistible as a force of -nature--and as heartless! He was beaten by the universal victor--Time! - -He stared fixedly at a photograph of his wife in an elaborately -chased silver frame, but he did not see her. He saw ruins, as of a -conflagration--the smoking débris of a destroyed home; and heaps of -ashes--ashes everywhere! And in the rising puffs of smoke he saw faces -of men--of young men--of very handsome young men! - -Stewardson, the vice-president, walked in--the door was open, as usual. -He saw his chief's face and was shocked into a quite human feeling of -consternation. - -“Great heavens, Mr. Welles, what is the matter?” - -“Nothing!” said Ashton Welles. He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse -to hide his face from the sight of his fellow-men. He thought his -forehead must show in black letters--_Fool!_ and--and--and ten thousand -terrible legends that changed with each beat of his heart, and told what -he had been and what had happened; and--yes--what was bound to happen! - -“Nothing! Nothing!” he repeated, fiercely. - -“Nothing, I tell you!” He was certain all the world knew his disgrace. - -“Shall I call a doctor?” - -“No! No!” he snarled. Call in the entire world and gloat at his -discomfiture? He glanced at the vice-president. The impolitic alarm on -Steward-son's face exasperated him. “What do you want? Damn it, what do -you want?” It was almost a shriek. - -“I wanted to consult with you about that Consolidated Cushion Tire bond -issue--” - -“Yes, yes! Well?” - -“Have you decided whether to--” - -“Yes! I mean--no! I mean--Wait! Ask Witter. I dictated a memorandum to -him, I think. Yes, I did!” - -He was making desperate efforts to speak calmly; but he stopped, because -Stewardson, a dastard of thirty-two, suddenly grew to resemble young Mr. -Francis Wolfe! Stewardson saw the gleam in Ashton Welles's eyes and felt -that the president must have hated him all his life! - -“I'll get it from Witter,” he said, and hastily left the room. - -Welles stared wide-eyed at the open door for perhaps a full minute; -always he saw ruins--smoke and ashes--ashes everywhere! And then he -started up and squared his shoulders. He rang for an office-boy and said -to him, “Tell Mr. Witter I've gone for the day”--Witter was his private -secretary--and left the office. - -He could not bear even to think of going home, for he now had no home! -Therefore he went to Central Park and walked aimlessly about until his -unaccustomed muscles compelled him to sit down. There he sat, thinking! -After three hours he had grown sufficiently calm to believe himself when -he called himself a fool for being jealous. Having convinced himself -of his folly, he clutched eagerly at every opportunity to close his -own ears to the whisperings of his own doubts. At length he went to his -house, dressed as usual, and went to the Cosmopolitan Club to dine. - - - -IX - -A few minutes after Ashton Welles left his office, stabbed to the soul -by the poisoned paragraphs of _Society Folk_ Jemingham sought Stewardson -and told him he had decided to send some more gold-dust to the Assay -Office. His own attendant, a young man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who -properly answered to the name of Sheehan, accompanied him. Stewardson, -whose nerves had not recovered from the shock of Mr. Welles's behavior, -decided that he, also, would go to the vaults. - -“I want ten boxes sent to the Assay Office,” said Jemingham. - -“Certainly, sir,” said the superintendent of the vaults, very -obsequiously. To show how eager he was to please, he asked, “Any -particular boxes, Mr. Jemingham?” - -Immediately a half-formulated suspicion fleeted across the mind of the -second vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. How did they know -what those boxes contained? How did they know that all of them were full -of Yukon gold? How did they know anything about this man or about his -treasure--his alleged treasure? - -Almost immediately afterward, however, he reproached himself. Why, the -man had deposited over a million--the proceeds of twenty of the boxes! - -“Oh, take any ten,” said Jerningham--“the first ten. They are the -easiest to take out.” - -“The last ten!” said Stewardson, hastily, obeying an impulse that came -upon him like a flash of lightning. - -Jerningham turned and asked: “Why the last ten? They are away back, -and--” - -“I have my reasons,” smiled Stewardson--the smile of a man who knows -something funny about you, but does not wish to tell it--not quite yet. -It is the most exasperating smile known. - -Jerningham looked at him a moment. Then he said, coldly: “Why not pick -them out haphazard--one here and another there, as if you were sampling -a mine and wanted to make sure they hadn't salted it on you?” He turned -to the men and said, “Pick out ten at random, no two from the same -place; and be sure they are not full of stable litter!” - -Stewardson flushed, and whispered apologetically to the superintendent, -“The more the boys work, the more grateful he will be.” - -“Oh, he is very generous, anyhow,” said Sullivan, the superintendent, -watching his helper and Sheehan pick out the ten boxes at random. - -Stewardson accompanied Jerningham up-stairs and then excused himself -long enough to say to a confidential clerk: “Follow Mr. Jerningham and -his ten boxes of gold-dust, and find out what he does, how much he gets, -and every detail of interest. Don't let him see you.” - -The clerk found out and later reported to the vice-president that the -ten boxes all contained Alaskan gold-dust, and that their value was -$531,687, the boxes averaging a little better than fifty thousand -dollars each. Stewardson then had the remaining boxes counted. There -were one hundred and twenty-one left. They were worth over six million -dollars. Jerningham ought to have the gold-dust coined and then deposit -the proceeds in the trust company. The company would allow him two and -a half per cent.--or maybe three per cent.--on the six millions. That -would be one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. The company -could then loan the entire six millions, not having to bother with -keeping a reserve like the national banks, and, the way the money-market -was, the money could be loaned at five per cent. That would be three -hundred thousand dollars a year. - -Men properly must end in dust; but dust, when gold, should end in -eagles. He would speak to Jerningham about it--one hundred and eighty -thousand dollars a year that Jerningham was not making--which was -silly! And one hundred and twenty thousand a year the company was not -making--which was a tragedy! - -Ashton Welles sent word to the office on the following morning that he -would not be down until late, if at all. He did not send word that he -had decided to consult his lawyer about the _Society Folk_ article. -He had received eight marked copies, addressed to him at his house in -different handwritings, and he did not know that on his desk at the -office there were a dozen more. Friends always tell you about anonymous -attacks anonymously. They wait for them. - -Jerningham seemed disappointed when he learned, at ten-thirty, that Mr. -Welles might not come to the office at all. Stewardson came upon -him looking disgruntled. That did not deter the vice-president from -broaching the subject nearest his heart. “I'd like to ask you one -question, Mr. Jerningham. Of course I know you must have a reason--a -very good reason, too--” - -“If the reason is good I'll confess,” said Jerningham, pleasantly. - -“Well, I'd like to know what your reason is for not sending all your -gold to the Assay Office?” - -“My reason is that I want to make a lot of money later by not sending -the gold to the Assay Office now. Remember my very words!” - -“But how are you going to do it?” Stewardson could not help asking, -because he was so puzzled that his sense of humor was paralyzed. - -“By having the gold--that's how.” - -“That's all right! But why don't you change it into coin? That way you -can have it at a moment's notice.” - -“My dear chap, do you know how many hours it will take the Assay Office, -after I take my dust in there, to give me a check for the proceeds? I -get ninety per cent, of the value at once. If I cash this gold now I'll -spend it. I know it! I never could resist the temptation to spend--it -is my one weakness. And if I spent it what would I have to show for the -hardships of thirty years?” - -“But why don't you deposit it with us? We'll allow you two and a half -per cent. Or if you make it a time deposit we can do better than that by -you. You know you can always get gold for it if you ask us for it.” - -“I can, can I?” laughed Jerningham, with a sort of good-natured mockery. -“How about 1907 and your old clearing-house certificates--eh? -What?” Stewardson was nettled. So he permitted himself the supreme, -all-conquering argument of business: “But you are losing one hundred -and eighty thousand dollars a year by leaving your gold uncoined and -undeposited.” - -“I won't lose a year's interest, because it isn't going to take a year -for the big panic to come.” Stewardson laughed--a kindly laugh. “For -pity's sake, don't wait for that! Panics have a habit of not coming -if expected. Just now everybody is bluer than indigo. You'd think the -United States was on its last legs. Invest at once, and don't wait for -the bargains at the funeral that may never come.” - -“How sound is this institution?” Jerningham looked Stewardson full in -the face. - -The vice-president answered, smilingly, “Oh, I guess we'll weather the -storm.” - -“Then I'll buy more stock. Mr. Welles advised me to buy all I could get -hold of. A wonderful man--” - -“Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Stewardson, solemnly. “Wonderful! Great -judgment!” pursued Jeming-ham, with a sort of boyish enthusiasm that -made Stewardson think his superior had designs on the Klondike gold in -the vaults. “He is so clear-cut--and never, never loses his head! To -tell you the truth,” and Jerningham lowered his voice, “I used to think -he was an icicle--the sort of man nothing can disturb; but, for all his -calmness and imperturbability, he has a great warm heart and a great big -brain!” - -Stewardson had never before heard anybody accuse the president of the -VanTwiller Trust Company of having any heart at all. Why had Welles -taken the pains to pose before the Klondike miner as a philanthropist? -And why had the imperturbable Ashton Welles been so perturbed the day -before? - -“Ablest man in this country!” said Stewardson, his mind wrapped in the -folds of his unformulated mysteries and his own half-asked questions. - -“So I'll get a little more of the stock,” said Jerningham. - -“Go ahead! You can't go wrong,” Stewardson assured him; “in fact, you -ought to send some of your gold to the Assay Office and--” - -“What will you lend me on my gold--on the six millions I've got -down-stairs?” asked Jerningham, with a frown. He looked intently at the -vice-president with his cold, gray eyes, and Stewardson somehow fancied -he saw a challenge in them; but he was an old bird at the game. He -laughed and said, jovially: - -“Not a penny!” - -“I know it. It shows you how incompetent all these financial -institutions are. You think you are doing your duty by being -suspicious--what? Well, you don't unless you are intelligently -suspicious. Never mind; you are only the vice-president. I'll buy the -stock just the same.” And Jerningham laughed, exaggeratedly forgiving, -and went away. - -Later in the day, when Stewardson thought he might sell his own holdings -of VanTwiller Trust stock to Jerningham and trust to luck to pick it up -again here and there at a lower figure, he called up a firm of brokers -who made a specialty of dealing in bank and trust-company stocks. He was -surprised to learn that V.T. stock was scarce and thirty points higher. -The vice-president called up specialists and heard the same story--the -floating supply had been quietly bought. - -“By whom?” he asked Earhart. - -“You know very well!” retorted the last broker, in an aggrieved tone of -voice. - -“I do not!” Stewardson assured him. - -“Well, it all goes into your office.” - -“Mine?” - -“Yes--yours! And it's paid by your checks. The name signed is Alfred -Jerningham. Are you going to cut a melon? Just whisper!” - -“Oh!” and Stewardson laughed. “What a suspicious man you are, Dave!” - -In the alarmingly inexplicable frame of mind in which Ashton Welles was -Stewardson did not feel like speaking to his superior about Jemingham's -investment. There was no reason why the Klondiker should not buy all -the VanTwiller Trust Company stock he could pay for; but a day or -two afterward the vice-president learned that Jerningham had secured -control, by purchase outright or by option, at prices ranging from three -hundred and ninety-five to five hundred dollars a share, of twenty-two -thousand shares. That was important for two reasons: In the first -place it was more than Jerningham could pay for even if he sold all his -gold-dust; and, secondly, such a block in unfriendly hands might work -injury to the controlling clique. He decided to see the president; but -he was told that Mr. Ashton Welles was engaged at that moment. - -Jerningham was talking to him. They had exchanged greetings with much -cordiality. - -“Have you heard from Mrs. Welles?” asked the Alaskan. - -“She hasn't arrived yet--” - -“I know it. But I received a wireless from young Wolfe--” - -“What did he say?” asked Ashton Welles before he knew it. - -Jerningham looked mildly surprised. He answered: - -“It was a funny message. He asked me to go to his room and get his -trunks, and send all his belongings to London, as he had decided to stay -there indefinitely.” - -“Yes?” It was all Welles could say. - -“So I wired back, 'Are you crazy?'” - -“Did he answer that?” - -“Yes.” Jerningham paused. Then he laughed. - -“What did he answer?” queried Welles. - -“Oh, he is crazy, all right. He answered, 'Yes--with joy! Please send -trunks to Thornton's Hotel--'” - -“What?” Ashton Welles rose to his feet, his face livid. It was the -London hotel where Mrs. Deering lived, the hotel to which Mrs. Welles -was going! - -“What's the matter?” asked Jerningham, in amazement. - -“N-nothing!” said Ashton Welles, huskily. He gulped twice. Then, having -spent thirty-five years in Wall Street making money, he explained, “I've -got a terrible toothache!” And he put his hand to his left cheek. - -“I'm sorry!” said Jemingham so sympathetically that Welles, for all -his distress--and nothing is so inherently selfish as suffering--felt -a kindly feeling toward the man from Alaska. “Could I ask your advice -about a business matter?” - -“Certainly!” - -Ashton Welles tried to smile. It was ghastly, but Jemingham did not -remark it. He said, placidly: - -“I've bought quite a little bunch of VanTwiller stock because you are -its president, Mr. Welles. On my honor, that is my only reason. I've -paid good prices, too; but you are worth it--to me!” And Jemingham -beamed adoringly on the efficient president of the VanTwiller Trust -Company. - -Ashton Welles said, “Thank you!” and even tried to feel grateful to -this queer character from the frozen North who was so naïve in his -admiration--and envied him for not having a young wife who had sailed on -the same steamer with an exceedingly attractive young man. - -“I guess I'm all right in my purchase--what?” - -“Oh yes!” said Welles. He was thinking of the _Ruritania_. It did not -even occur to him that this Monte Cristo might be worth while to pluck. - -“Thank you. I hope I didn't bother you. Good morning, Mr. Welles.” - -“Good morning, Mr. Jemingham. Er--come in any time you think I can be of -service to you.” - -As Jemingham was leaving the president's office he almost bumped into -the vice-president. - -“You've bought quite a lot of our stock,” said - -Stewardson, full of his errand. His voice had an accusing ring. - -“Yes. I was just speaking to Mr. Welles about it.” - -“And what did he say?” - -“Ask him!” teased Jerningham, with a smile, and went away. - -Stewardson felt it his duty to do exactly as Jerningham had mockingly -suggested. It was an abnormal situation. That being the case, there was -no regular provision--no indicated chapter and verse--for meeting it. -The principal function of a chief in business is to supply answers to -puzzled subordinates. - -Ashton Welles was sitting back in his swivel chair. He was staring -fixedly at a hook on the picture-molding that had been left there after -the picture was taken away. He was thinking that if he employed private -detectives in London he would have to hire them by cable. There are -suspicions a man cannot help having and yet cannot set down in plain -black and white. He cannot hint when he writes, for written instructions -must always be explicit and categorical. That is why no love-letter -of which the real meaning is to be read “between the lines” is ever -satisfactory to the recipient. - -Ashton Welles turned his head and, still frowning, asked Stewardson, -sharply: - -“Well, what is it?” - -“It's about Jerningham. You know he has been buying our stock. But I -thought you ought to know--” - -He wished to tell the president what a big block the Alaskan had already -secured. But the president, from force of habit, perhaps, or possibly -by reason of the irritation of his nerves, assumed the usual financial -attitude of omniscience: - -“I know all about it,” he said. “Anything else you wish to say to me?” - -“No, sir!” answered Stewardson, who felt rebuffed and now would not have -turned in an alarm of fire if he had seen the place beginning to burn. -He was, after all, human. - -You cannot, in your lust for absolute power, make your subordinates -into sublimated office-boys or decorative figureheads without paying the -price some time. Stewardson was justified in assuming that Mr. Welles -was worried about business--it was perfectly obvious; and it was a -natural suspicion, also, that said deal must threaten destruction to the -company since Ashton Welles was so eager to have poor Jerningham buy so -much VanTwiller stock. Therefore Stewardson and his intimate friends, -in order to be on the safe side, very promptly sold out their own -holdings--to poor misguided Jerningham's brokers. - -Of course other people who did not wish Welles well heard about it, and -the whisper ran about the Street, getting blacker and blacker as it -ran, until everybody knew something had happened--everybody except the -directors of the VanTwiller Trust Company. And when the transfer-books -closed for the annual meeting of the stockholders it was found that -Mr. Alfred Jerningham owned, by purchase or option, and had irrevocable -proxies on, a little more than twenty-eight thousand shares of the -stock. This, together with the twelve thousand shares owned jointly by -Patrick T. Behan and Oliver Judson, the street-railroad magnates, and -the blocks controlled by the Garvin brothers, Tammany contractors, and -Mayer & Shanberg, F. R. Chisolm, John Matson & Company, and others of -the Behan-Judson clique, which once tried to secure control of the -company and were foiled by Ashton Welles, made a combination that was -bound to win at the annual election. - -Jerningham ceased going to the VanTwiller Trust Company because Ashton -Welles had sailed for London on the receipt of a cablegram that read: - -_Leaving for Continent. Mother and I cannot return before three months. -Will write soon._ - -_Anne_. - -Instead of calling on his friend Stewardson, Jerningham preferred to -spend hours and hours conversing with Patrick T. Behan, “the most -dangerous man in Wall Street!”--and the slickest. But on the day before -the election Jerningham did call on Stewardson and offered to sell his -holdings of VanTwiller stock at six hundred dollars a share. - -“Why, I thought you--” began the vice-president. - -“I know you did. I wanted you to. But six hundred dollars is only -twenty-five dollars a share more than Behan, and Judson, and Garvin, -and the rest of those pirates have offered me. I've decided not to be a -stockholder of the trust company; so just get your friends together and -tell them if they want to retain the control they can give you a check -for me--six hundred dollars a share on twenty-eight thousand, one -hundred and twenty-three shares. Put it down--twenty-eight thousand, one -hundred and twenty-three shares. Good day!” - -“Wait! I want to say--” - -“Don't say it! Write it! I'm still at the Brabant,” said Jerningham, -coldly. “I advise you to get at Mr. Welles on the steamer by wireless. -Good day!” - -“But, I--” shouted Stewardson. - -Jerningham paid no attention to him and walked away. - -Later in the day negotiations were resumed. In the end Jerningham -accepted a little less; but the deal yielded him a net profit of about -two million dollars. He insisted upon being paid in gold coin. This -convinced Stewardson and the other victims that Jerningham was out of -his mind; but there is no law that enables officers of a trust company -to imprison a gold maniac or to take away his gold, particularly when -his lawyers stand very high in the profession. - -Five minutes after getting the gold coin in his possession--and drawing -every cent of it--Jerningham told Stewardson he would leave the dust in -the VanTwiller vaults. That reassured Stewardson, who otherwise might -have suspected Jerningham of various crimes. He then sent two cablegrams -to London. One was to - -_Kathryn Keogh,_ - -_Thornton's Hotel, London._ - -_Your services are no longer needed. Go ahead and have a nice time! -Thanks awfully!_ _Jerningham_. - -The other was to Francis Wolfe--same address. It read: - -_You ought to marry Kathryn Keogh. Never mind anything else. I am -disappearing for good. God bless you both, my children! Letter follows._ - -_Jerningham._ - -Francis Wolfe showed his cablegram to Miss Keogh and Miss Keogh did not -show hers to Francis Wolfe. - -A week later Frank asked Miss Keogh to read a letter he had received -from Jerningham, and to tell him what to do. - -This was the letter. - -Dear Boy,--We needed a million or two out of Ashton Welles, and the only -way we could see of getting it was by selling to him what he already -had--to wit, the control of the VanTwiller Trust Company. From previous -operations the syndicate I have the honor to represent had accumulated -enough cash to render this operation feasible; but Welles watched the -trades in VanTwiller stock so closely that we could not have bought -a thousand shares without blocking our own game. So we planned our -operations very carefully, as we always do. And because I like you I -will tell you how we went about it--that you may profit by our example. - -First, I had to become instantly and sensationally known as the -possessor of vast wealth. The mere deposit of a million or two in a -bank would not do it. We must have the cash and a stupendous cash-making -property--hence the mines in the Klondike. Purely mythical mines, dear -lad! We sent to Alaska, bought $1,686,000 of gold-dust, put it in boxes, -and put a lot of lead in other boxes--now in the VanT. vaults!--thereby -increasing our less than two million into more than eight--and nobody -hurt thereby! Then the shipment to Seattle, so that every step could be -verified--and the special bullion train to New York; and the eccentric -miner--myself--with his gold--no myth about the gold--what? in a New -York hotel; and of course the reporters were only too willing to help -and to magnify our gold-dust. - -The _Planet's_ articles were our letters of introduction to the trust -company and to Wall Street. Could not have done better--could we? But -how to catch Welles off his guard? By breaking it down, of course. Best -way? By rousing jealousy. That's where you come in. Mrs. Welles must go -to England with you on the same steamer. How? By winning your friendship -and rousing your romantic interest in an unhappy love-affair--that -would, moreover, explain my interest in Mrs. Welles. Of course there -never was any Naida Deering for me to be interested in! - -But you had to meet Welles's wife. How? By means of your sisters. How -did I make friends of them? By reforming you and making you my heir. - -How did I make Mrs. Welles take the same steamer that you did? By having -her mother cable for her. How did I do that? Ask Miss Keogh. - -I admit that much of what we were compelled to do was not gentlemanly; -but, after all, our only crime is the crime of having been business -men--buying something at four dollars and selling it at five or six -dollars. - -Take my advice, dear boy, and stay on the water-wagon! If you marry Miss -Keogh I think you can show this letter to A. Welles and ask him to give -you a nice position in the trust company. - -I am sorry I cannot see you again; but believe me, dear boy, that we -are very grateful for your efficient assistance. We would send you a -check--only we need it in our business. Tell Jimmy Parkhurst to tell you -and Amos F. Kidder all about it. - -Yours truly, - -The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, Per Alfred Jerningham. - -But it was a long time before Frank Wolfe returned to New York--without -Miss Keogh, who flatly refused to marry him. Jerningham had disappeared, -leaving absolutely no trail. Parkhurst introduced Frank Wolfe to Fiske, -but all that came of it was that Fiske added a few fresh notes to his -collection. - - - - -IV--CHEAP AT A MILLION - - -I - -TOM MERRIWETHER, only son and heir of E. H. Merriwether, finished the -grape-fruit and took up the last of that morning's mail. He had acquired -the feminine habit of reading letters at the table from his father, who -had the wasteful American vice of time-saving. - -He read the card, frowned, glanced at his father, and seemed to be on -the point of speaking; but he changed his mind, laughed, and tore the -card into bits. - -The day was Monday, and this was what the card said: - -_If Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether will go to 777 Fifth Avenue any -forenoon this week and answer just one little question about his past -life he will hear something to his advantage._ - -Idle men who live in New York are always busy. Tom had many things to -think about; but all of them were about the present or the future. His -past caused him neither uneasiness nor remorse. - -On the following Monday young Mr. Merriwether received, among other -invitations, this: - -_If Tom Merriwether will call at 777 Fifth Avenue any forenoon this week -and answer one question he will do that which is both kindly--and wise!_ - -It was in the same handwriting, on the same kind of card, and in the -same kind of ink as the first. Now Tom had the Merriwether imagination. -His father exercised it in building railroads into waterless deserts -whereon he clearly saw a myriad men labor, love, and multiply, thereby -insuring freight and passengers to the same railroads. The son had to -invent his romances in New York. - -Ordinarily the second invitation would have given him something to busy -himself with; but it happened that he was at that moment planning to do -a heartbreaking thing without breaking any heart. Billy Larremore, the -veteran whose devotion to polo was responsible for so many of the -team's victories in the past, was not aware that age had bade him cease -playing. It would break his loyal heart not to play in the forthcoming -international match. Tom Merriwether had been delegated to break the -news. - -Thinking about it made him forget all about the letter until the -following Monday, when he received the third invitation: - -_Merriwether,--Come to 777 Fifth Avenue Tuesday morning at ten-thirty -without fail and answer the question._ - -He crumpled the card and was about to throw it away when he changed his -mind. Perhaps it would be wise to give it to a detective agency. But -what could he say he feared? Then he decided it was probably a joke. -Somebody wished to put him in the ridiculous position of ringing the -bell of 777, showing the card--and being told to get out. It was to be -regretted that this would seem funny to some of his perennially juvenile -intimates at the Rivulet Club. - -An hour later, as he walked down the Avenue, he looked curiously at 777. -It was one of those newcomer houses erected by speculative builders to -sell furnished to out-of-town would-be climbers or to local stock-market -bankers who, being Hebrews, were too sensible to wish to climb, but were -not sensible enough not to wish to live on Fifth Avenue. - -Tom resolved to ask Raymond Silliman, who played at being in the -real-estate business, to find out who lived at 777. Meantime he did a -little shopping--wedding-presents--and went to luncheon at his club. He -had not quite finished his coffee when he was summoned to the telephone. - -“Hello! Mr. Merriwether?” said a woman's voice--clear, sweet, and -vibrant, but unknown. “This is Miss Hervey--the nurse--Dr. Leighton's -trained nurse. They asked me to tell you about your father. Don't be -alarmed!” - -“Go on!” commanded young Merriwether, sharply. - -“It is nothing serious--really! But if you could come home it -probably--Yes, doctor! I am coming!” And the conversation ceased -abruptly. - -Tom instantly left the club. He took the solitary taxicab that stood in -front of the club. He afterward recalled the fact that there was only -one where usually there were half a dozen. - -“Eight-sixty-nine Fifth Avenue. Go up Madison to Sixtieth and then turn -into the Avenue. Hurry!” - -“Very good, sir,” said the chauffeur. - -The taxicab dashed madly up Madison and up Fifth Avenue, and finally -stopped--not before the Merriwether home, but in front of Number 777. -Before he could ask the chauffeur what he meant by it both doors of the -cab opened at once and two men sandwiched between them Mr. Thomas Thorne -Merriwether. The one on the west, or Central Park, side threateningly -held in his hand a business-like javelin--not at all the kind that -silly people hang on the walls in their childish attempts at decorative -barbarity. The man who half entered the taxicab from the east, or -sidewalk, side held in his left hand a beer-schooner full of a colorless -liquid that smoked, and in his right something completely but loosely -covered by a white-linen handkerchief. - -“Please listen, Mr. Merriwether!” said the man with the glass. “Do -nothing! Don't even move! Hear me first!” - -“Is my father--” - -“I am glad to say he is well and happy, and working in his office -down-town. The message that brought you here was a subterfuge. Your -father is as usual. We arranged it so you had to take this particular -taxicab. Don't stir, please!” - -“What does all this mean?” asked Tom, impatiently. - -“I am about to have the honor of telling you,” answered the man. - -He had no hat and wore clerical garments. His clean-shaved face was -pale--almost sallow--and young Merriwether noticed that his forehead -was very high. His dark-brown eyes were full of the earnestness of -all zealots, which makes you dislike to enter into an argument--first, -because of the futility of arguing with a zealot; and, second, because -said zealot probably knows a million times more about the subject than -you and can outargue you without trouble. So Tom simply listened with an -alertness that would not overlook any chance to strike back. - -“This glass contains fuming sulphuric acid. It will sear the face and -destroy the eyesight with much rapidity and completeness. Also”--here -he shook off the handkerchief from his right hand and showed a -revolver--“this is the very latest in automatics; marvelously efficient; -dumdum bullets; stop an elephant! I am about to solicit a great favor.” - -Tom Merriwether looked into the earnest, pleading eyes. Then he glanced -on the other side, at the bull-necked husky with the business-like -spear. Then he turned to the clerical garb. - -“I see I am in the hands of my friends!” said Tom, pleasantly. - -“The doctor was right,” said the man with the glass, as if to himself. - -“Come! Come!” said young Mr. Merriwether. “How much am I to give? You -know, I never carry much cash with me.” - -“We, dear Mr. Merriwether,” said the pale-faced man in an amazingly -deferential voice, “propose to be the donors. If you will kindly permit -us we shall give you what is more costly than rubies.” - -“Yes?” Tom's voice was perhaps less skeptical than sarcastic. - -“Yes, sir. Would you be kind enough to accept our invitation--the -fourth, dear Mr. Merriwether--to join us at 777 Fifth Avenue--right -here, sir--and answer one question? Please listen carefully to what I am -saying: You don't have to go. Moreover, if you should go you don't have -to answer any question. We would not, for worlds, compel you. But, for -your own sake, for the sake of your father's peace of mind and of the -Merriwether fortune, for the sake of your happiness in this world and in -the next; for all that all the Merriwethers hold most dear--come with me -and, if you are very wise, answer the question that will be asked you by -the wisest man in all the world.” - -“He must be a regular Solomon--” began Tom, but the man held up the -glass and went on, very earnestly: - -“Listen, please! If you decide to accept our invitation I shall spill -this acid in the street and I shall give you this revolver. I repeat, -you do not have to answer the question. You will not be harmed or -molested. I pledge you my word. Will you, in return, give me yours -to follow me at once into 777, and that you will not shoot unless you -sincerely think you are in danger?” - -Tom Merriwether looked at the pale-faced man a moment. He was willing to -take his chances with that face. Also, he could not otherwise find the -solution of this puzzling affair. Therefore he said: “Yes. I give you my -word.” - -Instantly the pale-faced man with the high forehead laid the revolver on -the seat beside young Mr. Merriwether and withdrew from the cab. Tom saw -him spill the fuming acid into the gutter. The burly javelin-man took -himself off. The temptation to use the butt of the revolver on the -clerical-garbed man with the earnest eyes came to Tom, but he saw in -a flash that if he should do such a thing he would be compelled in -self-defense to tell a story utterly unbelievable. - -Moreover, the pale-faced man was a slender little chap of middle age and -no match for big Tom Merriwether. So, assuring himself that the revolver -was in truth loaded and that it worked, he put it in his pocket, kept -his grasp on it there, and got out of the taxicab. His one impelling -motive now was curiosity. Afraid? With the pistol and his muscles and -his youth, on Fifth Avenue, at two-thirty in the afternoon? - -The pale-faced man, the empty glass in one hand, walked toward the door -of 777 without so much as turning his head. Tom followed. - -The door was opened by a man in livery who took Mr. Merriwether's hat -and cane. Tom saw in the furnishings of the house--complete with that -curious unhuman completeness of a modern hotel--the kind of furnishings -that interior decorators usually sell to first-generation rich on -their arrival at Fifth Avenue residenceship. The furniture had every -qualification possessed by furniture in order not to suggest a home to -live in. Wherefore Tom, whose mind always worked quickly, reasoned to -himself: - -“Rented for the occasion to the man who has made me come to him.” - -Also Tom noticed four men-servants, all of them well built and all of -them owning faces that somehow were not servant faces. The revolver, -which had seemed amply sufficient outside, seemed less so within the -house. Supposing he killed one--or even two--the other two would down -him in an affray. He tightened his grip on the revolver and planned and -rehearsed a shooting affair in which four men in livery were disabled -with four shots. A great pity E. H. Merriwether was such a very rich -man--a great pity for his son Tom. - -At a door, on the center panel of which was a monogram in black, red, -and gold the last of the footmen knocked gently. The door was thereupon -opened from within. - -“Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether, 7-7-77!” announced the -intelligent-looking footman, with a very pronounced English accent. - -Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether entered. It was a _nouveau-riche_ library. -The Circassian-walnut bookcases and center-table were over-elaborately -carved, and the hangings of rich red velvet were over-elaborately -embroidered. The bronzes on the over-elaborate mantel looked as though -they had been placed there by somebody who was coming back in a minute -to take them away again. - -Altogether the apartment suggested a salesroom, and there was a note of -incongruity in a golden-oak filing-cabinet of the Grand Rapids school. - -At one end of the room in an arm-chair, with his back to a terrible -stained-glass window, sat a man of about forty. He had a calm, -remarkably steady gaze, with a sort of leisureliness about it that made -you think of a drawling voice. Also, an assurance--a self-consciousness -of knowledge--that was compelling. His chin was firm and there was a -suggestion of power and of control over power that reminded Tom of -a very competent engineer in charge of a fifty-thousand-horse-power -machine. - -“Kindly be seated, sir,” said the man in a tone that subtly suggested -weariness. - -Tom sat down and looked curiously at the man, who went on: - -“Sir, I have a question to ask you. If you see fit to answer, be good -enough to answer it spontaneously and in good faith. Do not, I beg you, -in turn, ask me questions--such as, for example, why I wish to know what -I ask. If you decide not to answer you will leave this house unharmed, -accompanied by our profound regret that you should be so unintelligent -at your life's crisis.” The man looked at Tom with a meditative -expression, then nodded to himself almost sorrowfully. - -Tom, though young, was a Merriwether. He said, politely, “Let me hear -the question, sir.” - -He himself was thinking in questions: What can the question be? Who is -this man? What is the game? What will be the end of it all? - -“One question, sir,” repeated the stranger. - -“I am listening, sir,” Tom assured him, with a quiet, but quite -impressive, earnestness. - -“_Where did you spend your vacation at the end of your Freshman year?”_ - -Tom was so surprised, and even disappointed, that he hesitated. Then he -answered: - -“In Oleander Point, Long Island, in the cottage of Dr. Charles W. -Bonner, who was tutoring me. I had a couple of conditions and I stayed -until the third of September!” - -“Thank you! Thank you! That is all--unless, Mr. Merriwether, you wish to -do me and yourself three very great favors. Three!” - -He looked at Tom with a sort of intelligent curiosity, as of a chemist -conducting an experiment. - -“Let's hear what they are,” said young Mr. Merriwether, calmly. - -It was at times like these that he showed whose son he was--alert, his -imagination active, his nerves under control, and his courage steady -and at par. He had, moreover, made up his mind that he would do some -questioning later on. - -“First favor: Concentrate your mind on how you used to spend your -bright, sunshiny days in Oleander Point and your beautiful moonlight -nights. Recall the pleasant people you were friendly with during those -happy weeks. Visualize that summer! Make an effort! Think!” - -It was a command, and Tom Merriwether found himself thinking of that -summer. He closed his eyes. His grip on the revolver in his pocket -relaxed.... He saw his friends. Some of them he had not seen in years. -Others he saw almost daily. And somehow it seemed to him that all the -girls were pretty and kindly; and in particular--well, there were in -particular three. But the affairs had come to nothing. - -He could not have told how long his reverie lasted--the mind traverses -long stretches of time, as of space, in seconds. - -“Well?” said Tom at length. - -“Thank you,” said the man, with the matter-of-fact gratitude a man feels -toward a servant for some attention. - -He took from his pocket a small black-velvet bag, opened it, and spread -on the table before Tom Merriwether a dozen pearls, ranging in size from -a pea to a filbert. They were all of a beautiful orient. - -“I beg you to select one of these. You need not use it. You may give it -to your valet if you wish, or throw it out of the window. Only accept -it as a souvenir of our meeting. That, Mr. Merriwether, would be favor -number two.” - -He pointed toward the pearls. Tom picked one--pear-shaped, white, -beautiful--and put it in his waistcoat pocket. The man swept the rest -into one of the drawers of the long library table. - -“I thank you very much,” said Tom. He was not sure the pearls were not -genuine. - -“No; please don't,” said the man. There was a pause. Presently he asked, -“Do you know anything about pearls, sir?” - -“I am no expert,” answered Tom. “Characteristic. You Merriwethers are -brave enough to be truthful, and wise enough to be cautious. Have you -any opinions?” - -“I think they are beautiful,” said Tom. - -“They are more than that. They represent, Mr. Merriwether, the hope of -the Kingdom of Heaven. The pearl is the symbol of purity, humility, -and innocence. Do you know the legend of the mild maid of God--Saint -Margaret of Antioch?” - -“No.” - -“Margaret is from Margarites--Greek for pearl. And the reason why -faith--But I beg your pardon. Men who live alone talk too much when they -are no longer alone. I beg you to forgive me. Tell me, Mr. Merriwether, -did you ever hear of Apollonius of Tyana?” - -“Not until this minute,” answered Tom. - -He felt almost tempted to ask whether the poor man was dead, but -refrained because he was honest enough to admit to himself that the -question would savor of bravado. Tom was consumed by curiosity as to -what would be the end of it all. To think of it--on Fifth Avenue, New -York, in broad daylight--all this! - -How money was to be made out of him he could not yet see. - -“I will show his talisman to you--the Dispeller of Darkness!” The -man clapped his hands twice. At the summons a negro walked in. He was -dressed in plain black and wore a fez. The man spoke some guttural words -and the negro salaamed and left the room. Presently he returned with a -silver tray on which were seven gold or gilt candlesticks and candles, -and seven gold or gilt small trays or plates, on each of which was a -pastil. - -He arranged the seven candlesticks in some deliberate design, carefully -measuring the distance of each from the other, and of all from a -point in the center. He arranged the plates and pastils about the -candlesticks. Then he left the room, to return with a lighted taper, -with which he lit the seven candles and the seven pastils. Tiny spirals -of fragrant smoke rose languidly in the still air. - -Again the negro left the room and returned with a small parcel wrapped -in a piece of raw silk which he gave to his master. He then went away -for good. - -The man began to mutter something to himself and very carefully took off -the silk cover, revealing a wonderfully carved ivory box. He opened the -gold-hinged lid and took out a silver case. He opened that and from it -took a gold box elaborately though crudely chased. He opened the gold -box and within it, oh a little white-velvet pad, was a cross of dull -gold curiously engraved. He put the pad, with the cross on it, in -the middle of the seven lights. On the arms of the cross and at the -intersection Tom saw seven wonderful emeralds remarkable as to size, -beautiful as to color. - -“Look at it, Mr. Merriwether. It is priceless. The gems alone are worth -a king's ransom. If you consider it merely as a piece of ancient art -there is no telling what a man like Mr. W. H. Garrettson would not give -for it. And as a talisman, with its tried wonder-working powers, there -is, of course, not enough money in all the world to pay for it.” - -Tom stretched his hand toward it. - -“Please! Do not touch it, I beg,” said the man, in a voice in which the -alarm was so evident that Tom drew his hand back as though he had seen -a cobra on the table. “Not yet! Not yet!” said the man. “It is the most -wonderful object in existence. It is a cross that antedates Christ!” - -“Really?” - -“It is obviously of a much earlier period than the Messiah. Great -scholars have thought it a legend, but here it is before you. It -belonged to Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker. Philostratus, who -wrote the life of that great man, does not mention this talisman; he -dared not! Apollonius, who to this day is not known ever to have died, -gave it to a disciple, who gave it to a friend.” - -Tom looked interested. - -“We know who has owned it. It was worn by Arcadius in the fifth century. -The Goths took it and Alaric gave it to the daughter of his most trusted -captain, who commanded his citadel of Carcassonne. Clovis, a hundred -years later, secured it at the sack of Toulouse. We have records of its -having been praised by Eligius, the famous jeweler of Dagobert, in the -seventh century. It was included in the famous treasures of Charlemagne. -It went to Palestine during the first and third crusades--the first time -carried by a maid who loved a knight who did not love her. She went as -his squire, he not suspecting her sex until they were safely back in -France, when he married her. It is a wonderful talisman. The emeralds -came from Mount Zabara. They have the power to drive away the evil -spirits and also to preserve the chastity of the wearer. Moreover, they -give the power to foretell events. Apollonius did--time and again. This -is historically true. But alone he, of all the men who have owned it, -never had a love-affair; hence his clairvoyance. I have bored you. -Forgive me!” - -“Not at all. I was interested. It is all so--er--so--” - -“Incredible--yes! There is no reason why you should believe it. It is of -no consequence whether you think me a lunatic or a charlatan.” - -He said this with a cold indifference that made Tom look incuriously -at the man, whose obvious desire was to excite curiosity. Then the man -said, with an earnestness that in spite of himself impressed the heir of -the Merriwether railroads: - -“Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, classified in our books as 7-7-77, you -are the man I need for this job!” - -“Indeed?” said Tom, politely. - -“Yes, you are.” Tom bowed his head and looked resigned. He deliberately -intended to look that way. The man went on, “The reason I am so sure is -because I know both who and what you are.” - -“Ah, you know me pretty well, then.” Tom could not help the mild -sarcasm. - -“I have known you, young man, for eighty-five years, perhaps longer.” - The man spoke calmly. - -“Indeed!” said Tom. He was twenty-eight. - -“Yes. On top of that cabinet is a book. After the name Thomas Thorne -Merriwether you will find 7-7-77. In the cabinet--seventh section, -seventh drawer, card Number 77--you will find clinical data, -physiological and psychological details, anecdotes, and so on, about you -and your father, E. H. Merriwether, and your mother, Josephine Thorne; -your grandfathers, Lyman Grant Merriwether and Thomas Conkling Thorne, -and of your grandmothers, Malvina Sykes Thorne and Lydia Weston -Merriwether. Indeed I know about your great-grandfathers and three of -your great-great-grandparents; but the data in their case are of little -value save as to Ephraim Merriwether, who in seventeen sixty-three -killed in one duel three army officers who laughed at his twisted nose, -bitten and disfigured for life by a wolf-cub he had tried to tame. Facts -not generally known, but, for all that, facts, young Mr. Thomas Thome -Merriwether, which enable me to say that I have known you these hundred -and fifty years--if there is anything in heredity, environment, and -education! And now, shall I tell you what favor number three is?” - -“If you please,” said Tom. - -For the first time he felt that the usual suspicions as to a merrymaking -game could not be justified in this particular instance. It was much too -elaborate for a practical joke. He did not know how the matter would -end; but he did not care. In New York, on Fifth Avenue, on Tuesday -afternoon, he was having what, indeed, was an experience! - -“I beg that you will listen attentively. You will take the Dispeller -of Darkness with you. Do not open the gold box under any circumstances. -Tonight go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street so as to be there at eight -o'clock sharp. The door will not be locked. Don't ring. Walk in. Go -up one flight of stairs to the front room--there is only one. You will -stand in the middle of the room, with the talisman resting on the palm -of your hand--thus! Do nothing! Say nothing! Wait there! The talisman -will be taken from you by a person. Do not try to detain her--this -person. After the talisman is taken from you count a hundred--not too -fast! At the end of your count leave the room and come back here and -tell me whether you have carried out my instructions. Now, young sir, -let me say to you that you don't have to do what I am asking you to do. -There is no compulsion whatever. There is no crime in contemplation--no -attempt is to be made against your life, your fortune, or your morals. I -pledge you my word, sir!” - -The man looked straight into Tom's eyes. Tom bowed gravely. This man -must be crazy--and yet he certainly was not. This interested Tom by -perplexing him as he had never been perplexed in his eight-and-twenty -years. - -“Mr. Merriwether, this will be the most important step of your life. Its -bearing on your happiness is vital--also on the success of your great -father's vast plans. I give you my personal word that this is so.” There -was a pause. Tom had nothing to say. The man went on: - -“If you care to take reasonable precautions against attack do so. Thus, -keep the revolver you now have in your pocket--it is excellent. Try it -and make certain. You may write a detailed account of what has happened -and leave it with your valet; but mark on it that it is not to be opened -unless you fail to return by 10 p.m. Also you may, if you wish, station -ten private detectives across the way from 7 East Seventy-seventh -Street, and instruct them to go into the house at a single shout from -you or at the sound of a shot. Believe me, it is not your life that is -in danger, sir!” - -“I believe you,” said Tom, reassuringly. - -“Will you do me favor number three?” The man looked at Tom with a -steady, unblinking, earnest--one might even say honest--stare. - -Tom considered. His mind worked not only quickly, but -Merriwether-fashion. He saw all the possibilities of danger, but he saw -the unknown--and the lust of adventure won. He looked the man in the -eyes and said, quietly: - -“I will.” - -“Thank you. There is the talisman. Each of the seven emeralds is -flawless--the only seven flawless emeralds of that size in existence. -Two of them have been in great kings' crowns, and the center stone -was in the tiara of seven popes; after which, the Great Green Prophecy -having been fulfilled, it came back to its place on the Cross. -Apollonius raised people from the dead, according to eyewitnesses. The -pagans tried to confute the believers in Christian miracles by bringing -forward the miracles of the sage of Tyana--and they did not know that -Apollonius wrought marvels by the Sign of the Son of Man--the Cross! -This cross! I pray that you will be careful with it. Show it to nobody. -You have understood your instructions?” - -Tom repeated them. - -“Precisely! I did not make a mistake, you see. In spite of your father's -millions you will be what your destiny wills. Young man, good luck to -you!” The man rose and walked toward the door. Tom Merriwether followed -him and was politely bowed out of the room. From there to the street -entrance the four athletic footmen, with the over-intelligent faces, -took him in tow, one at a time. And it was not until he was out on the -Avenue, headed north, walking toward his own house, that Thomas Thorne -Merriwether, clean-living miltimillionaire idler, shook himself, as -if to scatter the remnants of a dream, felt the butt of the revolver, -hefted the silk-wrapped parcel in which was the talisman, and said, -aloud, so that a couple of pedestrians turned and smiled sympathetically -at the young man, who must be in love, since he talked to himself: - -“What in blazes is it all about?” - - - -II - -His perplexing experience developed so insistent a curiosity in Tom -that he grew irritable even as he walked. That some sort of a game was -being worked he had no doubt; but the fact that he could see no object -or motive increased his wrath. He discarded all suggestion of violence, -though he was bound to admit now that anybody could be kidnapped in New -York in broad daylight. - -He decided to begin by verifying those allusions and references that he -remembered. He walked down the Avenue to the Public Library and there he -read what he could of Apollonius and of Eligius, the marvelous goldsmith -who afterward became Saint Eloi. The helpful and polite library -assistant at length suggested a visit to Dr. Lentz, the gem expert -of Goffony & Company, a man of vast erudition as well as a practical -jeweler. Tom promptly betook himself to the famous jewel-shop. - -They knew the heir of the seventy-five Merri-wether millions, and -impressively ushered him into Dr. Lentz's office. Tom shook hands with -the fat little man, whose wonderfully shaped head had on it no hair -worth speaking of, and handed him the pearl he had picked out from -the dozen the man in 777 Fifth Avenue had placed before him. Dr. Lentz -looked at it, weighed it in his hand, and, without waiting to be asked -any questions, answered what nearly everybody always asked him: - -“Persian Gulf. About fifteen grains--perhaps a little more. We sell some -like it for about thirty-five hundred dollars.” - -“Thanks,” said Tom, and put the pearl in his pocket. - -If it was a joke it was expensive. If not, the other pearls the man had -shown, nearly all of which were larger, must have been worth from fifty -thousand to a hundred thousand dollars. Such is the power of money that -this young man, destined to be one of the richest men in the world -and, moreover, one who did not particularly think about money, was -nevertheless impressed by the stranger's careless handling of the -valuable pearls. He concluded subconsciously that the talisman was even -more valuable. He took the package from his coat pocket and gave it to -Dr. Lentz. - -“Raw silk--Syrian,” murmured the gem expert, and undid the covering. - -“Ha! Italo-Byzantine. The Raising of Tabitha. No! no!” He glared at -young Merriwether, who retreated a step. “Very rare! It's the Raising -of Jairus's Daughter. Same workmanship in similar specimen in the -Lipsanoteca, Museo Civico, Brescia. If so, not later than fourth -century. Very rare! H'm!” - -“Is it?” said Tom. “I don't know much about ivories.” - -“No? Read Molinier! Græven!” - -“Thank you. I will, Dr. Lentz.” - -Dr. Lentz opened the little ivory box and pulled out the silver case. - -“Ha! H'm! Not so rare! Asia Minor. Probably eighth century.” - -“B C?” - -“Certainly not. Key? H'm!” - -“Haven't got it here,” evaded Tom. - -The little savant turned to his secretary and said, “Bring drawer marked -forty-four, inner compartment, antique-gem safe.” - -He was examining the little box, nodding his head, and muttering, “H'm! -H'm!” Tom felt the ground slipping away from under the feet of his -suspicions even while his perplexity waxed monumental. And with it came -the satisfaction of a man convincing himself that he is neither wasting -his time nor making himself ridiculous. - -The clerk returned with a little drawer in which Tom saw about a hundred -and fifty keys. - -“Replicas! Originals in museums of world!” explained Lentz. “H'm!” He -turned the keys over with, a selective forefinger. “It's that one or -this one.” And he picked out two. “Probably this! Damascus! Eighth -century. Byzantine influence still strong. See that? And that? And that? -H'm!” He inserted the little key and opened the casket. He saw the gold -box within. “Ha! H'm! Thracian! How did you get this? H'm!” He -raised his head, looked at Tom fiercely, and then said, coldly, “Mr. -Merriwether, this has been stolen from the British Museum!” - -It beautifully complicated matters. Tom's heart beat faster with -interest. - -“Are you sure?” he asked, being a Merriwether. “Wait! H'm!” He lifted -it out and examined the back. “No! No! Thracian! Of the Bisaltæ! Time of -Lysimachus! But--Well! Aryan symbolism! Possibly taken to India by one -of Alexander's captains--perhaps Lysimachus himself! And--Oh! Oh, early -Christians! Oh, early damned fools! See that? Smoothed away to put -that--Oh, beasts! Heritics in art! Curious! Do you know the incantation -to use before opening?” - -“It was in Greek, and--” - -“Of course!” - -“Yes. He said this had belonged to Apollonius of Tyana.” - -“How much does he ask?” - -“It is not for sale.” - -“Inside is a pentagram?” - -“No; a cross, with seven emeralds as big as that, all flawless.”' - -“There are only two such emeralds in the world without flaws and we have -one of them. The other is owned by the Archbishop of Bogota, Colombia.” - -“He said these were flawless and that he has proofs. He says Eligius -studied this--” - -“Mr. Merriwether, you have on your hands either a very dangerous -impostor or else--H'm! He must be an impostor! How much does he want?” - -“It is not for sale!” - -“H'm! Worse and worse! If I can be of use let me know! They'll fool us -all! All! Good day!” And Dr. Lentz walked away, leaving Tom more puzzled -than ever, but now determined to go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street at -eight o'clock that night. - -He went home and wrote an account of what had happened, placed it in an -envelope, sealed the envelope, and gave it to his valet. - -“If you don't hear from me by ten o'clock tonight give this to my -father; but don't give it to him one minute before ten. And you stay in -until you hear from me.” - -“Very good, sir.” - -He then went to the club, ordered an early dinner for two, and invited -his friend Huntington Andrews to go with him. He did not go into -details. - -Shortly before eight he stationed Andrews across the way from 7 East -Seventy-seventh Street and told him: - -“If I am not back here at eight-fifteen come in after me. If you don't -find me go to my house and wait until ten. My man has instructions. See -my father.” - -Tom was Merriwether enough to have in readiness not only an extra -revolver to give to his friend, but also a heavy cane and an electric -torch. Also he drove Huntington to within a hair's-breadth of death by -unsatisfied curiosity. - -At one minute before eight Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether went into the -house of mystery, realizing for the first time how often the mystic -number seven recurred. The Bible teemed with allusions to the seven -stars, the seven seals, the seven-branched candlestick, the seven -mortal sins. The Greeks had Seven Wise Men and Seven Sleepers, and the -Pythagoreans saw magic in all the heptamerides. And there were seven -notes of music and seven primary colors, and seven hills in the Eternal -City. Also, it had never before occurred to him that he was born on the -seventh day of the seventh month. And now it had its effect. - -He tried the door. It opened when he turned the knob. The hall was dark, -but he could descry the staircase. He grasped his revolver firmly and -entered. - -There was a smell of undusted floors and unaired walls. The darkness -thickened with each step as he climbed, compelling him to grope. And -because he groped there came to him that fear which always comes with -uncertainty. It permeated his soul and was intensified, without becoming -more concrete, by reason of the ghostly emptiness peculiar to all -unoccupied houses. The absence of furniture served merely to fill the -comers with shadows that bred uneasiness. People had been there; people -no longer were! The house was empty of humanity, but full of other -beings--impalpable suspects that made the flesh creep! It was like -death--unseen, but felt with the senses of the soul. - -There was no place, decided Tom, so fit to murder people in as an empty -house. His adventure now took on an aspect of reckless folly. But though -he felt in this ghostly house what might be called the ghost of fear, he -also felt the impelling force of an intelligent curiosity. In this young -man's soul was a love of adventure, a gambler's philosophy, a reserve -force of cold intelligence and warm imagination such as is found in the -great explorers, the great chemists, and the great buccaneers of dollars. - -That was why in the year of grace 1913 Tom Merriwether stood in the -middle of the second-story front room of a house situated in a very -good street, only three doors from Fifth Avenue, with his left hand -outstretched, and on the open palm of it a cross with a Greek name that -meant Dispeller of Darkness--in a darkness that could not be dispelled. -His right hand grasped the butt of an automatic.45 loaded with -elephant-stopping bullets--but of what avail was that against a knock in -the head from behind? - -Listening for soft footsteps, he seemed to hear them time and again--and -time and again not to hear them! People nowadays, he finally decided, -do not want to take other people's lives--only their money. Whereupon he -once more grew calm--and intensely curious! He had not one cent of money -on his person. He had left it at home intentionally. - -Presently he thought he heard sounds--faint musical murmurings in -the air about him, low wailings of violins, scarcely more than Æolian -harpings, and pipings as of tiny flutes--almost indistinguishable. Then -a delicate swish-swish, as of silken garments. Also, there came to him a -subtle fragrance that turned first into an odorous sigh and then into -a summer breath of sweet peas; and he imagined--he must have -imagined--hearing, “I do love you!” ah, so softly! - -He smelled now the odor of sweet peas, which stirred sleeping memories -without fully awakening them, as all flower odors do by what the -psychologists call association. He heard, “I do love you!”--and then the -Dispeller of Darkness was taken from his outstretched hand. - -He stood there, his muscles tense, braced for a shock, ready for a life -struggle, perhaps half a minute before the sound of footsteps retreating -in the hall outside recalled to him his instructions. He vehemently -desired to follow and see who it was that had taken the Dispeller of -Darkness; but he had pledged his word not to. He hesitated. - -The odor of sweet peas was flooding him as with waves. And he heard, “I -do love you!”--heard it again and again with the inner ear of his soul, -the listener of delights. He thrilled at the thought of being loved. It -made him incredibly happy. He felt unbelievably young! - -Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not counted a hundred as he had -promised, though he must have spent more than a minute wool-gathering. -He counted a hundred as fast as he could and then hastened from the -room. It was plain that Tom Merriwether was already doing incredible -things or, at least, failing to do the obvious. Great is the power of -suggestion on an imaginative mind! - -He flashed his electric torch. He was in a bare room with a dusty -hardwood floor, ivory-tinted wainscoting, and a Colonial mantel. The -hall was empty. - -He walked down the stairs, his steps raising disquieting echoes and -creepy creakings. - -Mindful of his waiting friend outside, he quickly walked out of the -gloom into which he had carried the Dispeller of Darkness of Apollonius -of Tyana, the cross of the seven emeralds. Huntington Andrews saw him -coming and crossed over to meet him. - -“How did you make out, Tom?” - -“I'm a damned fool, Huntington; and so are you! And so is everybody!” - -“Right-O!” agreed Andrews, who was inveterately amiable and, moreover, -loved Tom. - -“It's the most diabolical--” Tom paused. - -“Yes, it is,” agreed Huntington Andrews, so obviously anxious to dispel -his friend's ill temper that Tom laughed and said, cheerfully: - -“Come on, me brave bucko!” And together they walked to the corner and -then down the Avenue to 777. - -“Huntington, you wait here; and if I am not back by nine-forty-five go -to my house. At ten o'clock have my valet deliver the letter I gave him -for my father. You can be of help to the governor if you will.” - -And Huntington Andrews asked no questions--he was a friend. - -Tom rang the bell of 777. The door opened. One of the four -over-intelligent-looking footmen stepped to one side respectfully. - -“Is your--” began Tom. - -“Yes, Mr. Merriwether,” answered the man, with a deference such as only -royalty elicits. - -He then delivered Tom to footman number two, who in turn escorted him -as far as number three; then number four led him to the door of the -master's library. The footman knocked, opened the door and announced, -with a curious solemnity: - -“Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, 7-7-77.” - -The strange man was there in his arm-chair, his back to the window. The -room was lit by candles. The man rose and said, respectfully: - -“I thank you, Mr. Merriwether.” - -“Don't mention it,” said Tom, amiably. - -The man bowed his head and looked at Tom meditatively. Tom was the first -to break the silence. - -“May I ask what--” Tom began, but was checked by the other, who held up -his right hand with the gesture of a traffic policeman and said, slowly: - -“A message in the dark! You carried one to another soul, who waited for -it. And that other soul is taking one to you. Some day you will meet -her. You will marry her. There is no doubt whatever of that. None! Ask -me no questions, Mr. Merriwether. I ask nothing of you--no money, no -time, no services, no work, no favors--nothing! Your fate is not in my -hands. It never was! You will follow your destiny. It will take you by -the hand and lead you to her!” - -“That is very nice of destiny.” - -“My young friend, you are very rich, very powerful. You can do -everything. You fear nothing. This is the year nineteen hundred and -thirteen. But I tell you this: the woman who will be your wife, in this -world and throughout eternity has received your message. It was ordained -from the beginning. You have not seen her; you have not heard her; you -have not touched her. And yet you will know her when you see her and -when you hear her and when you feel her. Into the darkness you went. Out -of the darkness she will come. Nothing you can do can change it. Improve -your hours by thinking of her. Think of the love you have to give her! -Think of it constantly! Of your love! Yours! Of hers you cannot guess. -The love you will give will make her your mate! Your love! And so, -Thomas Thome Merriwether, think of the One Woman!” - -“I think--” - -“I know! Amusement, sneers, skepticism, anger--all are one to me. I -ask nothing, expect nothing, desire nothing, and fear nothing from you, -young sir. A queer experience this--eh? An unexplained and apparently -unconcluded little game? A plot foiled by your cleverness--what? A joke? -A piece of lunacy? Call it anything you wish. Again I thank you. Good -evening, Mr. Merriwether.” - -And Tom was politely ushered from the room by the strange man and from -the house by the four over-intelligent footmen. - - - -III - -Next day Tom Merriwether found himself unable to think of anything but -the mystery of the fateful Tuesday. He felt baffled. His curiosity had -been repulsed at every step. In their definite incomprehensibility all -the incidents that he so vividly recalled took on an irritating quality -that made him a morose and uncomfortable companion. Huntington Andrews -noticed it at luncheon; and so admirable was the quality of his -amiability that after the coffee he said: - -“Tom, I've got important business to attend to to-day, and if you don't -mind I'll be off now. Of course if you think I can help you in any way -all you have to do is to tell me what it is.” - -“Huntington, you are the best friend in the world. I've been thinking--” - -Tom paused and stared into vacancy. He was trying to recall whether the -man at 777 Fifth Avenue had a criminal look about the eyes. Huntington -Andrews rose very quietly and walked away. He knew his friend wished to -think--alone. - -Lost in his exasperating speculations, Tom finally ceased, thinking -of the man and began to think of the girl. Was the game to rouse his -interest in an unknown, later to be introduced to him? Was the scheme -one that involved an adventuress? Why all the claptrap? And why had -his thoughts, in spite of himself, dwelt so persistently on love and -somebody to love? Why had the springtime--since the night before--come -to mean a time for loving? Why had he begun to see, in flashes, -tantalizing glimpses of rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Why had he -permitted his own mind to be influenced by the strange man's remarks, -so that Tom Merri-wether was indeed thinking--if he would be honest with -himself--of marriage? Was his affinity on her way to him at this very -moment, as the man said? He began to hope she was. - -He dined at home and was so preoccupied at the table that even his -father noticed it. - -“What's up, Tom?” - -“What? Oh! Nothing, dad! I was just thinking.” - -“Terrible thing, my boy--thinking at meal-time,” said E. H. Merriwether, -with a self-conscious look of badinage. - -“Yes, it is. I'll quit.” - -“Is it anything about which you need advice--or help, my boy?” said the -great little railroad dynast, very carelessly. - -His eyes never left his son's face; but when Tom raised his gaze to -meet his father's the elder Merriwether showed no interest. Tom knew his -father and felt the paternal love that insisted on concealing itself as -though it were a weakness. - -“No, indeed. There is nothing the matter--really. I was thinking I'd -like to do a man's work. I guess you'd better let me go with you on your -next tour of inspection.” - -The face of the czar of the Southwestern & Pacific lighted up. - -“Will you?” he said, with an eagerness that made his voice almost -tremble. - -“Yes.” - -And that evening E. H. Merriwether delivered a long lecture on railroad -strategy and railroad financing to his son, which brought them very -close to each other. - -On the next day, however, all thoughts of being his great father's -successor were subordinated to the feeling that, if Mr. Thomas Thome -Merriwether had to be the successor of a railroad man, he should himself -take steps to provide his own successors. Feeling that he was his -father's son made him think of paternity. And that made him think of the -message he had delivered in the dark and of the message the man had -said would some day come to Tom Merriwether. He drew a deep breath and -thought he smelled sweet peas. And that somehow made him think of the -girl he should marry. Try as he might, he could not quite see her face. -He thought he kissed her, and he inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas. -Her complexion was beautiful. No more! - -On the afternoon of the third day Tom decided that he was wasting too -much time in thinking of the possible meaning of his queer experience, -and also that it was of little use trying not to think about it. -Therefore he would try to put an end to the perplexity. - -He went to 777 Fifth Avenue and rang the bell. A footman opened the door -and stared at him icily. Tom perceived he was not one of the men whose -faces looked too intelligent for footmen. - -“I wish to see Mr.--er--your master.” - -“Does he expect you, sir?” The tone was not as respectful as footmen -in Fifth Avenue houses used in speaking to the heir of the Merriwether -millions. “No; but he knows me.” - -“Who knows you, sir?” - -“Your master.” - -“Could you tell me his name, sir?” - -“No; but I can tell you mine.” - -“He's not at home, sir.” - -“I'm Mr. Merriwether. Say I wish to speak to him a moment.” - -“I'm sorry, sir. He's not in.” - -The footman was so unimpressed by the name of Merriwether that Tom -experienced a new sensation, one which made him less sure of his own -powers. He took out a card and a bank-note and held them out toward the -man. - -“I am anxious to see him.” - -“Im sorry. I can't take it, sir,” said the footman, with such melancholy -sincerity that Tom smiled at the torture of the cockney soul. - -Then he ceased to smile. The master of this mysterious house had -compelled even the footmen to obey him! - -“But if you will call again in an hour, sir, I think perhaps, sir--” - -“Thank you. Take it anyhow.” - -He again held out the bank-note. The man saw it was for twenty dollars, -and almost turned green. - -“I--I d-daresent, sir!” he whimpered, and closed his eyes with the -expression of an anchoret resolved not to see the beautiful temptress. - -Tom left him, walked across the Avenue to the Park, and sat down on a -bench. He settled down to think calmly over the mysterious affair, and -looked about him. - -The grass in the turf places had taken on a definite green, as though -it were May. The trees were not yet in leaf, making the grass-greenness -seem a trifle premature, but Tom noticed that the buds on the trees and -shrubs were bursting; there were little feathery tips of tender red and -pale green--tiny wings about to flutter upward because the sun and the -sky beckoned to them to go where it was bright and warm. The sky was of -a spotless turquoise, as though the spring cleaning up there had been -thorough. The clouds were of silver freshly burnished for the occasion. -The air was alive, laden with subtle thrills; it throbbed invisibly, -as though the light were life, and life were love. He saw hundreds of -sparrows, and they all twittered; and all the twitterings were very, -very shrill, and yet very, very musical. And also they twittered in -couples that hopped and darted and aerially zigzagged--always together -and always twittering! - -A policeman stopped and said something to a nurse-maid. The nurse-maid -said something to the policeman. He was young and she was pretty. Then -the policeman said nothing to the nurse-maid, and the nurse-maid said -nothing to the policeman. Then two faces turned red. Then one face -nodded yes. Then the other face walked away, swinging a club; and--by -all that was marvelous!--swinging the club in time to the tune the -sparrows were twittering--in couples--the same tune, as though the -club-swinger's soul were whistling it! - -Tom smiled uncertainly--he wanted to give money, lots of it, to the -policeman and to the nursemaid; and he knew it was impossible--it was -too obviously the intelligent thing to do! So, instead, he drew a deep -breath. - -Instantly there came to him not the odor of spring and of green things -growing, but of sweet peas and summer winds, and changing, evanescent -faces, pink-and-white as flowers, with flower-odor associations and eyes -full of glints and brightnesses that recalled dewdrops and sunlight and -stars. And these glittering points shifted in tune to the twittering of -birds and the swinging of Park policemen's clubs. - -Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that -love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man. - -He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to -do something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he -walked briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had -begun to walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to -think. So he shook himself free from the spell and walked back. - -An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman -opened the door. - -“Is he in?” asked Tom, impatiently. - -“Yes, sir--he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir.” He looked -as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted. - -“What did he say?” asked Tom. - -“He said: 'How much did he offer to give you when you said I wasn't at -home?' Yes, sir. That's what he asked me.” - -“And you said?” - -“I said it was a yellowback, sir. That's all I could see. I said I -wouldn't take it, and he said I might just as well have taken it. Thank -you, sir! This way, sir.” - -The footman led the way to the door in the rear, rapped, and in the -sonorous, triumphant voice that a twenty-dollar tip will give to any -menial he announced: - -“Mr. Merriwether!” - -The same man was in the same chair in the same room, with his back to -the stained-glass window. Tom recalled all the incidents of his previous -visits--recalled every detail. Also the old question: What is the game? -Also the new question: Where is she? - -The man rose and bowed. It was the bow of a social equal, Tom saw. - -“Good morning, Mr. Merriwether. Won't you be seated, sir?” And he -motioned him to a chair. - -“Thank you.” - -“How can I serve you?” - -“Who is the woman?” said Tom, abruptly. “Your fate!” answered the man. - -“Her name?” - -“I cannot tell you.” - -“Her address?” - -“I don't know it.” - -“What is your game?” - -“I have money enough for my whims and time enough to gratify my desire -to help you. Eugenics is my hobby. I recognize that I cannot fight -against the decree of destiny.” - -“I am tired of all this humbug.” - -“I ask nothing of you now. You can go or you can come. You can go to -India or to Patagonia--or even farther. You may send detectives and -lawyers, or even thugs, to me. You may cease your search for her--if you -can!” - -“You have roused my curiosity--” - -“That is a sign of intelligence.” - -“I tell you now that I don't believe a word of what you say.” - -“Free country, young man.” - -“I've had enough of this nonsense--” - -“Though I am always glad to see you, young sir, and would not wound your -feelings for worlds”--the man's voice was very polite, but also very -cold--“I might be forgiven for observing that I did not ask you to -call.” - -“I'll give you a thousand dollars--” - -The man stopped him with a deprecatory wave of the hand. - -“One of the pearls I offered you, Mr. Merriwether, is valued at ten -thousand dollars. You did not select that one; but I'll exchange the one -you took for it--now if you wish.” - -“That's all very well, but--” Tom paused, and the man cut in: - -“Do you wish to see her from a safe distance? Or do you wish to talk to -her without seeing her? Or--” - -“To see her and talk to her!” - -“Wait!” - -The man intently regarded the tip of Tom's left shoe for fully five -minutes. Then he raised his head and clapped his hands twice. The black -manservant with the fez appeared. - -The man said something in Arabic--at least it sounded so to Tom. The -black answered. The man spoke again. The black replied: - -The man said what sounded to Tom like, “_Ay adad_.” - -The negro answered, “_Al-sabi! Al-sabi wal Saboun_.” - -The man waved his hand dismissingly and the negro salaamed and left the -room. - -After a moment the man turned to Tom and said, with obvious perplexity: -“I am not sure it is wise for me to meddle, but perhaps it is written -that I am to help you three times. Who knows?” - -He stared into Tom's eyes as though he would read a word there--either -yes or no. But Tom said, a trifle impatiently: - -“Well, sir?” - -“Go to the opera to-night. Take seat H 77. No other seat will do.” - -“H 77--to-night,” repeated Thomas Thorne Merriwether. - -“The opera is 'Madame Butterfly.'” - -“Thanks,” said Tom, and started for the door. He halted when the man -spoke. - -“It is the seat back of G 77. None other will do.” - -“Good day, sir,” said Tom, and left the room. - - - -IV - -The telephone operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the -plugs in the switchboard and answered in advance: - -“Mr. Merriwether's office!” - -From the other end of the wire came: - -“This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. -Merriwether. Personal matter.” - -“He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?” - -“No. Say it is Mr. Waters--about Mr. Tom Merriwether.” - -People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. -E. H. Merriwether--deluded people who thought they could get what they -wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never -succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented -the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her -business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private -secretary's line, saying: “Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to -Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether.” - -“I'll talk to him,” hastily said the private secretary. - -“Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private -secretary. Has anything happened to Tom that--Oh! Yes--of course! At -once, Mr. Waters.” - -McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire. - -“Who?” said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. “Waters? Oh yes. Go -ahead!” - -And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice: - -“Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak -to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean -crazy or--er--alarming; but--don't you know?--unusual.... Yes, sir! A -little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about the opera. -Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs. Of course -it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No; never! We -don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan, where he -has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't bring -us into any--you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a little -worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about -being in love, and he--er--he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes, Mr. -Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It -was a very delicate matter and--Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether. We'd -all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by.” - -E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his -admirers called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive -gambler's face which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could -be that he was wounded in a vital spot. - -His son Tom was all this great millionaire had! - -His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste -paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was -it one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by -baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond -the reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend -of Tom's; but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private -secretary. - -“McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to -find out whether my son Tom has been up there--box-office--and what he -is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy -goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist -on--er”--he could not bring himself to say mental diseases--“on nervous -troubles, and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow -morning. He will have breakfast with us--say, at eight-thirty. I don't -want Tom to know.” - -He avoided McWayne's eyes. - -“Yes, sir,” said McWayne. - -“Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about -Tom. I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop -everything else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that -Tom is acting a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke--or a trick. I -want to find out--that's all.” - -He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in -his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him -from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and -drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would -be a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could -not afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said -in his calm, emotionless voice: - -“I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in.” - -There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick -of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that -at will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart--this little chap -that people called ruthless. - - - -V - -Tom Merriwether went to the box-office at the Metropolitan and said, -pleasantly, as men do when they ask for what they know will be given to -them: - -“I want the seat just back of G 77--orchestra--for to-night. I suppose -it will be H 77.” - -The clerk, who knew the heir of the Merriwether millions, said, “I'll -see whether we have it, Mr. Merriwether.” He saw. Then he said, with -sincere regret: “I'm very sorry. It's gone.” - -“I must have it,” said Tom, determinedly. - -“I don't quite see how I can help you, Mr. Merri-wether. I can give you -another just as--” - -“I don't want any other seat. Who bought it?” - -“I don't know. It may be a subscription seat, sold months ago.” - -“It's the double seven on the seventh row that I am concerned about. I -want the seat just back of it.” - -“I'll call up the ticket agencies. There's a bare chance they may have -it.” After a few minutes he said, “I'm very sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but -I can't get it. They haven't it.” - -“I'm willing to pay any price for H 77. I'll give you a hundred dollars -if you--” - -“Mr. Merriwether, I couldn't do it if you offered me a thousand! If I -could do it at all I'd be only too glad to do it for you--for nothing,” - the clerk said, and blushed. - -Everybody liked Tom. - -The sincerity in the clerk's voice impressed young Mr. Merriwether, who -thanked him warmly and withdrew. The baffled feeling that he took away -with him from the ticket-window grew in intensity until he was ready to -fight. - -It was a natural-enough impulse that led him back to 777 Fifth Avenue; -but he was not quite sure whether he was angry at the man for telling -him to do what was obviously impossible or at himself for determining to -find her! - -He rang the bell of the house of mystery. The footman that answered was -one of the intelligent four; but his face was impassive, as though he -had never before seen Tom. - -“Your master?” asked Tom, abruptly. - -“Your card, please,” said the footman, impassively. - -Tom gave it to him. The man disappeared, presently to return. - -“This way, sir.” And at the door in the rear he paused and announced, -“Mr. Merriwether!” - -The master of the house was in his usual place. He bowed his head -gravely and waited. - -“I couldn't get the seat,” said Tom, with a frown. - -“It is written, 'Vain are man's efforts!'” - -“That's all very well, my friend. But the next time--” - -“Fate deals with time--not with next time! There is no certainty of any -time but one. If you can do nothing I can do nothing. I still say, The -seat back of G 77 to-night.” - -Tom Merriwether looked searchingly into the calm eyes before him. The -baffled feeling returned; also, a great curiosity. What would the end -be? At length he said, “Good day, sir.” He half hoped the man would -volunteer some helpful remark. - -“Good day, sir,” said the man, with cold politeness. - -Tom went back to the Opera House and asked for somebody in authority -to whom he might talk. They ushered him into Mr. Kirsch's presence. Mr. -Kirsch, amiable by birth, temperament, and training, listened to him -with much gravity; also, with a concern he tried to conceal, for it was -too sad--a bright, clean-living, intensely likable chap like Tom, only -heir to the Merriwether millions! - -Fearing a scene, he told Tom that he would speak to the ticket-takers in -the lobby to be on the lookout for ticket H 77. Then he conferred with -the emissary McWayne had sent, who thereupon was able to send in a most -alarming report. - -The private secretary softened it as much as he could, and even dared to -suggest to the chief that it might be a bet; but the little czar of -the Pacific & Southwestern, who had never flinched under any strain -or stress, grew visibly older as he heard that his son was offering -thousands for an opera-seat--for the seat back of the double seven, -seventh row. It could mean but one thing! - -Tom was so fortunate as to be standing beside the ticket-collector at -the middle door of the main entrance when the owner of H 77 appeared. He -was a fat man with a pink and shiny face, a close-cropped mustache, and -huge pearl studs. The fat man was fortunately alone. - -“Sir,” said Tom, “I should like to speak a moment with you.” - -The man looked apprehensive. Then he said, “What is it about?” - -“For very strong personal reasons I should like to exchange tickets with -you. I can give you G 126--every bit as good--on the other side of the -aisle.” - -“Why should I change?” queried the shiny-faced man, suspiciously. - -“To oblige a very nice young lady and myself. Of course, if you prefer -to be paid--” - -“I don't need money.” - -“Well, I'll pay you a hundred dollars for your ticket,” said Tom, -coldly. - -The man shook his head from force of habit, in order that Tom might see -he was offering too little. Then he said, recklessly: - -“It's yours, my friend. I have a pet charity. I'll give your money to -it. Where's the hundred?” - -Tom took out a small roll of yellow bills, pulled off one, and handed it -to the man with the pet charity, who took it, looked at it, nodded, put -it in his pocket, gave the coupon to Tom, and then held out his right -hand. - -“Where is the ticket for G 120 that you'll give me in place of mine?” - -Tom gave it to him and walked into the house, not knowing that McWayne's -emissary had listened and reported. He sat in H 77 and tried to laugh -at his own absurd behavior; but somewhere within him--away in, very -deep--something was thrillingly alert, tantalizingly expectant. - -The seat before him was empty. It remained empty during the first act. -It angered Tom that the climax should be so long in coming. The three -seats in front of him remained vacant until just before the curtain went -up on the last act. Somebody came in just as the lights were lowered and -occupied seat G 77. - -Tom sat up and braced himself. He leaned over, vaguely desiring to be -near her. Unconscious that he was under a strain he, nevertheless, drew -a deep breath. - -Instantly there came to him the odor of sweet peas, and with it thoughts -of summer, of a beautiful girl, of a soul-mate, of a wife. Love filled -his being. He wished to love and be loved. He wished to be somebody's -husband, so that he might begin to live the life he was to live until -the day of his death! - -He leaned back in his chair and again inhaled the fragrance of sweet -peas--the odor that must mean kisses in the open; the inarticulate -love-making of breezes and blossoms; the multitudinous whispers of -midsummer nights heard by love-hungry ears. And then the music! There -came the breaking of a heart about to cease beating and the sobbing -crash of the brasses in the finale. It was almost more than Tom could -bear. - -Then the curtain fell and light flooded the house. People streamed out. -Tom twisted and turned to see the face of the lady who made him think -of the sweet peas, which made him think of love and marriage and -children--but she was wrapped to the cheeks in a fur-edged opera-cloak -and her head was covered with a black-lace wrap. He could not see her -face; and after rivulets of people reached the main stream in the middle -aisle he found himself hopelessly separated from her. He tried to jostle -his way through. McWayne, his father's private secretary, suddenly -happened to be there. - -“Hello, Tom!” he said. “What's your rush?” - -Tom saw that it was useless to pursue the phantom of sweet peas and -dreams of love unless he vaulted over the stalls. McWayne's presence -made him realize how his friends would be shocked by such actions. - -“No hurry at all,” said Tom, who, after all, was a Merriwether. “Just -wanted to smoke and to see whether I knew that girl.” - -“I'll bet she's a pippin!” said McWayne, with a friendly smile. It -irritated Tom. - -“I don't know any of your friends,” said Tom, coldly; “lady friends and -pippins, fellows like you call them, I believe.” - -That was what convinced McWayne that the worst was to be feared about -poor Tom, who was so considerate and amiable when normal. Poor Tom! -McWayne telephoned to the waiting E. H. Merriwether, whose only reply -was to ask the private secretary to arrange to have Dr. Frauenthal, -the great specialist, at breakfast in the Merriwether house the next -morning, without fail. - -It was a common occurrence for Dr. Frauenthal to meet--under false -pretenses, as it were--persons whose sanity was suspected by fond -relatives who dared not openly acknowledge their suspicions. He was a -man whose eyes had been compared to psychic corkscrews, with which he -brought the patient's secret thoughts to the light of day. Some one -said of him that, by inducing a feeling of guilt and detection among the -predatory rich, he was able to exact colossal fees from them. He was the -man who had made Ordway Blake give up making six millions a year in Wall -Street by quitting the game. Mr. Blake was still alive. - -Frauenthal was introduced to Tom as a gentleman whose advice “E. H.” - desired. The men conversed on various topics apparently haphazard; but -in reality Tom, without knowing it, was answering test questions. The -answers could not conclusively prove insanity, but they would certainly -show whether a more thorough examination was necessary. - -Mr. Merriwether and Frauenthal left the house together. They entered the -waiting brougham. The great little railroad magnate gave the address of -the doctor's office to the footman, then turned to Frauenthal and said, -calmly: - -“Well, what do you think of him?” - -His voice was steady and cold; his face imperturbable; his eyes were -fixed with intelligent scrutiny on the specialist's, but his fingers -tightly clutched a rolled morning newspaper. - -Frauenthal turned his clinical stare on E. H. Merriwether, as though the -financier were really the patient. He swept the little man's face--the -eyes, the mouth, and the poise--and then let his eyes linger on the -clenched fingers about the newspaper. - -The iron-nerved, glacial-blooded, flint-hearted Merriwether could not -control himself after forty-five seconds of this. He flung the newspaper -on the floor violently. - -“Go ahead!” he said, harshly. - -The doctor did not smile outwardly; but you felt that within himself -he had found an answer to one of his own unspoken questions about the -father of the suspect. - -“There are, Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” he began, in the measured tones -and overcareful enunciation of a lecturer at a clinic, “various -forms of--let us say--madness; and your son Tom, a fine young man of -twenty-eight, is quite unmistakably suffering from--” - -He paused to give the fine young man's emotionless father an opportunity -to show human feelings. Frauenthal was always interested in the struggle -between the emotional and the physical in his millionaire patients. - -“Go on!” said E. H. Merriwether, so very coldly as to irritate. - -His eyes never left the alienist's own secret-draggers; but he was -drumming on his thigh with the tips of his uncontrollable fingers. -Ordinarily his desk would have screened from sight this betrayal of -human feeling. - -“Your son, sir, is suffering, beyond any question, from the oldest -madness of all--love!” - -“What?” - -“Your son Tom is in love. That is what ails him.” - -“Are you serious?” Mr. Merriwether was frowning fiercely now. - -“You'll think so,” retorted Frauenthal, coldly, “when you get my bill.” - -“My boy Tom in love?” repeated the czar, blankly. “Yes.” - -“With whom?” - -“I don't know. I'm a neurologist--not a soothsayer.” - -“Well, suppose he is in love--what of it?” - -“Nothing--to me.” - -“Then what is serious about it?” - -“I can't tell you, for its seriousness to you depends on your point -of view toward society at large. There are, of course, the obvious -disquieting circumstances.” - -“For instance?” - -“He is a fine chap--healthy, bright, honest. What is the reason he has -said nothing to you? Is he ashamed or afraid? If he is ashamed it is -very serious to both of you. If he is afraid--well, then the seriousness -depends on how intelligent a father you have been to him.” - -“Don't talk like a damned fool! I've been a good father to him; of -course--” - -“Wait! Wait! First tell me why you do what you ask me not to do?” In the -specialist's eyes was a sort of professional curiosity. - -“What do you mean?” said E. H. Merriwether, impatiently. It exasperated -him to be puzzled. - -“Why do you talk like a damned fool?” said Frauenthal. - -Nobody ever talked that way to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, overlord of the -greatest railroad empire in history. He flushed and was about to retort -angrily, but controlled himself in time. The brougham had reached -Frauenthal's office. Mr. Merriwether spoke too calmly--you could feel -the tense restraint: - -“Dr. Frauenthal, I've heard a great deal of your wonderful ability.” - -He paused. It came hard to him to be ingratiating. This difficulty -is the revenge which nature takes on people who acquire the habit of -'paying money for everything in this world. Such men cannot talk except -with a check-book, and the check-book loses the power of speech before -happiness--and before death. - -“What very difficult thing is it you wish me to do for you?” asked -Frauenthal, coldly. - -“You are sure Tom is not--” He hesitated. - -“Crazy?” prompted the specialist. - -“Yes.” - -“Yes; I'm sure he is not. Therefore he is saner than you who are a -money-maker.” - -Mr. Merriwether let this remark pass. He was anxious to save Tom. This -man was uncannily sharp. He said, “And can't you do something, so that -Tom will not--” - -“I am not God!” interrupted Frauenthal. - -“Then, what can I do? What do you suggest might be done?” - -“As a neurologist?” - -“Yes.” - -“Nothing.” - -“Then, as a man of the world--as one who knows human nature? You see, -this--this--er--sort of thing is not in my line. What shall I do?” It -was a terrible thing for the great Merriwether to confess inefficiency -in anything. - -“Pray!” - -The little magnate flushed. “Dr. Frauenthal,” he began, with chilling -dignity, “I asked--” - -“And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to -whatever other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a -prima donna nor a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really -worse than you deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There -are check-book gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd -pray to Him if I were you. Good day, sir!” - -The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without -another look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house. - -“Where to, sir?” asked the footman. - -Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his -anxiety over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread -question--Why had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be -either crazy or in love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? -What was she? Why was she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: -“Hell!” - -“Yes, sir--very good, sir,” said the footman, from force of habit. Then -he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed -deeply and said, tremulously, “B-beg p-pardon, sir?” - -“Nearest Subway station!” said E. H. Merriwether. . - -He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important -business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best -in his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was -an autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands -that were obeyed. He had much thinking to do--Tom was concerned, his -son Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's -future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether! - -Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of -a clear sky--this love-affair was a million times worse! It was -mysterious--and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is worse -than nitroglycerine--infinitely more dangerous. - -What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the -dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could -not Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good -girl who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding -her own business--to wit, a few little male Merriwethers? - -It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether -had loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his -pleasure. But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far -greater importance than the worker. The work was the work of the -Merriwethers--not of one Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but -of all the Merriwethers, living and to be. - -Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be -himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad -expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a -successor--flesh and blood the same; the fortune the same. - -And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H. -Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness -Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only -Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom. - - - -VI - -After his father and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel -that he had finished his breakfast--that is to say, he attempted to read -the newspapers. But the printed letters failed to combine themselves -into intelligible forms, and even when he read a word here and there his -mind did not record it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose. - -Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to -reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in -that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to -him in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open -air, and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies -to soar unchecked. - -Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he -did not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his -mind that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with -precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime--also -young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and -burros--and even bankers! - -Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave -up trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning -papers. His nervous system coined a proverb for him: “When in doubt, -walk out!” So he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue. - -He found himself in Central Park--the remedy which the very rich do not -and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as he -walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite -cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about -them systematically. - -The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth -Avenue--on Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the -jewelry-shops where the wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. -Everybody was getting married! What business had people to make people -think of wives--yes, wives--plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all -desirable and worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to -be rolled into one--Tom's? - -It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one -he desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the -amorous crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the -springtime--a nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion -from a distant relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the -heart of the sun--and lo! the wife-to-be! - -And so the wedding-presents--a silver service, to be used by two -sitting on opposite sides of a table, looking into each other's eyes; -a glittering string, to be admired on a wonderful throat--were heavy -enough to keep Tom's soul from soaring. And because his feet were on the -pavement he soon found himself--of course!--before 777 Fifth Avenue. - -Why should he not go to that house? And why should he not ring the bell? -Why not? He was just in the mood to meet her! - -His intentions were above suspicion, though marriage is a serious thing; -but, really, now was the time for the adventure to appear--even if the -adventure turned out to be merely the adventuress. - -Therefore, with the inexorable logic of the most illogical state of mind -known, he rang the bell and waited with an eagerness--half hope, half -curiosity--most unusual among people who, like Tom, early acquire the -habit of asking, check-book in hand, for whatever they wish. - -The footman who answered was one of the men with the over-intelligent -faces. - -“I am Mr. Merriwether. I wish to see your master.” - -Tom's voice rang a trifle more commandingly than the occasion appeared -to call for. There was a physiological reason for it. The man hesitated -so that Tom wondered; but presently all expression vanished from the -non-menial face and the footman said: - -“This way, if you please, sir.” - -He preceded Tom to the door of his master's library. He rapped twice -smartly and waited in an attitude of listening. Tom also listened -intently; he could not have told why he did it--though it was, of -course, inevitable. - -Not a sound was heard. The over-intelligent footman's lips moved for all -the world as though he were counting, and presently he opened the door -and announced: - -“Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether--7-7-7 7.” - -Tom entered. The master of this strange house was seated at the -over-elaborate library table, writing. He looked up, but before Tom -could speak the man said, coldly: - -“I cannot do anything for you, sir.” - -It was so much like a refusal to give alms to a beggar that Tom flushed -angrily. He managed to check a sharp retort on the very brink and, -instead, began in a mildly ironical tone: - -“Of course you know what I--” - -“Of course!” interrupted the man, rudely; and he began impatiently to -drum on the edge of the table with his penholder. “Do you imagine for a -minute that you are the only mateless male in New York looking for his -destined bride? And do you really think that the fruitlessness--until -now--of your search is a world-tragedy? Because your name happens to -be Thomas--which is a descriptive title when applied to marriageable -felines of your own sex--do you fancy I am concerned with your affairs? -Young man, you are the only son and heir of a very rich man; but there -are some things that money cannot buy. Love is one of them.” - -He frowned at Tom, but something in the young millionaire's face made -him relent. He went on, more kindly, more encouragingly: - -“My boy, she is seeking you, even as you are seeking her. She is very -beautiful! You will meet her at the appointed hour--have no doubt of it. -After your perfectly stupid failure at the opera--Wait!” He held up a -hand as Tom was about to speak in self-defense. “The very futility of -your manoeuvers shows that youth, brains, money, persistence, and desire -are all powerless to hurry fate. As you, who have never seen her, love -her, she loves you, though she has never seen you. She will know you as -you will know her; but she is gone!” - -“Where?” Tom spoke before he knew it. - -“Be patient! After you meet her you will live with her until death parts -you.” - -He said this, without theatrical emphasis, in a most matter-of-fact way. -Tom's suspicions, always present in this house of mystification rather -than of mystery, were not made livelier by the man's words; but neither -were they allayed by the tone of his voice. He hesitated, and then, -adventure whispering, he said: - -“To be perfectly frank, I am interested in this--” - -“Young man, I told you before that I ask nothing of you--no favor, no -money, no service; not even your interest. When I asked you to do a -certain thing you did it. I am not particularly grateful. You could not -have refused! Possibly you can explain to your own satisfaction your -own inexplicable acquiescence; you doubtless have evolved a dozen most -ingenious theories to account for your doings and mine. The shortest -and easiest explanation is the true one--fate. After you marry you will -compare notes with her--and yet you will not understand why I concerned -myself with your lives. You will perplex yourselves so unnecessarily; -all because of your unwillingness to say, fate! Men hate fate as a -hypothesis. It is not flattering to admit that we are but puppets--the -strongest of us no stronger than an autumn leaf in the wind. And because -you do not see fate you do not believe in it. And, for fear of being -considered an ass by a lot of asses, who also do not believe in fate, -you will never tell any one your romantic story. And yet, of the scores -you call friends, there are only seven men who are happily married. And -those seven I helped, as I have helped you and as I shall help those I -am ordered to help. Even now the Dispeller of Darkness is out, making -one heart send a message in the dark to another heart waiting for it!” - -“Do you mean to say you cannot or will not arrange for my meeting the -mysterious person you tell me I am going to marry?” - -“I mean to say that your coming to this house with such a hope merely -means a waste of your time, young sir, and of mine. You will meet your -love, but you cannot find her. No man finds happiness by means of a -systematic or diligent search. It comes or it does not come--as God -wills.” - -The man rose. Tom also rose and said: - -“But at least tell me where this--this alleged fate of mine is.” - -The man shook his head with a smile that was in the nature of a mild -sneer. - -“Doubting Thomas! He won't admit it, but he can't deny it! Ah, so wise! -So clever in his suspicions! So intelligently skeptical! Ah yes!” - -Still nodding in ironical admiration, he approached the filing-cabinet. - -“Let me see--you are 7-7-77.” He pulled out drawer seven in section -seven and took out an envelope from which he drew a lot of papers. He -read a typewritten sheet. He replaced the papers, closed the drawer, -turned, and stared doubtfully at Tom, muttering half to himself: “I -don't know! I don't know!” - -“What?” asked Tom. - -“Do you really want her? Do you feel that you must meet her soon or -die?” - -Tom knew he would not die if he did not meet her soon, but as for -wanting her, he certainly did. Every cell in his body was on the alert, -waiting for her, hoping to see her; and adventure, through a megaphone, -was vociferating in the middle of his soul: “Come! Come!” Therefore Tom -looked the man straight in the eyes and answered: - -“Yes, I do!” - -The man hesitated. Then he said: - -“Listen! It is for the last time. Do you hear? For the last time! Do you -agree?” - -He looked sternly at Tom, who thereupon answered, impatiently: - -“Yes! Yes!” - -“Boston! Hotel Lorraine! Secure Room 77, seventh floor. On Thursday -at exactly 7 p.m. be in the southeast corner of the library or -reading-room, which is on the left of the hall as you go to the main -dining-room. Green arm-chair. Hold your hat between your knees--bottom -side upward. Close your eyes. A letter will be dropped into the hat. -Then do as you please. Personally I don't think it will help or hinder. -But you are young; and perhaps if you wish hard enough it may happen -according to your desire. Good day!” - -The man turned his back squarely on Tom, leaving to the heir of the -Merriwether millions no alternative but to go out dissatisfied, excited, -skeptical, hopeful, and determined to go to Boston--danger or no danger, -swindle or no swindle. - -The mysterious man, too mysterious to be anything but a charlatan, -who said he did not wish Tom's money and, for that reason, probably -did--this man promised Tom he should meet a girl--a beautiful girl, the -girl he would marry. If there was to be no compulsion about it; if they, -the man and his accomplices, counted on her charms to capture Tom's -heart and hand--why, the sooner she began the attack, the better. Also, -it was one of those things that only an ass would talk about, since the -telling would put an end to all doubts as to the teller's asininity. - -Therefore, without saying a word to anybody, Tom went to Boston, not -knowing that McWayne's detectives had orders to follow Tom wherever -he went and to report in detail what he was seen to do and what he was -heard to say and to whom. - -Tom arrived in Boston, went to the Hotel Lorraine, registered, and asked -the polite room clerk for Room 77 on the seventh floor. The clerk smiled -pleasantly, as he always did whenever a guest-to-be asked for rooms that -did not end in thirteen, disappeared to look at the index, and returned. - -“I'm sorry, sir, but that room is taken. I can give you--” - -“Taken!” said Tom, in such a disappointed tone that the clerk deigned to -explain sympathetically: “Engaged by telegraph.” - -“Who engaged it?” - -Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with -raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of -once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with -a cold determination in his voice: “I made a mistake. I thought we had a -vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere. -I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left.” - -He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He -evidently considered the incident closed. - -Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His -business in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son -of his father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the -clerk: - -“I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no -consequence. I am Mr. Merriwether.” - -“I told you it was engaged.” - -“And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?” - -“Don't you?” said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness -with a sneer. - -This made Tom calm. He said, quietly: - -“Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of -this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should -have forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, -Wilkinson & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket -National Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good -heavens! there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the -last twenty years!” The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether -had a familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more -politely: - -“I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want--and three others -with it--have been engaged.” - -“By whom?” - -“You are asking me to break one of our rules.” - -“Well, can you tell me whether it has been engaged since yesterday?” - -“Oh, longer than that!” He disappeared, consulted a book, and came back -with the triumphant expression human beings put on when they do not wish -to say “I told you so,” aloud, “Engaged and paid for since the eighth, -Mr. Merriwether. That's nine days ago. So, you see, we can't do what you -ask us to. Sorry!” - -Wherever he went, Tom thought he was confronted by crude attempts at -mystery. To send him to this particular room, 77 on the seventh floor, -was merely the same as an effort to impress children by using the -magical number seven. - -Who had engaged the room? Was it an accomplice or some stranger -guiltless of participation in the rather juvenile joke? - -Still, Tom was in Boston to do a particular thing; and, though much -of the spring restlessness had gone from his veins, there remained the -desire to see the affair through to the end, whether the end should be a -smile or a mild oath. Therefore, after a pause, Tom said to the clerk: - -“Can you give me the room exactly opposite 77 on the seventh floor?” - -The clerk hesitated, then said: - -“Just a minute, please.” - -He consulted one of the bookkeepers, from whom he must have learned -whose son Tom was. And, though Boston is not New York, money is money, -even in Massachusetts; and the heir to fifty or a hundred million -dollars is something, whether or not he is somebody. - -“Certainly,” said the clerk, and handed the key to a young man called, -in New York, a bell-boy. The young man now preceded Tom to the seventh -floor and ushered the New-Yorker into Room 78. - -Tom gave the studious youth a dollar and never noticed that the boy -regarded the bill with a mixture of suspicion and alarm, put it gingerly -into his pocket, and left the room, closing the door. Tom opened the -door. The boy thought it had opened itself and returned to close it. Tom -waved him away. The boy hastily retreated. He did not, however, throw -away the dollar. He had discovered it was not “phony.” - -The bell-boy found the room clerk engaged in conversation with two men. -He, divining that the talk concerned the generous lunatic, flung at -the room clerk that look of exaggerated perplexity which will cause any -normal human being inevitably to ask: “What is it?” - -The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men; -whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and -muttered, “He is in his room!” - -“What's that, boy?” - -“I said,” retorted the studious youth, glacially, “he was in his -room--78. He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close -it, but he opened it again--after he gave me the dollar.” - -The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively. - -“Your man!” he said. “Of course we don't want any fuss--” - -“We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow -isn't violent, you know.” - -The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing: - -“Only son, too--isn't he?” - -“Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard.” The detective, -induced thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed -inside information. - -“Too bad!” murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom. -“Too damned bad!” he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million -and himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, -sternly, “No trouble, you understand!” - -One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the -lobby just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's -permission, went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor -telephone operator. From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on -Room 78. - -Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit -still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. -The thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him -that perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely -on rousing the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise -awaited the man who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied -by some one who had nothing to do with her--and therefore nothing to -do with him. Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. -Perhaps a million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously -the unwise thing to do to go into Room 77. - -All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with -him. The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more -difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across -the hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked -again. A hotel maid approached him. - -“I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?” - -“What party?” - -“In Room 77.” - -“No. I am in 78.” - -“I am very sorry--but it is against the rules of the house, sir.” - -Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own -room, conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much -concerned over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to -either of his Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever -Mr. McWayne's star sleuths. - -Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had -come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it -was not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So -long as no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no -mystery is laughable--at least, not while in the act of mystifying. - -So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or -not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked -man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two -men from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the -liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity. - -All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock; -but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most -human beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not “act right” - to the watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused -of being mad, will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five -minutes. People who never think and never imagine are never taken for -lunatics. That nowadays is about the only compensation for being an ass. - -At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the -green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an -elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at -exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid -of the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming -the office. - -His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for -insanity, and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his -inventiveness. He merely drew his chair very close to the startled old -lady and opened a magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the -exasperating undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to -yours at the opera. - -Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, -and at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched -fist bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, -looked at it, exclaimed, “Gracious!”--and blew his nose loudly and -determinedly. - -Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose, -looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the -room. In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked -hats and coats near the entrance of the main dining-room. - -“I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! -He simply drove me out.” - -“Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case.” - -“Goodness! What a narrow--“. - -“Oh, he is quite harmless, madam.” - -“It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows--” - -“You are right!” agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to -encourage generosity. - -The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down -in the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The -mahogany clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom -felt a pang of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened--except that -he again had made an ass of himself! - -A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at -Tom, saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last -person in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether. - -Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the -room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way -to attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was -not a good place in which to do any robbing or murdering. - -Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into -his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils--the odor he -had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, -and therefore with love. - -This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him--that -made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife--that made -him thrill obediently at the call of adventure--made him feel that the -mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan. - -Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within -his hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what -it said, rushed from the room into the corridor. - -He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was -among them or whether the man who had entered the library--who probably -was the man that put out the light--was among the crowd. But the sleuths -and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt could remain? -In their minds there was none. - -Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He -was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it -were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a -woman's hand: - -_For T. M._ - -He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, -on which he read, in the same handwriting: - -_Too late!_ - -He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk. - -“I must--” he began, but stopped. - -“Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a -man saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother. - -“About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom. - -“We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.” - -“What? Has she--Is it vacant?” - -“Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see -whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll--” - -“I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.” - -He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous -occupants. - -“Certainly. Front!” - -Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He -thought he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but -the odor, which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented -him from thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. -There was no sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the -mist of dreams and longings. - -He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often -had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors -to look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife--the mother -of his children--the woman whose mere existence will influence his -life more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a -different man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different -point of view. - -Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of -view would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she -be the girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the -mysterious person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with -whom he might fall in love--adventuress or not? His love of love had -not yet changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a -definite love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that -this affair was being stage-managed for his benefit. - -He would forgive everything so long as in the end something -happened--something in which there was a girl, whether or not she was -the girl. What most irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery -so far. The spice of danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of -adventure; the call of the unusual; the attraction of the unknown and -therefore of the interesting--were no longer quite enough. The glimpse -of a face--of a living face--and a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and -lips to kiss--these things he now desired. - -His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew -keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the -mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue. - -He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New -York. - - - -VII - -Some men are so picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and -so intelligent that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. -E. H. Merriwether was one. He employed the ablest experts for his -corporations and they got more than their share of publicity; but for -himself--nothing. Possibly he realized that ungratified curiosity is a -valuable asset; and, of course, he knew that in a democracy the less a -man raises his head above the level of the mass the better it will be -for his comfort. - -He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because -that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was -not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned -with despoiling the public--which, in turn, clearly proved he was not -dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers -the more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. -Everything he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about -him were so hard to get that the brightest minds in the profession -manufactured a few. They had to be very good anecdotes--and they were. - -To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known -to be mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, -and, besides, devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from -reporters, because they had learned to save themselves time by the -simple expedient of writing their interviews with him in their own -offices, after this fashion: - -_Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor -denial could be obtained at his office._ - -The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never -too busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers. - -On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the -Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A -stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the -general and unwelcome public. - -At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a -man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a -letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: “Well?”--but kept -on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by -making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire -magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary. - -“I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” said the young man, pleasantly -and unimpressed. - -The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked, -wearily: - -“Got an appointment?” - -“No; but--” - -The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped -insolence, said, still without looking up: - -“What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see -any one to-day. Good day!” - -There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an -exaggerated and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the -stranger without the gate said: - -“When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me.” - -The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance -about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young -man, of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight, -well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and -general air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as -good an account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of -wits. - -The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of -hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police -nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good -standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made -possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington. - -“My good James,” said the new-school reporter, with a mocking -superciliousness, “I would see your boss. Be expeditious.” - -The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed -dangerously; but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his -temper under control. For all that, his voice shook as he said: - -“If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger -from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I--I'm sorry!” Here Doyle -gulped. Then he finished: “Good day!”--and resumed, his writing. - -The reporter said, “Look at me!” so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed -back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man -who dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office. - -“My Celtic friend,” pursued the reporter, in a voice of such -cold-blooded vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment -and respect, “for years the domestics of this office have been rude -and impolite to my profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry -reporters might feel or what they said about him; but to-day I am the -one who does not care, and E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally -concerned. _I_ don't give a damn whether he sees me or not. And as -for you, in order to avenge the poor chaps to whom you have been -intelligently rude, I, to whom you have been unintelligently impolite, -shall have you fired. I've got E. H. Merriwether where I want him. If I -can end your boss I can end your job--can't I? Oh no, Alexander! I am -not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound to happen, for Waterloo -comes to all great men who are not clever enough to die at the right -time. Now you go and get McWayne--and be quick about it!” - -Doyle at times saw things through the top of his head, which was red. He -said, a bit thickly: - -“When you tell me in plain English, so I can understand--” - -“You are not paid to understand; you are paid to use common sense and -discrimination. You go to McWayne and say to him a reporter is here and -wishes to speak to him about a sad Merriwether family matter.” - -Doyle knew from the office gossip that something was supposed to be -wrong with Tom Merriwether; so, his heart overflowing with anger because -chance had put the one weapon in the hands of an insolent newspaper man, -Doyle went off to tell the boss's private secretary. Presently McWayne, -walking quickly, came from an inner office, and asked: “You wish to see -me?” - -“No!” answered the reporter, flatly. - -“Then--” began McWayne. - -“I don't wish to see you. I wish to see if you have the sense to -understand that I wish to do Mr. E. H. Merriwether the favor of letting -him talk to me. Do you want me to tell you what I want you to tell Mr. -E. H. Merriwether?” - -The reporter looked as though he hoped McWayne would say no. Reporters -did not usually look that way; therefore McWayne was perturbed. He -replied, with a polite anxiety: - -“If you please--” - -“Tell Mr. Merriwether that I wish to see him about his son's marriage. -Tell him that if he does not wish to talk about it, he needn't. You -might add that there is absolutely no use in his trying to keep it out -of the newspapers. Make that plain to him, McWayne.” - -McWayne did not dare deny the marriage. Tom was, alas! capable of even -worse things. He did the only thing possible while there was still a -chance to suppress the news; he said: - -“And you represent which paper, please?” - -Reporters do not always know why or how news is suppressed, nor the -price; but this reporter laughed good-naturedly, and replied: - -“McWayne, the trouble with you Irish is that you are so infernally -clever that plain jackasses like myself are prepared for you. I -represent myself and I don't want to be paid to suppress. No blackmail -here; no threats; nothing except amiability and good-will. Have you -begun to accumulate a few suspicions that your taciturn boss is going to -talk to me?” - -“I'll see!” promised McWayne, non-committally; but he was so perturbed -that he could not help showing it. - -Doyle, who had made a pretense of resuming his letter-writing, noticed -it, and felt uncomfortable. - -“And--say, McWayne,” pursued the reporter, “could you let a fellow have -a photograph or two? You know we've got some, but we'd prefer to publish -those you think the family consider the best. Some people are queer that -way.” - -McWayne shook his head and went away, convinced of the worst. He -returned and beckoned to the reporter, who thereupon said, sharply, to -Doyle: - -“Open the door--you! Quick!” And Doyle, who saw McWayne beckoning, had -to do it. - -Four hundred and seventeen reporters were avenged! - -Doyle was so angry that he was full of aches. He was tempted to throw -up his job. Then he hoped E. H. Merriwether, who was a very great man, -would order him to throw the insolent dog out of the office. Doyle would -earn a bonus. - -E. H. Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, -fearless fighter, iron-nerved stock gambler, but, alas! also a father, -was seated at his desk. He turned to the reporter the inscrutable -poker-face of his class: - -“You wished to see me?” - -“Yes, sir,” said the reporter, and waited; two could play at that game. -The great financier was compelled to ask: - -“About what?” - -“About what McWayne told you.” The reporter spoke unemotionally. - -“About some rumor concerning my son?” - -“No, sir.” - -“No?” E. H. Merriwether looked surprised. - -“No. I wished to know what statement you desire to make about your son's -engagement and marriage. If you do not care to say anything we shall not -publish any fake interview, no matter what opinion I personally may form -as to the real state of your feelings.” - -“I take it you are from one of the yellow papers, young man?” E. H. -Merriwether spoke coldly; but, within, his heart-tragedy was being -enacted. - -“You usually take what you wish if it isn't nailed down, I have heard; -but that, doubtless, is one of the slanders that automatically grow -up about a great man, sir,” said the reporter, without the shadow of a -smile or frown. - -“If I am mistaken about the newspaper you represent--” Here Mr. -Merriwether paused, as if to allow the young man to introduce himself; -but the young man said: - -“If I told you the name of the newspaper that honors itself by playing -fair with you, I suspect you would set in motion the machinery that -you--er--men of large affairs use to suppress news. You couldn't -reach my city editor, who is a poor man with a family of eight, or the -reporter, who is penniless; but you could reach the owner, who is a -millionaire. This is my first big story in New York and it will make me -professionally. It means a lot to me!” - -“About how much does it mean to you, young man?” asked E. H. -Merriwether, with a particularly polite curiosity. - -“Speaking in language that should be intelligible to you and using the -terms by which you measure' all things down here--” He paused, and then -said, bluntly, “You mean in cash, don't you?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that this story is worth to -me--Let me see!” And he began to count on his fingers, like a woman. -This habit inexpressibly angers men who find no trouble in remembering -numbers of dollars. “I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that it is worth -about three thousand two hundred and eighty-six--millions of dollars. If -I am to stop being a decent newspaper man to become a blackmailer and -general damned fool I'd want to make enough to endow all my pet -charities and carry out a series of rather expensive experiments in -philanthropy.” - -“But--” began the magnate. - -“No, sir,” interrupted the reporter, “no money, please. Just assume that -I am a damned fool and, therefore, refuse to consider a bribe.” - -“I have not bribed you,” suggested E. H. Merriwether, calmly. His eyes -never left the reporter's face. - -“Then I misjudged you, and I apologize abjectly; but permit me to -continue to be an ass and blind to money. What about Thomas Thorne -Merriwether, only son and heir of the railroad king of the Southwest?” - -“Well, what about him?” The face of E. H. Merriwether showed only what -you might call a perfunctory curiosity. The reporter looked at him -admiringly. After a pause, he asked: - -“Do you know her?” - -“Do you?” - -“Then you don't!” exclaimed the reporter, triumphantly. “This is better -than I had hoped.” - -“Better?” - -“Certainly; it means a better introductory article. The first of the -series will be: 'To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged?' Think of it, -sir,” he said, with the enthusiasm of the true artist, “the heir of -the Merriwether millions! By the way, could you tell offhand how many -millions I might safely say?” - -Whatever Mr. Merriwether may have thought, he merely said, with the cold -finality that often imposes on young reporters: - -“Young man, if you begin your career by being vulgar your ruin will be -of your own doing.” - -“My dear sir, vulgarity never ruined any career. All the great men of -history were at the beginning accused of hopeless vulgarity--by those -on whom they trod. I tell you it is not vulgarity that prompts me, but -mastery of the technic of my trade. Do you care to have me tell you -about my article?” - -What Mr. E. H. Merriwether really wished to hear was that Tom was not -in love--that he was not on the verge of brutally assassinating all -the hopes and dreams of a fond father. What he said to the unspeakable -reporter was: - -“Yes.” - -“Well, I start with this basis--my knowledge of your son's engagement.” - -“Where did you get that knowledge?” - -“One of the few things a reporter is incapable of doing is betraying -a confidence. To tell you the source of my information would be that. -Starting with that one fact, my problem is to make that one fact so -important as to enable me to write several thousand words. To justify -this I must make your son very important. He is not really very -important, but you are. I shall slightly over-accentuate here and -there”--he waved his hand in the air, and repeated, dreamily--“here -and there! You will be the Napoleon of railroads, the Von Moltke of the -ticker, doer of deeds and upbuilder, indisputably the greatest captain -of industry that America has yet produced!” - -“Heavens!” burst from the lips of the imperturbable little magnate. - -“You are a stunning study for a novelist. Yours is the great romance -of the American business man! Having made you romantic, I wave my -magician's wand and quadruple your millions. Yours, my dear sir--if -you don't happen to know it--is one of the great fortunes of the world! -You've got Croesus skinned to death and John D. whining over his lost -pre-eminence!” - -“Now look here--” interjected E. H. Merriwether, sternly; but the -reporter retorted, earnestly: - -“Hold your horses!” And the great millionaire did. The young man -continued in his enthusiastic way: “It is much to have the hundreds -of Merriwether millions, but it is infinitely more to have all the -Merriwether millions and such a father and youth. I thus make Tom, who -is really of no importance, of even greater importance than the great -E. H. Merriwether. Do I know my business?” And he bowed in the general -direction of the elder Merriwether. - -“I begin to suspect,” replied the elder Merriwether, “that you do.” - -He was watching the reporter closely. He always had found it profitable -to let men talk on. A man who talks is apt to show you what he is; and -that furnishes to you the best available weapon. You also may learn when -it is better not to fight. - -“When it comes to picturesque writing about people I do not know, I -can assure you, Mr. Merriwether,” the young man said, modestly, “that -I haven't an equal in the United States. In your case I shall not be -handicapped by either facts or knowledge, which are always fatal to the -creative faculty. I shall be free--absolutely free to write!” - -Mr. Merriwether permitted himself a frown in order to conceal his -uneasiness. This young man was talking like a humorist. The eyes were -intelligent and fearless. The combination was formidable. - -“Your theory has doubtless many supporters among your colleagues.” - -“There are,” admitted the reporter, cheerfully, “other bright young -creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a -paragon--a clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire.” - -“Which he is!” interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly. - -“Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that -even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention--with a cleverness I'd -call devilish if it wasn't my own--to the strange and, on the whole, -agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, -a hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great -engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are--do you know -what?--a poet!--a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel, whose numbers -are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand purring wheels -of your tireless cars.” - -“My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr,” mildly objected the -railroad poet. - -“They do in my story,” said the reporter, firmly. “And to prove it -I'll quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great -writers always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the -creation of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on -the map of America--in green!” - -“That sounds good to me,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached -air of a critic of literature. - -He did not know just how to win this young man's silence--perhaps by -letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the -inauguration of a molasses diet at once! - -“Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This -young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world--handsome, rich, a -fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself -inviolate--pretty swell word that?--in-vi-o-late--all these years, opens -at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the engagement. High -society is more than interested--more than startled. As thinks society, -so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of her. What -society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To whom is -Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article? I -leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!” The young man looked inquiringly at -Mr. Merriwether. - -“I'd read it myself,” said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. “I -couldn't help it!” You could see that literature had triumphed over the -stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker. - -“Thank you! And what do you find at the end of the article? What? Why, -a nice psychological little paragraph to the effect that we propose to -print the name of the one woman who, of all the tens of thousands who -have tried, has won the heart of Thomas Thome Merriwether, whose father -you have the honor to be. We refrain, in order to have the parents of -the young people formally announce the engagement. By doing this we -get the full value of the to-be-continued-in-our-next suspense, for the -first time utilized in a news story; and we also increase our reputation -for gentlemanly conservatism, which prevents the refined reporter of -the--of my paper from intruding into a family affair.” - -“Will your paper be damned fool enough to--” began E. H. Merriwether, -intentionally skeptical. - -“It is not damned folly to extract all the juice contained in the scoop -of the century--it is technical skill of a very high order. Now what -happens? My esteemed contemporaries, morning and evening, chuck a fit -and bounce their society editors. They then rush for the telephone and -despatch their strongest photographers, sharpest sleuths, and entire -dictagraph corps to the scene. They can't find Tom--because, as you -know, he is in--he is out of town. And they can't find her--because I -haven't said who she is. There remains you!” - -“That won't do them any good,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, decisively; -but he shuddered. - -“Precisely! I banked on that. But, even if you did see them, what could -you tell them? Deny what is bound to be confirmed in the next issue of -my paper? You know better than to acquire a reputation for lying in the -newspapers. No, siree! Your game is to deny yourself to all inquirers -and say nothing. My esteemed contemporaries have now but one desire--to -wit: to print the name and publish the portrait of your son's fiancée. -Of course you see what happens then, don't you?” - -The reporter looked at the iron-hearted E. H. Merriwether, with such -pity in his eyes that the great little czar of the Southwestern Railroad -for the first time in his life realized he was merely a man--a human -being; an ordinary, every-day father; one drop in the vast ocean; one -of the crowd temporarily aboveground and therefore exposed to the same -sorrows and troubles and sore vexations as all mankind. His millions, -his position in the world, his great work, his undoubted genius--could -not avail even to rid him of annoyance. Can you imagine John D. -Rockefeller living on Staten Island in June and unable to buy -mosquito-netting--price, five cents a yard? - -“What will happen?” asked the great millionaire, who was also a father. - -“My intelligent colleagues, of course, will look for the lady. Where -there is a strong demand the supply automatically offers itself for -consumption. And what will the seven hundred and fifty alert young men, -with great capacities for fictional art, who are temporarily assisting -actress-ladies and self-paying authoresses and unprinted poetesses -and fertilizer-manufacturers unmarried daughters, do? What will those -estimable young artists, miscalled press agents, do when they encounter -the demand for Tom's fiancée's photograph? What except 'Here she -is!'--six thousand words, thirty-two poses, and a facsimile of a -love-letter or two, to prove it! And then--chorus-ladies, poetesses, -fair divorcées about to honor the vaudeville--” The reporter stopped--he -had seen the look on E. H. Merri-wether's face. He felt sorry. “But it -is true,” he said, defensively. - -“Yes!” Tom's poor rich father felt cold all over. - -The reporter pursued, more quietly: “You know the ingenuity of my -colleagues, the great American respect for a millionaire's privacy, and -the national sense of humor. Will your son's love-affair be discussed? -Will it be discussed with the gentlemanly reticence and innate delicacy -of feeling of _my_ story?” - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether never before realized that the law against -homicide was even more absurd than an Interstate Commerce Commission -order; but he had to bow to the inevitable. He was beginning to -understand how Napoleon felt on the deck of the _Bellerophon_ when on -the way to St. Helena., Do you remember the picture? He nodded--not -dejectedly, but also not far from it. - -“Well, in a day or two or three, according to conditions; we come out -with it. We print the lady's name and her portrait--possibly not the -best of all her photographs, but the only one I could--” - -“Who is she?” burst from the lips of the reporter's victim. - -Instantly the reporter's face became very serious. “I feared so, Mr. -Merriwether,” he said, very quietly. - -“Look here, my boy!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether, with an earnestness -that had in it a threat. “I don't know what your game is and I don't -care. I'll admit right now that you are a very clever young man and -probably not a crook; but I tell you calmly, quietly, without any -threats, that you are not going to publish any damned-fool article about -my family in any paper in New York.” - -The reporter rose and looked straight into the unblinking eyes of the -great financier. Then he said, slowly, and, the old fellow admitted, -distinctly impressively: - -“And I tell you, twice as quietly and ten times as calmly, without -any fool threats, that all the daily newspapers in New York and -Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and ten thousand other -towns in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Canal Zone, and -countries in the Postal Union, are going to publish articles about your -son Tom's engagement, and later on about his marriage. Understand once -for all, that there are some things all your millions and all your -will-power cannot do. This is one of them. It is the penalty of being -a public character--or, if you prefer, of being an exceptionally great -man. Do I understand that you have nothing to say about your son's -coming marriage?” - -E. H. Merriwether in less than five seconds thought of more than five -thousand possibilities, all in connection with his son's marriage. Then -he said, very slowly, fighting for time and a chance to escape: - -“My son will marry whenever he and the young lady chiefly interested -judge fit to do so. He and I are in perfect accord, as always.” Mr. -Merriwether was looking into the too-fearless and too-intelligent -gray-blue eyes of the reporter. Then he did what he did not often do -in his Wall Street affrays--he capitulated. “Will you give me your word -that you will not use for publication what I am about to tell you?” - -“No, sir, I won't!” emphatically replied the reporter. “You might tell -me something I already know and then you'd always think I had broken -my word. I will not pledge myself not to print the name of your -daughter-in-law-to-be; but anything that concerns you personally or your -attitude toward your son's finacée, or hints of a family quarrel--or -those things that offend a sensitive man--I promise not to print. You -have some rights; but I also owe certain things to myself and my paper. -I've been frank with you. You can be frank with me if you wish. I put it -up to you.” - -Mr. Merriwether, after a thoughtful pause, said: “Look here! I don't -know anything about my son's engagement. I cannot swear he is not -engaged, but I don't know that he is. It follows that I do not know the -young lady. You don't have to print that, do you?” - -The reporter gazed on the financier meditatively. Presently, instead of -answering the question, he asked: - -“Have you had no suspicion of any romance?” - -“Well”--and it was plain that E. H. Merriwether was telling the truth, -having made up his mind to that policy as being the wisest--“well, I -have of late suspected that such a thing might be possible. It is, I -will confess to you, a terrible predicament, because a man naturally -cherishes certain hopes for his only son.” On Mr. Merriwether's face -there was a quite human look of suffering. - -“Of course,” said the reporter, apologetically, as though offering an -excuse for a friend's misdeed--“of course a man in love is not always -wise.” - -“No. And though I have no intention or desire to bribe you, and though I -would not presume to interfere with you in your professional activities -or influence you by pecuniary considerations, you will pardon me for -suggesting--” - -The reporter did not let him go on. He rose and said, with real dignity: - -“Mr. Merriwether, suppose we drop the matter right here?” - -“You mean?” - -“I will not print any story yet--on one condition.” - -“Name it. I think likely I can meet it.” - -“Give me your promise that you will give me an interview the next time -I come to see you. It may be in a day or two or a week. I don't promise -not to print the story, you understand, but it will give you time -to--well, to see your son.” - -E. H. Merriwether held out his hand and said: “I will see you any time -you come. But let me say, as an older man, that if you should suffer any -loss by not printing--” - -“Oh no--I shall not suffer. I propose to print my story. I am simply -deferring publication; but I thank you for the offer you were going to -make. It shows more consideration and, therefore, far greater common -sense than most men in your position habitually display before a -reporter. I'll do even more--I'll give you a friendly tip.” He stopped -talking and looked doubtfully at E. H. Merriwether. - -“Thank you,” said Mr. Merriwether, with a remarkable mixture of -gratitude, dignity, and anxiety. “I am listening.” - -“Find out why he goes to 777 Fifth Avenue. There are some things a -really intelligent father, poor or rich, should--” He caught himself. - -“Please finish, my boy!” cried the great little man, almost -entreatingly. - -“There are just a few things”--the reporter was speaking very slowly and -his voice was lowered--“which an intelligent father does not trust to -others--not even to the most loyal confidential men--things that should -be done by the father himself. The number is 777 Fifth Avenue!” - -“I thank you, Mr.--” - -“William Tully,” said the reporter. - -“Mr. Tully, I thank you. I think you are throwing away time and brains -in your present position, and if you should ever--” - -“Thank you, sir. Don't be afraid. I shall not bother you by--” - -“But I mean it,” said E. H. Merriwether. - -The reporter smiled and said, “If you knew how often my fortune has been -made by men whose story I have not printed you'd be deaf, too.” - -“Young man, I sometimes forget favors, but not the possession of brains. -I need them in my business.” - -“Well, then, suppose you show your appreciation by telling the -red-headed person in the outer office that he is to take in my card to -you when I call again?” - -“Certainly!” And the czar of the great Pacific & Southwestern system -nearly slew Doyle by accompanying the reporter to the outer door and -saying: - -“Doyle, any time Mr. Tully comes to see me let me know instantly, no -matter what I may be doing or who is with me. Understand?” - -“Yes, sir!” gasped Doyle, looking terrifiedly at the sorcerer. - -Tully! Irish! That was the reason, of course; but he was a wonder, all -the same. - -“Good day, Mr. Tully. I thank you. And don't forget my offer.” - -Mr. Merriwether bowed as the door closed on Mr. William Tully and then, -walking like a man in a trance, returned to his private office. He rang -the push-button marked No. 1, and when McWayne appeared turned a haggard -face to his private secretary. - -“McWayne, that reporter has a story of Tom's engagement, but he wouldn't -tell me who the girl is.” - -“I don't believe it!” cried McWayne, with a not very intelligent -intention of comforting his chief. At times the male Irish mind works -femininely. - -“Neither do I--and yet I do. It confirms Dr. Frauenthal's diagnosis. -I guess he knows his business, after all. Well, the story will not be -published yet. He acted pretty decently.” - -McWayne wondered how much it had cost the old man, but he said, “Didn't -he intimate--” - -“That reporter knows his business,” cut in E. H. Merriwether. “He ought -to be a dramatist. Have you heard from your men?” - -“Yes, sir. Tom has gone to Boston. Two of them are with him. He suspects -nothing.” - -“What else?” - -“They will let me know by long distance if anything happens.” - -“If anything! Great Scott! isn't it enough that--Let me hear what they -report--on the instant!” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“And, McWayne--” He hesitated. - -McWayne, his face full of sincere solicitude, prompted, gently: - -“Yes, chief?” - -It was the first time he had ever used that word. It made his speech so -friendly, so affectionately personal, that E. H. Merriwether said: - -“Thank you, McWayne. I wish you would find out for me at once who lives -in 777 Fifth Avenue.” - -“Yes, sir,” said McWayne. “That's where--” He caught himself. . - -“I am afraid so!” acquiesced the railroad czar, listlessly. - - - -VIII - -Within an hour McWayne walked into the private office. His chief closed -his jaws--a weaker man would have clenched his fists--in anticipation. - -“Breese & Silliman, the real-estate men, say they rented 777 Fifth -Avenue, furnished, to a Madam Calderon--an American woman, widow of -a Peruvian nitrate king. She came up here and asked Breese about a -suitable location. She has a daughter she wishes to marry in America. -She talked quite freely about her affairs. The house was for sale, but -she leased if, furnished, with privilege of purchase. Belongs to the -Martin-Schwenk Construction Company. The daughter is about thirty, dark, -Spanish-looking, and fleshy; rather--er--inclined to make googoo eyes, -as Breese says, in a kind of foreign way.” - -“Go on,” commanded E. H. Merriwether. - -“Mrs. Calderon said point-blank that she wished her daughter to marry a -nice young man of wealth and position, preferably a blond. I gather that -the agents were rather anxious to let the house and probably encouraged -her. She has paid quarterly in advance, and her banking references are -O. K.; but nothing about her personally is known to any one. That's all -I could get.” - -“Very well. Thank you, McWayne.” - -The private secretary stood beside the desk, hesitated, and presently -walked out. Shortly afterward, the great and ruthless E. H. Merriwether, -full of perplexity and regret--and some remorse over his neglect of -his only son for so many years--went uptown. He desired to know what to -expect, in order to be able to think intelligently, and, therefore, -to fight efficiently. How could he fight--not knowing what or whom to -fight? - -He told the chauffeur to wait, and then rang the bell of 777. - -One of the four footmen whose faces had impressed Tom as being -distinctly too intelligent for menials, opened the door. - -“I wish to see Madam Calderon.” - -“I beg pardon, sir. Have you an appointment?” - -“No. Say it is Mr. Merriwether.” - -“Mr. who, sir?” - -Mr. Merriwether took out a card. The footman received it on a very -elaborate silver-gilt card-tray and, pointing to a particularly -uncomfortable, high-backed Circassian-walnut chair in the foyer, left -the great little multimillionaire under the watchful eye of footman -Number Two. This annoyed Mr. Merriwether. Nobody is altogether -invulnerable. - -The footman returned, with the card and the tray. - -“Madam is not at home, sir; but her brother would be glad to see you, if -you wish, sir. He is madam's man of affairs.” - -“Very well.” - -“If you please, sir, this way.” And the footman led the way to the door -of the library, where Tom had been received so often. - -“Mr. Edward H. Merriwether!” The emphasis on the first name made the -little czar of the Southwestern roads think it was done in order to -differentiate him from Mr. Thomas Merriwether. Even great men are not -above thinking themselves clever. - -He entered the room and took in its character at one glance, just as Tom -had done. He became cool, watchful, alert, and observing, as he always -did when he went into a fight. He looked at the man who was said to be -the brother of the woman who had leased the house--the woman who had a -daughter she wished to marry to a blond with money and position. - -The man had a square chin and, even in repose, suggested power and -self-control. Mr. Merriwether met the remarkably steady, unblinking -gaze of two extremely sharp eyes, and recognized without any particular -motion that he confronted a man of strength and resource, who, moreover, -had the double strategical advantage of being in his own house and of -not having sought this interview. - -“Be seated, sir,” said the man, in the calm voice of one who is -accustomed to obedience, even in trifles. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether sat down. He noticed little things, as well as -big. He noted, for instance, that he had begun by doing exactly what -this man told him to do. The man intelligently waited for Mr. E. H. -Merriwether to speak. Mr. E. H. Merriwether did so. He said: - -“I called to see Madam Calderon.” - -“About?” The man spoke coldly. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether raised his eyebrows. He did it in order not to -frown. There is no wisdom in needless antagonisms. His only son was -concerned. - -“About my son,” he said. - -“Tommy?” - -The great railroad magnate, accustomed to the deference even of the -self-appointed owners of the United States, flushed with anger. Had -things gone so far that such intimacy existed? - -“I understand,” he said, trying to speak emotionlessly, “that my son -visits this house.” - -“Of his own volition, sir.” - -“I did not think there was physical coercion; but, of course, as his -father--” He stopped in the middle of the sentence. - -This never before had happened to this man, who always knew what to -do and what to say, and always did it and said it with the least -expenditure of time and words; but, as a matter of fact, what could he -say, and how? - -“That relationship,” the man said, calmly, “often interferes with the -exercise of what people formerly called common sense. Will you please do -me a very great favor, sir?” - -“A favor?” Mr. Merriwether, skilful diplomatist though he could be at -times, now frowned in advance. - -“Yes, Mr. Merriwether--indeed, two favors; or rather, three. First: Will -you please ask me no questions now? Second: Will you please return to -this house at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning? And third: Will you -promise not to speak to your son about your visit here until after you -have paid your second call, to-morrow?” - -It flashed through Mr. Merriwether's mind that to grant the favors -might expedite Tom's appalling marriage. He said, decisively: - -“I cannot promise any of the things you ask.” - -“Very well,” said the man, composedly. “Then, I take it, there is -nothing more to be said.” - -He rose politely, and as he did so pressed a button on the table. The -footman appeared and held the door open for Mr. Merriwether to pass out. - -The autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, with unlimited -credit in the money-markets of the world, was not accustomed to being -treated like this: but, precisely because he felt hot anger rising in -tidal waves to his brow, he instantly became cool. - -He remained sitting, and said, very politely: - -“If you will allow me, sir, to tell you that my reasons--” - -The man, who was still standing, held up a hand and broke in: - -“And if you will allow me to tell you that I am neither a criminal nor -a jackass I shall then proceed to say that nobody in this house has any -intention of entering into any argument or controversy with you. I am -actuated much less by personal considerations of my own than by a desire -to avert from you eternal regrets and--er--unseemly displays of temper.” - -E. H. Merriwether knew exactly what he would like to do to this man. -What he said--very mildly--was: - -“You must admit, sir, that your requests might be interpreted--” - -“Oh, I see!” And the man smiled very slightly. “Well, suppose you take -Tom to your office with you to-morrow morning, and keep him there -while you come here? Tell him to wait for you, because you wish to have -luncheon with him. I do not care to discuss my reasons--for example--for -not wishing you to speak to Tom about this visit. I do not wish to wound -your feelings; but I am not sure that you know Tom as well as a father -ought to know his only son. And there are times when a man must be -more than a father, when he must be a tactful man of the world, and a -psychologist.” - -Mr. Merriwether realized the force of this so clearly that he winced, -but said nothing, since he could not admit such a thing aloud. The man -proceeded coldly: - -“If you are both an intelligent man and a loving father, you will -promise what I ask--not for my sake, for yours. There are many things, -Mr. E. H. Merriwether, that money does not cure, and that not even time -can heal. Ask me nothing now; come here at eleven to-morrow morning, and -in the mean time do not speak to Tom about himself--or your fears.” - -“If you were only not so--er--well, so damned mysterious--” And Mr. -Merriwether forced himself to smile pleasantly. - -“Ah--if!” exclaimed the man, nodding. “Do you promise?” - -“Yes!” answered Mr. Merriwether. - -He had made up his mind that Tom would not be abducted. As for worse -things, if Tom had not already committed matrimony, he could not very -well do it in his father's private office. It was wise to keep Tom -virtually a prisoner without his knowledge. And parental opposition has -so often served merely to add gasoline to the flame of love that one -father would not even whisper his objections. - -He bowed and left the room, angry that nothing had been accomplished, -relieved that within twenty-four hours the matter would probably be -settled, and not quite so confident of the power of money as he had been -for many years. - - - -IX - -Tom arrived at his home early enough to have his bath at the usual -hour. Though he had never been asked to account for his movements, he -nevertheless made it a point to breakfast with his father. He would do -so to-day. There was no occasion to say he had been to Boston or that he -had slept in a Pullman. - -As a matter of fact, he had not slept well. The stateroom seemed full -of those elusive flower-fragrances that always made him think of her, -particularly sweet peas--a beautiful flower, and of such delicate -colors, he now remembered, who had not thought of them for years. He -really loved them, he now discovered. Their odor always tinged his. -thoughts with a vague spirit of romance; and this, in turn, in some -subtle way, rendered him more susceptible to the lure of adventure. It -almost made him feel like a boy. - -For all the stimulating reaction of his cold plunge, Tom looked a trifle -tired about the eyes at breakfast. - -Mr. Merriwether looked at his son with eyes that also looked tired; -said, “Good morning, Tom!” in his usual tone of voice, and hid behind -his newspaper. Instead of reading about the absurd demands of the -railroad workers all over the United States for higher wages, he was -thinking that he had never allowed anybody to do his work for him, -because he had always intended that Tom should succeed him. He had at -one time fully intended to train Tom for the succession, to have him -learn railroading from brake-man up. - -Indeed, the boy after leaving college had seemed much taken with the -idea and listened with interest to his father's talks about his plans -and desires and hopes. But with the great boom, that wonderful era of -amazing reorganizations and stupendous consolidations, the great little -man had been swamped by the flood of gold that poured into Wall Street. - -And gold, as usual, had been ruthless in its demands on the great little -man's time. For years he had averaged a net personal profit of a million -a month; but it was not that he wished to make more money. It was that -his time no longer belonged to himself; it was not his family's, but his -associates'--not his only son's, but his many syndicates'. And he had -devoted himself to the welfare of his syndicates and had written a -dazzling page in the annals of Wall Street. - -But what about his son's present and the future of the Merriwether -roads? If Tom died, the Merri-wether dream would follow him, but that -would be a natural death at the hands of God. If Tom lived and refused -to be a Merriwether, the death of the Merriwether dreams would be by -slow strangulation. In short, hell! - -His promise to the brother of the woman who had a daughter that might -prove to be the executioner of his dreams stared him in the face. The -situation called for tact and skill and superhuman self-control. He -liked to fight in the open; but this was not a battle for more millions; -it involved more than the deglutition of a rival railroad. - -McWayne had reported that Tom had acted like a lunatic when he could -not secure the room in the Hotel Lorraine that had been engaged by Mrs. -Calderon and daughter. The only ray of light was that Tom had not talked -to the ladies. - -“Tom,” asked Mr. Merriwether, casually, “have you anything on special -for this morning?” - -Tom had in mind a visit to 777 Fifth Avenue, at which he promised -himself to end the affair; but he answered: - -“N-no.” - -“I mean,” said the father, speaking even more casually, because he noted -the hesitancy, “anything that could not be done just as well in the -afternoon.” - -“Oh no, I have nothing special; in fact, nothing at all,” said Tom. - -Mr. Merriwether saw in his reply merely Tom's way of not declaring his -intention to see the girl. - -“Then I wish you would come down-town with me. I have some papers I want -you to look over, and we'll have luncheon together. What do you say?” - -A prisoner accused of murder in the first degree does not listen to -the jury's verdict with more interest than E. H. Merriwether waited for -Tom's reply, for at this crisis he realized that he had not been in his -son's confidence in those other important little crises of boyhood that -breed in sons the habit of confiding in fathers. - -“Sure thing!” said Tom', cheerfully. - -Though thus relieved of some of his fears, there remained with E. -H. Merriwether the determination that Tom had not volunteered any -information. The little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern was so -intelligent that in general he was fundamentally just. He did not -exactly blame Tom for not confiding in him, but, also, he did not blame -himself. And this was because he had habituated himself to paying for -his mistakes in dollars. What could not be paid off in dollars was never -a mistake, though it might well be a misfortune. - -They went down-town together. Mr. Merriwether took Tom into one of -his half-dozen private offices, made him sit down in one of those -over-comfortable arm-chairs that you paradoxically find in busy Wall -Street offices, and said to him very seriously: - -“My son, here is the history of the Pacific & Southwestern system from -its very start. It goes back to the early stage-line days and is brought -up to to-day. I had it prepared in anticipation of an ill-advised -Congressional investigation. I have thus far succeeded in staving off -the investigation, not because I was afraid of it or because it might -hurt me, but because the market was in bad shape to stand the alarmist -rumors and canards and threats that always go with such affairs. -Other people would have quite unnecessarily lost money. As soon as the -investigation cannot be used as a bear club I'll let up opposing it. -I'll even help it.” He paused and gave to Tom a book bound in limp -black morroco. “I want you to read this book because it is written with -complete frankness in order to spike certain political guns. You will -get in it the full story of what has been done and what we hope still -to be allowed to accomplish. When you get through with it you'll know as -much about the system as I do!” - -The old man had spoken quietly and impressively. Tom was so pleased at -having something to occupy his mind and keep it from dwelling on the -girl he had never seen and the exasperating scoundrel at 777 Fifth -Avenue that his face lighted up with joy. - -“You could not have given me anything to do that I'd like better, dad!” - he said, with such obviously sincere enthusiasm that Mr. Merriwether -felt profoundly grateful for this blessing. - -Then came the inevitable reaction and with it the thought: “Have I -gained a successor only to lose him to some--” - -He shook his head, clenched his jaws, and looked at his watch. It was -not yet time to go to fight for the possession of his son. He had much -to do before he left his office to go to 777 Fifth Avenue. - -“Tom,” he said, “'you stay here until I return--will you?” - -“You bet!” smiled Tom, looking at the thickness of the system's history. - -“I have a meeting or two before luncheon, but I'll try not to let them -interfere.” - -“Any time before three, boss,” said his son, cheerfully. - -His heir and successor, but, above all and everything, his son! There -was no sacrifice he would not make for this boy to keep him from -blighting his own career--and his father's hopes, he added, with the -selfishness of real love. - -Knowing that Tom was safely imprisoned and could not marry at least -for a few hours, he was able to concentrate his mind on his railroad's -affairs. He disposed of the more urgent matters. At ten-forty he sent -for McWayne. - -“I'm going to 777 Fifth Avenue.” - -“Again?” inadvertently said the private secretary. - -Mr. Merriwether looked at him. - -McWayne went on to explain: “I've had a man watching it since we found -Tom called there, just before going to Boston.” - -“Right! I expect to be back in time to lunch with Tom; but if I should -be delayed--” He paused. - -“Yes, sir?” - -“--delayed beyond one o'clock have luncheon brought from the Meridian -Club and tell Tom I wish him to stay until I return. This is important.” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“I think that is all.” - -“If no word is received from you by--” McWayne paused. - -Mr. Merriwether finished. “By two o'clock, come after me. But always -remember the newspapers!” - -“Yes, sir.” - -“I'll telephone before two in case I expect to stay beyond that hour.” - -“Very well, sir.” - -E. H. Merriwether put on his hat, familiar to the world through the -newspaper caricaturists--and walked toward the door. Then he did what he -never before had done--he repeated an order! He said to McWayne, “Look -after Tom!” - -“Yes, sir.” - -Then he went to 777 Fifth Avenue to learn whether Tom was to be his -pride and successor or his sorrow and dream-slayer. - - - -X - -E. H. Merriwether drove to the house of mystery in his motor, -told the chauffeur to wait, and rang the bell. One of the -over-intelligent-looking footmen opened the door. - -“I wish to see Mr.--whoever is master in this house.” - -“Yes, sir!” - -The footman led the way. At the door of the library he knocked twice, -sharply, then, after a pause, once, and then twice again. He waited; -and presently, having evidently heard some answer not audible to the -financier, he opened the door and announced: - -“Mr. E. H. Merriwether!” - -Why had there been any necessity for signals? Why such cheap theatrical -claptrap? To make him think things? These questions in Mr. Merriwether's -mind showed that the mysterious master of the house knew the advantage -of suggesting the important sense of difference. - -“Good morning, sir.” - -“Good morning,” answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room. - -No girl! - -It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking -very deliberately, as one to whom time is no object: - -“Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?” - -“I am a very busy man,” began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of -railroad. - -“Sit down, anyhow,” imperturbably suggested the man. - -The autocrat sat down. He said, “But please understand that.” - -“I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down -to business?” - -“Yes.” - -“Mr. Merriwether”--the man spoke almost dreamily--“do you know why I -asked you to call to-day at eleven?” - -“No.” - -“Because when you were here yesterday it was after banking hours.” - -“And?” The little czar was in a hurry to finish. - -“You, Mr. Merriwether, are one of those fortunate mortals about whom the -newspapers do not lie.” - -“Oh, am I? I take it you haven't seen a newspaper in twelve years.” Mr. -Merriwether, after all, was an American. His sense of humor helped to -make him great. - -“I've read every line that has ever been printed about you--I had to, -in order to study you exhaustively. I find that you are acknowledged by -both friends and foes to be an intelligent man.” - -“Oh yes!” - -“A very intelligent man,” continued the man. - -“And therefore?” said the very intelligent man. - -“And, therefore, I now ask you to give me one million dollars.” - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether never so much as batted an eyelid. He kept his -eyes fixed on the stranger's eyes. He repeated, a trifle impatiently: - -“And?” - -“A certified check will do.” - -“Come to the point. I am a busy man,” said Mr. Merriwether. - -The man looked at the little financier admiringly. Then he said, “You -mean you wish to know why you should give the million, or what you will -get for it?” - -“Either! Both!” - -“You should give it because it is I who ask it. You will get for it what -is very, very cheap at a million.” - -“My dear sir, we'd do business quicker if you'd play show-down.” - -Now that it was a matter of money, of paying, of trading, Tom's father -felt a great sense of relief. Still, there was Tom's unhappiness to -consider. Poor boy! - -“I want you to give me a million so that in return I may give you a -daughter-in-law.” - -“You mean you will not give me a daughter-in-law if I give you a -million, don't you?” - -“I am in the habit of meaning what I say. The sooner you learn that, -the quicker we'll close the deal. I mean that for a million dollars I'll -give you a daughter-in-law.” - -Mr. Merriwether shook his head. It was plainly to be seen on his face -that every moment spent in this room was a sad waste of time. - -“Isn't it worth a million to you?” asked the man, as if he knew it was. - -Mr. Merriwether proceeded to look as though it were worth even less than -a Santo Domingo mining concession. Then he said, with finality: - -“No.” - -The man rose. - -“Then,” he spoke indifferently, “come back when it is. I'll ask you to -excuse me. I, also, am a busy man. Good day, sir.” - -Mr. Merriwether rose and bowed. He looked straight into the man's very -shrewd eyes, smiled very slightly--and sat down again. - -“Do you mean,” he asked, very pleasantly, for his bluff had been called, -“Miss Calderon?” - -The man sat down. - -“Oh no!” he answered, unsmilingly. - -“No? Then?” Mr. Merriwether was so surprised that he forgot not to show -it. - -“I am sorry you are a busy man, because what I have to say can not -be hurried. First, you must chase from your mind all thoughts of Wall -Street, high finance, railroad systems--and fill it with love!” - -Mr. Merriwether looked alarmed. Would it all end with a Biblical text -and an exhortation to endow some sort of a Home? - -“You can do this,” pursued the man, imperturbably, “by thinking of your -son Tom. He is your only son. You should love him. Once your mind is -attuned to thoughts of love, you will be able to understand me more -easily. Concentrate on love!” The man leaned back in his chair as though -he were certain the attuning process would consume an hour, this being, -alas! a Wall Street man; but Merriwether said, very promptly: - -“I am ready for chapter two.” - -“I doubt it. Love! The love of father for son, of son for mother, of son -for wife, of son for father!” - -“I understand. My mind works quickly. Go on!” - -“Do you by any chance happen to know that your son is in love?” - -“Yes. Where is the girl?” - -“It isn't the girl. It's just girl.” - -“Oh, hell! Quit vaudevilling!” - -“There is no girl who is the girl. There never was. There doesn't have -to be any!” - -Quite obviously this man was a lunatic--with the eyes of a particularly -sane person. If there was no girl Tom was in no danger of marriage. A -million for not marrying an undesirable person, yes, but a million for a -daughter-in-law, when Tom was not in love! - -“Only,” thought Mr. Merriwether, “in case I have the selecting of her! -And if I pick her I don't have to pay.” - -“And yet,” said the man, musingly, “Tom loves her!” - -Mr. Merriwether's perplexity was fast rising to the dignity of anger. - -“If there had been a girl of Tom's own class,” the man went on, as if -talking to himself, “why shouldn't he have been seen in public with -her?” Mr. Merriwether was listening now with his soul. “And if this girl -were of the other class--that financial geniuses, alas! sometimes have -to accept for daughters-in-law--a nice, vivacious chorus-lady, or a -refined Reno graduate, or worse--she would have insisted on being -seen in public with Tom, to show her power and to raise the paternal -bid-price for a trip to Europe--alone!” - -The man ceased to speak and began to nod his head slowly, his gaze on -the rug at his feet. Mr. Merriwether could stand it no longer. - -“If there is no girl, what in blazes do I get for my million?” - -“Your pick of eight.” - -“Eight what?” - -“Eight perfect daughters-in-law!” - -A thought shot through Mr. Merriwether's mind: Was any form of insanity -contagious? He looked at the lunatic. The eyes were sane, cold, shrewd, -mind-reading eyes full of a sardonic humor. - -“They are all,” added the man, as if he wished to dispel unworthy -suspicion, “in love.” - -“With Tom?” - -“With love--like Tom!” - -“With love--like Tom!” helplessly repeated Mr. E. H. Merriwether. - -“Your mind”--the man spoke very slowly and distinctly, as if he wished -to deprive Mr. Merriwether of every excuse for not understanding -him--“does not seem to be working this morning with its usual -efficiency!” - -“No!” admitted Mr. Merriwether, sadly. “If you'd only use words of one -syllable I think I could follow you better.” - -“It isn't that. It is that your mind was not attuned in the beginning -to the thought of love, and, therefore, could not follow my words. You -compel me to spend time in explaining the obvious. Listen! If you wish -Tom to become the heir to your name, to your railroad, to your work, and -to all the dreams you have dreamed about your work and about your -son; if you want him to be your successor, to continue your work, to -perpetuate the name and influence of Merriwether in his country--I say, -if you wish all this, he must do one thing, and you must see that -he does it. And that one thing, Mr. Merriwether, is for him to marry -wisely. Do you get that?” - -“Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, very simply. - -“If he doesn't, it will be death to your hopes, a tragic break in the -Merriwether succession. No, don't shake your head. Admit it. Face it -frankly. I know it. I know that you also know it. Can you expect me to -believe that you want Tom to be the fool husband of a fool girl whose -influence on him--” - -“Tom isn't that kind,” interrupted E. H. Merri-wether. - -“All men are that kind. Does history record the case of a man, greater -even than E. H. Merriwether, who, when it came to women, was an utter -ass? Yes, of a thousand; in fact, the stronger the man, the weaker she -makes him--the better his brain, the worse his folly. And the cure? When -an intelligent man realizes that he is a hopeless ass over one woman -he realizes that his only escape is by the suicide route. No! It's much -cheaper for you to pay the million. Oblige me by thinking. Isn't it -cheaper to pay a million?” - -He held up a silencing hand, as though he wished Mr. Merriwether -to spend a full hour thinking of the bargain he was getting. Mr. -Merriwether thought--quickly and accurately as was his wont. And he -admitted to himself that it was indeed cheap at a million. But there -must be value received. Promises, however plausible, are no more to be -capitalized blindly than threats. It depends on who promises, and why; -and also on what is promised. He thought of offering a smaller sum and -of going through the usual preliminaries of a trade, but decided to be -frank. - -“If you can deliver the goods, I'll pay the million.” And, after a -pause, he added, “Gladly!” - -“I banked on that when I decided you ought to contribute a million to -our fund,” said the man, simply. “I studied you and your fortune and -your vulnerability, and I decided to attack _via_ Tom. This was easier -and cheaper than a stock-market campaign.” - -The man somehow looked as though he had said all that was necessary; but -Mr. Merriwether reminded him: - -“You must prove your ability to deliver the goods.” - -“I thought”--the man seemed mildly surprised--“we had.” - -“Certainly not. The million hasn't stirred.” - -“You are a brave man, Mr. Merriwether.” - -Mr. Merriwether laughed, and said: - -“What should I fear? People don't murder a man like me and get away with -it--not when the motive is money. Political assassination, perhaps; but -not for a few dollars--especially when my heirs would spend millions to -see that justice did not miscarry.” He shook his head, smilingly. - -“My dear sir, when we decided to go into the gold-mining business--” - -“Gold-mining business!” - -“Exactly! We thought to save time and effort by getting our gold already -coined. Our general staff studied various methods--the ticker, for -instance, and legislative attacks on your roads; but we went back -to Tom. It is, of course, nearly as stupid to overestimate as to -underestimate one's opponent; so, while we provided against every -contingency arising from your undoubted possession of a resourceful and -fearless mind, we also thought--please take note--that you might display -stupidity; and we prepared for it. Such as, for instance, in case you -point-blank said No! We have also provided ways of preventing you and -your uncaptured millions from hurting us. Of course we could make the -stock-market pay us for the trouble of kidnapping you or of murdering -you. Don't you see clearly what you would do if you were in my place?” - -“Oh yes--I see it clearly; but I don't believe you could do what I could -in your place?” - -“Nobody is free from vanity, for everybody seems to be a natural -monopolist when it comes to brains. You are kidnapped at this very -moment, aren't you?” - -“People know I am here--” - -“Oh yes! We expect to have you telephone McWayne presently not to expect -you to lunch, and that we have extended every facility to his detectives -for having this house under surveillance. We kidnapped the great -Garrettson and kept him out of reach of the great world of finance long -enough to enable us to cash in. Not only that, but he never told how we -did it. You remember when Steel broke to--” - -“You didn't do that!” exclaimed E. H. Merri-wether. - -“Oh yes, we did; and I'll tell you how.” And the man briefly outlined -the case for him. - -E. H. Merriwether listened with much interest. When the man made an end -of speaking, the financier shook his head skeptically, which made the -man ask: “You don't believe it?” - -“No!” answered Mr. Merriwether. - -“Nevertheless, it is so. We also might have engineered in your case some -deal such as that by which we compelled Ashton Welles to disgorge some -of the money he had no business to have.” And he proceeded to enlighten -the financier. - -“Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether. - -“Rather neat!” modestly acquiesced the man. “Suppose we had decided -to kidnap you? The first thing to do is to get you here. Well, you are -here.” - -“How will you make money by that?” asked the financier, smiling. - -“We don't expect to. We have not planned to make money by kidnapping -you. Nevertheless, you must admit it can be made a very expensive matter -for you. But please let me kidnap you without interruption!” - -“I beg your pardon!” said Mr. Merriwether, gravely. - -It struck him that the possession of a sense of humor makes a crook -ten times more dangerous. It was what made the reporter, Tully, really -formidable. - -“We assume that you foresaw the danger to yourself in coming alone to -this house. You'd employ private detectives to watch it at ten dollars -a day a man, exactly as you have had your son watched the moment -we decided it was time for you to begin the watching. McWayne, your -efficient private secretary, is ready to move to your rescue. I don't -see what else you could have done to protect yourself that we have not -provided for.” - -“The police!” mildly suggested Mr. Merriwether. - -“And the reporters!” mocked the man. “Pshaw! We know what we are doing. -Why, we have rehearsed your kidnapping and even your death. Our ablest -members have in turn impersonated you--put themselves in your place and -fought us. I will not bore you with more details, and I admit that the -human mind cannot foresee accidents; but we have studied how your mind -would work. Suppose you assume that you are kidnapped and beyond the -possibility of help from your friends. Shall I tell you what we have -done to make Tom marry one of our eight desirable candidates?” - -“If you still wish that million.” - -“Having decided to attack through Tom, we studied him and his ancestry -on both sides. We easily learned that he had never had a serious -love-affair, and that he was imaginative and adventurous, like yourself. -There were many young women who would have liked to become your -daughter-in-law--too many. That was Tom's trouble. But our problem was -really made easier by that. We simply had to turn his thoughts to love -and to one girl. We therefore did.” - -“How?” - -“We got him here. I piqued his curiosity and made the affair an -extraordinary one by saying all we wished him to do was to answer one -question. As we had rather expected, he would not come; but, of -course, we had foreseen that, and so we got him here in one of our own -taxicabs.” - -“How?” - -“We telephoned him that the doctor said he should come instantly, and -that you were not really in danger. We don't believe in lies; but we -took pains that no other cab should be in front of the club when we -telephoned him from the corner drug-store. Attention to details, my dear -sir, always brings home the bacon. Having roused the spirit of adventure -in a remarkable way, I then asked him the great question. What do you -think it was?” - -Tom's father shook his head. - -“It was this: Where did you spend your summer at the end of your -freshman year? He told me. Then I gave him a box made to order for me by -a French expert, which would deceive other experts so long as we did not -try to sell it. Anybody can imitate the goldwork of any period. In all -the museums of the world you will find fakes. Attention to details! I -was prepared to have him show that box to local experts. I assumed he -would do so, being a Merriwether and, therefore, intelligently curious.” - -“Box with what?” asked Mr. Merriwether, also intelligently curious. - -“Wait! When your son told me where he spent his summer at the end of his -freshman year I knew he was then about nineteen--too young to think of -marriage, but old enough to think of love. He had for the first time in -his life been free from home influences and direct parental supervision. -He was bound to regard himself as a man of the world and think of -innocent flirtations as a manly art. Being in that frame of mind, and at -the same time being a nice, rich, good-looking chap, all the girls would -naturally make a dead set for him. Their numbers would keep him from -having one love-affair. All love-affairs at twenty are much the same. -A boy always begins by being in love with love. Indeed, I believe -twenty-year love to be exclusively a literary passion--that, is, -boys get it from reading about it. Of course I studied time, period, -locality, and manifold probabilities; and, therefore, I sent him on a -mission that suggested love--love for the one girl that Fate intended -him to love and to marry. In order to fix, accentuate, and accelerate -his love-thinking I used the perfume of sweet peas.” - -“How does that work?” - -“I picked out sweet peas because they are found everywhere. Their odor -is strong and characteristic. He must have inhaled that odor thousands -of times when he was flirting with pretty girls the summer he spent at -Oleander Point with Dr. Bonner.” - -“Yes; but about suggesting--” - -“I advise you to read up on the psychology of odor associations. You -will learn that there is a very close relation between the olfactory -sense and the desire to love. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that -memory, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily -reached through the sense of smell than by almost any other channel; -and, also, that 'olfactory impressions tend to be associated with a -sum-total of feeling-tone.' This has been known for thousands of years. -A very interesting paper was written by Mackenzie, of Johns Hopkins. If -you read it you will know more than I can now take the time to tell you. -The Orient understands the value of perfumes in lovemaking, and I could -tell you amazing things; but I will refer you to Cabanis, Dadisett, -Hobbes, Jaworski, Jwanicki, Schiff, Wolff, and Zwaardemaker. If you -wish, my secretary will prepare an exhaustive bibliography of the -subject for you.” - -“No, thanks,” said Mr. Merriwether. “But I still don't understand--” - -The man sighed. Then he said, “I'll tell you, of course.” He then told -Tom's father about the message in the dark that Tom had carried. - -“But he couldn't believe it!” exclaimed Mr. Merriwether. - -“No; he couldn't--but he did. Of course I have taken you behind the -scenes---that is, I have opened your eyes and turned your head in the -proper direction and held it firmly there and shouted, 'Look!' And of -course you see the machinery standing still and you can't imagine it in -motion. You are not as imaginative as I thought you were.” - -“Huh!” said E. H. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then after a pause he said: -“I see the wheels revolving. Ingenious!” - -“More than that, practical! My object in having Tom fall in love -with love, suggesting that there was one girl born to be his bride, -accentuated by my use of the sweet-peas odor as a _leit-motif_, was to -have something to offer you which would be cheap at a million. The next -step was to make Tom do foolish things--for effect on you. First, to -make you fear Tom was crazy. I had a girl who knew young Waters talk to -him about Tom's new and alarming queerness and suggest that he telephone -to Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Of course Waters wouldn't telephone--and of -course I did. And, of course, if you had disbelieved or suspected -you would have sent for young Mr. Waters and he would have denied the -telephone, but admitted the queer actions of Tom and the fact that -people were talking about them. That would have allayed any suspicion -you might have entertained. So I stage-managed the opera scene and the -Boston trip to make you fear the worst. In that frame of mind you could -be induced to come here voluntarily. I sent Tully to you. You had to -come!” - -“Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether, with a thoughtful absence of -enthusiasm. - -“Therefore,” continued the man as if he had not heard the other's -interpolation, “your son, being full of the thought of love and, even -worse, of marrying the mate that Fate selected for him five million -years ago, is now ready to marry any girl that smells of sweet peas. -We thought that, instead of vulgarly extracting the million from you by -torture or threats, we would place you in our debt by perpetuating -the Merriwether dynasty. Hence the preparation of eight very nice -girls--three of them in your own set, three others children of people -you know, and the remaining two equally desirable but less historical, -as it were.” - -“Who are they?” If Mr. Merriwether was to pay a million he might as well -see the label. - -“Cynthia, Agnes, and Isabel, daughters respectively of Gordon Hammersly, -William Murray, and Vanderpoel Woodford. Any objections?” - -“No; but you can't--” - -“Yes, I can. Also, Louise Emlen, daughter of Marbury Emlen, the -lawyer--” - -“He's a crook!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether. - -“He doubtless interfered with one of your deals; I see you respect him. -He's a crank, but she is a brick. And a Miss Lythgoe, daughter of -Professor Lythgoe, of Columbia, the most beautiful girl in New York. -Ramona Ogden; her father is Dr. Ogden, the lung specialist; her mother -was a Jewess. The remaining two are of humble birth. But all of them are -healthy and beautiful, plenty of honesty, brains, and, above all, -imagination. Any one of them will not only make Tom happy, but will make -him a worthy successor of a great man. And such grandchildren as they -will give you! I envy you!” The man spoke with such fervent sincerity -that E. H. Merriwether merely said: - -“It is a risky business, even though the chances appear to be--” - -“That's why we ask one million dollars--because we have eliminated the -risk. Very cheap. Are you ready?” - -“Yes,” said Mr. Merriwether, grimly. - -“Then, will you kindly--” - -“Yes; I will kindly tell you that you are a damned fool! You've wasted -my time. I'm going to my office, and if I don't have you put in jail it -will be because I don't want the publicity. But don't push me too far or -I'll do it anyhow!” And Mr. E. H. Merriwether rose. - -“Sit down!” said the man, with a pleasant smile. - -“Go to hell!” snarled the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, and looked -at the man with the eyes that Sam Sharpe once said reminded him of a -mink's when it kills for the sheer love of killing. - -For all reply the man clapped his hands sharply twice. Four men--the -over-intelligent-looking footmen--came from behind the heavy plush -portières. Also, the ascetic-looking man who had held the glass of acid -in the taxicab and had brought Tom into the house the first time. The -ascetic-looking man held a cornet to his lips, and his lungs were filled -with still unblown blasts. - -“Three weeks ago, Mr. Merriwether,” explained the mysterious master -of the house, “this worthy artist began to practise on his beautiful -instrument at exactly this time every morning. This was in anticipation -of the morning when you should be here--the idea being to drown your -cries. The neighbors have complained and I have promised to play -pianissimo; but a few loud blasts, which will do the trick, will be -forgiven. Attention to details, Mr. Merriwether! Ready!” - -The cometist inflated his lungs and held the comet to his lips in -readiness. The footmen seized Mr. Merriwether by the arms and legs, one -man to each limb. - -“Doctor!” called the master. - -A sixth man came from behind the portières. He had some tin cans in -his hand--plainly labeled ether--and also a cylinder of compressed -laughing-gas and an inhaler. - -“Expert! Anesthetics!” said the man, curtly, to Mr. Merriwether. “We -propose to take you out of this house if we kidnap you. If we decide to -kill you we have arranged to do it right here at home. I think we'll -kidnap you. A week or two will make you amenable to reason. We realize, -of course, that every day you spend under our hospitable roof will make -it a little bit more difficult to get the million into our clutches. -Would you like to know how we propose to kidnap you and get away with -it?” - -“Yes,” replied Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with a pleasant smile. - -“Tell our Mr. E. H. Merriwether to come in,” said the man to the -cometist, who thereupon disappeared and presently returned, followed by -a man made up to resemble the great financier. - -The task was rendered easy by the famous flat-brimmed hat, with the -crown like a truncated cone, so familiar to newspaper-readers through -the cartoonists' efforts. The resemblance was not striking enough to -deceive at close range, but it probably would work at a distance. - -“Walk like him!” commanded the master. - -The fake Mr. Merriwether walked up and down the room with the curious -swaggering, jockey-like jauntiness of the little railroad man. From time -to time he snapped his fingers impatiently in the same characteristic -way Mr. E. H. Merriwether almost always used when giving an order to -subordinates. - -“That will do!” said the man, with a broad grin at the impersonator of -the little financial giant. The double left the room--still walking _à -la_ E. H. M. - -“I have had that man--an actor of about your build with a gift of -mimicry--coached for weeks to imitate you. We told him it was a joke and -guaranteed him an appearance before the most select audience in New York -at one of Mrs. Garrettson's world-famous functions. We pledged him to a -secrecy so natural, under the circumstances, as to rouse no suspicions. -A few minutes ago we sent a footman to tell your chauffeur to go away -and return at one. He wouldn't do it. The footman said the boss said -so. Your man retorted that he took orders from only the boss -himself--especially when countermanding previous orders. - -“So our Mr. Merriwether went out to the front door, yelled 'One!' in -your voice, and snapped his finger at the intelligent chauffeur, who -thereupon beat it. But the sleuth remains. It makes us laugh! But, -after all, since we have provided for him, it would be a pity not to go -through the entire program. Does this bore you?” - -“Must I tell the truth?” asked Mr. Merriwether, anxiously. - -“Yes.” - -“I can stand more.” In point of fact, Mr. Merriwether was sure the -situation was serious for him. That is why he joked about it. - -“Over six months ago we opened an antique-shop on Fourth Avenue. We -had the usual truck. Also we have had this antique-dealer--who is your -humble servant--go from house to house on the Avenue offering to buy or -exchange those antiques of which people have grown tired. We even asked -you. We have offered such good prices and such excellent swaps that we -have taken antiques from some of the wealthiest houses on the Avenue. -Also we have made a practice of importing antiques from Europe, which -we auction off every two weeks. The money we get we deposit in various -banks, and then we buy bills on Paris. The banks now know us. Remember -that--it is important. Well, we also have an exact copy of your motor, -even to the initials in the door panels. Pretty soon we send for our -Merriwether motor and our E. H. Merriwether emerges from this house and -gets into his car and off he goes--and the watching sleuth with him.” - -“But if there should be two, and one stay?” - -“Then number two will see not long afterward an elaborately carved -Gothic chest taken from here into the antique-dealer's wagon--a wagon -now known to the traffic squad. We carry you away and lock you in a -small sound-proof room, to get to which people would have to move out of -the way a lot of heavy pieces of furniture. There is no question of our -ability to kidnap you and to keep you a prisoner. I tell you we have -paid attention to details persistently and intelligently. Meantime what -does Sam Sharpe do to the stock-market? And Northrup Ashe? How much will -a month's absence from your office cost you?” - -“Not half as much as it will cost you when I get out.” - -“And if you don't get out?” - -For reply Mr. E. H. Merriwether grinned broadly. - -“My dear Mr. Merriwether”--the man spoke very seriously now--“we had -not really expected such unintelligent skepticism from you; but, as -we prepared for everything, we, of course, prepared for even crass -stupidity on your part. In demonstrating our power to do what I say some -painful moments will be your portion. This I regret more than I can say. -Just now our problem is to prove our complete physical control of you -and also our utter indifference to your feelings. I am going to do what -will make you hate me to the murder point. In deliberately making a -violent enemy of a man like you we pay ourselves the compliment -of thinking ourselves absolutely fearless. I propose to have you -spanked--to whip you as if you were a bad little boy. We shall at first -use a shingle on you--undraped. You may begin when ready, James.” - -“Sir,” said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H. -Merriwether, “will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat, -preliminary to the removal of your trousers?” - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the -men's faces had taken on a grim look--as if they knew that after the -whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an -impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless -appreciated the gravity of the offense. - -“We know,” said the master, solemnly, “that for every blister we raise -you will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish -to be spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?” - -“No.” - -“The alternative is the million--or death.” - -“You can't kill me and get away with it.” - -“Oh yes--even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it.” - He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small, -morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether -a lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. “Cultures!” explained the -man--“typhoid; bubonic plague; anthrax; _Bacillus mallei_--that's -glanders--meningitis; Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for -instance--number thirteen--is the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with -an ordinary culture would take days; but with this virus it will take -hours. What a wonderful thing science is! You know what tetanus is?” - -“Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, “lockjaw.” - -“Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't -be able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't -help you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last--and you -will not make yourself understood. The _risus sardonicus_, which is -a most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile -naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really -ought to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a -warning to those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. -And, of course, I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the -mildest and slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?” - -“I'll do that much to please you,” said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still -believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did -not believe they would go that far. - -“Would you like to know how we propose to dispose of the body?” - -“I might as well see everything,” he answered, in a resigned tone of -voice. The man looked at him admiringly, and said: - -“Come on!” - -They led the great E. H. Merriwether to the cellar. There he saw that -the furnace coal had been taken out of its bin and put in the adjoining -compartment. The plank floor had been taken up, and what looked like a -short trench--or a grave--had been dug. Outside stood a pile of crushed -stone, some bags of cement, some bundles of steel rods, a section -of five-inch iron soilpipe with a mushroom-head trap at one end, and -concrete-workers' tools. - -“After we make absolutely sure that you are dead we throw a lot of -soft mortar into the grave, deposit the corpse, and then pour in more -cement--so that you will be completely surrounded by it. It will make -it very difficult indeed to recognize you when they try to chip away the -hard cement--if they ever try! Then we fill the grave up to the top with -concrete, using plenty of steel rods--not to re-enforce the concrete at -all, but to make it very hard digging with a pick. - -“We also stick the soilpipe into the--er--cavity in order to account -for the disturbed pavement. Intelligent searchers--your son and his -detectives--will assume it is plumbing--and seek no further. We replace -the plank flooring in the bin and fill it up with coal, thereby further -obliterating all traces of your grave. - -“We have provided for that part, you see. Why, my dear Mr. Merriwether, -what we really do to you is confer immortality on you. We elevate you -to the rank of one of the mysteries. Charlie Ross and E. H. Merriwether! -Just assume that we'll do what I say. Very well! Now, visualize the -search made for you. Endow your people with superhuman ingenuity. -Useless!” - -The man waved a hand toward Mr. Merriwether; but Mr. Merriwether said: - -“You assume that the search will be exclusively for me--but they will -also search for you!” - -“My dear sir, that is unkind of you!” The man spoke reproachfully. “We -know that when we go into the plunder-recovery business we must guard -against the chief contributory cause of the vast majority of -all business' failures, according to the statistics of Dun and -Bradstreet--to wit, insufficient capital. Murderers are caught when -their faces and habits and families are known. Usually their lack of -means forces them to betray themselves. But nobody knows how the men who -will kill E. H. Merriwether look, simply because we have enough money to -go anywhere. We will become tourists--like thousands of others. Some of -us will stay in New York; others will go on round-the-world tours. See -this?” - -The man pulled from his pocket some packages of well-worn bills, with -the bank-wrappers round them, though a finger hid the bank name. Also -the man showed to Mr. Merriwether several books of travelers' checks of -the fifty-dollar denomination--the specimen signature also being covered -by the man's finger. - -“Enough for all,” said the man. “Kindly oblige me by thinking of -what you would do in my place; and, in all frankness, acknowledge that -nothing would be easier than to get away. Ordinary crime is so largely -accidental that the average criminal is at the mercy of even the -unintelligent police. Professionals do the same thing over and over and -acquire telltale mannerisms. Also, they lack culture, and find the -class attraction too strong to resist--besides always being hard up and -therefore defenseless. Whenever you find a crook who is thrifty, you -will find him always out of jail--like any other business man of equal -thrift. We have gone about this case systematically. We wanted your -million--but, more, we wanted the sport of taking it from a man who had -no moral right to the particular million we desired. If you had been -a really conscienceless financier we'd have made it five millions; in -fact, it is because we are not sure that even this million is tainted -that we ask you to pay it to us for giving you a fine daughter-in-law. -Shall we go up-stairs?” - -The master of the house led the way up-stairs and Mr. E. H. Merriwether, -escorted by the stalwart footmen with the intelligent faces, followed, -his own intelligent face impassive. That he was thinking meant only that -he was doing what he always did. - -The man sat down in his chair, with his back to the stained-glass -window. He asked, pleasantly: - -“What do you say now, Mr. Merriwether?” - -“I say,” the little czar answered, with a frown of impatience, or anger, -or both, “that when you are tired of playing the damned fool I'd like to -return to my business.” - -The man rose to his feet quickly, his face pale with anger. He took -a step toward the financier, his fists clenched--and then suddenly -controlled himself. - -“You jackass!” he said. “You idiot! Have you no brains whatever? Must -I lash common sense into you? Take 'em off!” It was a command to the -footmen. - -“Will you disrobe, sir?” very politely asked the oldest of them. - -Mr. Merriwether, six inches shorter than the speaker, and a hundred -pounds lighter, drew back his fist, but the four men seized him -and began to take his clothes off. Mr. Merriwether, recognizing the -uselessness of resistance and the folly of having garments torn so far -from home, helped by unbuttoning here and there. Presently he stood _in -puris naturctlibus_. - -His face was pale and his jaw set tight. - -“Tie him!” commanded the master. - -They tied him to the library table, face down. - -“Music!” cried the man; whereupon the cometist began to play the -Meditation from “Thaïs” softly, but obviously ready to play fortissimo -at a signal from the chief. - -“I am going to lick you with a whip; and, for every lash I give you, -you will have to pay me one hundred thousand dollars in addition to -the original million. Theatrical, is it?” And his voice was hoarse with -anger. “Yes? Well, look at this melodramatic whip. Your tragedy will be -my comedy, you--------jackass!” - -He showed to Mr. E. H. Merriwether a quirt--a veritable miniature -blacksnake of plaited leather. - -“You can stand twenty; that will make three million in all. I'll draw -blood after the fifth. I'll stop when you've got enough. Remember the -price!” - -He snapped the whip viciously and walked round the table until he -stood behind Mr. Merriwether. He lifted his arm and then the -great Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, -iron-nerved, fearless, imaginative, and intelligent, yelled: “Wait!” - -“The million?” - -“Yes!” - -“Help him!” said the man; and the intelligent-looking footmen -respectfully served as valets. - -“I don't believe you would kill me--but I never liked spankings.” Mr. -Merriwether spoke jocularly--almost! - -The man confronted Mr. Merriwether and said, very seriously: - -“Mr. Merriwether, we should certainly have killed you if you had -persisted in your stubbornness to the end. We knew we had to convince -you.” - -The man looked inquiringly at the financier to see whether any doubt -remained; but Mr. Merriwether asked, quizzically: - -“Honest, now, would you--” - -“We would!” interrupted the man, looking straight into Mr. Merriwether's -eyes. And what Mr. Merriwether saw there made him ask: - -“How will you have the million?” - -“In cash. I'm glad you will make the payment. But really, sir, I wish to -impress on you that Tom is ripe to be taken for better--or for worse.” - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether looked long and earnestly into the eyes of the -mysterious man who was despoiling him of a million dollars. It began to -seep into his understanding that if Tom could be married to a nice girl -the resulting peace of mind would indeed be cheap at a million. - -“Now, if you please,” pursued the man, pleasantly, “telephone to McWayne -that you wish him to come here with certified checks on your different -banks, aggregating one million dollars, made payable to Michael P. -Mahaffy.” - -Mr. Merriwether started. The name was that of the world-famous -political Boss of New York City. Explanations as to the million might -be embarrassing to any political boss; but for a million dollars in cash -any political boss would be glad to explain--or even not to explain. - -“From this house Mr. McWayne will go to the banks, accompanied by the -studious gentleman who had the honor of holding your left leg. You will -indorse each check by writing 'indorsement correct' and signing your -name. McWayne will go with our Mr. Michael P. Mahaffy and get the money -in fives, tens, and twenties, in handy wads--old bills preferred and -so requested from the paying tellers, who will intelligently understand -that Mr. Mahaffy is not signing his name in person, so he can swear in -any court of justice that he never saw the checks. Asking for old bills -is to make them impossible to trace. This will also allay the banks' -suspicions. The worst that can happen will be that a few tellers will -wonder what Mr. Merriwether has to do with city politics that he needs -Mahaffy's aid.” - -“I see!” said Mr. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: “Where -is the telephone?” - -“There!” - -In plain sight and hearing of the master of the house the master of the -Pacific & Southwestern called up his own office. He spoke to McWayne: -“Make out checks on all banks according to my balances in them, so that -the checks will aggregate one million dollars, payable to Michael P. -Mahaffy.... What? Yes?... Have the checks certified.... Of course, if -there isn't enough!... We shall want bills that have been used--fives, -tens, and twenties.... Yes, all cash. Come up to 777 Fifth Avenue. You -will go to the banks with a man--” - -“With Mr. Mahaffy,” prompted the man. - -“With Mr. Mahaffy,” repeated Mr. Merriwether. “And tell Tom to have -luncheon and wait for me,” again prompted the man. - -“And tell Tom I can't go to luncheon with him, but to wait for me.” - -Mr. Merriwether hung up the receiver and turned to the man, saying: - -“The idea of using Mahaffy's name--” - -“Rather good, isn't it?” smiled the man. “Of course you wondered how -we were going to cash the checks, didn't you? Well, that's the way. The -bank officials will be surprised to see the checks and they will watch -McWayne and my man to the last. They will thus be able to hear my man -say loudly to the chauffeur, 'Tammany Hall, Charlie!' Attention to -details, my dear sir!” - -“I still am not quite convinced that--” - -“My dear Mr. Merriwether, there are so many ways of safely getting money -from you Wall Street magnates that the only thing that really protects -you is the sad fact that the professional crooks are even more stupid -than you. Men like you are compelled to bet your entire fortune, your -very life, on averages. The average man is both stupid and honest; so -you and your like are fairly safe for fairly long periods of time. Of -course if we had been obliged to kill you we should have done so and -buried you, and we should have been wise enough to utilize your death -in as many ways as possible in the stock-market--and out of it. For -instance, I should have instantly telephoned to all the men in your -class and told them we had eliminated you--as an example--and to -remember that in case we ever had occasion to ask anything from them. -We should also give them a countersign, so that they would be able to -recognize us when the proper time came. I can kidnap or permanently -suppress any millionaire in New York, with neatness, despatch, and -safety.” - -“But killing a well-known man--” began Mr. Merriwether. - -“If Big Tim Sullivan could be killed and lie in the Morgue for days -unrecognized, what chance do relatively unknown people like you great -millionaires stand to be found, once dead? A dead capitalist, remember, -is no more impressive than a dead streetcar conductor. If I got you -into this house on the strength of Tom, as I got Tom to come in on the -strength of you, what millionaire would refuse, for example, to go, in -answer to a telephone message that his child had been run over and was -now, let us say, at 128 East Seventy-ninth Street? Or that his wife, -acting more or less as if she were intoxicated, was scattering money at -the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street? And suppose the -millionaire is bound and chloroformed, and taken to the top floor of a -tenement hired by a humpback with red beard and one leg shorter than -the other--same humpback not being really a humpback or red-bearded or -a cripple, but a fake, to furnish false clues in advance--and this -humpback has previously given fire-extinguishing hand-grenades to all -the other tenants, as advertisements! Then we have a charge of dynamite -inserted in the thoroughly prepared corpse of the millionaire--his face -burned off in advance--and he is also soaked in inflammable material and -set on fire. And the deed is done at 11 a.m.; so that all the children -will be in school and all the adults awake and able to get out. Find -you? Bits of flesh and sympathy for the poor humpback is all the police -would find in that tenement. Oh! sir, you were wise to pay--very wise -indeed!” - -Mr. Merriwether looked at the man a long time. He could not deny that -to really desperate men such deeds offered no particular difficulty. The -average crook is not dangerous to a millionaire; but a man like this -is more than dangerous. He thought quickly and formed his conclusions -accurately. - -“How are you going to make Tom marry one of the girls whose names you -mentioned?” he asked, in the tone of voice one uses toward physicians. - -The man smiled slightly and said: “Oh, I am not going to do it. I don't -care whether he marries or not. You must do that. But I'll tell you how, -if you wish,--after McWayne gets here. Just think over the affair. It -will put you in a more intelligently receptive frame of mind.” And with -a pleasant smile the man took a little book bound in green leather and -began to read. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether, as was his wont when thinking, began at the -beginning and reviewed the entire affair quickly but carefully. He did -this again--it did not take him long--and then he began to co-ordinate -his ideas and study the case. Within ten minutes he had forgotten his -animosity. In fifteen he felt respect for this man. In twenty he was -thinking how helpless any one man is against his ten billion trillion -natural foes--microbes, seismic disturbances, floods, and the chemical -reaction of hostile brains. This man, whose very name was unknown to -him, had vanquished the victor--had looted the tent of the victorious -general! - -This was incredible when spoken in a conversational tone of voice. -Perhaps this same remarkable man might tell how to make Tom choose a -desirable wife. It was worth while making the experiment. It was in the -nature of a gamble in which E. H. Merriwether stood to win a happiness -worth all the money in the world and stood to lose nothing! - -A knock at the door roused him from his reverie. One of the footmen -arrived from the threshold. - -“Mr. McWayne!” - -Mr. Merriwether's private secretary entered. E. H. Merriwether held out -his right hand. - -Mr. McWayne took four slips of paper and gave them to his chief, who -quickly looked at them and passed them over to the master of the -house. The man looked at them, indorsed them, and handed a pen to Mr. -Merriwether. The czar of the Pacific & Southwestern wrote on each of the -checks: - -Indorsement correct. - -E. H. Merriwether. - -He returned the checks to the man, who thereupon pushed a button a -number of times. - -One of the footmen with the non-menial faces appeared dressed for the -street. He looked Irish. He wore a big solitaire scarf-pin. His hat -inclined to one side noticeably. He carried a square valise in each -hand. They looked as if they had seen service. On each was printed, -“Treasurer Tammany Hall.” - -“Go with Mr. McWayne to the banks and cash the checks. Mr. McWayne will -identify you,” said the master of the house. - -“Yis, sor!” said the footman. - -The brogue was unnecessary, but E. H. Merri-wether smiled slightly. -McWayne and the footman in mufti left together. - -“Think some more!” said the man to E. H. Merri-wether, and resumed his -reading of the little green-leather book. - -Mr. Merriwether leaned back and thought some more. To him the -million-dollar loss was already ancient history. The only virtue that -the Wall Street life gives to a professional is the ability to take a -loss of money with more or less philosophy. That philosophy is also -met on the race-track, and among experts in faro as well as among real -Christians. - -McWayne and the man were gone an hour and eighteen minutes. Mr. -Merriwether had time to think of Tom and of himself and of the relation -that had existed between himself and his son, and of the relations that -would exist between them in the future--God willing. - -“Mr. McWayne!” announced the servant. - -The private secretary entered; also the Irishman with the two valises. - -“Tell the others! At five o'clock!” said the master of the house, and -the footman left the room--with the valises! - -“Mr. McWayne, will you kindly wait in the other room?” The man rose and -parted the portières for the secretary to pass through. - -“Certainly,” said McWayne, frowning politely. “Now, Mr. Merriwether,” - said the man, “as I told you, Tom's mind and soul are prepared for love. -The romantic vein in him has been worked to the limit. He can be laughed -out of it very easily, for he is not entirely convinced; but it is too -valuable a frame of mind for a really intelligent father to destroy. The -young ladies, also, are ripe for the coming of the one man in all the -world. They will respond readily--and, I may add, respond with relief if -they see he is a man like your son, against whom nothing can be said. It -will clinch the affair. My advice is for you to call on the young -ladies I have mentioned and judge for yourself, and then you be your own -stage-manager!” - -“Have you any choice yourself?” - -“You know Woodford?” - -“Very well.” - -“And his daughter Isabel?” - -“No.” - -“Well, she has the complementary qualities. She will, as it were, -complete Tom. She is bright, healthy, very handsome, utterly unspoiled -by the knowledge of her good looks--that is, she is highly intelligent. -Her mind functionates quickly and is regulated and made to work safely -by her keen sense of humor. You will love her for herself, as well as -for Tom's sake and for Tom's children's sake. Arrange two things and you -can do it. One is prepare her to meet Tom. Tell her you don't know why -you want her to know him, but you do. Tell her you wanted this before -you ever saw her. And tell her you know she must think you must be going -crazy--but will she meet Tom in her father's home?--in some room with -the lights turned out? She will ask you why you ask such things. And you -will rub your hand across your eyes and say, dazed-like: T don't know! -I don't know! Will--will you do it?' And when you take Tom to her, take -advantage of the dark, and open this little bottle and touch Tom's lapel -with this. It is essence of sweet peas. He will associate Isabel with -the mysterious girl to whom he took a message in the dark, and by the -same token she will know he is the man who destiny decrees shall be -her husband. Then leave the rest to nature. They won't struggle. They -couldn't if they wished; but they won't wish to fight. My parting words -to you are: the man who was smart enough to get a million dollars out of -you finds it even easier to make a young man who wants to love fall in -love in the springtime with a handsome, healthy girl who wants to be -loved. You and McWayne will now use one of my prisoner-carrying motors. -This way, sir!” - -He led the way into the next room, picked up McWayne, and escorted the -financier and his private secretary to the curb. A neat little motor -stood there. - -Mr. Merriwether climbed in. McWayne followed. And then the man said: - -“You will find that the doors cannot be opened from the inside. The -chauffeur was told this queer feature was due to the fact that his -master expects to use this car for his two very active and very -mischievous children. He will drive you anywhere. You can arrest him if -you wish; but it will be useless. We have spent a good many thousands -of dollars in accessories that will be thrown away to-day.” And the man -sighed. - -“Who do you mean by we?” asked E. H. Merriwether, politely. - -“The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, which, having completed its operations, -will now dissolve. Good day, sir.” - -In the issue of the _World_ of June 9th two advertisements appeared. -One, under “Marriages,” read: - -Merriwether-Woodford.--On June 8th, at the Church of St. Lawrence, -by the Rev. Stephen Vincent Rood, Isabel Woodford to Thomas Thome -Merriwether. - -The other, under “Personals,” read: - -P. R. Syndicate,--It was cheap at a million! - -E. H. M. - -On June 10th the great railroad financier received a typewritten letter. -It read: - -_In the course of our operations, having for an object the recovery -of plunder taken from unidentified individuals by malefactors of -great wealth, it has happened that we have grown fond of some of our -contributors. We thus are able most sincerely to extend to you our -hearty congratulations. It was indeed cheap at a million, and we shall -remember your good fortune if ever we need advice or additional funds. -What we took from you and from some of your fellow New-Yorkers we -propose to return to the public at large. Mr. Amos F. Kidder will tell -you his suspicions, if you ask him. In return you might tell him that -we propose to capitalize time. We shall make a present of fifty years to -the world by transmuting the recovered plunder into unspent time. Don't -forget that we who were the Plunder Recoverers are now,_ - -_The Time Givers._ - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - -***** This file should be named 51970-0.txt or 51970-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51970/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Plunderers - A Novel - -Author: Edwin Lefevre - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51970] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - -THE PLUNDERERS - -A Novel - -By Edwin Lefevre - -Harper & Brothers Publishers - -New York And London - -1915 - -[Illustration: 0012] - -[Illustration: 0013] - - - - -THE PLUNDERERS - - - - -I--THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA - -ON the day before Christmas a man of middle age, middle height, and -middle weight, smooth-shaven, dressed in black and wearing black gloves, -walked into the business office of the New York _Herald_. He approached -the first "Advertisements" window, looked at the clerk a moment, opened -his mouth, and said several words-at least, so the clerk judged from the -motion of the man's lips. - -"I didn't hear that, Cap," said the clerk, Ralph Carroll. - -The stranger thereupon made another effort. - -"You'll have to come again," Carroll told him, kindly, at the same time -leaning over the counter and presenting his left ear to the voiceless -talker. He heard: - -"How much to print this ad under Male Help Wanted, in big type, so it -will make about two inches?" - - -I - - -He handed a slip to the clerk, which the clerk read, counting the words -from sheer force of habit: - -Wanted-A Man With St. Vitus's Dance and an Introspective Turn of Mind. -High Wages to Right Party. Apply Saturday Morning, Room 888, St. Iago -Building. - -"Four-sixty-four," said the clerk. - -The man raised his eyebrows inquiringly. - -"Four dollars and sixty-four cents," repeated Carroll. - -The man took out a wallet and tried to pull out a bank-note, but could -not because of his gloved hands. He took off the right glove, fished -out one five-dollar bill and gave it to the clerk, who handed him -back thirty-six cents. As the man took the change the clerk distinctly -noticed that he had a big ivory-colored scar which ran from the knuckles -to the wrist and disappeared under the cuff. He remembered it by reason -of the freak ad and the man's voice. - -The advertisement appeared in the _Herald_ on the next day. Being -Christmas, the one day of nonreading in America, few people saw it. -Nevertheless, at nine on Saturday morning, ten men with spasmodically -twitching necks or limbs waited for the advertiser to open the door of -Room 888, on which they saw in gilt letters: - - -ACME VIBRATOR COMPANY - -W. W. LOVELL, MANAGER - - -The elevator man was heard to tell an inquirer, "Here's Lovell!" And -presently the voiceless man, dressed as usual in black, with black -gloves, stepped from the elevator, nodded to the waiting men in the -hall, and opened the door of 888. At first they thought he was a mute, -but realized later that he was merely saving his bronchial tubes, just -as asking men to come Saturday forenoon--pay-day and pay-hours--would -save effort by bringing only men without employment. - -Lovell and the afflicted entered. The outer office had half a dozen -chairs, and a table, on which were some medical magazines. Lovell -scrutinized the ten applicants keenly, and finally beckoned to a tall, -well-built chap with a blond mustache, whose unfortunate ailment was not -so extreme as the others, to follow him into the inner office. The -man did so. There were a desk, three chairs, a table, and a dozen -polished-oak boxes that looked as though they might contain vibrators. -Lovell closed the door, sat down at the desk, motioned to the blond man -to approach, and whispered: - -"What's your name?" - -"Lewis J. Wright." - -"Age?" - -"Thirty-six." - -"Working?" - -"Not steadily." - -"Profession?" - -"Cabinet-maker." - -"Family?" - -"No." - -"Do you object to traveling?" - -"No; like it." - -"We pay sixty dollars a week, all traveling and living expenses. Will -you go to London, England?" - -"To do what?" - -"Nothing!" - -"What?" - -"Nothing!" again whispered the manager, very earnestly. He seemed -anxious to convince Mr. Wright of his good intentions. "Nothing at all! -Sixty a week and expenses!" - -"I don't understand," said Mr. Lewis J. Wright, with an uneasy smile. -His excitement aggravated the malady and his neck jerked and twitched -almost constantly. - -"I want a man with St. Vitus's dance." - -"That's me," said L. J. Wright, and proved it. - -"And with an introspective turn of mind. Understand?" - -"Not quite," confessed the cabinet-maker. - -"A man who likes to think about himself." - -"I guess I can fill the bill all right," asserted L. J. Wright, -confidently. Sixty a week, all expenses, and a trip to London began to -look very attractive. - -"Then you're engaged." The manager nodded. - -"I don't know yet what I'm to do," ventured Wright. - -"Nothing, I tell you." - -"Well, I'll do it, then!" And L. J. Wright smiled tentatively; but the -manager of the Acme Vibrator Company looked at him seriously--almost -reprovingly--and whispered so hoarsely that Wright felt like going after -cough-lozenges for him: - -"Listen, Wright. You will go to London with a letter to Dr. Cephas W. -Atterbury, 23, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. Every day you will sit -down in a comfortable chair in the doctor's anteroom, where the patients -wait, from nine to eleven a.m. and five to seven p.m. You will think of -your St. Vitus's dance. For doing this you will get sixty dollars a week -from us and your hotel bill will be paid by the doctor. You may not have -to sail for a month, but your salary begins on Monday. Come here every -Saturday and get twenty-five dollars on account. When you sail you will -get all that's owing to you besides four weeks' salary in advance, and a -round-trip ticket, first-class." - -"But if I get stranded in London--" - -"How can you, with three or four hundred dollars in your pocket, a -return-trip ticket, and no need to spend except for clothes, which are -very cheap there? Come next Saturday, but leave your name and address in -case we need you. Can we depend on you?" He looked searchingly into the -grayish-blue eyes of Lewis J. Wright, and seemed comforted when Lewis J. -Wright answered: - -"Yes. I'll go on a minute's notice." He wrote his name and address on a -slip, gave it to the manager, and went out. Lovell followed him to -the outer office and, beckoning to the afflicted nine to draw near, -whispered: - -"I've hired a man, but I shall need more soon. Write your names and -addresses and leave them here. Don't come unless I send for you," and he -distributed printed blanks on which each applicant wrote out his name, -address, and answers to the questions: - -1--Do you object to traveling alone? - -2--Do you object to sitting in comfortable chairs? - -3--Do you object to people making remarks about you? - -4--Do you object to minding your own business or earning your wages? - -One of the applicants spoke: - -"Mr. Lovell, I'd like to know--" - -Lovell, however, cut him short with a hoarse but peremptory "Don't -talk! Can't answer!" pointed to his throat, and disappeared in the inner -office, the door of which he closed. - -Whereupon the disappointed applicants, expressing their feelings in a -series of heartrending jerks, twitches, tremors, and grimaces, trooped -out into the hall. There they cross-examined Wright and arrived at the -conclusion that they were to be used as living advertisements for the -Acme Vibrator. Doctors were employed to boom it and the company supplied -dummies or "property" patients. - - - -II - -To the same clerk in the _Herald_ office, a fortnight later, came the -same man in black, and whispered something. The clerk recognized him, -leaned over, and asked, pleasantly: - -"What is it this time?" He had a good memory. He afterward remembered -thinking that the hoarseness was chronic. - -"How much for one inch in Help Wanted, Male?" - -"Pica caps?" - -The man nodded eagerly, half a dozen times. - -"Two dollars and thirty-two cents." - -The stranger, in trying to take the exact amount from his pocket, -dropped a dime on the floor and had much difficulty in picking it up by -reason of his black gloves. This naturally made the clerk remember -about the scar, which the man evidently desired to conceal. Carroll, the -clerk, alert-minded and imaginative--as are all American Celts--caught -a glimpse of the scar between the end of the glove and the beginning of -the cuff. - -On the next day, the unemployed males of New York read this in the -_Herald_: - -_Wanted--A Brave Man. Wages One Hundred Dollars a Day. No Questions -Answered. Apply Room 888, St. Iago Building._ - -There are many brave men in New York. When W. W. Lovell stepped from the -elevator at the eighth floor he had almost to force his way through a -crowd of men of all kinds--brutes and dreamers; sturdy animals, and boys -with romance in their eyes; fierce-visaged, roughly dressed men, and -fashionably attired chaps, with high-bred, impassive faces; young men -seeking adventure and old men seeking bread. Lovell was darting keen -glances at the men. He let his gaze linger on a man neither short nor -tall, of about forty, who suggested determination rather than reckless -courage. He was shabby with the shabbiness of a man who not only has -worn the clothes a long time, but has slept in them. Lovell approached -him and whispered: - -"Come about _Herald_ ad?" - -"Yes." Others drew near and listened. - -"Are you really brave?" He looked anxiously into the man's face. The -man, at the question and at the grins of his fellow-applicants, turned a -brick-red. - -"Try me!" he answered, defiantly. - -"Before all these men?" There was a challenge in the hoarse whisper. - -"If you want to," answered the man, with quick anger. He clenched his -fists and braced his body, as for a shock. - -"Come in!" and W. W. Lovell opened the door of 888. - -"I'm braver than that guy!" interjected a youth, extremely -broad-shouldered and thick-necked. - -Mr. Lovell looked at him coldly, steadily, inquisitively, as though he -would read the man's soul. He stared fully a minute and a half before -the thick-set youngster dropped his gaze, whereupon Mr. Lovell pushed -in the man he had picked out, followed him, and slammed the door in the -faces of the others. They tried the door-knob in vain. It was a spring -lock. - -Mr. Lovell sat down at his desk, motioned to the man to draw near, and -said, sternly: - -"No questions answered!" - -"I'll ask none." - -Lovell gazed at him intently. He nodded to himself with satisfaction, -and proceeded, in a painful whisper: - -"Your name is W. W. Lowry." - -The man hesitated. Lovell frowned and, leaning forward, said: - -"One hundred dollars a day!" - -"My name," said the man, determinedly, "is now W. W. Lowry." - -"Do you know anything about travelers' checks used by the American -Express Company?" - -"Yes." - -"Ever used any yourself?" - -"No." - -"Ever in Paris?" - -"Yes." - -"When?" - -"When I was--er--years ago." - -"How many years?" - -"Ten; no--eleven!" The man's face twitched. Remembrance was evidently -not pleasant. - -"I'll pay you one thousand dollars for eight days' work in Paris." - -"I'll take it." - -"Listen carefully." - -"Go ahead." The man looked alert. - -"You will get a first-class ticket from New York to Paris and return, -and hotel coupons for ten days in the Hotel Beraud, in Paris. You will -leave, in all probability, on February first, arrive on the eighth. On -the ninth you will go to the American Express office and cash some of -your checks. They will serve to identify you. Do it again on February -tenth. At exactly eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh you will -whisper to the mail clerk: 'It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. -Give me the eleven letters for W. W. Lowry.' If you do not receive -eleven letters, don't take any, but return the next day at precisely the -same hour, and say exactly the same words. What was it I said you should -say to the correspondence clerk?" - -"It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven letters -for W. W. Lowry," repeated the man. - -"Right! When you get the eleven letters you will bring them unopened to -me--here. Now go to Mrs. Brady's boarding-house, 299 East Seventy-third -Street; tell her you are Mr. Lowry. Your room and board are paid for. -Make it a point to be at the house every day at eleven in the morning -until after luncheon and at six p.m. You must not go out evenings under -any circumstances. I'll allow you eleven dollars a week for tobacco -and will bring you some clothes. Come back Wednesday at eleven-thirty. -Here's this week's eleven dollars. That will be all." - -"That's all right, my friend; but--" began the man. - -Lovell frowned and interrupted sharply: - -"No questions answered." - -"I wasn't going to ask; I was going to remark that you would have to -show me that one thousand dollars for the week's work." - -"Next Wednesday I'll take you to the American Express Company. I'll give -you one thousand dollars and you will buy the checks yourself and sign -them. I'll keep them until sailing-day and I'll give them to you on the -steamer. Forging," he went on with a sneer, "is signing another man's -name with intent to defraud. You will sign your own name--your own -signature--on travelers' checks that you yourself have paid for. See? A -thousand dollars for asking for eleven letters and bringing them to me, -unopened, is good graft, friend. If you make good I'll keep you busy." - -"You are on!" said W. W. Lowry. - -"No drinking. Above all things, no talking! I may be crazy, my friend; -but what would you be if you gave up a job worth a thousand dollars a -week and all expenses paid? Remember our motto: No questions answered!" - -"Damned good rule!" agreed W. W. Lowry, with conviction. - -"Look out for reporters and for men who say they are reporters!" warned -W. W. Lovell. "When you go out, close the door quickly behind you and -hang this sign on the door-knob. I don't want to see anybody." - -W. W. Lowry obeyed. The sign said: - -POSITION FILLED - - - -III - - -A particularly beautiful limousine stopped before the door of Welch, -Boon & Shaw, the renowned jewelers, on Fifth Avenue. There alighted from -it, on this cold but bright January day, a tall, well-built man, erect, -square-shouldered, head held high. He wore a fur-lined overcoat with -a beautiful mink collar, and a mink cap. He was one of those -blond-mustached, ruddy-complexioned, daily-cold-plunge British officers -you sometimes see in Ottawa. He walked quickly into the shop and spoke -to the first clerk he saw. - -"Where's the proprietor?" - -"Who?" - -"The proprietor of the shop!" He spoke with a pronounced English accent. -His eyes were gray and cold. They looked a trifle close together, but -that may have been from the frown--said frown impressing even a casual -observer as a chronic affair. His appearance, even without the frown, -was aristocratic. - -"Do you wish," said the clerk, politely, "to see Mr. Boon or Mr. Shaw?" - -"I wish to see the man who owns this shop; the--ah--boss, I think you -call it here." - -"Well, Mr. Boon--" began the clerk, about to explain. - -"I don't care if it's Mr. Loon or Mr. Coon. Be quick, please!" he said, -peremptorily. - -The clerk, now resenting the stranger's words, tone, manner, attitude, -nationality, and ancestry, turned to a floor-walker person and called: - -"Mr. Smith, this--ahem--gentleman wishes to see one of the firm." - -Mr. Smith came forward, smiling suavely. - -"You wish to see one of the firm, sir?" He bowed in advance. - -"Yes. That's the third time I've said what I wish. I have no time to -lose and not much patience, either!" He twitched his neck and twisted -his head as though his collar were too tight. It was a habit, and it -became more pronounced with his annoyance. All the clerks noticed it. - -Mr. Smith bit his lip and said, very politely: "Yes, sir. It happens -that none of them is in at present. If you will tell me what you wish to -see them about I may suggest--" - -The fur-coated man turned on his heel, his face dark red with annoyance, -and started to leave the shop. - -"Good-by, old Jerk-Neck!" muttered the offended clerk. - -Mr. Boon entered at that very moment. - -"Here's Mr. Boon, our senior partner," said Mr. Smith, with an -irritation in his voice that he could not conceal, and that now gave Mr. -Boon his cue. - -"You wish to see me?" Mr. Boon asked it very coldly, ready to say no. - -"You have an annoying set of clerks here," said the fur-coated stranger. -"I wished to see one of the firm and--" - -"You see him now," interrupted Mr. Boon, letting the words drop out with -an effect of broken icicles. "I am Mr. Boon." - -"My good man, I came after some pearl necklaces and a few rings, and -trinkets. Do make haste! I am Colonel Lowther." - -"Indeed! Well, what if you are Colonel Lowther?" - -In Mr. Boon's eyes was a look that made all the clerks in the store -busy themselves with their own affairs. Explosions scatter dangerous -fragments that may injure lookers-on. The fur-coated Englishman stared -at the sizzling jeweler in amazement. - -"Damme!" he sputtered. "Do you mean to say--Oh--I see! Yes! I am -the secretary of the Duke of Connaught. The jewels are for his Royal -Highness." - -The change was instantaneous and magical. They all understood now, -and forgave. There wasn't a clerk in the store who did not stare -with unchecked interest at the fur-coated member of the royal party, -concerning which the newspapers were printing columns and columns. - -The man opened his coat, took a card from a Russia-leather case, which -he gave to Mr. Boon. - -"Colonel the Honorable H. C. Lowther, K.C.B.," it read, "Private -Secretary to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught." - -"Colonel Lowther," said Mr. Boon, in a voice from which all the icicles -had melted and turned into warm honey, "I regret exceedingly that -you have had to wait. Had I known you were here, or if you had only -mentioned who you were--" - -"Exactly so. Yes! And now I'll have a few words with you in private, -Boon." - -The colonel could not know that Mr. Boon was not a misterless Bond -Street tradesman, but a millionaire expert in gems and human vanity. So -Boon forgave the omission of "Mr." and magnanimously said, "This way, -Colonel Lowther, please!" - -In the office Mr. Boon opened a box of his good cigars--and they were -very good, indeed--and held it toward the colonel, who took one with his -gloved hands, lit it at the flame of the match which Mr. Boon himself -held for him, and puffed away, with never a "Thank you." - -Again Mr. Boon was magnanimous. - -Colonel Lowther wiggled his neck as if his collar were uncomfortably -tight, and then shot his head forward with a motion that made the chin -go up six inches--a nervous affliction that Mr. Boon politely ignored by -looking exaggeratedly attentive. - -"His Royal Highness wishes to leave some remembrances to gentlemen he -has met, you know--chairmen of committees and presidents of clubs, and -others who have been very nice to him. At home he would have given them -snuff-boxes or cigarette-cases, with his arms on them; but there won't -be time to engrave them, so he will give scarf-pins." He paused, puffed -at his cigar, and cleared his neck of the constricting collar. - -"I understand," Mr. Boon assured him, deferentially. - -"And the duchess will give rings -and--ah--lorgnette-chains--trinkets--ah--you know. Everybody in New -York has been so kind to the party. 'Pon my honor, Boon, I really think -Americans are keener for royalty than the British. I do! What?" - -"Blood," observed Mr. Boon, with the impressive sententiousness of a man -inventing a proverb, "is thicker than water!" - -"Eh? What? Oh! I see! Yes! Quite so!" - -"Our people," pursued the encouraged Mr. Boon, "have always thought a -great deal of the English--er--British royal family." - -"Oh, indeed! Now, Boon, I didn't think you showed great affection for -George III! What?" - -Mr. Boon blushed to think of Bunker Hill. His daughter was a D. A. R., -too! He hastened to change the subject. - -"You mentioned," he said, as though he were reading aloud from one of -the sacred books, "some pearl necklaces. At least, I think you did." He -put on the tradesman's listening look in advance. It is the look that -courtiers assume when they listen to his Majesty excitedly telling how -once, on a hunting-trip, he almost dressed himself. - -"Oh yes! The pearls are for the Princess Patricia. A necklace to cost -not over ten thousand. You see, the duke is not one of your Pittsburg -millionaires. He's not what you'd call rich, in America!" He smiled, -democratically, as a man always does when he is pleased with his own -wit. Mr. Boon smiled uncertainly. - -"You can't, of course," he said, regretfully, "do much with ten thousand -dollars." - -"Not dollars--pounds! Perhaps we may go up to fifteen thousand; but his -Highness would prefer to keep at about ten thousand pounds. That's fifty -thousand dollars." - -"I am sure we can please his Highness," said Mr. Boon, with impressive -confidence. There fleeted across his mind the vision of the tremendous -value of the advertisement which the royal patronage would give him. The -papers were full of the doings of the distinguished visitors. He himself -on his way to the office had been guilty of the pardonable curiosity -which the lower classes call rubber-necking; and he had even -discussed--in common with 89,999,999 fellow-Americans--the personal -pulchritude of the royal ladies. Usually democracy is enabled to -apologize to itself for its undemocratic interest in feminine royalty -by saying, "She isn't at all goodlooking." That excuse, however, did not -serve in this instance. The Princess Patricia was the most popular girl -in New York--with the classes because she was the princess, and with the -masses because she was so pretty! And to think of selling pearls to her! - -He closed his eyes and ecstatically read what the papers would print -about the sale! He heard himself saying to Mrs. Carmpick, of Pittsburg: -"This necklace is handsomer than the one we sold to Princess Patricia!" -He heard the rattle in the throats of Johnson & Pierce, of J. Storrs' -Sons, of the sixteen partners of Goffony's, dying from apoplexy -superinduced by envy, or from starvation following the loss of all the -swell customers! - -"Ah, you realize, of course, Boon, that his Royal Highness's patronage -is worth many thousands to your firm. What?" - -The colonel's eyes, Mr. Boon thought, were cold and greedy, as befitted -a common grafter. Mr. Boon resented this, having himself been caught -red-handed getting something for nothing. If he had to pay a -commission--"We appreciate the honor, of course, Colonel Lowther," he -said, deferentially--and non-committally. - -"Quite so! You ought to, considering how the newspapers will mention -your shop." - -"I may suggest, Colonel Lowther, that our firm's reputation--" - -"I know its reputation. That's why I am here"--the colonel's voice -seemed colder than a Canadian cold spell--"but it is no better than your -competitors'--Goffony, Johnson & Pierce, or J. Storrs' Sons. I figured -that the duke's patronage should be worth thousands to Welch, Boon & -Shaw; so you must make me a special price." - -"We have but one--" - -"I've heard all that, Boon," the colonel interrupted, angrily. "If you -are going to talk like a bally ass I'll waste no more time here. Bring -in the pearls. I can't take over a half-hour to this." - -Mr. Boon's hard sense and knowledge of advertising values triumphed over -his injured dignity. He excused himself, and presently returned with a -tray full of pearl necklaces. - -"I say, Boon, on second thought, you must not reduce your prices. It's a -bad principle." - -"Yes, it is," agreed Boon, cordially. - -"Therefore, my good fellow, name me one price--the lowest possible after -considering how much the duke's patronage is worth to your house. The -very lowest! Put it in plain figures on new price-tags. The duke is -accustomed to the prices across the pond, you know; so don't frighten -him. Now that one?" - -He picked up at once the most beautiful necklace--and also the most -valuable, though by no means the most showy. Mr. Boon's respect jumped. -He looked at the colonel, whose neck and head were twitching and -twisting violently. - -"This one--" he began. The colonel interrupted him: - -"Now, Boon, think carefully--the very lowest price," he said, sternly. -"If you name a really reasonable figure I'll pledge you my word to -recommend its purchase and not visit the other shops. Take your time!" - -Thus placed on the rack, Mr. Boon figured and cut and restored and -reduced again until he was angry at the torturer and at the opportunity -for a glorious advertisement. Finally he said, vindictively: - -"This I'll sell for sixty-five thousand dollars!" Immediately he -regretted it. Perhaps he was overestimating the advertising value of the -Princess Patricia's beautiful neck to exhibit his pearls on. The price -was exactly thirty-five thousand dollars less than he had expected to -get for it during the next steel boom. - -"Oh, come now, I say," remonstrated Colonel Lowther, impatiently. -"That's thirteen thousand pounds. It's too much, you know." - -"Colonel Lowther," said Boon, pale but determined, "I am losing -considerable money on this, which I am charging to advertising account -and may never get back. If the price is not satisfactory, I'm sorry; -and I can only suggest that you'd better go to the other firms you've -mentioned. They are all," he finished quietly, "very good firms." - -Colonel Lowther, who had not taken his keen eyes off the jeweler's face -during the speech, appeared impressed by Mr. Boon's earnestness. His -neck jerked spasmodically half a dozen times before he said: - -"I believe you. I'll take it. But first mark it--in pounds; thirteen -thousand pounds." And he looked on, eagle-eyed, while Mr. Boon himself -wrote out a new price-tag. Evidently he would take no chances with -sleight-of-hand substitutions. "Put it here," he said, "beside me." - -It made Mr. Boon say, half angry, half amused: "We won't change it for -an imitation string. We are really a reputable firm, Colonel Lowther." - -"Oh! Ah! Really, I--ah!" stammered the colonel, "I wasn't thinking of -such a thing!" He looked so absurdly guilty, however, that Mr. Boon -forgave him. "I think you'd better show me others--ah!--cheaper, you -know, in case the duke should not wish to go above ten thousand pounds. -Say, that one--and this!--and this!" - -He had selected the three next best; but Boon figured very closely and -in all instances named a price below cost: fifty-seven thousand five -hundred dollars, fifty thousand dollars, and forty-five thousand -dollars. - -"Put them here also with the first one," said Colonel Lowther.. - -"Don't you wish us to put them in boxes?" asked Mr. Boon. - -"Ah--ah!--I say, bring the boxes in and I'll put them in. We'll do it -more quickly," he finished, lamely. - -There flashed across Mr. Boon's mind the possibility of crookedness. -Colonel Lowther did not trust them--perhaps because he hoped to avert -suspicions by that same attitude of distrust! Mr. Boon determined to -watch closely. He asked a clerk to bring some cases for the necklaces. - -"You fix them, Boon," said Colonel Lowther, who was watching the -jeweler's hands as children watch the hands of a prestidigitator. - -It actually eased Boon's mind to be taken for a crook. He arranged the -necklaces, each in its own Russia-leather case, and then gratefully -helped Colonel Lowther to select two dozen scarf-pins, amounting in -value to eighteen thousand dollars, a score of rings worth in all a -little over twenty-five thousand dollars, and a few lorgnette-chains -and other trinkets. Once all these were duly price-tagged, packed, and -placed beside the necklaces, Colonel Lowther, after a series of mild -cervical convulsions, said, calmly: - -"Now, Boon, you and I must settle a personal matter. You know, of -course, the royal party never pays cash." - -"Then," said the impetuous Mr. Boon, "the deal is off!" - -"Silly ass! The royal family of England always pays. You know very -well that the jewels bought by King George for gifts for his coronation -guests have not been paid for yet. It's all a matter of red tape. The -money is as safe as the Bank of England! Any banker here would be glad -to guarantee the account--only that would never do, of course. Now you -know I can't take any commission. I've made you give me the lowest -prices for the duke, haven't I? What?" - -"Yes, you have; and therefore I can't--" - -"If I were a bally Russian I'd have made you name a price twice the -usual figure and I'd have taken the difference as a commission. It's -what you Americans call graft, I believe. What?" - -"Of course," said Boon, coldly, disgusted with the venal aristocracy, -"we'd never have done such a--" - -"Tut, tut! It's done everywhere; but not to me!" Colonel Lowther said, -so sternly that Mr. Boon considered himself accused of unnamed crimes. -He resented this, but, being unable to fix the exact accusation, -contented himself with remarking, diplomatically: - -"Of course not! But at the same time--" - -"Yes, yes," rudely broke in the colonel, with a silencing wave of his -gloved hand. "Now I can myself pay you in cash for whatever the duke -buys--say, up to twenty thousand or twenty-five thousand pounds. For -advancing this money, which will not be paid to me for months, I ask -you to allow me a half-year's interest. That," finished Colonel Lowther, -impressively, "is banking. What?" - -"At what rate?" - -"Oh, eight or ten per cent." - -"Impossible!" - -"Then, Mr. Welch, Boon, or whatever your name is, I wish you a very good -morning!" - -"But we'll allow you interest at the rate of six per cent, a year." - -"But I myself have to pay five for the use--ah!--that is--er--" -floundered the Englishman. Mr. Boon perceived instantly that the colonel -borrowed the money from Canadian bankers at five per cent, and got ten -per cent. It was not a bad scheme for high-class aristocratic graft! -Even a jeweler could philosophize about wilful self-delusion, the point -of view, custom, and so on. "Make it seven per cent. What?" - -Mr. Boon could not help admiring the persistency of the Englishman in -coating his graft-pills with the sugar of legitimacy. Doubtless the -colonel had really convinced himself this was not graft! - -"Very well," said Mr. Boon, with a smile. "I'll take three and a half -per cent, off for cash." - -"But we agreed on seven!" remonstrated the Englishman. - -"Well, three and a half per cent, of the whole is the same as six months -at seven per cent." - -"Oh!" The colonel began to figure in his mind. His cervical contortions, -twitchings, and jerkings were painful to behold. Mr. Boon thought it was -a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. It would enable him to recognize the -colonel in a crowd of ten thousand. - -"Quite so! Yes--three and a half per cent, of the total bill. It will -be at least twenty thousand pounds--that's one hundred thousand dollars. -Not half bad! What?" - -"Do you mean your commission will be one hundred thousand dollars? I'm -delighted to hear it!" Mr. Boon was so pleased that he jested. He would -play up the royal patronage to the limit. - -"Oh no! I meant the total amount, you know," corrected the colonel, -earnestly. He saw that Boon was smiling, and gradually it dawned on him -that the jeweler was an American humorist. "Oh! Ah! Yes! Very funny! -Quite so! I wish it were! How many millions would the bill have to be -for the cash discount to be twenty thousand pounds? What? -Right-O! Well, now bring the pearls and the other things to the motor. -I shall show them to his Royal Highness at once. I can let you know in a -half-hour which he will keep." And he rose. - -"Ah!--er--Colonel, you know we don't like to--ah!--there's over two -hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, worth four hundred thousand -dollars in any other place in New York; and if anything happened--" - -"Nothing will happen," said the colonel, with assurance. - -"And then, it will take a long time to prepare the memorandum of--" - -"Why do you need a memorandum?" inquired the colonel, coldly. He looked -as if he began to suspect that Mr. Boon distrusted a member of the suite -of his Royal Highness, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T., -K.P., P.C., G.M.B., G.3. S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., Duke of -Connaught and Stratheam, Earl of Sussex, Prince of Coburg and Gotha, -Governor-General of Canada, and potential customer of the world-renowned -firm of Welch, Boon & Shaw. - -Reading the emotions on the colonel's face and not desiring to offend, -but at the same time determined not to deliver two hundred thousand -dollars' worth of goods to a stranger, who might be the duke's -secretary, but might not be a reliable man financially, for all that, -Mr. Boon groped for an excuse. But Colonel Lowther pursued, frigidly: - -"Why should you need a memorandum if you yourself will bring the jewels? -Did you think I was a bally clerk to sell your jewels for you? You do -the talking--and don't change the prices!" - -So profoundly relieved as not to resent the last insult, Mr. Boon smiled -pleasantly and said, "I must take a man to carry them." - -"Take a regiment if you wish; but there's room for only three in the -motor," said the Englishman, his neck twitching and twisting and jerking -quite violently. Anger seemed to aggravate his nervous malady. Wherefore -Mr. Boon hastily gathered up the packages, put them into a jeweler's -strong valise, and followed the colonel, accompanied by Terry Donnelly, -the store's private policeman, who carried the precious satchel in one -hand, and in the other--in his overcoat pocket--an automatic pistol of -the latest model. - -One of the clerks must have told of the affair, for there was an eager -crowd on the sidewalk. They had heard that the Duke of Connaught's -secretary was in the store, buying diamonds. By the time it had passed -seven mouths it was the duke himself. Mr. Boon heard: "There he comes!" -and, "Is the princess with him?" and, "Which is the duke?" And he had -pleasant visions of free reading-notices and renewed popularity among -the ultra-fashionable. One of the traffic squad was trying to make the -crowd move on--in vain. - -The colonel good-naturedly forced his way through the mob to the motor, -followed by the jeweler and the store policeman, who saw on the door of -the limousine the letters "W. R." And both of them concluded that this -stood for the well-known initials of the duke's host. - -A short woman, with red hair and a self-assertive bust, stared boldly at -the colonel and said, "He don't look like his pictures." - -"Say, are you the duke?" asked a messenger-boy. - -However, the colonel merely said "Home!" and entered the motor, followed -by Mr. Boon and T. Donnelly. The store footman closed the door as if it -were made of priceless cut-glass. The traffic policeman touched his cap -and the motor went up the Avenue. - -The colonel picked up a newspaper from the seat and turned to Mr. Boon. - -"See!" he said, "our pictures. Your reporters are--ah!--very -enterprising and clever. But the photographers are worse!" He laughed -and went on: "The pictures don't look like me, d'ye think?" - -"I recognize the coat and the fur cap," laughed Mr. Boon. - -"Oh, do you?" said the colonel, seriously. He looked at it and -said: "But it might be my other fur cap, you know. What?" He looked -challengingly at the jeweler. - -"It might be," admitted Mr. Boon, diplomatically confessing his error. - -"Quite so!" said the owner of the fur cap, triumphantly. - -Mr. Boon, finding himself nearer the house of the duke's host, began to -feel more confident of putting through the epoch-making deal. It is not -often that a New York jeweler sells pearls to an uncle of the King of -England, to be used by the king's most beautiful cousin! He would have -the princess's photograph in his window. It should show the famous -necklace! - -The motor took its place last in the long string of automobiles and -carriages that were creeping toward the door of the house which his -Royal Highness was honoring. - -"Democracy meekly leaving its card at the house of royalty," laughed the -colonel, pointing to the twoscore vehicles ahead of theirs. - -"Americans paying their respects to an Englishman who is honored even in -his own country," said Mr. Boon. - -"Oh, now, I say, Boon, that's uncommonly neat, you know. What? But -perhaps we'd better get out and walk; otherwise it may be a half-hour -before--" - -A footman in livery came up to their motor, touched his hat with a -respect that entitled him to a bank president's wages, and said to the -colonel: - -"I beg pardon, sir, but 'is Royal 'ighness 'as gone to Mr. Walton's, -sir, at number 899 Fifth Avenue. I was hinstructed to tell you to go -there, sir." - -"Tell the chauffeur where to go," said the colonel, briefly. - -"Yes, sir--very good, sir." The man touched his hat and told the -chauffeur. - -Their motor pulled out of the line and turned to the west. - -"Mr. Walton was at Eton with the duke," explained the colonel to Mr. -Boon. - -"J. G. Walton?" asked Mr. Boon. - -"Yes." - -"I didn't know he was educated in England," said Mr. Boon in a tone that -implied he knew Mr. Walton well. - -"Didn't you?" said the colonel, more sharply than the occasion -warranted. - -"But then, we never discussed the subject," apologized the jeweler. - -"Do you know the house?" - -"Yes. I've been in it several times. I understood Mr. Walton was in -Florida and had rented his residence for the winter." - -"I don't know a bally thing about his private affairs," said the -colonel, coldly; "but I do know the duke intended to visit him, and I've -been told to go there." - -It occurred to the store detective that if the Englishman was rude to -Mr. Boon it was altogether likely the duke treated his private secretary -as a servant. It gave the detective pleasure to imagine this, for -whenever the colonel had looked at Mr. Donnelly it was with the casual -indifference with which men look at chairs or cobblestones. This made -T. Donnelly feel that he was not alive, and he disliked the aristocratic -undertaker. - -The motor turned into Fifth Avenue, sped northward, and halted before a -house. Mr. Boon recognized Mr. Walton's residence. - -The colonel alighted quickly and said "Come with me!" in the tone -foreigners use to menials, and didn't even turn his head to see if he -was followed, but walked up to the door and rang the bell. - -A man in livery opened the door. - -"I am Colonel Lowther!" - -"Yes, sir. His Royal Highness said you were to wait in the drawing-room -unless there was somebody with you; in which case you were to be taken -to him, sir." - -"Come on!" said the colonel to Mr. Boon and the private policeman. The -footman preceded them to a door at the back of the foyer hall, opened -it, drew back heavy portières, and announced, solemnly: - -"Colonel Lowther!" - -The colonel entered. So did Mr. Boon and Donnelly. A man stood gazing -out of a window. His back was toward them. For the first time Mr. -Boon--so he said later--felt that something was wrong. Yet he made no -effort to protect himself. - -"Your Highness, here are the pearls." - -The duke turned round. He had a kindly face, had white hair and -mustaches. - -"Let me have them!" said his Royal Highness, in the husky whisper of a -man suffering from acute laryngitis or partial paralysis of the vocal -cords. - -"I know that voice!" shouted Donnelly, and the jeweler knew he might -fear the worst; but, before they could put their hands in their pockets -for their revolvers, strong fingers took strangle-holds on their -throats, a spray of ammonia had been squirted into their nostrils and -eyes, and they were helpless. In a jiffy their wrists were handcuffed -behind their backs, their feet were fastened with leg-irons, their -mouths pried open with a bowie-knife blade that made them cease -struggling. Pear-gags were inserted into their mouths. Donnelly squirmed -and carried on like a frightened child--but at the same time kept -unfrightened eyes on the duke. Not so Boon, who was as pale as ivory. - -The duke turned his back on his captives and put on a black cloth mask, -but the watchful Donnelly noticed that he put into his pocket what -looked like false mustaches. He also donned a pair of black gloves, but -not before the policeman had seen a long, white scar, beginning at the -knuckles and disappearing up the wrist into the cuff. Donnelly recalled -having heard or read a description of a professional crook that tallied -with what he had seen. It would make the work of capture easier. - -The masked duke picked up the precious valise and said, "Take them to -the others." - -The four men who had nearly strangled the jeweler and the policeman were -dressed in overalls and jumpers, had on black masks, and wore gloves. -They carried the helpless victims into what seemed to be the servants' -dining-room. - -Propped up in high-backed chairs, Mr. Jesse L. Boon, of Welch, Boon -& Shaw, saw Mr. Wilfred Gaylord, president of Goffony's, Mr. Percival -Pierce, of Johnson & Pierce, Mr. J. Sumner Storrs, of J. Storrs' Sons, -and five of their clerks. Beside Mr. Pierce was an empty chair. Mr. Boon -was placed on it. The detective was dumped on one near Goffony's clerk. - -"Tie 'em in couples," whispered the duke. Each man was tied to the back -of his chair--and the chairs themselves were tied back to back. - -"That," explained the colonel, "will prevent you from hurting yourselves -by toppling over in regrettable efforts to reach the door. We wish no -harm to befall you. What?" - -The masked men in overalls left the room like perfectly trained -servants. - -"You are a damned fool!" whispered the duke, angrily. - -"Why?" amiably asked the Englishman. - -"The only people that don't talk are those that can't." - -"I know--but murder will out! Never knew it to fail. We have--ah!--you -might say--ah!--borrowed a few trinkets from these gentlemen. They may -get them back, possibly; but you can't ever bring back the breath of -life if you decapitate them. What?" - -"I tell you I will not leave them here to blab!" hissed the duke; -and Boon could not help thinking of the anger of a rattlesnake with -laryngitis. "A slight nick in the jugular and they'll bleed away -painlessly. Just before the end they will begin to dream. By------, I'll -do it! Right now!" - -The duke pulled out a barber's razor, opened it, and approached Boon. - -Something about his manner told the jeweler that this creature was about -to cut their throats as much for the pleasure of it as because of -the supposed safety. It was confirmed when the masked fiend wheezed, -malignantly: - -"It's sterilized!" - -Mr. Boon was suddenly conscious of an extreme cold, as if he had been -thrown naked into an ice-cave. On Pierce's face, grown gray, the sweat -stood in a microscopic dew. Gaylord's florid face was livid and tense; -J. Sumner Storrs had closed his eyes and seemed asleep, but the breath -whistled unpleasantly through his nostrils. - -"Stop!" said the colonel so sharply that the duke turned like a -flash--to look into the barrel of a blue-steel automatic. - -"Drop the razor, old chap! I can't let you kill the beggars in cold -blood. Upon my soul, I can't, you know!" His head was jerking and -twisting at a furious rate, but the revolver was as steady as a rock. - -"It's our only chance. It won't hurt them. They won't feel it any more -than a feather--it's so sharp," whispered the black-masked devil. - -"Drop it, I say!" said the colonel, peremptorily. They heard a gritting -of teeth from behind the mask as the duke closed the razor and dropped -it on the floor. Still covering his accomplice, the colonel put his foot -on the weapon. "Thanks, old chap!" he said, pleasantly. At that very -moment he could have capitalized the gratitude of the ten prisoners at -many thousands. - -"Fool!" came in a husky whisper. - -"Oh, now! I say!" - -"What's the difference between twenty years in the pen and twenty -seconds in the electric chair? I myself prefer the chair. But I'd rather -cut their throats and keep out of danger. I tell you, it's tempting -Providence to leave these men--" - -"Is it as much as twenty years, old fellow?" queried the colonel, -obviously perturbed. - -The duke nodded. - -"I say, gentlemen, I don't want to stay twenty years indoors, you know. -Really, it's not a pleasant thought. What? If I give you your lives you -must not take away my liberty. So I will go out now and leave you here -with my friend, unless you promise not to tell the police anything that -will serve as a clue and yourselves do nothing to harm us. If you -will act like gentlemen I'll undertake to prevent my friend here from -severing your respective jugulars. Nod for 'Yes' and shake your heads -for 'No.' Promise not to talk?" - -Ten heads nodded vehemently. - -"Come, old chap; you must take their words. Gentlemen, you will be -released this evening without fail. We must have time to leave New York. -Avoid the reporters as you would the plague. It would not be wise to -publish the facts! Think of it--the heads of the great firms! In parting -from you, gentlemen, I wish to thank you in behalf of the Plunder -Recovery Syndicate, to the success of whose operations you have in this -instance so generously contributed. Gratitude surely is not incompatible -with business methods. Gentleman, again I say, Thank you kindly, and-- -why not?--_au revoir!_" - -And that was the last the captives saw of the man who, on behalf of -the Plunder Recovery Syndicate, had reduced the holdings of pearls and -trinkets of New York's most famous jewelers by a trifle over one million -dollars' worth. - -It was nearly closing-time--midnight--that night when two men entered P. -T. Ayres's corner drugstore. One of them wore a fur overcoat and a silk -hat. The other was dressed in black, had a mourning-band about his hat, -and wore black gloves. He carried a bag on which the sleepy lady cashier -saw the "L" and the cabin tags of a transatlantic line. The man in black -said to her: - -"May this gentleman telephone for me, miss? My throat is in pretty bad -shape, and I don't want to use it." - -It was in bad shape, indeed. She could hardly hear him. - -"But, I say, dear chap--" remonstrated the fur-coated man, whose collar -was so tight that he wiggled his head violently as if in search of -comfort. - -"This is as good a place as any," whispered the man in black, -impatiently. "Call 'em up! I say, miss, have you got any slippery elm or -some kind of troches good for laryngitis?" - -She remembered afterward that when she said she would call the -proprietor he kept her from it by engaging her in conversation, which -likewise prevented her from trying to hear what his companion was -saying. - -The fur-coated man had called up Spring 3100, which is police -headquarters. - -"Are you there? I say, are you there? Yes, I know this is not London. -You know Mr. Pierce and Mr. Storrs and Mr. Boon and Mr. Gaylord? Well, -tell your men they are in a residence on Fifth Avenue, in the servants' -dining-room. It's Colonel Walton's house. Right-O! That's not your -business. Go to the devil!" He came out of the booth with an angry face. -"Confound their impudence! Where is my friend?" - -"He's gone," said the cashier. "Here--come back and pay for that call; -five cents!" - -The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of -the whereabouts of the missing jewelers--for whom the star men had been -searching six hours diligently and secretly--and then tried, through the -telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which -the "tip" had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason -Ayres's drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his -ignorance had disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. -The detectives said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and -their construction. - -The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the -jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because -it was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As -a matter of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the -miscreants shortly--for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth -Avenue? - -The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their -lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and -the fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the -back of his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. -The Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated -with the _Ruritania_ by wireless, and asked the purser if among the -passengers were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years -of age, with paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute -laryngitis, and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a -nervous affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. -Within twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: "St. Vitus -here, under name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis." - -So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted -with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of -Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's -clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J. -Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request -than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas -W. Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of -introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The -New York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they -were on the right trail. - -Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the -American Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering -Willie, who had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris -police reported that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the -scar on his hand vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew -normal when questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story -of having been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask -in a whisper for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office -on February 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer -bade him good-by on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his -hand and told him always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the -description of Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police -found that the whisperer's trail led a second time to the _Herald_ -office. The clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very -well indeed. Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the -police they had rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. -J. C. Atkinson, an Englishman who had given as references a firm of -international bankers on whom his letter of credit for five thousand -pounds was drawn. The bankers knew nothing about him personally or -socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the entire five thousand pounds. He had -occupied the house two months, paid his rent promptly, and had given -a satisfactory deposit against possible damage happening to any of the -furniture. - -The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues -that merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the -paralyzed vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling -himself W. W. Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. -Longworth, alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman -was not known to any member of the New York police force, but -fortunately he had a nervous affliction which would betray him without -recourse to the third degree. - -Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from -New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, -and Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, -typewritten on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton: - -_Having disposed of the pearls of the Princess Patricia at a price only -eight per cent, below that at which you offered them to H. R. H. the -Duke of Connaught, we beg to suggest that it is a waste of money for you -to encourage the detectives and downright dishonesty for the detectives -to encourage you. You have caused to be arrested unfortunate men -suffering from chorea in Liverpool, Bremen, Genoa, Buenos Ayres, and -Panama, as well as Mr. W. W. Lowry in Paris and W. W. Longman in the -City of Mexico. For the last eleven months Whispering Willie has been -in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he is Number 317. Our Colonel -Lowther has not St. Vitus's dance, is not an Englishman, and has not -left New York! The Duke of Connaught, otherwise W. W. Lovell, of the -Acme Vibrator Company, has a fine, strong barytone voice, has no scar on -the back of his right hand, is too young to have gray hair, and his nose -is not what it was when he was known as Mr. Lovell. We needed time to -move about unwatched in New York, hence the elaborate false clues. We -always plan our deals carefully and we are uniformly successful. We may -inform you, in selfdefense, that we operate only on the rich enemies -of society. Pearls and diamonds have ruined as many women as drink has -ruined men or Wall Street has destroyed souls! We regard them as plunder -to be recovered. You may be interested to know that we propose to -induce one of our most famous high financiers to contribute a couple of -millions to our surplus this month. At the proper time we shall supply -the name and the particulars, in order that you may compare notes with -the other patrons of_ - -_Yours truly,_ - -_The Plunderers._ - -The jewelers were inclined to regard the letter as a jest in very bad -taste perpetrated by one of their number. But all denied it, and the -communication was turned over to the police. The detective sergeant who -was in charge of the case also thought the letter was a joke--until -Mr. Boon told him he didn't see anything funny in the loss of a million -dollars' worth of gems and a score of false arrests. He wondered, like -the rest, whether there really was a syndicate, and presently found -himself waiting for the news of the second exploit. "He fooled _me_" -Boon confided to Donnelly. But what he really meant was that the man who -impersonated the private secretary of the Duke of Connaught could fool -anybody. - - - - -II-THE PANIC OF THE LION - - - -I - -A MAN walked into the office of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and -brokers, members of the New York Stock Exchange. All he could see was -a ground-glass partition, with little windows only a trifle larger than -peepholes, over which he read, "deliveries," "comparisons," "telegrams," -and "cashier." If you had business to transact you knew at which window -to knock. If you had not you should not disturb the unseen clerks by -asking questions that took valuable time to answer. It was a typical, -non-communicative, non-confiding Wall Street office. - -The man approached the "cashier" window because it was open. He was -tall and well built, with unmyopic eyes that looked through -tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses. The brim of his high hat, the cut of his -coat, the hang of his trousers, the hue of his necktie and the gray, -waxed, needle-pointed mustaches proclaimed him unmistakably Parisian. - -"I wish to see Mr. Richards," he said, in a nasal voice, so like the -twang of a stage Yankee that the cashier frowned and twisted his neck to -see if some down-easter were not hiding behind the Frenchman. - -"You what?" asked the cashier, and looked watchful. - -"I wish to see," repeated the stranger, with a formal precision meant, -to be rebuking, "Mr. George B. Richards, senior member, I believe, of -this firm." - -The cashier, with a frown that belied the courtesy of his words, said: - -"Would you be kind enough to tell me the nature of your business, sir?" - -Gourley, the cashier, insanely hated book agents, and his one pleasure -in life consisted of violently ejecting them from the office. When a man -clearly established his innocence Gourley never forgave him for cheating -him out of the kicking. - -The stranger said, very slowly: - -"The nature of my business with Mr. Richards is private, personal, and -urgent!" - -The stranger might, be a customer, and customers make brokers rich and -give wages to cashiers. - -"Mr. Richards is very busy just now, sir, with an important conference. -It would be a favor if you could let me have your name." - -"He doesn't know me and he has never heard my name." - -"Would any one else do?" - -The stranger shook his head. Then: - -"Say to Mr. Richards that a gentleman from Paris wishes to give to -him--personally--ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one -life secret." The man's gaze was fixed frowningly on Gourley. - -"Ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret!" -repeated Gourley, dazedly. "Here, Otto. Hold the fort. I'll go myself." - -The cashier's place was promptly occupied by a moon-faced Teuton. -Presently Gourley, whose misanthropy had in this instance merely made -an office-boy of him, returned to the window and said, in the insolent -tones of a puglistic _agent provocateur_: - -"He says to send in the letters of introduction." - -"My friend," said the stranger, so impressively that the cashier was -made uneasy, "are you sure Mr. Richards said that?" - -"Well--ah--he said," stammered Gourley, "to ask you--er--would you -please send in the letters. He will read them, and as soon as possible -he will--ah--see you." - -"H'm!" muttered the stranger, skeptically. Then, as a man rids himself -of angry thoughts, he shook his head and, without another word, went -out. - -"Ha! I knew it all along," said Gourley, triumphantly, to his assistant, -Otto. "It beats the Dutch what schemes these damned book agents get up -to see people during business hours. But I called his bluff that time!" - -Less than ten minutes later the French-looking man with the down-east -voice opened the door, tapped at the cashier's window, and told Gourley, -sternly: - -"Here are the ten letters and the one card. They are very important! -I'll be obliged, sir, if you will yourself give them into Mr. Richards's -own hands. The life secret I, of course, will impart to him myself. Make -haste, please. I have only five business days and three hours left." - -Gourley laid the letters on Mr. Richards's desk and said, in the -accusing tone old employees use when they are in the wrong: "Here are -the letters of introduction from the book agent I spoke to you about. He -acts damned impudent to me, but I didn't want to make any mistake." - -Richards, a man of fifty, fastidiously dressed, but relieved from even -the implication of foppishness by a look in his eyes at once shrewd and -humorous, said, with a smile, "Well, he certainly has enough letters to -be anything, even a rich man." - -"Funny letters of introduction," said the cashier--"all sealed and--" -His jaw dropped. That made him cease talking. - -Mr. Richards had taken from the first envelope not a letter, but a -ten-thousand-dollar gold certificate! - -The cashier closed his mouth with a click. "What the--!" he muttered. - -"Next!" said George B. Richards, cheerfully. He opened envelope number -two and pulled out another ten-thousand-dollar bill. One after another -he opened the letters until he had laid in a neat pile on his desk ten -ten-thousand-dollar notes. - -"The letters of introduction are from the Treasury Department," said -Richards, laughing. "Now let us see whom the card is from." - -"I don't care whom the card is from. I know the man is crazy," -said Gourley, in the defiant tone of one who expects not logic, but -contradiction. "It is as plain as the nose on your face." - -"Maybe they are counterfeit," teased Richards; he knew they were not. - -The cashier snatched one from the desk, looked at the vignette of -Jackson, and examined the back. "It's good," he said, gloomily. - -Richards opened the eleventh envelope and took out a card. - -"From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet," he told Gourley, and read -aloud: - -_Dear George,--The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France, a -friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some -highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you. -Deal with him as you do with_ - -_Yours,_ - -_Amos F. Kidder._ - -"Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've -signed the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. -Those fellows," said the cashier, indignantly, "will do anything to get -your money." - -"You forget I've got his," suggested Richards. - -"That's a new one on me, I admit," said the cashier; "but I'll bet a -ten-spot--" - -"I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if -Kidder should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him." - -The waxed-mustached man, preceded by Otto, the moon-faced clerk, entered -the private office of Mr. George B. Richards, who rose and smiled -pleasantly even as his keen eyes quickly inventoried Mr. Robison. - -"Mr. Richards?" twanged the stranger. That Yankee voice issuing from -between those unmistakably French mustaches made Richards start; and yet -the vague atmosphere of disquietude and suspicion that the ten letters -of introduction had created seemed to be dispelled by the man's Yankee -twang. It was so genuinely down-east that it humanized Mr. Robison and -made his eccentricity less eccentric. Also, the eyes gleamed not with -the fire of insanity, but with a great earnestness. - -"Yes. And this is Mr. Robison?" - -"Yes, sir!" Mr. Robison bowed very low, like a man who has lived abroad -many years. - -"Won't you be seated, sir?" - -"Thank you, sir." There was another bow of gratitude, and Mr. Robison -sat down by Richards's flat-topped desk. - -"What can we do for you, Mr. Robison?" asked Richards, amiably polite. -His course of action would be determined by the stranger's own words. - -"You can help me if you will." Mr. Robison spoke very earnestly, after -the manner of strong, self-reliant men when they ask for favors. - -"We shall be glad to if you will tell me how." - -"By being patient. That's how." - -Richards laughed uncertainly. Mr. Robison held up a hand as if to check -unseemly merriment and said, very seriously: - -"I have lived alone too long to be politic or diplomatic or evasive. I -wish to ask you a question." - -"Ask ahead," said Richards, with an encouraging recklessness. - -"Tell me, Mr. Richards--what is the most difficult thing in the world?" - -Mr. Robison was looking intently at the broker's face, as if he -particularly desired to detect any change in expression. This intentness -disconcerted Richards, who had at first intended to answer jocularly. He -now said, distinctly apologetic: - -"There are so many very difficult things!" - -"Yes, there are--a great many indeed. But of all things, which is by far -the most difficult?" His eyes held Richards's. - -"I shall have to think a little before I can answer that question." - -"Take all the time you wish!" and Mr. Robison leaned back in his chair, -his attitude somehow suggesting a Gibraltar-like ability to withstand a -three years' siege. - -It made Richards do much thinking very quickly: Here was a man who was -not crazy; who had lying on the desk a hundred thousand dollars in cash -to which he had not even casually referred; who probably intended to do -business that would prove a source of profit to the firm of Richards & -Tuttle. He might be a crank or a crook, but against either contingency -the firm could and would protect itself. It was just as well to humor -this man until he proved himself unworthy of humoring. The problem of -the moment, therefore, became how to raise the siege politely. - -"I suppose," began Richards, trying to look philosophical, "that telling -the truth always and every-, where is about as difficult a thing as--" - -"It isn't a question," interrupted Robison, with a polite regret, "of as -difficult a thing as any, but of the most difficult of all!" - -"I am afraid I'll have to ask you to tell me what you consider the most -difficult thing in the world." - -Brokers have to earn their money in more complicated ways than by -shouting "Sold!" or "Take it!" on the floor of the Stock Exchange. They -have to listen to potential customers. - -"The most difficult thing in the world, Mr. George B. Richards, is for -a man to give money--in cash--to a woman who is not his wife or his -mistress or a blood-relation or a pauper!" - -"That _is_ difficult!" acquiesced the broker. - -"It is what I have to do. That is why I am here." - -"You mean you wish us to give this money--" - -"No--no! How can you, pray, give money to a lady any better than I?" - -"I wondered," said Richards, patiently. He was beginning to fear that -Robison might be one of those mysterious people out of whom no money is -to be made. - -"Would you mind hearing my story?" Mr. Robison looked at Richards -pleadingly. - -"Not at all," politely lied the broker. - -"There is a lady in New York--to be explicit, an old sweetheart--" Mr. -Robison paused, bit his lip, looked away, bit his lip again and cleared -his throat loudly. He did all these things so untheatrically that they -thrilled the keen-eyed Wall Street man. Presently Mr. Robison went on -in that Yankee nasal voice of his that somehow sounded like the extreme -antithesis of sentiment: "The only woman I ever loved! I have never -married! She did--unfortunately; and now, this girl, this woman, -accustomed to every comfort and every refinement, has to earn her own -living! She has five children and she is earning her living!" He rose -and walked up and down the office like a caged wild animal. Then he -sat down again and said, determinedly, "Of course I simply have to do -something for her!" - -"I appreciate your position," said Richards, tenderly. He was a very -good stock-broker. - -"Thank you. You cannot imagine what she was to me! I came to America to -find her. I have found her. I wish to give her money or securities that -will insure a comfortable income, and I have to do it circuitously. I'd -give half a million to anybody who killed her damned husband! Yes, I -would!" He looked at Richards with a wild hope in his eyes. He calmed -himself with an obvious effort and proceeded: "Knowing her as I do, and -because of--of certain circumstances of our early affair, I know she -will never accept any help directly from me. Last night I was calling -on her. Other friends of hers were present, among them a man who called -himself a lawyer. His name is W. Bailey Jackson. Know him?" - -"No, I don't. I think I've heard of him, though." Richards lied from -sheer force of professional habit. - -"Well, I led the conversation round to Wall Street and incidentally said -I didn't know which was easier for a man, to be a fool or to make money -in the stock-market. I, myself, I hastened to add, had always found -folly extremely easy--but successful stock speculation infinitely -easier. That, I may remark to you in passing, sir, is gospel truth." - -"You are right," agreed Richards, heartily. It did not behoove a -stock-broker to point out the difficulty of making money in Wall Street. -Moreover, Mr. Robison showed so quiet a confidence that Richards had -lightning flashes of memory, and recollected every story he had ever -heard about queer characters who had taken millions out of the Street. - -"This Mr. W. Bailey Jackson jeered and sneered, however, until I said I -would bet him fifty dollars to fifty cents that I could double a sum -of money in the Street in one week, in a reputable broker's office, -operating on the New York Stock Exchange in a reputable and active -stock--no bucket-shop, no mining-stock, and no pool manipulation. But -I made this point: The trick was so easy that it was not interesting. -I didn't wish to do it to make money, but if Mrs.--if my friend would -accept the profits, I would prove that I knew what I was talking about; -and, besides, would keep the children in candy for a month. And, of -course, everybody laughed and urged her to consent--especially the -Jackson person. In the end she gave in, doubtless thinking I'd win a few -dollars--if I won at all. Also my offer was accepted in the presence and -by the advice of men and women who could stop Mrs. Grundy's mouth." - -"Very clever!" said Richards, with the enthusiasm of a man who sees -commissions coming his way. - -"It was love that made me so ingenious," explained. Mr. Robison, very -simply. "I've got her written acceptance in my pocket as well as that -damned W. Bailey Jackson's bet, duly witnessed by the two gossipiest -women there. And in this envelope you will find instructions for your -guidance in case of my sudden death. So I now wish to double the money." - -He looked inquiringly at Richards, who thereupon felt the pangs of -disappointment. Neither crank nor crook, decided the broker, but simply -_Suckerius Americanus; genus_ D. F. - -Mr. Robison evidently was going to ask Richards & Tuttle to take the -one hundred thousand dollars and double it for him, which meant that Mr. -Richards would have to inform Mr. Robison that the firm was not in the -miracle business; and that would make Mr. Robison go away mad. Total--no -commissions! - -"Well," Richards said, just a trifle coldly, "did you come to us to ask -us to double your money for you?" - -"No, indeed," answered Robison; "I came here to do it." - -"When?" - -"In one week--or, rather, in five days and two hours." - -"How are you going to do it?" The broker's curiosity was not feigned. - -"I propose to study the Menagerie." - -Richards said nothing, but looked "Lunatic!" - -"That way inevitably suggests the combinations to you." Mr. Robison -nodded to himself. - -Richards, to be on the safe side, did likewise and muttered, absently, -"That's so!" - -"Do you care to come with me?" asked Mr. Robison, with a politeness that -betrayed effort. "Thank you, no. I am very busy, and--" - -"And you didn't cut me short!" said Robison, his voice ringing with -remorse. "I'll come in tomorrow morning. Good afternoon--and please -forgive my theft of your time, Mr. Richards." - -"One moment. Do you wish this money--" - -"I'll get the receipt to-morrow. I am going to see Kidder now. I didn't -mean to take up so much of your time." And before the banker could stop -him Mr. James B. Robison was out of the inner office and out of the -outer office and out of the building and out of the financial district. - -Shortly afterward Amos F. Kidder, financial editor of the _Evening -Planet_, west into Richards's office. He was thirty-five years old, a -trifle under six feet, had light-brown hair and the eyes of a man who -is a cynic by force of experience and an optimist by reason of a perfect -liver--the kind of man who is fooled by strangers never and by intimate -friends always. If what he had seen of Wall Street gave him a low -opinion of men's motives he had the defect of steadfast loyalty. Having -imagination and a profound respect for statistics, he wrote what might -be called skilful articles on finance. - -"Your friend Robison was here to-day. What do you know about him?" asked -Richards. He would not take a stranger's account, but he did not relish -losing an account he already had. - -Kidder took a letter from his pocket, gave it to the stock-broker, and -said: - -"Smiley gave him a letter to me and in addition sent me that one by -mail." - -Richards read: - -The New York Planet, 5 Rue de Provence. - -Paris, February 18, 1912. - -_Dear Kidder,--I've given a letter of introduction to a Mr. James B. -Robison, who comes originally from some manufacturing town in -Massachusetts, like Lynn or Lowell--I've forgotten which. He is well -liked by the colony here and, I am told, has been kind to poor art -students and other self-deluded compatriots. He is queer; is suspected -of being rich--which he must be because he never borrows, lives well, -and says moneymaking is too easy to merit discussion when men can -discuss the eternal feminine or the revival of cosmetics. His trip to -New York is prompted, he tells me, by the receipt of a letter from an -old flame of his whom he warned against marrying her present husband. -She would not listen to Robison, accused him in choice Bostonian of -being a short sport, and now after long years she writes him, asking for -forgiveness, being at last convinced that her husband is all that -Robison said--and then some. He is off to try to find her; she is -somewhere in New York. Put him in touch with some private detective who -won't rob him too ruthlessly._ - -_I don't think he'll want to borrow money, as I know he is taking a -letter of credit on Towne, Ripley & Co. for fifty thousand pounds; and -they told me at his bankers'--Madison & Co.--that he owns slathers of -gilt-edged bonds and that they cash the coupons for him. They also tell -me he carries more cash about him than is prudent. You might suggest -to him that the New York banks are safe enough. You'll find him a -character--odd but charitable. Knowing your fondness for fiction in real -life I commend Mr. Robison to you. Regards to the boys. Why don't you -make a million and come over to spend it in the company of Yours as -ever,_ - -Lurton P. Smiley. - -Richards handed the letter back. "He came here with ten -ten-thousand-dollar gold certificates." - -"Yes; he got 'em from Towne, Ripley & Co. I went with him. They had -instructions to pay any amount he might call for, and they did. He asked -for large bills." - -"He got 'em!" said Richards, greatly relieved at seeing no necessity why -he should refuse Robison's account. - -"What's he going to do?" asked Kidder. - -"I don't know. He told me he had found his old sweetheart and that he is -going to give her all he makes in Wall Street. He expects to double the -one hundred thousand dollars in a week." - -"For Heaven's sake, George, find out his secret! Half a million will do -for me," laughed Kidder. - -"He gave me an envelope," said Richards, taking it from his desk. On it -was written: - - -PROPERTY OF JAMES B. ROBISON - -To be Opened by Richards & Tuttle In Case of Sudden Death - - -"What do you think?" asked Richards. - -"You really mean do I advise you to open it, don't you?" asked Kidder.. - -"Not exactly; but--" - -"Of course," said the newspaper man, "it does not say it is _not_ to -be opened in case of _living_. That is sufficient excuse--that and your -curiosity." - -"I don't like to open it," said Richards, doubtfully. - -"Don't!" - -"Still, I'd like to know what's inside." - -"Then open it." - -"I don't think I have a right to." - -"Don't, then!" - -"Oh, shut up! I won't open it! I don't know whether to take the account. -You don't know anything about this man--" - -"You broker fellows make me tired--posing as careful business men. All -Robison has to do is to go to any of your branch offices or anybody's -branch office, say his name is W. Jones and that he keeps a cigar-store -in Hackensack or Flatbush, and your branch manager will never let him -get away. And afore-mentioned manager will swear, if you should be -so mean as to ask who W. Jones is, that he and W. J. went to school -together--known him for years!" - -"After all," said Richards, a trifle defiantly, "there is no reason why -I shouldn't do business for Robison that you know of?" - -"Not that I know of--but if he buncoes you out of a big wad don't blame -me." - -"He is welcome to anything he can make out of us," smiled Richards, -grimly, and Kidder laughed so heartily that the broker looked pleased -with himself and his witticism. He rang for the cashier, gave him the -one hundred thousand dollars, and had the amount credited to James B. -Robison, address unknown. - - - -II - -After leaving the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. James B. Robison -went to the Subway station at Wall Street, rode up-town as far as -Forty-second Street, walked to Sixth Avenue, took a surface car, jumped -off at Forty-eighth, walked to Forty-ninth, waited there for the next -car, and, being certain he was not shadowed, rode on to Fifty-sixth -Street. He got off, walked north on the avenue and, half-way up the -block, paused at the entrance of the employment agency of "_Jno. -Sniffens, Established 1858_." On the big slate by the door he read that -there was wanted a coachman--careful driver; elderly man preferred. - -He walked up-stairs one flight and accosted the agent. - -"Good morning, Sniffens." - -"Good morning, Mr. Maynard," answered Sniffens, son of the original -Jno., very obsequiously. - -"Are they here?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"How many?" - -"Seven." - -"I've seen fifty-six so far--haven't I?" - -"No, sir," contradicted Sniffens with the air of a man who will tell the -truth even if death should resuit. "Fifty-five. You forget you saw the -Swede twice." - -"That is true, Sniffens. You are an honest man! Here!" And he gave ten -dollars to the agent. "Send in the men." - -He sat down in the inner office and Sniffens went out, presently to -return with an elderly man. "This is Wilkinson--worked twenty-nine -years--" - -"Sorry. Won't do. Here, my man! Take this two-dollar bill for your -trouble. Next!" - -Much the same thing happened with the next four applicants. The fifth -man, however, made Robison listen patiently while Sniffens finished his -elaborately biographical introduction. The man's name was Thomas Gray; -age fifty-eight; worked twelve years for General James Morris and -fourteen for Stuyvesant R. Morris. Very careful. Excellent references. -Morris family went abroad to live. Gray had not done anything for five -years, but was willing and anxious to work. - -Robison, who had been studying Gray keenly, said sharply, and not at all -nasally: - -"Height and weight?" - -"Five foot eleven and a half inches; one hundred and seventy pounds, -sir." - -"Deaf?" - -"No, sir." - -"No?" - -"No, sir; but I don't hear as well as I did." - -"Can you hear this?" And Robison whispered, "Constantinople!" - -"Beg pardon, sir!" Gray looked at Mr. Robison's face intently, but -Robison shook his head and said: - -"No fair looking! That isn't hearing, but lipreading. Close your eyes -and listen!" And he whispered, "Bab-el-Mandeb!" No one could have heard -him three feet away and Gray was across the room. Robison raised his -voice and said, "Did you hear that?" - -There showed in Gray's blue eyes a pathetic struggle between telling the -truth and getting the job. "I--I only heard a faint murmur, sir." - -"Try again. Listen!" Mr. Robison moved his lips soundlessly and asked, -"What did I say, Gray?" The old man drew in a deep breath. It was not so -much the money, for the Morris family gave him a pension; but he wished -to feel that he was not yet useless, that he was still worth his keep. -However, he shook his head and said, determinedly: - -"I heard nothing." - -"Open your eyes! You get the job, Gray," said Mr. Robison. "Come here!" - -As Gray approached his new employer Sniffens left the room. - -"You are not to tell any one for whom you are working, or where, or why, -or for how long, or for what wages. There will be no night work. Are you -very careful?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"You'll have to take some children to school every day--poor children to -a public school in the morning. You are not to ask their names. Do what -you are told, no matter how queer it seems to you, so long as you are -not asked to break the law of the land or the rules of the road." - -"Very good, sir." - -"I shall send people to ask you questions, and I warn you that I'm going -to put you to various tests. I want a man who is honest enough to trust -with valuables, wise enough to mind his own business, and faithful -enough to do what his employer tells him." - -"Yes, sir." - -"Until you prove you are the man I want you will be paid by the -day--five dollars. You will feed yourself and sleep home. I supply -the livery and a second man. If after one month's trial you are found -satisfactory you will get your wages by the month. It's big wages, but I -want an honest man!" He looked at Gray sternly. - -"Yes, sir. I'm careful and honest, sir. I think you will find that to be -true, sir." - -"I trust so. The stable is on Thirty-first Street, near Avenue B. Here -is the number." He gave a card to Gray. "Be there at eight sharp. You -will drive a coupé; quiet horse; New York City." - -"Yes, sir. I'll be there, sir." - -"Here's five dollars for you. You don't have to pay any fee to Sniffens. -I've paid him." - -"Thank you, sir. Good day, sir." - -At seven-thirty the next morning Gray was at the stable. It was not -a very good-looking place. He rang the bell, feeling vaguely -uncomfortable. No one answered. He rang a second and a third time, and -still there was no answer. He listened, his ear close to the door. He -heard the muffled sound of a horse pounding in a well-littered stall. - -At eight o'clock--Gray heard a clock within chime the hour--the door -opened. Gray entered. A man was hitching up a dark bay horse to a coupé. -Mr. Robison was sitting in a sumptuous green-plush armchair in the -carriage-room. Behind him, on a mahogany table, was a small valise, -opened. - -"Good morning, Gray," said Robison. - -"Good morning, Mr. Maynard," said Gray, respectfully. - -Robison took a clean white-linen handkerchief from his pocket and said: - -"See that brick over there?" He pointed to a common red brick on a -little shelf near the street door. - -"Yes, sir." - -"Well, wrap it up in this handkerchief--here on this table. No--don't -dust it. Just as it is!" He watched Gray's face keenly. The old man's -countenance remained English and impassive. - -"Put it in the valise." - -"Yes, sir." - -"In yonder box you'll find some tenpenny nails. Fetch three and wrap -them up in the sheet of paper you'll find in the valise. Then lay them -on top of the brick." - -Gray did as he was bid. If he thought his employer was crazy he did not -look it. - -Robison then took from his pocket a sealed envelope, threw it into the -valise, and closed the valise. - -"You will find your livery in the dressing-room--door to your left. Put -it on. Then drive so as to be before 197 West Thirty-eighth Street at -exactly nine minutes after nine. Compare your watch with that clock. -Wait there--Thirty-eighth Street--until a footman in dark-green livery -comes out alone. If he asks you, 'James, did Ben win?' you will say -to him, 'The answer is inside. Take it!' You will then return to this -stable, fasten the horse to that chain, put on your street clothes, go -home, and return to-morrow at eight sharp. But--" He paused. - -"Yes, sir." - -"Pay attention, Gray! If, instead of the servant alone, the servant -comes out of, 197 West Thirty-eighth Street accompanied by a gentleman -who gets in, you will drive him to my office." - -"Where, sir?" - -"This is my office--here. You will drive back here quickly and disregard -everything your passenger may say or whatever orders he may give you. -You understand? These are your orders that I now give you. They are not -to be changed under any circumstances, no matter what happens. Have you -understood?" - -"Yes, sir. I'll follow orders, Mr. Maynard." - -"See that you do." And Mr. Robison walked out of the stable. - -At nine-nine sharp Gray stood in front of 197 West Thirty-eighth Street. -At nine-fifteen a footman in dark-green livery came out of the house. -He was followed by Mr. Robison himself. The man opened the door of the -carriage and Gray's employer got in. - -"Will you go to the office, sir?" asked the footman. Gray heard him. - -"No! Metropolitan Museum!" answered their master, distinctly. - -"Metropolitan Museum!" said the footman to the coachman. - -Gray was torn by doubt, anger, and fear. Should he drive to the -Metropolitan or back to the stable? - -He decided to go back to the stable. If he were discharged he would not -regret losing so unsatisfactory a job. If, on the other hand, driving -back should prove to be the right thing he would greatly strengthen his -position. - -He arrived at the stable, fastened the horse to the chain, and went to -change his clothes. He heard Mr. Robison tap on the glass of the door -and saw him beckon to him and then heard him shout, "Open the door!" But -Gray went to the dressing-room and changed his clothes. As soon as he -was done the second man came in, showed him two envelopes, and said: - -"You win! You get the ten dollars! I get the five-spot. That's how -he pays. You obeyed orders. You are the first man that's succeeded in -holding the job over one day. The Lord only knows what test Mr. Maynard -will prepare for you to-morrow! It may be the children's lunch stunt or -the runaway lunatic. Run out! Mr. Maynard won't like you to be here when -he comes in. You can go out into the street by that door without going -through the carriage-room." - -Gray put the ten dollars in his pocket and walked out. "Rum go, that!" -he muttered. It was indeed. He nodded his head with a sad sort of -triumph to show that though he had not solved the mystery he had at all -events grasped the situation and was, moreover, ten dollars to the good. - - - -III - -It was after the opening of the stock-market and most of the early -orders had been executed. The rush had given place to the calm -efficiency of a well-organized broker's office. Mr. Robison walked into -the Customers' Room, approached Gilbert Witherspoon, a valued customer, -touched his hat-brim with two fingers in the French military fashion, -and said: - -"Please, where's Mr. Richards?" His nasal twang and his Parisian -appearance produced the usual impression of striking incongruity upon -all men within hearing distance. Everybody frankly listened. - -"That's his private office," answered Witherspoon, non-committally, -pointing his finger at a door. - -"Thank you very much!" said Robison and bowed. Then he knocked, heard a -peremptory "Come in!" and disappeared within. - -Witherspoon, who cultivated a reputation as a wit--there is a buffoon in -every stock-broker's office--shrugged his shoulders Frenchily, and, in a -nasal voice obviously in imitation of Robison, said: - -"Another world-beater!" - -"You never can tell," retorted Dan McCormack, oracularly. He was fat, -always played "mysteries" in the market--traded in those stocks -the movements in which were unaccounted for--and he did not like -Witherspoon. - -Inside Mr. Robison had said "_Bon jour!"_ and bowed so very low that Mr. -Richards immediately thought of the language of a fashionable bill of -fare. - -"_Wie geht's?_" retorted Richards, jocularly. Then, nicely serious, -"How are you this morning?" - -"Don't I look it?" said Mr. Robison. "I am, of course, perplexed." - -"What's the trouble?" - -"The usual trouble when I try to beat the stock-market--_embarras de -richesses_." - -"It is an embarrassment that most people would welcome." - -"Tut! The more elaborate the menu is in a good restaurant the greater -your indecision as to which particular dish you will order! Well, I went -through the Menagerie!" There was a catarrhal despair in his voice. - -"Yes?" - -"And I am undecided between four." - -Robison looked anxiously at the broker, and Richards felt such an -annoyance as a man might feel if compelled at the point of a pistol to -listen to the reading of one hundred pages of the city directory. But he -smiled tolerantly, for he had the professional amiability indispensable -to men whose business consists of making money and of consoling clients -for losing money. - -"Four what?" he asked. - -"Four sure ways." - -"Which four?" asked Richards. He managed to convey both that he was -dying to listen and that the rest of the world did not exist for him. - -"The Ant, the Spider, the Beaver, and the Lion. Out of the nineteen -combinations in the Menagerie I've narrowed my choice to these four. You -know conditions better than I and probably have seen the Cribbage Board. -Have you a choice?" He looked at Richards so eagerly, and withal so -shrewdly and sanely, that in self-defense the broker said: - -"I can't say that I have. Of course I am bullish--" - -"Of course. But the question is: Which--in a week?" - -Richards had no idea what was meant by this man with the sane eyes who -said crazy things through his nose--a man who had one hundred thousand -dollars to his credit with the firm. Perplexed to the verge of -exasperation, Richards was stock-broker enough--when in doubt, -bluff!--to say, with a frown, "Yes, that's the question: Which--in a -week?" He shook his head as though he were trying to pick out the best -for his beloved Robison. - -"I never was so puzzled in my life, and I want you to know that I've -made money even in Rumanian bonds!" - -"I'm afraid I can't help you much." - -"What does the I. S. Board say?" - -"Mr. Robison, exactly what do you mean by the I. S. Board?" - -"What? You don't know the International Syndicate Cribbage Board! Then -how in Hades do you pick your combinations?" - -"We buy and sell stocks on our judgment of basic conditions or for -special reasons." - -"Ah, yes--like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess. Well, -_I_ don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full in a week. -Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with him. And -yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest corner -he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess we'll -dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger group." - -Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But -Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, -"I think you are right." - -Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: "The situation in the -Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the -Dam in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the -Rothschilds worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too -many people who have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all -this, but," he finished, with profound regret, "it _is_ such a cinch!" - -"Yes. But--" Richards shook his head in sympathy. He felt that he ought -to humor this man; moreover, business was quiet, and this man was -saying incomprehensible things that would be repeated by Richards, with -sensational success, at luncheons and dinners for weeks. - -"Of course, the Spider is the oldest stand-by. Personally I never liked -it. In the Governor Flower boom and, indeed, up to the Northern Pacific -panic, its popularity was due to John W. Gates. But do you know, Mr. -Richards, I have always believed that in the first two Steel and Wire -coups and in the Louisville & Nashville affair, Gates hit upon it by -accident. Else," pursued Mr. Robison, controversially, "why was he -pinched so badly in 1901 and again in 1907? He hit upon it, after he got -out of Federal Steel, by accident, I tell you! He was a man of genius -and courage, but it was all instinct with him. He was no student, -sir--no student!" - -"I've always said," observed Mr. George B. Richards, "that Gates was not -a student!" He glared, thereby successfully defying contradiction. - -"It leaves the Lion!" muttered Robison. "Should I try it? And which -Peg?" - -"I'd try it!" counseled Richards, who was not only intelligent, but had -a sense of humor. - -"Would you, really?" - -"Yes, I certainly would!" And the broker looked as if he certainly meant -it. - -"It's the Dutch favorite," said Robison, musingly. "And they are a very -clever people. You know Van Vollenhoven in his book says that once a -year, for thirteen consecutive years, the great Cornelius Roelofs, of -Amsterdam, made a million gulden in London by the Lion--the most hopeful -pessimist in the history of stock speculation! It comes easy to the -phlegmatic Hollanders, but Americans are too nervous to take kindly to -it. I once begged the late Addison Cammack to join me in a Lion deal, -but he didn't. He was not very well at the time. Anyhow, he was too -American." - -"Did you know him?" - -"Like a book! Dangerous man to follow! Cynicism sounds impressive, but -is wind. You don't win in the stock-market with catch phrases, but with -combinations." - -"Do you use charts?" - -"A stock speculator is not a navigator, but all commission-houses should -have a chart. With some customers, after you have exhausted every other -invitation, you can use the chart to get them trading. But not for us, -Mr. George B. Richards. I think you will soon realize that I am in this -affair not to lose money, but to make it. I shall, therefore, either -buy Dock Island, sell Middle Pacific, buy National Smelting, or sell -Consolidated Steel. I'll have a pad of special order-slips made so you -will not mistake my orders for those of any one else. You will execute -for me no order that is not written and signed by me on such a slip. -I'll keep up my margin. We'll operate on a ten-per-cent, basis; and -I hereby authorize you to sell me out when my margin is down to six -points. That gives you ample safety. It is really unnecessary, as I -never lose; but I always protect the broker. The sudden death by heart -disease of Baron Lespinasse in 1883 sent into bankruptcy the great -firms of La Croissade et Cie. and Mayer, Dreyfus et Cie., of Paris, -Ver-brugghe Frères, of Brussels, and about a dozen smaller houses. Mine, -to be sure, is a trifling operation, designed to supply a modest income -to an old flame. But I may--who knows?--decide to take a few millions -back with me. And your firm, Mr. Richards, will be my principal -brokers." - -Mr. Robison said this so impressively, so much as though he had made the -firm of Richards & Tuttle rich beyond the dreams of avarice, that George -B. found it easy to look grateful as he said, "Thank you, Mr. Robison." -It would be worth while watching this mysterious man, to see, first, if -he made money; and if he did, how! - -"I'll write it here and now. If my margins are down to six points at any -time close me out, for I shall have been mistaken, which is a sign I've -gone crazy; or I shall be dead, in which case protect yourself!" - -Mr. Robison wrote out the instructions, signed them, and gave them -to Mr. Richards. He must have noticed a look of uncertainty or -dissatisfaction on the broker's face, for he said: - -"I have no desire to pose before you as an unfailing winner, though I -assure you I seldom lose. It is not brains, but carefulness. If you -know nothing about the International Syndicate's information collecting -machinery, why, just take my word for it that there are people in this -world who don't work on the hit-or-miss plan. We don't eliminate all -possibilities of failure; we merely reduce them to a negligible minimum. -We cannot prevent all accidents, but we can and do foresee some of them. -This sounds crazy to you, I know--no, don't deny it!--but all I can say -is that your natural suspicions don't affect your kindness and courtesy, -and I am more grateful than I can say. Of course, my own operations -here will be conducted with your approval, in strict accordance with the -rules of the New York Stock Exchange." - -"Oh, I am sure I haven't doubted your sanity," said the broker, who had -been much reassured by Mr. Robison's look of frankness and earnestness -as he spoke. "I have merely suspected the depths of my own ignorance." - -"Your retort is both kind and clever. I thank you. I shall have to -borrow one of your clerks or office-boys between nine-forty and ten a. -m., to whom I may give my orders to bring to this office, and also ask -you to recommend to me some young man who is intelligent but honest, -wide awake but deaf to the ticker." - -"I beg your pardon?" - -"I shall need a young man who can watch certain developments and at the -crucial moment will hasten to me without stopping on the way to take -advantage in the stock-market of what he has learned while working for -me." - -"I shall let you have one of my own clerks. He'll do as he is told." - -"That is not always to be taken as praise--but I thank you. There will -be some telegrams come for me. Will you kindly see that they are held? -Good morning!" And he left the room. - -An hour later cablegrams and telegrams by the dozen began to come in for -Robison, care Richards & Tuttle. But Robison did not return to the -office until after the close of the stock-market. - -"Any messages?" he asked Richards. - -"Not over a hundred!" answered the broker, smilingly. He felt less -suspicious after the telegrams began to arrive; they were tools he -understood. - -"I used the Triple Three," explained Robison, opening telegram after -telegram; the cables he seemed to leave for the last. The telegrams -were, as Richards later ascertained, from San Francisco, Seattle, -Tacoma, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and other points west of -the Rockies. Each contained but one word, but always the word ended in -"less," such, for example, as Headless, Toothless, Tailless, Nerveless. -All were signed in the same way, to wit: Three-Three-Three. - -"No Beaver! I'm just as glad," Robison mused aloud and took up the -cablegrams. They were from London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and -Amsterdam. They were in code, but he seemed to have the key by heart. -The very last one made him thoughtful. - -He handed the cablegram absently to Richards and said, "The Lion after -all--and artificial at that!" He seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious -of his whereabouts, as Richards read: - -Robison, care Richtut: - -Mogulgar wind Lloyd Vast Nigger Shaw twice home urban sweet Edward. - -"Code, hey?" - -"Lion! Oh! Code, did you say? No. Code is too risky. Plain reading! Of -course I have more practice than you. Give it to one of your office-boys -to decipher. If he succeeds give him fifty dollars and charge it to my -account. But what I can't tell is the politics of it. Is it collusion, -philanthropy, or fear? Is it wise? After all, the unusual is not -necessarily dangerous. I shall double my money within four days and you -will make the commissions in a perfectly simple, legitimate way; and -you will think I am a pretty sane lunatic; and you will respect me for -having such sources of information; and if I can induce Mrs. Le--my -friend to take it, I'll make a million for her in a month, and you will -get the benefits accruing from having the market named after you--a -Richards & Tuttle market, the papers will call it. Thank you very much -for your kindness. I'll be down to-morrow before the opening. Good day, -sir!" - -And Mr. Robison left the office with a calm, confident look in his -face. Richards gazed after him, a look of perplexity on his own face. -Presently he shook his head. It meant that he gave up efforts to solve -the puzzle, but that he would wait until commissions began. - - - -IV - -From Richards & Tuttle's office Robison went to the nearest Western -Union office and gave a letter to the manager. - -"Send this at once! City editor, _Evening World_, Park Row. No answer. -How much?" - -The manager told him. Robison paid him and then went to the -Postal-Telegraph office and sent a message to the city editor, _Evening -Journal_. Inside of each envelope was a letter. Both read alike, as -follows: - -_Dear Sir,--Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good turn. -In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big piece of -news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things looked -pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his name. -He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot -ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore -eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking -cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving -Bank. Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being -good to me. Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and -promoter, is going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be -held for one hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to -him, because he will be sure to pay._ - -_Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it -and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, -but it will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance -relaxes, as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy -yan! Don't print anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of -Garrettson, his home, art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, -and corporations controlled by him, and so on. Keep this letter for -reference, and just before you throw it into the waste-basket remember -this: It costs you nothing; it commits you to nothing, involves no -expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no fool joke. Remember my -writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I shall send you if I -possibly can, so that you alone publish the news._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - -The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but -each made a mental note--in case! Also they did not "tip off" anybody. -They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson, because if -they acted on every freak missive they received half the city would not -sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great Garrettson. - -At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied -by an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed "From J. B. R., -for Richards & Tuttle," went to the Broad Street entrance of the New -York Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or -so it seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: "There -he is!" - -The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing -but hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so -disappointed that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, -"Who, sir?" - -"Nobody!" answered Mr. Robison, shortly. "Go back to the office and tell -Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me--the clerk with the -ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here." - -The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers. - -"Here is Mr. Manley," the office-boy told Mr. Robison. - -"Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office." - -The office-boy put the five-dollar bill in his pocket, said "Thank you" -in a voice celestial, and hurried away before the crazy Frenchman with -the Cape Cod voice discovered the size of the tip. To Manley, the clerk, -Mr. Robison said: - -"Look across the street--W. H. Garrettson & Co. You can see Mr. -Garrettson by the window. See him?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"Well, just you stay here and watch him; and if you see him do anything -unusual or if anything happens in Garrettson's office that you think -strange, run to our office and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. -Don't be afraid to say so if you think something unusual is going on, -because I tell you now that Mr. Garrettson never does anything unusual." - -"Yes, sir." - -"Now what would you call unusual?" - -"What would you?" - -"If a bareheaded man came out of the office, stood at the head of -the steps and threw an egg into the middle of the street, I'd call it -unusual." - -"So would I." - -"Especially if I went up to the smashed egg and found the insides were -of ink. It might be red ink or black." - -"That would be queer!" - -"Exactly. You watch. Go to lunch at twelve-thirty and be back at one. -Remember! Watch closely, and if anything unusual happens look carefully -and then come and tell me. Here's ten dollars for you." - -"Thank you, sir." - -"It's only a beginning," smiled Mr. Robison, promisingly. - -Manley, the clerk, put the money in his pocket and began to think he -might be able to buy the motorboat next spring if this business kept up. - -Between what Sweeney, the office-boy, suspected aloud and what Manley, -the clerk, confirmed the office force of Richards & Tuttle discussed Mr. -Robison with the zest of the deciding baseball game. - -Richards had confided to his intimates some of his experiences, and Amos -Kidder, the _Evening Planet_ man, was as interested in the mystery as -if he had not been the man who first let loose the flood of surmise by -introducing Robison to the brokers. - -Nothing happened on Tuesday more exciting than keeping tally on -the telegrams and cables received by Mr. Robison, which amounted to -thirty-seven in all. The object of so much conjecture--and hero of -the office-boy's improvised dime novel--spent the day in an arm-chair -looking at the blackboard, making elaborate calculations that convinced -other customers he must be a "chart fiend." At three o'clock sharp he -went home. - -He stopped long enough to send by messenger-boy a letter to the city -editor of the _Evening World_ and another to the city editor of the -_Evening Journal._ They bore the same message and said: - -_Refer to my letter of yesterday. To-night W. H. Garrettson goes to the -opera to see "The Jewels of the Madonna." He will leave the Metropolitan -in his automobile. In it will be his wife, his daughter, and his friend, -Harry Willett. And he will not arrive at his house--Lexington Avenue -and Thirty-eighth Street. Somewhere between the Opera House and his -residence he will vanish! It will be the most mysterious kidnapping -on record. Follow the Garrettson motor and have your reporters watch -carefully._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - -Whatever the city editors may have intended to do in the matter is of no -consequence, because at seven o'clock messages were received as follows: - -_Kidnapping of W. H. G. postponed. Will keep you posted._ - -_Grateful Friend._ - - - -V - -At nine-forty-five on Wednesday morning Mr. James B. Robison entered -the office of Richards & Tuttle, sought the senior partner, and said: - -"I shall both buy and sell Con. Steel--or possibly sell first and buy -later. The order clerk knows about my printed slips. The orders will go -to you first. If at any time you are worried about margin, remember to -tell me at once, because, as you know, I have not yet used half of my -letter of credit; and, besides, the cables are working. I'd like to see -Amos Kidder." - -"He's in his office." - -"Would you mind having some one telephone to him? Thank you." - -Mr. Robison promptly left the office, followed by his faithful attendant -Sweeney, the office-boy. They took their stand just north of the Broad -Street entrance of the Stock Exchange. - -It was not long before Amos Kidder, of the _Evening Planet_, who -had received the message, found Mr. Robison in the act of gazing -unblinkingly toward the Subtreasury. - -"Good morning, Mr. Robison." - -Mr. Robison started as if he had been rudely awakened out of a profound -reverie. - -"Oh! Kidder! How d'ye do? Ah, yes! Ah--I'd like you to dine with me and -a few friends--interesting people. You will--don't be offended!--you -will learn why all newspaper articles on the stock-market arouse mirth -among the people who pull the wires. What do you say?" - -"I say," replied Kidder, with a good-natured smile, "just this: When and -where?" His smile ceased. Mr. Robison had turned his back on his friend. -Kidder heard a nasal mumble and made out: - -"Here in eight minutes." - -"What do you mean?" - -"I shall learn if the Lion ate the man or if it's a case of another -day." - -"Mr. Robison, I don't understand--" - -"I beg your pardon. I was thinking of the old man who was seen in a -front seat at the circus every day. They asked him what he found so -interesting, and he said that some day the lion would eat the man and he -wanted to be a spectator. Well, one day he was sick. That day the lion -ate the lion-tamer. Well, I am here waiting to see Garrettson come out -of the cage." - -"Garrettson?" - -"The great W. H. Garrettson! I am planning a campaign in Con. Steel. -Garrettson's health is important. I must consider the state of his liver -as carefully as the condition of the iron trade, because it is not only -a question of the dividend rate, but of the price per share--not alone -an investment, but a speculation. You can't lose all your mills -and furnaces in one minute and you can't destroy all your customers -overnight; but Garrettson can die in a second!" - -"Of course that contingency has been provided for. His firm would -undoubtedly be on the job." - -"So would the undertaker. As a matter of fact everything to-day depends -upon the character of Garrettson's life. Have you ever stopped to think -of how much depends upon the character of his death?" - -"All deaths are alike. You talk like a novelist unaware of the resources -of a firm like Garrettson's." - -"And you talk like a plain ass or a bank president, my boy. Is there -no difference to the stock-market between the death of Garrettson by -pneumonia and his death by lynching at the hands of a thousand indignant -fellow-citizens? Stop and think." - -"Oh, well, that will never happen." - -"I cannot swear that it will, but you cannot guarantee that it never -will. Stranger things have come to pass. By Jingo! it's three minutes to -ten! Would it not be curious if something had happened?" - -"How do you mean?" - -"I have studied the great Garrettson and his habits, that I may, in -my operations in Con. Steel, know on what to bank and against what to -guard. He leaves his Lexington Avenue house every morning at nine and -arrives at his office not later than nine-fifty. He is like the clock. -All his life he has come down-town in his coupé, driven by a coachman -who has been in his employ thirty years. In this age of novelties -that old-fashioned coupé suggests a stability and solid respectability -comparable to _Founded 1732!_ on a firm's letter-head. However, just as -the wireless has introduced a new element into maritime life, so has the -automobile changed the character of street traffic. Do you remember the -case of James M. Barrier, the famous sculptor, smashed in his taxicab -on his way to his studio? You remember the insurance advertisements, -and how he carried a two-hundred-and-seventeen-thou-sand-dollar accident -policy? Well, it's ten o'clock. In one minute, if Garrettson is not -here, I shall sell short one thousand shares of Con. Steel. For each -delay of one minute, one thousand shares." - -Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed. - -"You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your -operation is of the kind that sounds wise." - -"How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A -fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five -or ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, -boy, rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall -need another boy besides you, for a few minutes only." - -Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand -shares of Con. Steel "at the market." - -"There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair," -observed Kidder, pleasantly. "In assuming that disaster has overtaken -Garrettson--" - -"I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What -the nature of it is I know not--nor whether it is capitalizable, sight -unseen. Here, boy!" Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison -sent the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of -Steel. Watch in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the -north. Kidder also looked up Nassau Street, expecting and--such, alas, -is human nature!--hoping to see Garrettson's familiar coupé. - -"Here, boy!" And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up -until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares. - -At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder: - -"Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder." - -"He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping--" - -"Well, that's a story! Any deviation from the normal is, even though it -may not be tragedy. The delay may mean--" - -"Nothing whatever," finished Kidder, a trifle exultingly. "There comes -Garrettson's carriage. I guess you'd better cover!" - -And the _Planet_ man laughed. - -"Kidder, you'll never be rich! Of course I shall not cover until I know -the reason for the delay. Make haste! I ought to take a good look at his -face. I want to see how he looks and notice how he walks up the steps -to the office. One glimpse of Harriman getting off the train once put a -cool quarter of a million in my pocket." - -"Stocks went up when he died. People sold them thinking--" - -"When you know a man is dying and you know that the rabble doesn't know -it, you don't always sell stocks short, Kidder," anticipated Robison, -with a gentle smile. - -"Hello!" said Kidder, and ran forward. - -Robison followed. The coupé had stopped before the door of the banking -firm's offices. The herculean private policeman in gray had hastened -to open the door of the chief's carriage and had staggered back as if -horrified by what he had seen. - -"Murdered!" thought the newspaper man in a flash. "What a story!" - -The policeman turned an alarmed face toward the coachman and asked: - -"Where's Mr. Garrettson?" - -"What!" Lyman, the coachman, who had been in Garrettson's employ -thirty-odd years, turned livid. He stared blankly at the big man in the -gray uniform. - -"He isn't here!" said Allcock, the policeman. Kidder and Robison heard -him. - -The coachman looked into the coupé. - -"Good God!" he muttered. - -"Are you sure he was inside?" asked Allcock. "Sure? Of course! There's -the newspapers. Look at the cigar-ashes on the floor." - -"Did you see him get in?" persisted the policeman. "Of course I saw him! -I heard him call to the footman, who was going back to the house without -leaving the newspapers." - -"And you didn't stop anywhere?" - -"No. I was delayed a little at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, and -again--" - -"Are you sure he didn't jump off?" - -"What would he be jumping off for?" queried the old coachman, irritably. -"And wouldn't I have heard the door slam? I can't account for it! My -God! Where's Mr. Garrettson? Where is he? Where is he?" He repeated -himself like one distraught. - -"Could he have jumped out without your knowing it?" queried Kidder. - -"Shut up, Jim. That's a reporter!" the policeman warned the coachman. -"Wait here and I'll tell Mr. Jenkins." - -The private policeman rushed into the bank, and rushed out, followed by -William P. Jenkins, junior partner of W. H. Garrettson & Company. - -"What is all this about?" Mr. Jenkins, who had been speaking in a sharp -voice to the coachman, caught sight of Kidder. Nothing concerning Mr. -Garrettson's whereabouts could be discussed by or before newspaper men. - -"Come with me, James," Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old -coachman. - -"Get on the job!" whispered Robison to Kidder. "Don't be bluffed. -You've got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a -lifetime!" - -Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's -eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great -financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but -all efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see -perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that -Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall -Street and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was, -moreover, fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary -say: "Mrs. Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about -nine-twenty in the carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the -footman helped him into the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I -said, 'Nothing that I know of.'" - -Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and -hastened back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the -coachman--a man above suspicion--was carried on by the other partners. - -Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the -patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin: - -_W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near -Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James -Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family -from boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. -He was smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily -newspapers. These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the -coupé when it reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, -where the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are -unable to say where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. -Garrettson is equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as -usual. The butler saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes -this remarkable is that Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and -not once in forty years has he failed to reach his office before ten -o'clock. His disappearance from the coupé is not thought to be a joke; -but, on the other hand, there is no reason to apprehend a tragedy. "It -is mysterious--that's all," remarked a prominent Wall Street man; "and -mysteries are not always profitable in the stock-market!"_ - -"How long," inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth, -"will it be before the _Evening Planet_, with your account of the -non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?" - -"Well," said Kidder, looking a trifle important, "if it had been any one -else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in -verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!" - -"As quickly as that?" - -"Well, maybe seven minutes--but that," said Kidder, impressively, "would -be slow work for the _Evening Planet!_" - -"Amazing!" murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. "And did you make -it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of--" - -"I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad -daylight in the city of New York--taken out of his own cab and -carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if -unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!" - -"No, it can't," agreed Robison. "Nevertheless, it has been done." - -"How could--" - -"Kidder, the taxicab has introduced a new and easily utilizable -possibility into criminal affairs, against which the police cannot -yet protect the public. I can see one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen -different ways in which Mr. Garrettson could have been abducted from his -own carriage, put into a taxi, and carried away. Suppose there are six -taxis. Three are in front to prevent the coachman from passing them. -The coachman is also compelled to regulate his speed according as they -desire. Then put one taxi on each side and one behind. These taxis not -only escort the cab; they pocket it and keep out help. At one of the -many halts the cab door is opened and Garrettson induced to enter one of -the side taxis while the coachman is occupied taking care of his horses -because one of the taxis in front threatens to back, which will crush -the prancing beasts. Do you suppose the coachman, especially if he is -elderly and somewhat deaf, as all old people are, could hear a cry -for help with six taxis making all the noise they can, muffler cutouts -going, or backfiring, or--" - -"Do you think that is--" - -"I think nothing! I cited it as one of fourteen--indeed, -twenty--possible ways," said Robison, quietly. - -"It's funny--I mean it is a curious coincidence that on the one day you -had sold Steel short--" - -"My young friend," interrupted Robison, gravely, "I sold after -Garrettson was late! Wisdom is always accused of unfairness. A man whose -mind enables him to win steadily at cards is invariably suspected of -marking them. I had planned to buy Con. Steel provided Garrettson's -health, state of mind, and trade conditions satisfied me! Instead I -sold a little because of his delay. Why, man, we did that in London -once--Cecil Rhodes and I--when Barney Barnato, at the height of the -Kaffir craze, suddenly decided--" - -"Wait till I get a piece of paper," said Amos Kidder. He saw a big -story. But Robison said: - -"I'll tell you all you wish to know--if you promise not to use names--in -Richards's office later, when Garrettson's disappearance is officially -admitted. You should hang round Garrettson's office. Don't lose sight of -it for one minute! Your office will keep in touch--" - -"Yes; they are sending three men down to work under me." - -"Keep me posted, will you? I am going to Richards's office and watch the -market." - -Kidder nodded and hurried to the Wills Building. Robison went to the -office of his brokers, stopping previously at a telephone pay-station -to telephone to the city editors of the _Evening World_ and the _Evening -Journal_. This was his message: - -_The Evening Planet is getting out an extra about the disappearance -of W. H. Garrettson. Send your men to Garrettson's office and also his -residence. Hurry!_ - -The _Evening Planet_ story was on the street before Robison returned to -Richards & Tuttle's office, and five minutes later _World_ and _Journal_ -extras were selling in the financial district. Curiously enough, both -papers used the same scare-head, and that fact had a great deal to do -with the acceptance of the story by many people. The heading was: - - -HELD FOR RANSOM!! - -And each stated it had information that W. H. Garrettson had been -kidnapped and was held for one hundred million dollars ransom. The -Wall Street news agencies sent out the news on the tickers. One of them -subtly finished: - -_Those who know Mr. Garrettson state that the two things the greatest -financier of our times cannot do are: first, take advice; and second, -be coerced. A man who has compelled a President of the United States to -come to him for advice, and who has flatly told a reigning monarch, No! -is not going to do as he is told by any band of crooks! The worst is, -therefore, to be feared!_ - - - -VI - -For one brief dazed moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly -the ticker stopped, as it did in the old days whenever a member's demise -was announced. The ticker's silence, with its suggestion of death, -did in truth strangle bull hopes. Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost -stopped when the ticker did. Then the storm burst, increasing in -violence as corroboration came from newspaper extras, from the Wall -Street news agencies and the news tickers, from brokers and bankers who -had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company and had rushed -out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal moment the great house of -W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the capital crime--in high -finance--of indecision. - -The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir--: the selling-power -is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice--a -beginning!--and it will itself complete the havoc. - -Inside support--that is, buying by Garrettson's firm--would have been -the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the -brief instant that saw absolutely no "support" forthcoming the flood of -selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big -margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and -reputations. - -The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume -of selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the -hillside. From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to -sixty-five by fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time--to sixty; -to fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital -stock, of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen -million dollars--one million a minute! A psychological statistician -would have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of -the moneyed world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial -invulnerability; it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result -of his partners' inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the -firm's existence. The partners would have understood death and could -have provided against it, stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even -might have capitalized their senior partner's demise had it come from -typhoid, tuberculosis, or taxicab. But the disappearance of the great -Garrettson, the fatal incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing -and the hoping, paralyzed the faculties of the junior partners of Wall -Street's mighty firm. And the costliness of their indecision was raised -into the millions by the fact that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, -the junior partners, agreed that Garrettson, though absent, was well, -and were about to take steps to check the gamblers' panic, the telephone -summoned Jenkins. - -"Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to -Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B--D! Say nothing to -the family! Hurry!" And the speaker rang off. - -His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still -unrelieved uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest -and--Wall Street said--the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and -repeated the message. - -"Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?" asked Johnson. - -"I don't know--yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,' and -I didn't suspect--yes; I think it was." After a second's pause, "I know -it was Pierson!" - -"Then, for Heaven's sake--" began Lane. - -"Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious -wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!" said Johnson. - -"Meantime we are losing precious time--" Johnson had already gone to -the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he -said, the receiver at his ear: - -"We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if--" The emphasis -on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that there -was no need to say it. "You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and we -hoping and expecting and uncertain if--Hello! Dr. Pierson's office? This -is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the doctor there? -Out? Where did he go? Speak out--I am Mr. Garrettson's partner. Hotel -Cressline, Suite D? Thank you." Johnson turned and said: "Dr. Pierson -was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to attend Mr. -Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask--" - -"And meantime," said Jenkins, excitedly, "he might be dying or dead; and -we--" - -"Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive -use. Hurry!" - -Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone -once more. - -"Give me the Hotel Cressline!" And presently, "Hello! Cressline? This is -W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes--Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's partner. -Is Mr. Gar--... Yes--yes--I want to talk to him.... Why not? Is it our -Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You will tell me!--or, by -Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!" - -"What did they say, Walter?" asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law -of Garrettson. - -"He said I could go to hell!" growled Johnson, his face brick-red from -anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great -Garrettson. "He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled -lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not -to be interrupted under any circumstances--no cards sent up, no -telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!" - -The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was -something like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though -each expected the other to say he did not expect a terrible final -chapter. In the veiled woman each feared what was worse than mere -death--scandal! Of course, much would be suppressed, as had been done in -the case of Winthrop Kyle or of Burton Willett, to whom death had come -suddenly and under dubious circumstances. - -"William is not that kind!" said Lane, loyally. "He has never--" - -"I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!" repeated -Walter Johnson, vehemently. - -"Neither do I," agreed Lane. "But--" He looked furtively at Walter -Johnson. - -Johnson nodded, and said, "Yes, that's the devil of it!" He lost -himself in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved -Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced -his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have -posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson. - -That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving -off a panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied -themselves to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and -such was the discipline of the office that no word was brought to the -palefaced partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or -of the newspaper extras. - -It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or -force of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic -message of the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in -stocks had taken on the proportions of a panic. - -"Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!" - -"No!" incredulously shouted Lane. - -"It'll never do!" - -"Yes, but--" - -Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to -do things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began -to give out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson -brokers--they kept some of these for the effect of obvious "Garrettson -buying." It was all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter -what had happened, the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! -Silence, yes; untruth, never! And yet silence might be taken as -corroboration of the awful stories. He could not say that the great -Garrettson was alive and could not say he was dead. He must not mention -Hotel Cressline. A trying situation! To the news-agency men, who would -put out the news on the Street, from whom also the daily papers would -get it, he said, very calmly and impressively: - -"I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The -iron trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest -business in its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we -consider the stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent -speculative movements. They are designed to frighten timid holders. I -advise every man who owns Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it. - -"But about Mr. Gar--" - -"Not another word!" he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece -of will-power. - -The newspaper men translated it: "Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!" -And in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the -message. What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was -dead or not--the kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!--and if -so what would be done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. -Wherefore the traders sold more of the same stock--short--and the -bona-fide holders could develop no conviction strong enough as to the -wisdom of holding on, so long as the price continued to go down. - -Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in -a fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send -up any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent, -succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after -repeated knocking brought no response from within. - -They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they -found on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil. - -Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length -Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson: - -"I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and--" - -"I never telephoned you!" interrupted Dr. Pierson. - -"Why, you said--" - -"I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the -hotel--or so the voice said--to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken -suddenly ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him." - -"Damn!" said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the -office, hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the -fake messages and Dr. Pierson's story. - -"That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, -and--" - -"It's a bear raid then!" - -"Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry -down!" - -Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully -following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the -higher Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and -the office-boys. - -In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in -a voice which one might say sweated respect: - -"What do you think now, Mr. Robison?" - -The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the -quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These -customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened -to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of -Steel, and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger -had scented a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street. - -"Yes?" said Mr. Robison, absently. - -"What do you think now?" - -"What do I think now?" repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically. - -"Yes, sir," said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an -office-boy about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at -the broker. Then, with a little start, he said so distinctly that every -listening customer heard very plainly: - -"I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know." - -"It looks to me," persisted Richards, fishing for information, "that -they can't keep on going down forever." - -"No--not forever," assented Mr. Robison, calmly. - -"Maybe the bottom is not far off." - -"Maybe not." - -"If a man bought now he might do well." - -"Then buy 'em." - -"Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to -go long." - -"In that case," said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, "don't -buy 'em." - -Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to -say "Thank you!" in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed -customers drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, -but any experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more -important to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken -Profit is the jeremiad of the ticker-fiend. - -Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show "resiliency," -as financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. -Robison's side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of -money-making news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, -whose paper profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand -dollars. - -"Mr. Robison!" he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is -accustomed to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The -other customers, who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to -cover, looked at the boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his -whispered words. - -"Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing," said Mr. Robison -through his nose, with a pleasant smile. - -The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness -which would give them the tip they all expected. - -"The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed." - -The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, "Stung again!" - -"Wait a minute my lad. Here!" and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar -bill and a small envelope. - -"Thank you very much, sir," said the boy. He put the five dollars in -his pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the -customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, "Mr. Richards." - -He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private -office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on -which was written: - -_Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market._ - -_J. B. Robison._ - -Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the -price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the -empty place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite -customers moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen -just the same. - -"Your order is executed, Mr. Robison." Mr. Richards whispered it out -of a corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking -meditatively at the quotation-board. - -"Got the whole twenty?" - -"Yes." - -"Good!" - -"Do you think--" began the broker in a voice that would make flint turn -to putty. - -"I do!" cut in Robison. "I do, indeed! There is no telling what has -happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts." He -had unconsciously raised his voice. - -A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen -customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces -drew nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other -listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably: - -"By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. -Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be -because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in -the stock-market--failure, for instance." - -"Oh, but that's out of the question." - -"Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the -best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very -efficiently policed city thoroughfare." - -"Yes; but a failure--" - -"When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't -believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!" - -"Do you think--" - -"No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions -so characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I -ascribed the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull -cards, as you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. -Now it isn't likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. -Garrettson. There would be no sense in murdering him--not even by a -stock speculator; but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson -specialties has by now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I -should say prices ought to be touching bottom; and what ought to be -generally is, in the stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or -another, very soon now. If the news is good the price of Steel will -rebound smartly. If it is bad we'll at least know what to look to, and -with the elimination of the mystery there should be a cessation of the -selling. There will follow a rush to cover and then--There you are! I -believe it's begun already. Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! -Get 'em back!" - -The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover -and gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in -figures on the quotation-board. - -Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before -the newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H. -Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly -now. Somebody must pay---and it wouldn't be the firm. - -Amos Kidder rushed into the office. "He's found!" he yelled, excitedly, -addressing Mr. Robison. - -"Where was he?" asked Mr. Robison, very calmly. - -"At home--damn 'im!" - -"Why that, my boy?" - -"He won't talk--says he was in his library all the time." - -"We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?" said Robison, with a -smile. - -"Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it -were the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove -that he wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth--" - -"The whole truth?" echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile. - -"Don't you know it?" Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously. - -"Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about -anything. Take dinner with me to-morrow night--will you?" - -"Yes." There was a smoldering defiance--it wasn't suspicion exactly--in -the newspaper man's voice and eyes. - -"Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel." - -"Now that Garrettson is--" - -"Yes, now--at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a week?" - -"Yes." - -"I told you I would." - -"An accident is not a fair test of--" - -"An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such -thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact -seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I -must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen." - -As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been -figured out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was -informed by Mr. George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of -$268,537.71 with the firm. - -"I've won my bet!" murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker. - -"You have indeed, Mr. Robison." Richards spoke deferentially. - -"H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to--Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to sign -this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs." - -This was the document: - -_To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:_ - -_This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened -an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, -members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the -sum of $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net -profit of $168,537.71._ - -_A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks -and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order -from Mr. James B. Robison._ - -_For Richards & Tuttle:_ _George B. Richards._ - -When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison -said, amiably: - -"If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the -pleasure it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers -more than double their money in one week." - -"Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account." - -"And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new, -clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I -told you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have -given me a certificate of sanity a week ago. What?" - -"Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent--" - -"All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and -intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent." Mr. -Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered -enough to blush. - -"Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand--" The broker -paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a -profitable customer. He did not wish commissions to stop. - -Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn -to speak, said: - -"It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't -understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind -healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in -life. Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life -interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so -little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death -you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of -the first chapter of a big, black book--Mystery!" - -"Yes," murmured the dazed broker. - -Robison continued, cheerfully: "My dear Mr. Richards, by all means -don't understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand -dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but -interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James -Burnett Robison." With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude -and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose -speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five -thousand dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers. - -A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, -which he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a -check for his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and -lachrymosely hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close -the account, Mr. Robison answered, very impressively: - -"My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a -glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the -marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I -personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through -Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the -state tax. Good day, sir!" And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just -afterward and wondered, without shaking hands. - - - -VIII - -Amos Kidder dined with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel, -the Regina. - -"Americans," explained the host, "always flock to the newest hotel on -the theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest -thing is necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary -plumbing; it is an art! I am here not because of the journalistic, -Sunday-special character of the filtered air and automatic temperature -adjusters of this hotel, but because I discovered it had the best -chef of all New York here. The food," he finished, with an air of -overpraising, "is almost as good as in my own house. Have you any -favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?" - -"No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order," replied -the newspaper man. - -"Thank you, Kidder--thank you!" said Mr. Robison, with an air of such -profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. "I was hoping you would -leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!" -And he beckoned to the _maître d'hôtel_, who immediately hastened to the -table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. "You -may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine," said Robison, simply. - -"Dewey at Manila!" thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His -Wall Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him -to all sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never -eaten so unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and -the heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man -who said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things -in a remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the -coffee: - -"I'd like to ask you two questions--just two." - -"That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to -ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'" - -"O king, live forever!" said Kidder, saluting. "Thanks. Shoot ahead." - -"Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the -chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?" Kidder was -looking at Robison with a steady gaze. - -"There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have -invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my -boy!" And Robison nodded. - -"Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious," said Kidder, with an -accusing tone of voice he could not quite control. - -"So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious." - -"And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International -Cribbage Board--" - -"But not exactly criminal, eh?" - -"No; but--" - -"Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose -you call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the -inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the -mind of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than -on the possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to -tell you that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I -sha'n't! But that I go about my business scientifically you yourself -have seen. At least you are witness that I have won." - -"Yes; but--" - -"What's the second question?" - -"There isn't a second if you won't answer the first," said Kidder, with -the forced amiability of the foiled. - -"I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose -we imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now -let us wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here -is an incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of -a panic--short-lived though it was--that caused mental anguish to -his friends, relatives, and associates; and yet that great genius of -finance, Wall Street's demigod, says nothing." - -"He says he was in his library." - -"We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What -compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to -lie?" - -"I don't know." - -"You ought to; there is only one thing." - -"Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?" - -"No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he -protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something -else. It's fear!" - -"Of the alleged kidnappers?" - -"No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear--" He paused. - -"What?" eagerly asked the newspaper man. - -"Ridicule!" - -Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. -Robison. He discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his -philosophical eyes. - -"It's too much for me," finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the -frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on. - -Robison smiled forgivingly, and said: - -"You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual -things in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known -principles to well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most -unusually. Now what do you gather from the Garrettson episode?" - -"Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be -a most unusual succession of coincidences." - -"Your voice," said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, "exudes -suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an -instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It -puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids' -millennium--or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and--" - -"And newspaper men--what?" Kidder prompted, pleasantly. "Don't mind me. -I enjoy it." - -"Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a -letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave -me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is -an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are -an irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours -about me?" - -"I did not have it. I have it now, however." - -"If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and -my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left -his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive -at his office. We have the evidence of his coachman--a man above -suspicion--of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for you -heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home. -We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming -circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to -allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares--led, I -am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed -up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson -there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or -suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of -the obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity -I found out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling -himself W. H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It -wasn't Garrettson, though." - -"How do you know?" - -"It was clearly a ruse--having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip -that would--" - -"Very ingenious; but--" - -"At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners, -and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to -say the least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but -Garrettson, Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his -highly inconvenient disappearance." - -"Yes, yes; but--" - -"Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form -a syndicate of intelligent men!" He made a motion with his hand as if -waving away the necessity of further elucidation. - -"Friend Robison," said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's -manner, "you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than -his silences. _Continuez, s'il vous plaît._" - -"Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate -accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their -object." - -"A band of robbers?" - -"No; an aggregation of philosophers." - -"None the less crooks." - -"No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class -of wealth which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the -plunderers, themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the -syndicate a confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that -would make success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street -contribute to the fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's -life was a bull factor, and his death a bear card. But they had -old-fashioned, unphilosophical scruples against murder. Moreover, the -sensational disappearance of Garrettson would serve even better than his -death. Problem: How to kidnap Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make -Garrettson kidnap himself? Simplicity itself!" - -"It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you -with admiration. And so--" - -"The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con. -Steel and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H. -Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand -shares, studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for -millions! They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The -rest is obvious, even to you--isn't it?" Mr. Robison gazed benignantly -at his guest. - -"No; it isn't obvious to me--or to any one else," retorted Kidder, -sharply. - -"You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you -ask me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an -obvious way?" - -"Insult ahead." - -"Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter -of collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house--an -impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic -attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture. -He tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr. -Garrettson. The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The -stranger says to the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning. -Tell Mr. Garrettson he will see me at once or not at all. Give him this -paper and show him this sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives -Mr. Garrettson the paper, which is apparently the first page of -the _Knickerbocker History of New York_. The memorandum informs Mr. -Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the MSS. of this history, -Cooper's "Spy," Poe's "Goldbug," three love-letters of George Washington -to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed letters of Thomas -Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence whose autograph -is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the stranger!" - -"The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving's _Knickerbocker -History_ is a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to -make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken -into the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of -which the stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation, -particularly since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger -has prepared himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a -lunatic, for he wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and -five fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue -and haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic -are quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting -outside as usual. - -"As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is -the usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man -running from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with -a horsewhip; also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This -attracts the coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street -from the Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the -coachman has turned his head away from his master's house on the left to -the horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé -slam--a rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and -prepares to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always -the office. While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has -come out of the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done -every day for thirty years. - -"Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to -the house--a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery, -a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns -round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him -say, 'Beg pardon--here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand -papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. -H. Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives -away, sure that his master is within. His customary route has been -studied and it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage -arrive at the office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because -he was in the library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has -in readiness an exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, -and even of the coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do -come out, Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is -driven away--but not to his office! And there you are." - -"Do you really think that is what happened?" - -"It is what a gang of intelligent men would do." - -"It is very fine--only it cannot happen." - -"Why not?" - -"The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that." - -"If you knew the history of our old New York families you would -recall the episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English -and stiff-necked, one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, -thinking he carried his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed -in the carriage by the footman before the old lady had gotten in--and -usually the old lady got in first and the lap-robe followed." - -"But he said he saw Garrettson get in," objected Kidder; "and the -cigar-ashes were there on the floor!" - -"The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of -making Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled -newspapers clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered -seeing Garrettson get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of -memory." - -"Oh, well--" - -"Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here, -let me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist, -better known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted -compatriots like you, has to say about this. I copied it: - -"_Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and -under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of -us realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in -connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals -of any actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a -memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought, -accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past -life. When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has -suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'_" - -_"The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a -misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience, -but one by which we are led to make a false judgment--and this because -the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably -fully justified._ - -_"A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in -regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation -in fact."_ - -"But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he -wouldn't notice a different coachman?" Kidder looked incredulous in -advance of the answer. - -"He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he -wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing -unusual, nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops -introspective misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of -course the coachman drove to some place or other and left the great -financier a prisoner in the cab." - -"How?" - -"By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside, -so that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a -matter of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you -know." - -"I don't." - -"I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that, -since there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate -continued to be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it -impossible for Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the -private stable whither he was taken, carriage and all, except by going -through a lot of cobwebs and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged -from the coal-chute a photographer could take pictures of him--no hero -of a thrilling escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump, -full of dirt and soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed! -A quickly developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two -would, of course, make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of -the most gigantic of his promotions--the Intercontinental Railway -Consolidation. Indeed, Garrettson can use the break in prices and the -recovery of the market to increase his prestige by pointing out how -important not only his life is, but, indeed, his physical presence." - -"But the syndicate--" - -"It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson -stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well, -my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of -Bohême. Come on!" - -Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making -dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked -a great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally -knew. - -One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson -in the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and -his face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself -of cobwebs and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why -Garrettson had not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful -forenoon--and why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for -his misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter: - -_Sir,--We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall -Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain -morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the -house. We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon -by what you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was -formed to reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still -operating successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read -it by taking the first two letters of each word--except only the first -word, which is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to -tell you this because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended -it should be, and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You -might compare notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you -for your benevolence, we remain,_ - -_Respectfully,_ - -_The Plunder Recovery Syndicate._ - -Kidder showed this letter to Richards. "Let us see," said Richards, -"whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the -office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator." - -He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked! - -"Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street," -said Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover -the obvious. - -"Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it -really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram. -Possibly Robison himself faked it." - -"Why don't you find out?" suggested the broker. "I will," said Kidder, -and he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable -companies had any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison -in the brokers' office. - -"They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality," said -Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation. - -"Yes, yes," acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; "but what astonishes me is -the syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next." - -"I wonder," echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the -market was going up or down. - -Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he -knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch, -Boon & Shaw "had lost a few pieces"--but not for publication. Such -things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss. Kidder -knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might again -cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself Robison. - - - - -III--AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT - - -I - -THE bell of the telephone on the desk of the alert city editor of the -New York _Planet_ rang twice. The alert city editor did not instantly -answer it. He was reading a love-letter not meant for his eyes. It had -been sent in with his mail by mistake. The bell rang again. - -"Yes?" he said, angrily. "Who? Oh, hello, Bill!" There was a pause. -Then: "Shall we? Why, friend, he's already started. Thanks awfully! Sure -thing!" - -He swung round and cast a roaming glance about the big room. It was -Sunday, the sacred day when nothing happened. - -"Parkhurst!" he called. - -Parkhurst, one of the _Planet's_ star men, sauntered over to the -desk. He had planned to do other things with his time this nice Sunday -afternoon. Monday-morning stories are not apt to be exciting. Therefore -he limped pathetically in anticipation of the excuse he proposed to make -to get off. He was Williams's chum. - -"Jimmy," said the city editor, with his habitual air of giving -assignments as though they were decorations awarded for distinguished -services, "I just had Bill Stewart, of the Hotel Brabant, on the -telephone. He says there is a man there who has seven million dollars in -gold-dust in the engine-room of the hotel. Klondike mine-owner. Does not -believe in banks, I guess. Takes mighty big stocking to hold the cash--" - -"Do you want _me_ to write the story?" interrupted Parkhurst, coldly. It -was his way of showing his city editor his place. - -"Coal-Oil Johnny up to date! Don't fall for any press agent--" - -Parkhurst forgot the excuse he was going to make. His limp vanished. The -story promised well. He hastened to the Brabant and saw the room clerk, -Stewart, who had tipped off the city editor. - -"Yes; he is in," said Stewart. "But if you think it is another case -of Coal-Oil Johnny you've got another guess coming. Not that he is a -tightwad; he is liberal enough with his nuggets, the bell-hops say. But -he is no fool. And yet--think of it!--he takes into Seattle with him -from Nome eight or ten millions of gold-dust! There he hires a special -train to bring him and his gold-dust to New York. He arrives at the -Grand Central in the early morning. They hustle round and find seven -trucks to carry the boxes of gold-dust for him. He follows in a taxicab. -He comes straight to this hotel--" - -Stewart here swelled up his chest. It made the reporter say, amiably: - -"It was considered a good hotel once; but news travels slowly in the -frozen North." - -"He comes up here, registers, and then expects me to let him take the -whole fifteen tons of gold up to his room. What do you know about that? -Well, then he wanted to hire a whole floor so as to distribute the -weight. But you know it is a highly concentrated weight. No floor would -stand it. Gold is the heaviest thing there is." - -"It is," agreed Parkhurst, hastily. "It is, dear friend. That's why I -never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and--" - -"Let me tell you," cut in Stewart, full of his story. "So, being Sunday -and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs -in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, -worth, he says, about eight million--" - -"Lead me to it before you hand in your bill," entreated the reporter. - -"There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the -job of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights, -Jimmy," said Stewart. "I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I -think he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always -writing about--don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the -polite hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of -eighteen seventy-four?" - -"What's the full name?" asked the reporter. "There it is!" and Stewart -pointed to the autograph in the hotel register. - -"Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G." - -There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two -personal servants. - -"Looks like a school-boy's writing." - -"He is about forty," said the clerk. - -"Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was -about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at -home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore--" - -"Here he comes," interjected Stewart. "I'll introduce you." - -J. Willoughby Parkhurst, the reporter, was startled by the change in -Stewart's face. It had taken on the ingratiating soul-sweetness of one -who enjoys your story with all his faculties--the complete surrender of -self, soul, and hopes of heaven. The clerk exuded gratitude from every -pore. - -"Gosh!" exclaimed J. Willoughby Parkhurst in amazement, and turned -quickly to see who it was that had made Stewart's greed-stricken face -turn itself into a moving-picture film of all the delights. - -A man was approaching--a man of about the reporter's height, -square-shouldered, smooth-shaved, strong-chinned, with an outdoor -complexion, and the clear, clean, steady eyes of a man without a liver. -There was a metallic glint to the gray-blue of the iris that made the -eyes a trifle hard. The lips were not only compressed, but you guessed -that the compression was habitual. Even a private detective could have -told that this man had made up his mind to do one thing, and therefore -he would do it. There was no doubt of it. - -"Oh, Mr. Jerningham!" The name issued like a stream of saccharin out of -the eddying smiles on Stewart's face. - -"The expectation of twenty millions of gold, at least, on that face!" -thought Parkhurst, more impressed by the smile than by the cause -thereof. - -"Here is that nugget I promised you." And Mr. Jerningham dropped -four-and-three-quarter pounds troy of gold into the clerk's coy hand. -"It is the largest I ever found in six years' mining on the Klondike." - -The reporter later told the city editor--he did not print this--that -Stewart, as he got the nugget, showed plainly on his face his -disappointment that Jerningham had not come from the South-African -diamond-fields. A carbon crystal weighing four pounds and -three-quarters--that would have been worth a real smile! But the clerk -said, gratefully: "It's very good of you. Thank you ever so much! I'd -like to introduce to you my friend, Mr. Park-hurst." - -"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. Parker, did you say?" - -The Klondiker spoke coldly. It made the reporter say, subtly -antagonistic: - -"Parkhurst!" - -"Any relation to--" - -"Haven't a relation in the world." - -"Shake again, friend," said Jerningham, warmly. "I am in the same boat -myself!" - -They shook hands again. - -"Do you want to be very nice?" asked Jerningham, almost eagerly, of the -reporter. - -"It is my invariable custom to be that," Parkhurst assured him, gravely. - -"Dine with me to-night." Jerningham looked expectant. - -"I have an engagement with my friend the bishop," said the reporter, who -hated clergymen for obvious reasons. "But--let me see!" Parkhurst closed -his eyes the better to see how he could break his engagement. "I'll send -regrets to the bishop and dine with you with pleasure." - -"Mr. Parkhurst is on the _Planet_" put in Stewart. It was the way he -said it! - -"Ah, yes," said Jemingham, vaguely. - -"In fact, Mr. Jemingham," said Parkhurst, "I was sent to interview you." - -"Huh?" ejaculated the Klondiker, blankly. It was plain he was virgin -soil. - -"All to myself!" thought J. Willoughby, with a mental smack of the lips. -Then he began, in that congratulatory tone of voice with which practised -interviewers corkscrew admissions out of their victims: "We heard about -your trip from Seattle, and about your--er--baggage. Would you mind -telling me a little more about it? We could"--with a honeyed grin at -Stewart--"sit down in a nice little corner of the café and have a nice -little chat." - -"I don't mind--if you don't," said Jemingham, with one of those -diffidently eager smiles of people who are doing you a favor and do not -know it. - -The reporter led the way to the café, selected a small table in the -farthest corner, beckoned to a waiter, pointed to a chair, and nodded -toward the Alaskan Monte Cristo. - -"Thank you!" said Jemingham, with real gratitude, and sat down. Then he -looked at his watch, saw that it was only four o'clock, and said to the -waiter, "A cup of tea, please." - -"Huh?" It was all J. Willoughby could rise to. A miner and tea? What -about the free champagne for the hundreds? A tea-drinker would not -scatter walnut-sized diamonds along the Great White Way. - -"I got used to it. My pal was English. We found it preferable to -whisky in the Klondike." Mr. Jerningham made no effort to disguise the -apologetic tone. - -"I'll have the same," cleverly said J. Willoughby. Then, to clinch it, -"Of course you know that in the exclusive clubs to-day men drink more -tea than liquor!" - -"It's the proper thing--eh?" said Jerningham, with a sort of head-waiter -deference that made the reporter stare in surprise. "I am glad you told -me that." - -"Oh yes. It is no longer good form to get load--er--intoxicated. It's -one of the few good things we've got from England--tea-drinking," the -reporter said. "And, Mr. Jerningham, to get back to our subject, just -how did you happen to go to the Klondike?" - -"It began in New York," said Jerningham, and drew his lips together. It -was clearly not a pleasant memory. - -"It did?" You could tell that J. Willoughby was grateful. "Well, well! -And--" He frowned as though a date had escaped him. He really suggested -time to the miner, for Jerningham volunteered: "When I was twelve years -old." - -"That's about twenty years ago," ventured the reporter in the -affirmative tone of voice that inevitably elicits contradiction and the -exact figures from the victim. - -"Thirty-two years ago, sir." - -"Well, well! And--How did you say it began?" The reporter put his hand -to his ear to show that his hardness of hearing had prevented him from -getting Jerningham's previous answer to the same question. - -"My father!" Mr. Jemingham nodded twice, to show that those two words -told the whole story. - -"Ah, yes! And then?" The reporter looked as if instant death Would -follow the non-receipt of information; and Jerningham, as though against -a lifelong determination to be silent, spoke--and frowned as he spoke: - -"My father! He was a coachman in the employ of old David Soulett, who -was the son of Walter and the father of Richard and David the third, and -of Madge, who married the Duke of Peterborough. Old David Soulett--the -second, he was--was my father's employer. My father was English. He came -to New York when he was eighteen. He went straight into the Souletts' -stable, became head coachman, and lived with the family for fifty years. -They pensioned him off. I grew up with the boys--called one another by -our first names. Do you get that?--by our first names!" - -Jemingham compressed his lips tightly and nodded. His eyes filled with -reminiscence--sweet, yet sad. - -"You did, eh?" said the reporter. - -If J. Willoughby had been addicted to slang he would have used the same -wondering tone of voice and would have exclaimed, "What do you know -about that!" - -"And that is why I went to the Klondike!" - -There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking -in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be -said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination -that Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving -grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful -reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was -bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, "Did they send you away?" - -"They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It -was enough." - -"Yes, of course!" The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. "But I -don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say." - -"They were!" explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. "They -were Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had -everything I did not have. So I went to the Klondike." - -"Yes?" - -"Is it not clear?" - -"No!" said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain -negative. - -"They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were -good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But -if they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not -been the son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they -wouldn't have been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. -Policemen at the corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove -by and seemed really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You -felt the cops would never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the -station-house--always to the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point -to it--the Soulett mansion--with an air of pride, as though they owned -it! Clerks in shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts -walked in, and later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, -they said; and he said, said he--and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?" - -"Why?" repeated the reporter, hypnotically. - -"Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to -digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's -proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two -people, including the very best there were in literature, art, -science, theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, -thirty-eight pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among -grave-diggers, laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his -great-grandchildren! Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. -The only thing that didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. -Genius for real estate they call his madness to-day. But it was an -obsession. He bought a farm in what is now the swell shopping district; -and another where the Hotel Regina is; and another beginning where the -Vandeventer houses are. The old lunatic's mad purchases are now worth -one hundred and fifty million dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, -with fake portraits showing an intellectual-looking country squire. -Grave-digger--that's what! But the money really began with him and the -near-gentleman with Walter, who knew the best families because his father -buried them one after another. By the time the real-estate market got -to going in earnest David was born--of course a gentleman! What did it? -Unearned money!" - -"Yes. But what's digging graves got to do with your going to the -Klondike?" - -"Everything. It gave me the secret of it--the unearned part. Don't you -see?" - -"No." - -"My dear sir, I loved the company of the Soulett boys and I enjoyed the -society of their equals. So I naturally desired to become their equal. -To become a gentleman I had to become rich. But the money must not be -earned; so I couldn't make it in trade--which, moreover, was too slow. -The careers of butcher, plumber, and liquor-dealer, that might have made -me rich quickly, were closed to me by the social disqualifications they -carry. And the careers of Jim Sands and Bill Train in Wall Street were -too malodorous; besides which, you can't make very much money on the -Stock Exchange without treading on influential social toes. Hence the -Klondike. Do you see now?" - -"I'm beginning to." - -"Well?" - -"Do you mean," said the reporter, to get it straight, "that you went -to the Klondike to make money so as to climb--I mean, so as to go into -society?" - -"Exactly so! Yes, sir! And I tell you, Mr. Parker--" - -"Park-_hurst!_" said J. Willoughby, with a frown of injured vanity. - -"Mr. Parkhurst, a man has to have some strong motive to enable him to -conquer success. In all my wanderings for twenty-five years, prospecting -in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, the Southwest, Nevada, California, -Oregon, and Washington, and finally all over Alaska, I had but one -object in mind, one purpose. It sustained me. It gave me courage when -others despaired; it kept me marching onward when others fell by -the wayside and died or became sheep-ranchers. I had no thought for -amusement, none for pleasure, none for love. I simply kept up my search. -It was the search for happiness that the old knights used to go out on. -It was a search, Mr. Parker-hurst, for the yellow admission ticket to -the Four Hundred!" - -"Have you found it?" J. Willoughby could not help it. - -"Let me tell you," pursued Jerningham, ignoring the question. "I used to -read the society columns of the New York papers whenever I felt myself -growing discouraged; and that always revived me. Up in the Klondike I -had saved fifteen hundred dollars and I paid one thousand dollars in -gold-dust for a six-months-old copy of a society paper which had an -account of Mrs. Masters's ball. To me, 'among those present' meant more -than a list of gilt-edge bonds. I've got it yet." - -He paused to take from his pocket-book a tattered clipping and showed -it to the newspaper man with a mixture of pride and tenderness and -solicitude lest it be harmed, as a father shows the only extant -photograph of the most wonderful baby in captivity. - -"I thought my name would fit in very nicely between the Janeways and the -Jesups. It was a good investment, that one thousand dollars, for I -felt I had to get a gait on, and that very same day I went on that -prospecting trip to the Endicott Mountains which changed my luck for me. -Everything came my way then--I mean, in mining. I am getting six hundred -thousand dollars a year out of my claims; and that is because I believe -fifty thousand dollars a month enough for a bachelor. More would -be--er--sort of ostentatious. Don't you think so?" - -"Yes, indeed," agreed J. Willoughby Parkhurst, with a shudder. - -"When I marry I'll make it one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars -a month." - -"I agree with you," said Parkhurst--"because, really, two cannot live as -cheaply as one." He thrilled when he thought how he would play up that -promised income in his story. - -"That's what I say," Jerningham said, gratefully. "Of course there's -the seven millions and a half of gold-dust I have brought with me. It's -downstairs." His grim mouth became more determinedly grim than ever. -This man was the kind that gets what he wants, with or without money. He -will not climb, thought Parkhurst; he will vault into society. He asked -Jerningham: - -"Have you really got that much down-stairs? I mean," he hastily -corrected himself, "have you no fear of the danger of going about with -that much loose change?" - -"No. It's guarded by men who are getting big pay for being honest. You -can buy honesty--if you treat it as a luxury and pay for it as such. -Each box weighs one hundred and fifty pounds, for convenience in -handling. Would you like to see the stuff?" He could not hide a -boyish eagerness--not at all offensive--to impress his new friend. -J. Willoughby Parkhurst forgave him in advance, and to prove it said, -heartily: - -"Very much indeed!" - -"Very well. Please come with me." And he led the way to the engine-room. -They went down two flights. At the door of the engine-room they met -the engineer, who bowed with an obsequiousness that indicated sincere -gratitude and renewed hope--as of a man who has received a handsome -gratuity and is expecting another. - -In the middle of the concrete floor, of the engine-room, piled up in an -amazingly small mound of boxes, was the gold. - -"Each box has about fifty thousand dollars in dust," explained -Jerningham, with what one might have called a matter-of-fact pride. -"Would you like to open one?" - -"I don't want to put you to any trouble--not for worlds; but I do want -to see the inside of one like anything." - -"No trouble. I say, Mr. Wilkinson," to the hotel engineer, who had -followed them, a deferential smile fastened to his face, "could you get -me a hammer and chisel and a screw-driver?" - -"Certainly, Mr. Jerningham," said the engineer, with obvious pride at -being part of an extraordinary adventure. He reappeared presently with -the tools and a burly assistant. They pried off the steel hoop and -cracked off the sealing-wax from over the heads of the screws that held -the lid in place. They then unscrewed the cover--and there before their -wide-gaping eyes was a boxful of yellow Yukon gold. - -Jerningham smilingly looked at J. Willoughby Parkhurst and waved his -hand toward the treasure--a gesture that said Help yourself!--only it -said it humorously. And so the reporter smiled indulgently and plunged -his hand in it. - -"How heavy!" he exclaimed, involuntarily. He had meant to be witty, as -penniless people always are in the presence of great wealth to show that -they are not impressed. - -"It will be light enough to blow away here," said Jerningham so -seriously that nobody smiled--indeed, everybody hoped for a blast in -the direction of his own pocket. Put Jerningham merely said: "Thank you. -Will you screw it on again?" And the engineer did. Jerningham did not -stay to see the rescrewing finished. He took Parkhurst's arm and walked -out. The reporter told him: - -"I can't help thinking it was imprudent. The detectives now know they -can open the boxes and--" - -"It isn't likely that all eight will be dishonest at the same minute. -That's why I got eight instead of four. But, even if they all wanted -to, how much could they get away with? With the contents of one of the -boxes, fifty thousand dollars? Well, that isn't much. I can't afford to -let that gold be a bother to me. I brought it along so that it could be -my servant--not for me to be its slave." - -"I've heard others make that selfsame remark," said J. Willoughby, -cheerfully, "but they never struck off the aureate shackles!" - -"My friend, it's not in striking off shackles; that is always difficult. -The secret is in not letting them become shackles!" said Jerningham, -grimly. "A man does not confidently expect during twenty-five years to -strike it rich some day without very carefully thinking of what he is -going to do with the gold after he gets it." - - - -II - -The story, as James Willoughby Parkhurst wrote it, and even as the -_Planet_ printed it, was a masterpiece. It was far more interesting than -a fake. The truth often may be stranger than fiction, but it is seldom -so exciting. With the generous desire to repay Jerningham's hospitality -with kindness, to say nothing of an eye for the picturesque, the -reporter made his victim an Admirable Crichton. Parkhurst's -Jerningham was very distinguished-looking, which every woman knows is -better for a man than being handsome. He not only was "probably the -richest man in the world," but a fine linguist--indeed, a philologist. -You saw Jerningham digging in his gravel-bank by day---spadeful after -spadeful of clear gold-dust--and at nights reading Aristophanes in the -original by the flickering and malodorous light of seal-fat lamps. - -On the same day that Jerningham learned that his own wealth was -practically inexhaustible, and decided to limit his income in order that -gold might not be demonetized, he--the philologist in him--discovered -also amazing analogies between certain Eskimo and Aleutian words and -their equivalents in Tibetan. This and a monograph on "Totemism in -the Light of Its Undoubted Babylonian Origin," he would read in London -before the Royal Society. Of Jerningham's ancestry the article said that -the erudite Croesus was "of the Long Island Jerninghams." - -At three separate and distinct places in the article, each time -differently worded, but the intention and purpose thereof being the -same, the writer said that for generosity, lavish extravagance, capacity -for spending, and deep-rooted belief that there was no difference -between gold coins and stage money, the learned Klondiker was a -combination of Monte Cristo, Boni de Castellane, Coal-Oil Johnny, and -Alcibiades--only more so. But his feverish efforts were all in vain--he -only grew richer! If he decided to give a million to a newsboy who was -polite, that same moment he would be sure to get a cablegram from one of -his superintendents that the vein had widened to three miles and the -assays jumped to three hundred thousand dollars a ton. - -Parkhurst finished by saying that Jerningham had no use for women. In -divers countries world-famous sirens had sung to him--in vain. He -was the kind that registered zero, even though plunged to the chin in -Vesuvian lava. So the dear things might as well save time, breath, and -muscular exertion; he would have none of them, no matter what their age, -color of hair, temperament, accomplishments, or even faces might be. -He was arrow-proof and Cupid had given up trying. Still, there must be -One--somewhere! - -When J. Willoughby Parkhurst went to the Hotel Brabant on Monday morning -in the hope of a second-day story, he was not sure how Jerningham would -take his masterpiece. He was going so early in the hope of shunting -off the head-line artists of the afternoon papers, for all that he had -begged Stewart to fix it so that nobody got to Jerningham before the -_Planet_ man turned up. - -As he entered the lobby he saw in a corner lounge five reporters -from the yellows, three photographers from same, a professor from the -Afternoon Three-Center, and a "psychological portraitist," feminine and -fat, but dressed with unusual care and even piquancy, from a magazine. -He saw Jemingham's finish--not! - -The competitors were too busy talking to see J. Willoughby Parkhurst, -author of the day's sensation, walk up to the desk and greet Stewart -affectionately. They did not see J. W. P. turn sharply, approach a -well-built, square-shouldered man, with an outdoor complexion, who had -just emerged from the elevator, and shake hands warmly. - -After one and a half seconds of dialogue, consisting of "Good morning!" -and "Good morning!" J. Willoughby cleverly realized that Mr. Alfred -Jemingham could not possibly have read the article. On general -principles he took the Klondiker to one end of the corridor, out of -sight of the other reporters. - -"I am very anxious to make arrangements to store my gold in some bank's -vaults. I don't know any bank--that is, I have no account in any; and I -wondered if I needed to be introduced." - -Jemingham looked anxiously at Parkhurst. - -"Of course!" said J. Willoughby, and immediately looked alarmed. "Of -course! They are very particular--very! The good ones, you know. A man's -bank is like a man's club--it can give him a social standing or it can -prove he hasn't any." He looked at his Klondike friend with a frown of -anxiety. - -"I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what -you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company." - -"Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he -will make the trust company take it--unless he thinks there is another -still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and we'll -tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us--what?" - -J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive -property of the _Planet_. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called up -the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take -pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great -vaults, escorted by the _Planet's_ special commissioner in one of the -armored automobiles which the _Planet_ supplied to its bright young men. - -Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the _Planet's_ financial editor; -and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller -Trust Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all -arrangements, including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy -O'Loughlin, who did all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson & -Company, Wolff, Herzog & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms. -Photographers were duly stationed at the various points by which the -aureate procession would pass. - -Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the -ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be "tipped off" by -hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to -the Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the -_Planet's_ automobile and followed the trucks. - -In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder, -and Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was -carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the -heap. - -"I'd like to have these cashed," he said, with that delightful humor of -all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody -always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was -not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark -at home that night. - -Word of what was happening went about, and soon the great little narrow -street was blocked by people who wished to see six or eight millions go -into a place where there were one hundred and fifty. But there was this -difference--the one hundred and fifty already there would stay there; -but a handful or two of the six or eight might be distributed among -those present by the latest Coal-Oil Johnny from the Klondike. The hope -of a stray nugget or two kept two thousand busy people about the doors -of the VanTwiller Trust Company nearly two hours. - -As for Jerningham, the trust company was to send the twenty boxes of -gold-dust to the Assay Office and credit Mr. Jerninghan's account with -the proceeds of the sale thereof. Two days later Mr. Alfred Jerningham -had to his credit in the VanTwiller Trust Company $1,115,675.28; and -in the vaults boxes containing, as per his most conservative estimates, -gold-dust valued at six millions and a half. And everybody knew -it--the Planet saw to that. Great potentialities in that golden fame of -Jerningham's--what? - - - -III - -The _Planet's_ official version of the Jerningham affair, and the flood -of sensational literature turned loose on the community by the other -papers, made the Klondiker's name as familiar to New-Yorkers as a -certain breakfast-food advertisement. - -His daily mail was enormous, especially after the newspapers said that -he was looking for a house in which to entertain. "The richest bachelor -in the world," he was called, and the real-estate agents acted -accordingly. So did no end of unattached females of dubious age, but -of not at all dubious intentions. Also it became known that he needed a -social secretary to guide him in two things--the two things being -whom to invite and how to spend six hundred thousand dollars a year in -entertaining those who were invited by the social adviser. - -The applications came by the dozen--in the strictest confidence. If -somebody had said this aloud in the hearing of society, society would -have laughed scornfully. A gentleman was always a gentleman, and could -never, never be secretary to a parvenu! But, for all that, there were -scores of well-born men who appeared willing enough--don't you know?--to -help spend the six hundred thousand a year. Or else some historic names -were forged by dastards. The _Planet's_ society editor, who would never -allow herself to be called editress, proved invaluable as a living Who's -Who, and demonstrated her worth to her paper by making connections that -would further her work; for she was much sought by people who wished -introductions to Mr. Jerningham. - -They would trade with her--items for letters. - -It helped all concerned that not only Parkhurst, but the rest of the -kind-hearted space-grabbers, informed the world that the possessor of -the income of six hundred thousand a year was a fount of erudition, and -withal a man of the world, with exquisite manners--invulnerable to the -optical artillery of the fairest sirens on earth. And always the six -hundred thousand dollars a year to spend, so that the beastly stuff -would not accumulate and choke up the passages of the palace he proposed -to build! That was how Francis Wolfe came to be introduced to Mr. -Jerningham by J. Willoughby Parkhurst, and how the position was -delicately offered to him, and how F. Wolfe delicately accepted. - -A fine-looking, well-built young fellow, this Frank--dark-eyed, -black-haired, with a wonderfully clean pink but virile complexion that -made him physically very attractive. In those Broadway restaurants that -have become institutions Francis Wolfe was himself an institution. His -debts were discussed as freely as the cost of gasoline. And yet the -chorus contingent and their lady friends, consisting of the most -beautiful women in all the world, not only preferred, but publicly and -on the slightest provocation proclaimed their preference for, Frank -Wolfe penniless to almost any one else--short of millions. But if Frank -Wolfe was the chorus-girls' pet, Mr. Francis Wolfe was the only brother -of Mrs. John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham, and favorite nephew of old -Mrs. Stimson. And everybody knew what that meant! - -J. Willoughby Parkhurst left them alone, even if he was a reporter. - -"If you do not mind talking business," said Jerningham, with a -deprecatory smile. - -"Not at all," eagerly said young Wolfe, who was consumed by curiosity -to listen to the golden statistics. "In fact," he added, with a burst of -boyish candor, "I'd be glad to have you." - -"You are a nice boy!" said Jemingham, so gratefully and non-familiarly -that Frank could not find fault with him. - -"I need a friend," continued Jerningham. "I know friendship cannot be -bought. It grows--but there must be a seed. It may be that after you -know me better you will give me your friendship. That is for the future. -I also need a man! A man whom I can trust! A man, young Mr. Francis -Wolfe," he said, with a sternness that impressed young Mr. Francis -Wolfe, "who will not laugh at me!" - -Frank was not an intellectual giant, but neither was he an utter ass. He -said, very seriously, "Go on!" - -"I am willing to pay such a man twenty-five thousand a year--" He paused -and almost frowned. - -"Go on!" again said young Mr. Wolfe, looking the Klondiker straight in -the eyes. - -"Twenty-five thousand dollars--to begin with!" - -"Yes?" said young Mr. Wolfe, quite calmly. - -"The duties of such a man--and keep in mind I mean a man when I say a -man!--entail nothing whatever of a menial or dishonorable character; -nothing to which a gentleman could possibly object. But it would -necessitate a certain spirit of good-will toward me. I am not only -willing, but even anxious, to pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year, -and all traveling expenses, to a clean-minded young man who, for all his -wild-oat sowing, is a gentleman and will learn to like me enough not to -laugh at me when I intrust him with the secret desire of my heart." - -Before Frank's thoughts could crystallize into the definite suspicion -that Jerningham wanted to be helped to climb socially, Jemingham went on -so coldly that again young Wolfe was impressed: - -"You will admit, Mr. Wolfe, that a man who has prospected all over -North America from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle, and who has, -unfortunately, been compelled"--he rose, went to his bureau, brought -out two revolvers of a rather old-fashioned kind--"compelled against his -will to draw first"--he showed the young man about a dozen notches in -the handle of one of them--"one who fears no man and no government and -no blackmailer; who owns the richest placer mines in the world--is not -apt to be an emotional ass!" There was a pause. But Jemingham continued -before young Wolfe could speak: "Neither is he a damned fool--what?" - -Mr. Francis Wolfe felt he had to say something, so he said, "I -shouldn't think so." - -He felt that Jemingham was not a man to trifle with--a tough customer -in a rough-and-tumble fight; a man who had taken life in preserving his -own; altogether a man, a character, who would make an admirable topic of -conversation with both men and women--therefore a man to be interested -in. - -"Do you know Mr. Ashton Welles?" asked Jer-ningham, almost sharply. - -"Not intimately." - -"Do you know Mrs. Ashton Welles?" - -"Same answer." - -"Ever dine at their house?" - -Frank thought a moment. He had dined at so many people's houses. "No," -he answered, finally. "Could you?" - -"How do you mean?" - -"Are your relations with Welles such, or could they be cultivated so, as -to make him invite you--not me--you!--to dine at his house?" - -"Look here, Mr. Jerningham," and young Mr. Wolfe's face flushed, "a -fellow doesn't do some things for money; and this is one--" - -"I know it! Not for money. For friendship, yes! That's why--you -understand now, don't you?" He looked so earnestly at young Wolfe that -Frank absolved him of wrong-doing. - -"No, I don't!" said the young man. - -"Did you ever know Randolph Deering, who used to be president of the -VanTwiller Trust Company?" - -"Do you mean Mrs. Welles's father?" - -"Yes." - -"I don't recall speaking to him more than to say 'How do you do?' I -don't remember when or how I met him." - -"Do you know Mrs. Deering, Mrs. Welles's mother?" - -"No." - -"Do you know anybody who does?" - -"I suppose I do." - -"Anybody who would give you a letter of introduction?" - -"I don't know. If my aunt or my sisters know her it would be easy. But, -of course, I should have to know first why I should want to meet her." - -"Of course. Did you ever hear anything about Mrs. Welles's sister, Naida -Deering?" - -"Didn't know she had a sister." - -"Then, of course, you never saw her." - -Francis Wolfe thought a long time. His mind did not work very quickly -at any time. At length he said: "I don't think there could have been -a sister, for I never heard of her having any; indeed, I distinctly -remember hearing that she was an only child. Maybe she was a cousin -or--er--something of the sort." - -"No; Naida was a sister; a good deal older and--But we are drifting -away from business. Will you accept my proposition to be my--er--adviser -in certain matters on which I think you are qualified to give advice, -and accept twenty-five thousand dollars a year?" - -"Do you mind if I speak frankly?" - -"Certainly not. Speak ahead." - -"Are you offering me this--er--salary when, of course, I know I am not -worth a da--a cent in business; I mean, isn't it really in exchange for -what I may be able to do for you in a--a social way? You know what I -mean." - -"No, sir!" said Jerningham, decisively. "Not for an instant! I do not, -dear Mr. Wolfe, give an infinitesimal damn for what is called society." - -"But I thought Jimmy Parkhurst told me--" - -"I cannot help what Jimmy Parkhurst told you; but I tell you that I like -interesting people, and I don't care who or what they are socially. I -hate bores--whether they are hod-carriers or dukes. If I can meet people -who will instruct me when I want to learn, or amuse me when I want to -laugh, I'm satisfied. And I can always meet that kind without anybody's -help. You know how it is." Then he spoke perhaps thirty words in a -foreign language that Frank thought must be Hungarian. "You remember -your Latin, of course. That's from Petronius." - -"I thought so!" said Frank Wolfe, the pet of the chorus-girls, laughing -to himself. Remember his Latin! He? Haw! - -"It is from his 'Cena Trimalchionis.' The _arbiter elegantiarum_ knew -what social climbers might be expected to do, though I neither boast -of my money nor do I eat with my knife. The Latin of the 'Cena' is -difficult--too slangy, full of the _sermo plebeius_." - -"Yes, it is," agreed Frank, so gravely that it was all he could do to -keep from laughing at himself. This Klondiker was not only a gun-fighter -and richer than Croesus, but also a highbrow! Could you beat it? - -"Will you accept my offer? Will you try to be my friend?" - -"Suppose I find I can't?" - -"I'll be sorry. The money is nothing. The inability to make a friend -will be my real loss." - -"Well, we might try six months." He looked inquiringly at Jerningham. "I -don't exactly know what you wish me to do." - -"Become my friend! You yourself said some things cannot be done for -money by a gentleman; but there is nothing--so long as it is not -dishonorable--that a gentleman may not do for a friend. Shall I explain -a little more?" He looked anxiously at young Mr. Wolfe. - -"Yes--do," said Frank. It occurred to him that this singular man was in -reality proceeding with a curious delicacy. - -"Just as soon as you feel you know me I will ask you to help me. Mrs. -Deering is now abroad. Mrs. Welles may be of help to us. Mr. Wolfe, now -that I am not so poor as I was, I want to find Naida Deering, the only -woman I ever loved--and, God help me, the only woman I still love!" - -Jerningham rose hastily and walked up and down the room, his face -persistently turned away from Wolfe. He walked to a window and stared -at the sky a long time. Finally he turned to the young man, who was -watching him, and said, with profound conviction: - -"_Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur!_" - -Young Mr. Wolfe at first felt like saying, "Yes, indeed!" which would, -as a matter of fact, have been a very pat retort. But he weakened and -said, "What is that quotation from?" - -"Publilius Syrus. Mr. Wolfe, I must find her. And of course I can't -employ a private detective. You understand?" - -"Yes. That is true," said Frank. - -"In her youth something happened." Young Mr. Wolfe sat up straight. Here -at last was something really vital! Jerningham proceeded: "She was a -high-strung girl--pure as gold. Her very innocence made her indiscreet. -There was no scandal--no, indeed! But she disappeared. And now, when I -have more than enough money for the two of us, I wish to find her. If I -don't--of what possible good are my millions? Tell me that!" - -Jerningham glared so angrily at young Mr. Wolfe that young Mr. Wolfe -felt a slight spasm of concern. The Klondiker had a metallic gray eye -that at times menaced like cold steel. - -"Excuse me!" said Jerningham, contritely. "My dear boy, do you know what -it is to go chasing over the landscape for years and years in the hope -of striking it some day so as to be able to go back to your native city -and marry the one woman in all the world--particularly when she was one -whom her parents, not understanding her nature, practically disowned? In -all my prospecting what I wanted was to find Naida's mine--gold by the -ton--so I could buy back her place in society!" - -There was such determination in Jerningham's voice and look that young -Wolfe felt a thrill of admiration and, with it, a distinct masculine -liking. - -"That's a great story!" he said. "I never heard of your--er--Miss Naida. -She never married, I suppose?" - -"I don't know! I don't know! She promised to wait for me. The Deerings -used to live in Jersey; and living in Jersey when I was a kid wasn't -what it is to-day. They were not prominent in society. Of course the -Deerings kept it quiet. I think Mrs. Welles may know where her sister -is--the sister who is never mentioned by her own flesh and blood! Mrs. -Deering, of course, does; but she is abroad somewhere. I must find -Naida, I tell you--and--" Jerningham was silent, but Wolfe saw that he -was breathing quickly, as though he had been running. Frank never -read anything except the afternoon papers, love-letters, and the more -romantic of the best-sellers. He now very laboriously constructed a -romance of Jemingham's life that became so thrilling it took away -his own breath. It made him feel very kindly toward the new -Jerningham--everybody feels kindly toward his own creations; and so he -said, in a burst of enthusiasm: - -"By George! I'll help you!" - -And thus was begun the pact between the two men. - -IV - -On the very, next morning Mr. Jerningham, instead of going to Wall -Street as was his custom, went instead to Mrs. Charlton Morris's Agency -for Trained Nurses. - -An empress--no less--sat at a desk. She was not, however, one of those -empresses who change the destiny of nations by their beauty. She had -merely an arrogance more than royal. - -"I should like to see Mrs. Charlton Morris," said Jerningham, briskly. - -"I am Mrs. Morris," she said. - -You at once perceived that she was even more than imperial. She was a -woman of forty, dark, slender, with shell-rimmed, round lenses that gave -her that look between a Chinese philosopher and an ancient owl, which -those tortoise-shell goggles always do. You also obtained the impression -that a completely successful operation had removed Mrs. Morris's sense -of humor. - -"I should like, if you please--" began Jerningham; but Mrs. Morris -interrupted with an effect as of thrusting an icicle into the interior -mechanism of a clock. - -"I beg your pardon, but we must know with whom we are dealing. What is -the name, please?" - -"I prefer not to give you mine yet." - -"Oh no, sir; I must know." - -"Suppose I had given you a false one, how would you have been the -wiser?" - -"Oh, but also you must give me the name of your doctor." - -"He sent me here." - -"And who is he, sir?" - -From her voice and her look you gathered that she was in charge of a -hospital and was obtaining indispensable clinical data. - -"Madam," said Jemingham, very coldly indeed, "you talk like the census -man. Would you also like to know my age, sex, and color?" - -"We never," retorted Mrs. Morris, imperturbably, "do business with -strangers." - -"Do you want me to get a letter from the President of the United States? -I know him pretty well. Or from my bankers? They are known even in -Brooklyn." - -"We are here to supply trained nurses to people whose physicians we -know." - -A trained nurse must have unfailing good humor--it is part of her -professional requirements. But a purveyor of trained nurses may permit -herself much dignity, as though her mission in life consisted, of -fitting nurses to cases--the best nurse for the worst case. - -"My doctor," said Jerningham, "is Dr. Jewett." It was the name of a very -great surgeon. - -"Ah, yes. Surgical case! Yes! I have Miss Sennett and Miss Audrey. Dr. -Jewett knows them very well." - -"Kindly wait a second! I must see them myself. And it is not a surgical -case. It is no case at all--yet. Show me the girls!" - -"Sir, this is not an intelligence-office; but--" - -"I know there is no intelligence in this office. This is merely the -anteroom of a hospital and you are the superintendent. By rights you -ought to be on the faculty. I am perfectly willing to pay for any loss -of time or trouble to which you and the young ladies may be put." - -"Must she be young?" asked Mrs. Morris. - -Her voice was at least thirty degrees below zero, for all that there was -no devilishness about Mr. Jerningham. He said: - -"Yes; and good-looking--not a girl in her teens, but a young woman. -I should say, without meaning to be personal, about your age, Mrs. -Morris." - -It was plain that Mrs. Morris had almost superhuman control over her -facial muscles--she did not beam on him! - -"I understand," she said, in a quite human voice. This man was, after -all, neither rude nor blind. "A woman--" - -"About thirty--or a little less," said Jerningham. He looked at Mrs. -Morris's face and nodded confirmatively. - -"Exactly," said Mrs. Morris, genially. First impressions are so apt to -be unfair! - -"I'll be more than satisfied with one of your age and good -loo--and--er--appearance "--here the Morris smile irrepressibly made -its début--"and also tactful. It is an unusual case. It will necessitate -going to Europe." - -"With the patient?" - -"For the patient," said Jerningham, and waited. - -"If you will tell me a little bit more about the case--" said Mrs. -Morris, encouragingly. She had just taken a good look at the pearl in -the scarf of this delightful judge of ages--at the lowest estimation, -five thousand dollars! - -"My--I--We have reason to believe that a--friend is ill in London. -Kidneys. We wish her to take care of herself. She is a woman of -fifty-odd. We want a nurse, refined, well-bred, good-looking, and -competent--like yourself; so that she could be a companion and at home -among wealthy people. You know what I mean." He paused. - -"Perfectly, sir!" said Mrs. Morris, veraciously. Did she not know Mrs. -Morris? - -"It would be nice to find such a nurse--and, if possible, also one to -whom the fact that she is going to visit England, and possibly other -countries, may be a sort of compensation for her sudden departure -from New York. Of course she will be paid all her traveling and living -expenses--first-class all through--and her regular honorarium. I believe -it is thirty-five dollars a week. As I am leaving New York myself soon, -I'll pay in advance, and will leave instructions with my bankers to -honor any of your drafts, Mrs. Morris. It will be a good opportunity for -the young lady to know London--and you know how attractive it is--and -Paris!" - -"Yes, indeed," acquiesced Mrs. Morris, suddenly looking like Baedeker. - -"The young lady--I am sorry you could not go in her place! Yes, I -am!--will live at the same hotel with the patient and become acquainted -with her--and advise her to see a physician regularly--a specialist in -kidney diseases. We think her only daughter ought to be with her. But -you can't say anything to either of them, because if the mother doesn't -think she is ill the daughter cannot know it, either. We only suspect it -is Bright's. You can't afford to wait until you have to go to bed with -Bright's--can you?" - -"No, indeed!" gravely agreed Mrs. Morris, specialist. - -"So now you know what sort of a girl I wish--one who will be there if -the trouble should take a sudden turn for the worse; one who will induce -the old lady to consult a physician. Do I have to give a preliminary -fee?" - -"Not at all. Call this afternoon at four and I'll try to have one of my -best nurses here. She is--well, quite young; in fact"--with what might -be called a desiccated archness--"she is a little younger than I and -quite pretty. I call her handsome!" - -Some women are so sure of their own position that they do not fear -competition. - -"Thank you! I'll be here at four, sharp." And Mr. Jemingham went away -without having given his name to Mrs. Morris. - -At four o'clock Mr. Jemingham called at Mrs. Charlton Morris's agency -and had an interview with Miss Kathryn Keogh. Mrs. Morris gave them the -use of her own little private office; Jemingham very impressively waited -for Miss Keogh to sit down and then did so himself. - -He threw at Miss Keogh one of those inventorying looks that women find -so difficult to appear unconscious of, probably because they know their -own weak points. - -Miss Keogh was beautiful--and when an Irish girl is beautiful she is -beautiful in so many ways! She had the wonderful complexion of her race -and a mouth carved out of heaven's prize strawberry. Her eyes were an -incredibly deep blue when they were not an incredibly deep pansy-purple, -and they were abysses of velvet. In the darkness, without seeing -them--just by remembering them--you loved those eyes. In the light, when -you could see them, you simply worshiped! Her throat was one of those -paradoxical affairs, soft and hard, which made you think at one and the -same time of marble and rose-leaves--Solomon's tower of ivory, crowned -by the glory of golden-brown hair, so fine that you thought of clouds of -it! - -If you looked at her eyes you suspected, and if you looked at her throat -you were certain that you, a respectable married man, had in you the -makings of a criminal--the crime being bigamy. Also you would have -sworn to her only too cheerfully that she was the only girl you had ever -loved. With one look, remember! - -Jemingham looked at her with a cold, impersonally appreciative eye, as -he might have scrutinized a clock that was both beautiful and costly. - -Miss Keogh understood it perfectly. It piqued her, accustomed as she was -to instant adoration. Yet it was not entirely displeasing. This man knew -as a connoisseur knows--with his head. That he had not permitted the -silly heart to disturb the critical faculties was less flattering, -of course. It deferred the inevitable triumph and thus would make it -sweeter. - -"Has Mrs. Morris told you what I should like you to do?" Jemingham's -voice was coldly emotionless, and his gray eyes showed frosty lights. - -"She has told me what you doubtless told her. But I must confess I am -not very clear in my own mind," answered Miss Keogh. - -Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to -give her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard -the voice you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your -own lips! - -Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she -were anybody--a woman of forty, for example, "Will you listen to me -carefully?" - -"Oh yes!" - -"I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five -dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel -expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will -depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp--but we are not -throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But -forget all about it." - -"I have--in advance," said the marvel, calmly. - -Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet -not at all defiantly as a lesser person would. - -"If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's -Hotel--an old-fashioned but very select hotel--where you will find a -nice room reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a -guinea a day--for the room and table board. You will thus have five -dollars a day for cabs and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. -Margaret Deering, an elderly American widow, who looks healthy enough. -We fear she is not so strong as she looks, and don't want her to be -alone. But she will not take hints. I wish you to make friends with her, -so that if she should become ill enough to need attention you may see -that she gets proper care and induce her to cable to her only daughter." -He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh inquiringly, as if to convince -himself that Miss Keogh had understood. - -"What," said Miss Keogh, calmly, "is the rest of it?" Her eyes were very -dark. They always seemed to deepen in color when she frowned. She always -frowned when she concentrated--all women do, notwithstanding their dread -of wrinkles. - -Jerningham stared at her. Then he said, "The lady is not insane." - -"Nervous?" - -"Not yet!" - -"Ah!" Miss Keogh nodded her head. Her color had risen somewhat. - -"Is there anything in what I have said so far that makes you unwilling -to take this case?" asked Jerningham. - -"Nothing--so far," she said, looking steadily into his cold, gray eyes. -She was, of course, Irish. - -"Very well. You can save her family much worriment by suggesting to Mrs. -Deering that she ought to have a trained nurse in constant attendance." - -"By the name of Keogh?" interjected the most wonderful. - -"No. You are supposed to be a young lady with an income of your own. -You might explain that you took up trained nursing to help your only -brother, a physician." - -"Very well. And--" - -"After you meet Mrs. Deering you might make judicious remarks about her -health." - -"For example--" - -"Well, at breakfast you say: 'You didn't sleep well last night, did -you?' If she says no, you can immediately suggest a physician. If she -says she did, you say: 'Well, there is something wrong with you! Did you -ever have your kidneys examined?' A simple remark in the proper tone of -voice sometimes does it--like, 'Whatever in the world is the matter with -you, dear Mrs. Deering?' You understand?" - -"If you mean that I must suggest to her that she is ailing--" - -"Precisely. The idea is not to frighten her to death, my dear young -woman with the beautiful but suspicious eyes, but simply to induce her -to send for her only daughter, so that afterward the two will not be -separated. And the old lady, I may say for the benefit of your still -suspicious eyes, is not very rich, though the daughter is. So your -imagination need not invent any devilish plot. I think you can -accomplish your work in six weeks. For every day under the six weeks -you will receive five pounds. That's twenty-five dollars a day. That is -intended, Miss Keogh, to make you hurry. But you must be tactful." - -"Make it a fixed sum. You look like a clever man." - -She looked at him challengingly. He stared back, and gradually a look of -admiration came into his eyes. He said, with a smile of appreciation: - -"You win! You are certainly the most wonderful girl in the world! I'll -make it one thousand dollars, win, lose, or draw. But the quicker the -cablegram--" - -"--grams," she corrected--"plural. For greater effect at this end!" - -"--grams!" he echoed. "And now you must come with me to the bank to get -your letter of credit and some English money. I'll pay in advance." - -He rose. Miss Keogh motioned to him to sit down again. He did so, and -looked at her alertly. It might have disconcerted some girls--but not -the only absolutely perfect one. Not at all! - -"There remains something," she said. - -"What?" he queried, sharply. - -"You forgot it!" she told him, with one of those utterly maddening -smiles of forgiveness with which beautiful women rivet the fetters and -make one grateful. - -"What? What?" he asked, impatiently. - -"Why?" she answered. "That is what! Why?" - -Her beautiful head nodded twice with a birdlike gracefulness. Her eyes -were very blight--and very dark! Her cheeks were flushed. Her ripe lips, -slightly parted, were overpoweringly tempting. - -Jerningham stood up again and stared fixedly at her as though he would -read miles and miles beyond her wonderful eyes--into the very depths -of her soul! He approached her and held out both his hands. After a -scarcely perceptible hesitation she placed hers in his. He shook them -with profound gravity; then bowed and raised her right to his lips--and -kissed it twice. Still holding her hands in his, he said to her, -earnestly: - -"My dear child, you are the most wonderful woman in all the world. You -are simply the last word in utter perfection. I am a millionaire, but -not a crook. I am forty, but still strong. I have never been in love -with a woman; but I now know I could be. If you ever wish to marry for -the ease and comfort that great wealth gives, or if you ever feel like -using your wonderful gifts to make a man who has both money and brains -become an important personage in the world--just say the word. There is -nothing--nothing, do you hear?--that we could not do together, you and -I. My name is--" He paused and looked at her as if to make sure again. - -"Yes?" she said, in her most heavenly voice. She released her hands, but -her eyes never left his. "Jerningham." - -"The Klondike millionaire who--" - -"The same!" - -"Ah!" said Miss Keogh, calmly, but her flowerlike cheeks were -azalea-pink, and her eyes were full of light. She had read the -_Planet's_ articles. She did not remember how many million dollars -Jerningham was supposed to have; but she did remember how the fairest of -the fair had tried--and failed! - -"Remember--any time, with or without notice. My offer is open until you -accept it or definitely refuse it. Perhaps I never could make you love -me; but I know I could love you if I let myself go." - -"You have not answered me," said Miss Keogh. "Ask again," he smiled. - -"Why?" There was no smile in her eyes. - -It made him serious. He answered: - -"For friendship." - -"To a woman?" - -"To a man." - -"Again I ask, Why?" - -There was a pause. Then he said: - -"Mrs. Ashton Welles is the only daughter of Mrs. Deering." - -"And--" - -"She is twenty-two." - -"And--" - -"Her husband is fifty-two. That's all!" - -"Is it?" - -"So far as I am concerned, it is--really!" - -"Is Mr. Ashton Welles your friend?" - -"No. But he is no enemy, either." - -"No? But you have a friend, a Mr. Wolfe--a Mr. Francis Wolfe?" She knew -it from a newspaper item. - -But Mr. Jerningham jumped up from his seat. "Marry me, dear girl! Marry -me, I beg of you! You are the only woman in the world! You are the most -beautiful ever created and, beyond all question, the cleverest. You are -a genius! Why isn't all mankind on its knees worshiping? Will you marry -me? Wait! Don't speak. I know what your answer will be." - -"You do?" She smiled inscrutably. - -Imagine the Sphinx--if the Sphinx were Irish and very beautiful--with -those eyes and those lips! Guess? You couldn't guess where your soul -was--or whose! - -"Yes, I do," answered Jerningham, confidently. "I will write it on a -piece of paper and prove it. But first tell me this: Will you take Mrs. -Deering's case?" - -She looked at him, and said, "Yes." - -"Very well." He wrote something on one of his cards, doubled it so she -could not see what he had written, and gave it to her, saying, "Now -answer me: Will you marry me?" - -She looked at him a long time. He met her gaze squarely. Presently she -said, very seriously: - -"Not yet!" - -"Look in the card," he said, also very seriously. - -She did. It said: _Not yet!_ - -A vague alarm came into her purple-blue eyes. She was on the point of -speaking, but he held up his hand, and said, earnestly: - -"Please don't say it. We'll meet in London. You will enjoy the -Continent later on. Now let us go and get your letter of credit, and see -whether you like the stateroom that I ordered reserved." They did. - -On the next day Jerningham's limousine took Miss Keogh and her -hand-luggage to the steamer.-Jerningham was there to see her off. -She had invited a dozen of her friends to do the same, and they were -there--all of them women and most of them frankly envious, for her -stateroom was full of beautiful flowers and baskets of wonderful -fruit--quite as if she already were a millionaire! - -As she said good-by to Jerningham there was in her eyes a look of -intelligent, almost cold-blooded, gratitude which seemed to embrace Mr. -Jerningham's kindness, his thoughtfulness, and his bank account. - -"I wish you a very pleasant voyage!" he said. "Think over my offer. When -you get to London will you mail these letters for me? Remember, you are -to cable if you need anything, money or advice--or a husband. And cable -at once if Mrs. Deering cables. Good-by! _Bon voyage!_" - -When Miss Keogh came to open the package of letters she found in it -thirty-three, stamped with British stamps, on stationery of Thornton's -Hotel'! They were addressed in a woman's handwriting to various business -houses, some of which she recognized as manufacturers of medical goods -and agents of mineral waters of the kind used by people who suffer -from kidney diseases. It made her think that if--between the deluge -of medical prospectuses and Miss Keogh's efforts--Mrs. Deering did -not cable for her only daughter it would be a wonder! Jerningham was -neglecting nothing to succeed. - -V - -Frank Wolfe's first task in his new and now famous job consisted -of helping Jerningham buy two automobiles. Then, when the weather -permitted, they toured Westchester County and Long Island. - -Usually they took along some of Frank's men friends. It was pleasant -work---at the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. - -Jerningham did not again refer to his love-affair, and Frank could not -very well allude to it; but it was perfectly plain to the young man that -within a very short time their friendship would be sufficiently strong -to justify Mr. Jerningham in asking Frank to help actively in the search -of the vanished Naida Deering. - -One day Mr. Jerningham waited in vain for young Mr. Wolfe. They had -planned to go to Mount Kisco to look at a farm that was offered for -sale, Mr. Jerningham having developed the usual millionaire's desire -to own an estate. At one o'clock the telephone-bell rang. Jerningham -answered in person. He heard a feminine voice say that Mr. Wolfe -regretted that a severe indisposition had prevented him from going -as usual to Mr. Jerningham's rooms, but he hoped to be sufficiently -recovered to have that pleasure on the next day. - -Jerningham merely said, "Say I hope it is nothing serious--and ask him, -please, whether there is anything I can do." - -Silence. Then: "He says, 'No--thanks!' It is nothing very serious." - -"Tell him not to come down until he has entirely recovered and to take -good care of himself. Good-by!" - -If Mr. Jerningham heard the tinkling music of an irrepressible giggle at -the other end of the wire he did not show it. His face was serious as -he found an address in the telephone-directory. He called up the -Brown Lecture Bureau and made an appointment to see Captain Brown, the -manager, at 3 p.m. At that hour, to the minute, he was ushered into the -private offices of the world-famous manager of the lecture bureau. - -"Captain Brown?" - -"Yes, sir. What can I do for you?" - -"I should like to know what lecturers you have available at the moment," -said Jerningham. - -The Klondiker did not look like the chairman of a church entertainment -committee or like a village philanthropist. So Captain Brown asked: - -"Where is the--er--Is it a club?" - -"No. It is myself. Here in New York." - -"Well, we provide speakers and lecturers, not exactly entertainers, -to--" - -"I know all that. I wish to know whom you could send me to entertain me. -Let me see! Is Commander Finsen, the explorer, here now?" - -"Yes." - -"And his terms?" - -"It depends upon where it is." - -Evidently Jerningham did not think Captain Brown realized what was -wanted, for he said, earnestly: - -"Captain Brown, get this clearly fixed in your mind, if you please: I -am anxious to hear some of your lecturers by myself alone, in my own -apartments. I wish men who have done things--men who are, above -all things, brave and resourceful. I don't want decadent poets, but -explorers, gentlemen adventurers, humanists, or scientists, who have a -knack of imparting their knowledge in such a way as to interest men who -are neither old nor scientific. I am perfectly willing to pay your usual -rate. What's the odds if one of your clients spends an evening with -me or whether he spends it in Norwalk, Connecticut, or Boundbrook, New -Jersey? Do you get me?" - -"Oh, perfectly. I might suggest--" - -Here the genial manager ceased speaking to smile, grateful that so -unusual a man as Jerningham should condescend to listen. It was a -habit--this thankful smiling--that came from having dealt with geniuses -for thirty years. Then Captain Brown permitted himself to suggest a -dozen or more men who had very interesting stories to tell. Jerningham -asked him to make a memorandum of the men and their specialties, and -agreed to call on Captain Brown when he needed entertainment. After -Captain Brown had given him the names and prices, Jerningham gave his -own name and address. - -Captain Brown looked grieved. He read the newspapers. He might have -asked double the fees from the Alaskan Monte Cristo! - -On the next day, when Mr. Francis Wolfe showed up with never a trace of -anything but good health on his pleasing face, Jerningham invited him to -spend the next evening in the apartments and hear Finsen tell how he had -discovered the tribe of Antarctic giants, the shortest of whom was seven -feet three inches; and how he had captured alive, thirty-three white -bears. He asked Frank to invite five friends who might be interested, -first, in dining with Jerningham and Commander Finsen, and then in -hearing Finsen spin his yarn. - -Frank gladly undertook to find the audience. - -So they had a very nice little dinner, with just enough to drink and no -killjoys in activity. And later, in Jerningham's little sitting-room at -the hotel, they heard the great Dane, who was a prosaic viking with -iron muscles and pale-blue eyes that made you uncomfortable for reasons -unknown, tell them all about his remarkable voyage of discovery and his -hunts--no end of things that he could tell them, but could not tell -a mixed audience: perfectly amazing details, of which Frank and his -friends talked for weeks. - -Then there was a little midnight supper, at which they all told stories -that left no unpleasant aftereffects. - -One day after luncheon Jerningham, who had been in a particularly jovial -mood, suddenly became very serious. He aimed at Frank one of those -searching looks that seemed to go to the young man's soul. Then he said: - -"My boy, I'd like to say something to you." - -"Say it." - -"I shall probably hurt your feelings, so you must be prepared to keep -your temper well in hand." - -"You ought to know me better than that by now, Jerningham," retorted -Frank. He had grown not only to like, but even to admire, this strange -miner. - -"Wolfe," said Jerningham, slowly, "you are one of those unfortunate -chaps who are cruelly handicapped by perennial youth. It is doubtless a -pleasing thing to feel at fifty as you did at twenty. Nevertheless, -it is bad business. It is all very nice to shun responsibility, but it -makes you careless; and you can't expect to saddle consequences on your -guardian after you are twenty-one. A boy of forty can't be trusted to -take care of his own property." - -"I can take care of mine," laughed Frank, "without any trouble." His -property was about minus thirty thousand. - -"Your property now--yes. But suppose you had a million or two left -you--or even more? Do you know what would happen to those millions, and -do you know what would happen to you?" - -"I know--but I won't tell." - -"Will you let me tell you?" asked Jerningham, so earnestly that Frank -almost stopped smiling. - -"I'll hear you to the bitter end." - -"The millions would go from your pocket into the pockets of--well, you -know whose pockets! And your life would go into the Big Beyond by the W. -W. route." - -"I bite. What's W. W.?" - -"Wine and woman. You would last perhaps five years. You would die a -dipsomaniac at thirty or thereabout. The chief folly of fighting booze -when you are rich is that it renders wealth utterly futile." - -"How?" - -"Well, you can get just as drunk on ten dollars a day as you can on one -thousand dollars--with this difference, that in the one case you would -have to get drunk on whisky by yourself and in the other you might get -drunk on vintage champagne in the company of paid parasites. The morning -after is the same in both cases: you don't remember any more of the -ten-dollar jag than of the thousand-dollar orgy! When a drunkard sets -out to squander a million all he really does is to carry a sign on -his back with letters a mile high--the sign reading, 'I am a d------d -fool!"' - -Frank took it good-naturedly because he liked Jemingham and because he -was not a millionaire. It really would be asinine to be a millionaire -and try to drink all there was; so he said, amiably: - -"Having downed the Demon Rum, then what?" - -"I'll put it up to you this way: I have no family and I may never marry. -I certainly won't if I don't find my first and only sweetheart. Suppose -I felt like leaving you some of my money? You are a nice boy, but you -also have been a D. F., and you must admit that no man likes to see his -friend trying to beat all D. F. records. Don't get mad and don't look -indignant! I want to make a proposition to you: I'll agree to deposit to -your account in a trust company one hundred dollars a day for every day -you don't touch a drop! I don't want to reform you. I merely want to -train you--in case! There will be some times when you will forfeit that. -It will amount to paying one hundred dollars for a Martini. It will -become a luxury." - -"Too expensive for me!" said Frank, seriously. "And, my boy, it is more -than being on the water-wagon--it's being able to stay on! Booze is so -foolish! I want to give you some business matters--for you to handle for -me." - -"You know what I know about business--" - -"Can't you do as you are told? Don't you know enough to look clever and -say, 'Sign here!' in a frozen voice?" - -"Oh yes. But--" - -"I know you will miss your evenings at first. But I'll tell you what to -do. I am no killjoy. Well, you spend as many evenings as you wish with -me. Invite as many friends as you please--sex no bar. Will you?" - -"Jemingham, you are a nice chap. I'll do it. But you must not think of -that one hundred dollars--" - -"Tut-tut! Can't you understand that I want to do it--that I love to see -your bank account grow? Run along now. I want to read Lucretius." - -From that day Francis Wolfe became Jemingham's inseparable companion. -Every night they went to the theater together or else they spent the -evening in Jemingham's rooms, listening to celebrities. Their evenings -soon became famous. Indeed, people began to talk about Frank Wolfe's -reform. Even his fairest and frailest friends, knowing that Frank -forfeited one hundred dollars a day by falling off the water-wagon, -kept him firmly on the seat--and borrowed the hundred. In due time -the miracle reached the ears of Frank's sisters and of his aunt, Mrs. -Stimson. They had a talk with Frank. They were first amazed, then -delighted, when they saw Frank and when they heard about Jerningham's -intention of making him his heir. - -Thus it came about that, out of gratitude for the man who was making a -man of their brother, Mrs. - -John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham accepted Mr. Jerningham's -invitation and attended one of the lectures at the Klondiker's -apartments. The little supper that followed was a great success. Mr. -Jemingham talked little, but extremely well--as when he said to Mrs. -Jack in a low voice that he loved Frank Wolfe and some day everybody -would be sure of it! - -"I am merely training him. But don't think I am asking the impossible. I -wish him to know enough to hold on to what I'll leave him." - -Of course after that Mr. Jerningham was not only in society, but even -in a fair way of becoming a fad. Gerald Lanier, the short-story writer, -said that Jerningham was society's gold cure and had climbed into the -inner circles on a ladder made of tightly corked wine-bottles; in fact, -he wrote what his nonliterary friends called a skit--and Frank's friends -a knock--entitled: "How to Capitalize Intemperance." But that did not -hinder Jerningham from receiving invitations from families with thirsty -younger sons. - -VI - -One morning Jemingham, who had seemed preoccupied, said to Frank: - -"I wonder if I can ask you--" He paused and looked doubtfully at Frank. - -"What?" - -"A favor." - -"Of course. Why, you can even touch me if you want to." - -"I wonder if your--if Mrs. Burt would invite Mrs. Ashton Welles to -dinner?" - -"I guess so. I'll ask her." - -"That way you could meet Mrs. Welles, and--" - -"You mean," said Frank, trying to look like Sherlock Holmes, "I could -ask her about your--about her sister?" - -Jerningham jumped to his feet in consternation. - -"Great Scott, no! No!" he shouted. - -"Why, I thought--" - -"You can't ask her that until you know her so well that you can take a -friend's liberty. Promise me you won't ask her until I myself tell you -that you may! Promise!" - -There was in his eyes a look of such intensity that young Wolfe was -startled. - -"Of course I'll promise." - -"You must make friends with her first. She must learn to like you--" - -Francis Wolfe smiled a trifle fatuously. It was merely boyish. A little -more, however, would have made the smile ungentlemanly. Jerningham -continued, very earnestly: - -"Listen, lad. She will have to do more than merely like you--she will -have to trust you. And the only way to make a young and pretty woman -trust a _young_ and not unattractive man is by having that man never, -never, never fail in respect of her. He may be in love with her, or -he may only pretend to be in love with her; but he must act as if he -regarded her with such awe that he dare not make direct love to her. Do -you get it?" - -"Yes. But--" - -"There is no but. She must first like you, which is not difficult; and -then she must trust you as a true friend, which is, to say the least, a -slower matter. Be a brother to her. Do you think you like me well enough -to do this for me now?" - -Jerningham looked at young Wolfe steadily--a man's look. - -Frank said: "I'll do it gladly. And my sisters--" - -"They must never know about--about Naida!" interrupted Jerningham, -hastily. - -"Of course not. But they will do anything for me--and for you, too!" - -That is the true story of how it came about that Mrs. Ashton Welles was -taken up by the Jack Burts; and how she met Francis Wolfe; and how Mrs. -Stimson invited Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Welles to one of her old-fashioned -and tiresome but famous and very formal dinners; and how Frank again -took in Mrs. Welles. Thereafter they met often. At some of these dinners -they met Jerningham. - -The Klondiker paid his court to Mr. Welles. Indeed, he seemed to have -for the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company an admiration that -closely resembled the worship of a matinée girl for an actress like -Maude Adams. It was an innocent sort of worship, but, nevertheless, not -displeasing. In men it sometimes makes the worshiped feel paternally -toward the worshiper. - -Jerningham developed a habit of going every day to the trust company; -and he made it a point always to see Ashton Welles, if only to shake -hands. One morning he told Mr. Welles he desired advice about an -investment. Jerningham, it must be remembered, had on deposit with -the trust company over a million dollars, and there were six or seven -millions in gold-dust in the company's vault. - -"Mr. Welles, I--I," said the Klondiker, so earnestly that he -stammered--"I should like to buy some VanTwiller Trust Company stock, to -have and to hold as long as you are president." - -There was in Jemingham's eyes a look of that admiration that best -expresses itself in absolute confidence in the infallibility of a very -great man. Welles was a very cold man; but flattery has rays that will -thaw icebergs. - -Welles nearly blushed and smiled one of his politely deprecating -smiles--as if he were apologizing for smiling--and said: - -"Why, Mr. Jemingham, I'll confess to you that I myself think well of -that stock. I guess we'll keep on paying dividends." - -Jemingham smiled delightedly--the king had jested! Then he said: - -"I'll buy as much as I can, but I don't want to put up the price on -myself. Who can give me pointers on how to pick up the stock quietly? Do -you think I should see Mr. Barrows or Mr. Stewardson?" - -He looked so anxiously at Mr. Welles that Mr. Welles said, kindly: - -"Oh, see Stewardson. I'll speak to him, if you wish." - -"Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Welles," said Jer-ningham, so gratefully -that Welles felt like a philanthropist as he rang the bell to summon the -second vice-president. - -"Mr. Stewardson, Mr. Jemingham, wants to buy some of our stock. I want -you to help him in any way possible." - -"Delighted, I'm sure!" said the vice-president, very cordially. He was -paid to be cordial to customers. - -"If I had my way I'd be the largest individual stockholder," said -Jerningham, looking at Welles almost adoringly. - -"I hope you will," said Welles, pleasantly. "Mr. Stewardson will help -you." - -Jerningham and Welles shook hands. Then Jerningham and Stewardson left -to go to the vice-president's private office. - - - -VII - -The remarkable Miss Keogh was one of those remarkable people who are -really remarkable. Within three weeks came a cablegram from her to Mr. -Jerningham to the effect that a letter had been sent by Mrs. Deering to -her daughter--the first. Mrs. Deering had begun to doubt her own health. -Then came cablegrams from her to Mrs. Welles; and in a few days, before -Ashton Welles could think of a valid excuse for not letting his wife -go to England, Mrs. Welles told him to engage passage for her on the -_Ruritania_. - -It was very unfortunate that he could not accompany her; but the annual -meeting was only three weeks away, and the minority, never strong enough -to do real damage, always was devilish enough to be very disagreeable to -the clique in control. Ashton Welles, after the extremely stupid fashion -of all strong men, had always kept the absolute control of the company's -affairs in his own hands. It was the one thing he refused to share with -his subordinates. He was a czar in his office. He was, in reality, the -trust company--or he so believed and so he made others believe. His -vice-presidents were merely highly paid office-boys, according to the -gossip of the Street, which was not so far out of the way in this -particular instance. - -Ten minutes after Mrs. Ashton Welles engaged Suite D on the _Ruritania_, -due to sail on the following day, Jerningham said to Mr. Francis Wolfe: - -"My boy, I should like you to go to London on business for me--and for -yourself. You've got to represent me in a deal with the Arctic Venture -Corporation. You will have my power of attorney and you will sign -the deed for one of my properties, as soon as they have deposited two -hundred and fifty thousand pounds to my credit in Parr's Bank. And also -you will call on the prettiest girl in the world--the prettiest, do -you hear?--who unfortunately is also the brightest and cleverest. Her -name--" He paused and looked at Francis Wolfe meditatively, almost -hesitatingly. - -"Go on!" implored Francis Wolfe. - -"Her name is Kathryn Keogh and she is stopping at Thornton's Hotel. She -will help you find Naida. Miss Keogh is a friend of Mrs. Deering." - -"She is Irish--eh?" asked Frank. - -"Mrs. Deering?" - -"No; the peach--the--Miss Keogh?" - -"She is of the Waterford Keoghs, famous for their eyes and their -complexions. But business first. You are not to fall in love with Miss -Keogh until after my two hundred and fifty thousand pounds are safe in -bank. I'd go myself, but I have a still bigger deal on here in New York. -I've taken the liberty to engage a stateroom on the _Ruritania_, sailing -tomorrow, and a letter of credit has been ordered for five thousand -dollars. Have I taken too much for granted?" - -"No; but you know perfectly well that I don't know a thing about -business, and I'd be afraid--" - -"My solicitors in London will call on you when they are ready for you. -I shall give you a memorandum for your own conduct; you will find there -instructions in detail--just as though you were a ten year-old boy; but -that is really for your own protection, and I don't mean to imply that -your mind is ten years old--" - -"No feelings hurt," said Frank, who in reality was much relieved to -learn that the chances of his making a mistake had been intelligently -minimized. - -"I'm glad you take it that way. Now we'll go down-town to Towne, Ripley -& Co. and give them your signature for the letter of credit; from there -we'll go to the British Consulate and have my own signature on my power -of attorney certified to by the consul, and then you can skip up-town -and say good-by to your friends." - -Frank left Jerningham at the consulate and went home to pack up and -arrange for his more pressing adieus. Jerningham went into a public -telephone-booth and called up the offices of _Society Folk_. When they -answered he asked to speak with the editor. - -"Well?" presently came in a sharp voice. - -"This is Mr.--er--a friend." - -"Anonymous! All right. What do you want?" - -"To give you a piece of news." - -"We verify everything and take your word for absolutely nothing. I tell -you this to save your telling me a lie." - -"That's all right. You'll find it true enough. I--" - -"One minute. Where is that pencil? All right! Now the name of the -woman?" - -"How do you know I want to--" - -"All you fellows always do. What's her name?" - -"Mrs. Ashton Welles." - -"The wife of the president of the VanTwiller--" - -"Correct!" said Jerningham. - -"Now the name of the man?" - -"Francis Wolfe," answered Jerningham, unhesitatingly. - -"The chorus-girls' pet?" asked the voice. - -"The same!" - -"Has it happened yet? Or do you merely fear it? Or is it a case of -hoping?" - -"I don't know what you are driving at." - -"Then you don't read _Society Folk_" - -"Well, I don't--regularly. All I know is that Frank has been very -assiduous in his attentions lately. He's shaken the Great White Way and -hasn't been in a lobster-palace in two months. He and Mrs. Ashton Welles -are sailing on the _Ruritania_ tomorrow." - -"Under what name?" - -"Their own." - -"Thank you, kind friend. Thank you!" - -"Why do you say that?" - -"Because we can now use names. Does Mr. Welles also go?" - -"Of course not!" - -"Excuse me for asking such a silly question. What other crime has he -committed besides being old?--I mean Mr. Welles." - -"Stupidity is worse than criminal." - -"Aye, aye, sir!" - -"When does your paper come out?" - -"Day after to-morrow. Much obliged. You are a friend in need. Don't ring -off yet. Listen! You are also a dirty, low-lived, sneaking, cowardly -dog, and a general, all-round, unrelieved, monumental--" It was the -one way the editor had of showing that he was better than his anonymous -contributor. - -Jerningham, of course, went on board the _Ruritania_ to see Frank off. -Ashton Welles was also there to say good-by to his young and beautiful -wife. It was their first separation, and Welles did not like it. He -seemed to feel her absence in advance; it was really that, as the hour -drew near, he realized more vividly how lonely she would leave him! They -have a saying in Spain that a man may grow accustomed to bearing sorrow, -but that nobody can get used to that happiness which comes merely to -disappear immediately after. A cigar manufacturer from Havana had once -quoted this to Ashton Welles, and Ashton Welles was impressed less by -the saying than by the fact that the Spaniard was so serious about it. -But now he remembered it. - -He was very uncomfortable and this discomfort made his mental machinery -act queerly; it seemed to tint his thoughts with strange, unusual hues -that made them almost morbid. He would have felt contempt for his own -weakness had he not been so full of half-angry regret at being left -alone in New York--this man who never had possessed an intimate friend; -who not even as a boy had a chum! - -Of course it was only a coincidence that young Mr. Francis Wolfe was -to be young Mrs. Ashton Welles's fellow-passenger; and it was also a -coincidence that Mr. Wolfe's stateroom was just across the passageway -from Mrs. Welles's suite. Indeed, neither of the young people had picked -out the cabins--but there they were. And there, in Ashton Welles's mind, -was another unformulated unpleasantness. - -Frank's sisters were so proud Frank was going to put through an -important business deal that they showed it. But if they were glad that -Mrs. Welles was also going they did not show it. They recalled Frank's -desire to meet the pretty young matron whose husband was thirty years -older, and they were rather ostentatiously polite to her. Ashton Welles, -in his disturbed state of mind, somehow felt that the attitude of Mrs. -John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham was one of blame-fixing; but he -could not definitely understand why there should be any blame to fix! -He dismissed his semi-suspicions with the thought that women had petty -minds. His wife was very pretty and Wolfe's sisters were not as young as -they used to be. And youth is a terrible thing--to lose! It is hard to -forgive youth for being, after one is past--well, say, past a certain -age. And to prove that he himself had nothing to fear--absolutely -nothing--he even smiled and said to young Mr. Wolfe: - -"I feel certain, of course, that if Mrs. Welles should need anything--" - -It was the season of the year when east-bound liners carried few -passengers. The young people were bound to be thrown together a great -deal. - -"Of course, Mr. Welles. Only too delighted, I'm sure!" said Frank, very -eagerly. - -He was a fine-looking chap, with that wonderfully clean, healthy pink -complexion which suggests a clean and healthy mind. His eyes were full -of that eager, boyish light that makes the possessors thereof so nice to -pet, small-child wise. - -Ashton Welles received an impression of Frank Wolfe's face that was -photographic in its details. - -The floating hotel moved off slowly. Ashton Welles, on the pier, -watched the fluttering handkerchief of his wife out of sight. He had -the remembrance of her beautiful young face framed in Siberian sable to -cheer him. She certainly looked heavenly. She had cried at leaving -him. She had waved away at him vehemently, and there was the unpleasant -suggestion that always attends such leave-takings--that the parting was -forever. A frail thing--human life! A little speck of vitality on the -boundless waste of grim, gray waters! And she seemed so sorry to go away -from him! And she waved and waved, as if she, also, feared she might -never see him again! And Francis Wolfe stood beside her, very close to -her, and waved also--to Jemingham, who stood beside Ashton Welles. - -Ashton Welles accepted Jerningham's invitation and rode to his office -in the Klondiker's sumptuous motor in the Klondiker's company. Ashton -Welles looked at the flower-holder. Instead of the white azaleas he saw -two white handkerchiefs waved by two young people. - -"You are very friendly with young Wolfe?" said Ashton Welles, carelessly -inquisitive--merely to make talk, you know. All rich old men who marry -young women have ostrich habits. They put an end to danger by closing -their eyes to the obvious. That is why they always discover nothing. - -"Rather--yes. I think he is a fine chap--one of those clean-cut -Americans of the present generation that European women find so -perfectly fascinating." - -Ashton Welles instantly frowned--and instantly ceased to frown. - -"Yes," he said, and grimaced, thinking it looked like a smile. -"What business is taking him to London? I thought he was a young man -of--er--elegant leisure." - -"He was that until very recently; but he has turned over a new leaf. He -has forsworn his old and, I suppose, rather disreputable companions. I -find him rather serious." - -"What has changed him?" Ashton Welles was foolish enough to be brave -enough to ask. When a question can have two answers--one of them -disagreeable--it is folly to ask it. - -"I don't know," answered Jerningham, as if puzzled. "He has acted a -little queerly and secretive-like; but it is, I admit, a queerness that -other young men would do well to imitate, for it has made him cease -drinking, and cease--er--you know. I rather suspect it is his sister, -Mrs. Burt. He is very fond of her. A man will do things for a good woman -that he won't for his best man friend, or for his own sake. You saw him. -There is no viciousness or dissipation in that face. Damned handsome -chap, I call him!" - -"H'm!" winced the glacial Ashton Welles. He could not help it. - -There came upon him a strange mood, almost of numbness, that made him -silent against his will. He answered by nods--the nods of a man who -does not hear--to Jerningham's chatter. He gathered in some way that -the Alaskan Monte Cristo was talking of buying VanTwiller Trust Company -stock, and that he would ask Stewardson how much he could borrow on the -stock. - -"Yes--do!" said Ashton Welles as the motor stopped in front of the -imposing entrance of the trust company's marble building. - -They stepped out; Welles excused himself almost brusquely and went into -his own private office to think all the thoughts that a millionaire of -fifty-two thinks when he thinks that he married at fifty a girl thirty -years his junior, with cheeks like flower petals and eyes like skies, -who is going to spend the best part of a week on a steamer in the -company of a man who is much worse than handsome--young! - -Mr. Jerningham, who did not seem to have noticed the near rudeness of -Mr. Ashton Welles, promptly sought the second vice-president and asked -how much the company would lend on its own stock. - -"It is against the law for us to lend money on our own stock," said the -vice-president, who did not add that this provision had prevented many -an inside clique from eating its pie and having it too. - -"Will the banks loan money on V.T. stock?" asked Jerningham. He had -already bought three thousand shares at an average of four hundred -dollars a share. - -"Well, I guess so." - -"On a time loan?" - -"No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say." - -"That is not much," objected Jerningham. - -"No, it isn't. But--May I ask you a question?" - -"Two if you wish," said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles. - -"Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold -you have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your -boxes?" - -This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash -the trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's -iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them. - -"Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson," said Jerningham, with that -curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not -really understand--"let me tell you this: The time is coming--and coming -within a few months!--when good, hard gold is going to command a premium -just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in 1896. I -am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take advantage -of--" - -"But present conditions are utterly different--" - -"They are always different--and yet the panics come! You thought that -after 1896 there would never again be any need for clearing-house -certificates; and yet, in 1907--" - -"They were unnecessary--" began Stewardson, hotly. - -He had been left out of all conferences among the powers at that trying -time, and naturally disapproved their actions. - -"But they happened, just the same! I know myself. If I cash in now I'll -buy something with the money. I don't want to buy now. No, sir! If I -should happen to need a million or two I prefer to borrow it for a few -weeks until my next shipment comes in. There will be two millions coming -in about the middle of next month. I've sent word to get out as big an -output as possible. See? You bet your boots Wall Street is not going to -get either my cash or my mines, as they did Colonel Cannon's. You know -he was The Mexican copper king' one day and That jackass from Chihuahua' -the next! See?" - -The vice-president looked at him and said "I see!" in a very flattering -tone of voice; but in his inmost mind he was thinking that such a thing -was precisely what doubtless would happen to Mr. Alfred -Jemingham, late of Nome. It is always the extremely suspicious, -too-smart-for-you-by-heck! farmer who buys the biggest gold brick. - -"They'll find out I'll never let them change my name into That -blankety-blank-blank from Alaska!'" And Jemingham put on that look of -devilish astuteness that buyers of stocks always put on when they buy at -top prices. - -He left the vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company and called -on the vice-presidents of several other trust companies and banks, and -found out that he could borrow, more than three hundred dollars a share -on his V.T. stock. And he did--then and there. He impressed the genial -philanthropists on whom he called as being a child of Nature--a great -big boy playing at being a financier. There was in consequence much -smacking of financial lips. It was morsels like this naïve and honest -Alaskan miner with the millions that helped to reconcile men to living -the Wall Street life. - - - -VIII - -On the day after the _Ruritania_ sailed Ashton Welles, whose first -wifeless evening at home had not been pleasant, found on his desk a -marked copy of _Society Folk_. These were the four marked paragraphs: - -The man who first said there was no fool like an old fool had in mind -that form of folly which consists of the purchase of a beautiful girl by -a man who endeavors to span a difference of thirty years in age by -means of a bridge of solid gold. It is unnatural, unwholesome, and even -immoral. The sordid romances of high life that begin in a Fifth Avenue -jewelry-shop are apt to end in a Reno divorce-mill. Why shouldn't they? - -A girl who marries once for money is always ready to marry again -for more money--or for more love--for she always wants more than the -desiccated ass who first bought her can give her. - -A girl of twenty who is famous for her good looks is always a beautiful -young woman, no matter what else she may be. But a man close to sixty, -whether he is the head of a big trust company or a poet, is nothing -but an old man. Speaking of remarkable coincidences, is it not odd that -both Fool and Financier should begin with an F? And Frailty, too, whose -other name is Woman? - -If there are some things that gold cannot do it is perfectly wonderful -how many things love can do! It bridges all chasms with kisses, and -solves all riddles--with glances. It even defies the high cost of living -and makes men think themselves demigods. It has been known to make -champagne drunkards swear off long before they are bankrupt. It even now -depopulates the lobster-palaces. It turns dining-room navigators into -fearless vikings, braving the wild Atlantic and its midwinter gales in -order to be by their lady-loves. It may even reform Tammany leaders--for -we know it can transform young asses into handsome Lancelots. - -Among the passengers on the _Ruritania_, sailing for Liverpool at this -unfashionable season of the year, were Mrs. Ashton Welles, who has the -gorgeous Suite D all to herself, and young Mr. Francis Wolfe, who is -content with the more modest stateroom across the way. Frank's friends -are always singing his praises these days. He never looks at a -chorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has not taken -anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to -advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the -handsomest bachelorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has -not taken anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not -averse to advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe -is the handsomest bachelor who ever sidestepped matrimony. - -It takes more than money to keep the Wolfe from the door--eh? What? - -The Ashton Welles who finished reading the beastly paragraphs of -_Society Folk_ was not the same Ashton Welles who began them. He was -no longer an efficient financier, but a man benumbed, whose brain had -turned to plaster of Paris. His mind at once lost all elasticity, all -power to functionate. And, since he could not think, he could not act. -That wonderful world, which financially successful people create for -themselves with so much pride, tumbled about his ears. Out of the chaos -made by a few printed words, only one thing was certain--he suffered! - -Men are always wounded in a vital spot when they are wounded by -jealousy, and Ashton Welles was particularly vulnerable because he -lived in only two places--his office and his home. He did not have -other houses of refuge to which his soul could retreat--like music or -literature or art--in case of need. He had been so busy winning success -that he had not had time for anything else. He had worked for -the aggrandizement of the personal fortune of Ashton Welles. When -circumstances and that reputation for luck, shrewdness, and caution, -which is in itself a golden sagacity, finally placed him, still a young -man, at the head of the VanTwiller Trust Company, David Soulett, one of -the directors, remarked: "Welles has married the company; but we don't -yet know whether he is to be the company's husband or whether the -company is to be his wife!" And a fellow-director, who had been in -profitable deals with Welles, retorted, "Well, I call it an ideal -match!" - -Welles brought to the company what it needed and the presidency brought -to Welles many opportunities--none of which he neglected. He saw the -deposits increase tenfold--and his own fortune twentyfold. What -might not have been politic in an individual playing a lone hand -was altogether admirable in the head of a financial institution--his -cold-bloodedness, for example, and the dehumanized attitude toward -life habitually assumed by the principal cog-wheel in that intricate -aggregation of cog-wheels known as a modern trust company. Being an -excellent money-lender, he was an uninteresting human being. You lose -much when you win money--for gold is hard and cold, and the enjoyment of -life calls for softness and warmth. It is the appalling revenge capital -takes on its self-called masters. - -As he approached his fiftieth year Welles began to find that -his isolation might be splendid, but that it was also damnably -uncomfortable. Did you know that in certain millionaire households, -where everything always runs very smoothly, the master gets to long for -a burnt steak or the spilling of soup by the very competent servant? -Welles, accustomed to the wonderfully comfortable life of a very rich -bachelor in New York, desired a home where everything need not be so -comfortable. And as his fortune became a matter of several millions it -began--as swollen fortunes always do, also in revenge!--to take on the -aspect of a monument, something to admire during the monument-builder's -lifetime and to endure impressively afterward! With the desire of -permanence came the dream of all capitalists that makes them dynasts -of gold--an heir to extend the boundaries of the family fortune! It was -inevitable that Ashton Welles should grow to believe that, though the -trust company's deposits were in other people's names, they really -belonged to Ashton Welles, because they were merely the marble blocks -of the Welles monument. The name of Welles must never cease to be -identified with the work of Ashton the First! - -Wherefore the need of an heir became almost an obsession with him, and -with it came a quite human dissatisfaction with hotels and clubs, and -trained nurses in times of illness. When a capitalist realizes clearly -that, apart from his money-lending capacity, he has absolutely no power -to bring tears to human eyes, he grows jealous of his own money. He -wishes to be feared, though penniless, just as he would be loved, though -a pauper. All these desires combined to force Ashton Welles into a -decision. He had kept up a desultory sort of friendship with Mrs. -Deering, the widow of his predecessor in the presidency of the trust -company, and Anne Deering was the girl he knew best of all--though he -really did not know her at all. - -The Deerings had not been fortunate in their investments; in fact, the -Deering holdings of Van-Twiller stock had been benevolently assimilated -at one-fifth of their value by Ashton Welles himself during one of those -panics that make reckless persons cease being reckless ever after. It -was not very difficult for Anne Deering to be made to feel that she -could save her mother's life and assure ease and comfort for herself -forever by marrying Mr. Ashton Welles, who at fifty was one of those men -whom old friends invariably classify as well-preserved. To be just, he -was really distinguished-looking and had a sort of uniform urbanity that -made him at least unobjectionable. - -He was also very rich. She married him. She learned to like him. He grew -to love her! - -She was a doll--beautiful and utterly useless; but it was this very -uselessness that made Ashton Welles worship her. This financier, who -in his office was not only a skilful bargain-driver, but preached and -practised the religion of efficiency, in his home plunged into an orgy -of utterly juvenile lovemaking. He reveled in his wooing, which he had -to do after his marriage. He did not merely desire to have a wife--he -must have a wife of an extreme femininity; she must be one of those -womanly women who exist only in the imaginations of men of a tyrannical -cast of mind. His life having been for years exclusively a money-making -life, he became very selfish. And he continued to find his greatest -pleasure in pleasing himself--only that he now best pleased himself by -being a boy sweetheart; by achieving his puppy love at fifty and deeming -it marvelously rejuvenating and therefore altogether admirable. - -Very well! Now imagine that man, living for two years amid those -pitifully evanescent illusions so cherished by middle-aged men of money -who marry very young women of looks--imagine that man suddenly informed -that he is no longer to be anything but an old man! And not only old, -but deserted! Imagine that selfsame man brought face to face with the -invincible Opponent of all old men--youth! - -To Ashton Welles, sitting in his office, surrounded by glittering -millions, there came the deadly chill of age--doubly cold from being -surrounded by gold. In the twinkling of an eye all young men suddenly -became redoubtable warriors, love-conquerors, irresistible as a force of -nature--and as heartless! He was beaten by the universal victor--Time! - -He stared fixedly at a photograph of his wife in an elaborately -chased silver frame, but he did not see her. He saw ruins, as of a -conflagration--the smoking débris of a destroyed home; and heaps of -ashes--ashes everywhere! And in the rising puffs of smoke he saw faces -of men--of young men--of very handsome young men! - -Stewardson, the vice-president, walked in--the door was open, as usual. -He saw his chief's face and was shocked into a quite human feeling of -consternation. - -"Great heavens, Mr. Welles, what is the matter?" - -"Nothing!" said Ashton Welles. He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse -to hide his face from the sight of his fellow-men. He thought his -forehead must show in black letters--_Fool!_ and--and--and ten thousand -terrible legends that changed with each beat of his heart, and told what -he had been and what had happened; and--yes--what was bound to happen! - -"Nothing! Nothing!" he repeated, fiercely. - -"Nothing, I tell you!" He was certain all the world knew his disgrace. - -"Shall I call a doctor?" - -"No! No!" he snarled. Call in the entire world and gloat at his -discomfiture? He glanced at the vice-president. The impolitic alarm on -Steward-son's face exasperated him. "What do you want? Damn it, what do -you want?" It was almost a shriek. - -"I wanted to consult with you about that Consolidated Cushion Tire bond -issue--" - -"Yes, yes! Well?" - -"Have you decided whether to--" - -"Yes! I mean--no! I mean--Wait! Ask Witter. I dictated a memorandum to -him, I think. Yes, I did!" - -He was making desperate efforts to speak calmly; but he stopped, because -Stewardson, a dastard of thirty-two, suddenly grew to resemble young Mr. -Francis Wolfe! Stewardson saw the gleam in Ashton Welles's eyes and felt -that the president must have hated him all his life! - -"I'll get it from Witter," he said, and hastily left the room. - -Welles stared wide-eyed at the open door for perhaps a full minute; -always he saw ruins--smoke and ashes--ashes everywhere! And then he -started up and squared his shoulders. He rang for an office-boy and said -to him, "Tell Mr. Witter I've gone for the day"--Witter was his private -secretary--and left the office. - -He could not bear even to think of going home, for he now had no home! -Therefore he went to Central Park and walked aimlessly about until his -unaccustomed muscles compelled him to sit down. There he sat, thinking! -After three hours he had grown sufficiently calm to believe himself when -he called himself a fool for being jealous. Having convinced himself -of his folly, he clutched eagerly at every opportunity to close his -own ears to the whisperings of his own doubts. At length he went to his -house, dressed as usual, and went to the Cosmopolitan Club to dine. - - - -IX - -A few minutes after Ashton Welles left his office, stabbed to the soul -by the poisoned paragraphs of _Society Folk_ Jemingham sought Stewardson -and told him he had decided to send some more gold-dust to the Assay -Office. His own attendant, a young man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who -properly answered to the name of Sheehan, accompanied him. Stewardson, -whose nerves had not recovered from the shock of Mr. Welles's behavior, -decided that he, also, would go to the vaults. - -"I want ten boxes sent to the Assay Office," said Jemingham. - -"Certainly, sir," said the superintendent of the vaults, very -obsequiously. To show how eager he was to please, he asked, "Any -particular boxes, Mr. Jemingham?" - -Immediately a half-formulated suspicion fleeted across the mind of the -second vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. How did they know -what those boxes contained? How did they know that all of them were full -of Yukon gold? How did they know anything about this man or about his -treasure--his alleged treasure? - -Almost immediately afterward, however, he reproached himself. Why, the -man had deposited over a million--the proceeds of twenty of the boxes! - -"Oh, take any ten," said Jerningham--"the first ten. They are the -easiest to take out." - -"The last ten!" said Stewardson, hastily, obeying an impulse that came -upon him like a flash of lightning. - -Jerningham turned and asked: "Why the last ten? They are away back, -and--" - -"I have my reasons," smiled Stewardson--the smile of a man who knows -something funny about you, but does not wish to tell it--not quite yet. -It is the most exasperating smile known. - -Jerningham looked at him a moment. Then he said, coldly: "Why not pick -them out haphazard--one here and another there, as if you were sampling -a mine and wanted to make sure they hadn't salted it on you?" He turned -to the men and said, "Pick out ten at random, no two from the same -place; and be sure they are not full of stable litter!" - -Stewardson flushed, and whispered apologetically to the superintendent, -"The more the boys work, the more grateful he will be." - -"Oh, he is very generous, anyhow," said Sullivan, the superintendent, -watching his helper and Sheehan pick out the ten boxes at random. - -Stewardson accompanied Jerningham up-stairs and then excused himself -long enough to say to a confidential clerk: "Follow Mr. Jerningham and -his ten boxes of gold-dust, and find out what he does, how much he gets, -and every detail of interest. Don't let him see you." - -The clerk found out and later reported to the vice-president that the -ten boxes all contained Alaskan gold-dust, and that their value was -$531,687, the boxes averaging a little better than fifty thousand -dollars each. Stewardson then had the remaining boxes counted. There -were one hundred and twenty-one left. They were worth over six million -dollars. Jerningham ought to have the gold-dust coined and then deposit -the proceeds in the trust company. The company would allow him two and -a half per cent.--or maybe three per cent.--on the six millions. That -would be one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year. The company -could then loan the entire six millions, not having to bother with -keeping a reserve like the national banks, and, the way the money-market -was, the money could be loaned at five per cent. That would be three -hundred thousand dollars a year. - -Men properly must end in dust; but dust, when gold, should end in -eagles. He would speak to Jerningham about it--one hundred and eighty -thousand dollars a year that Jerningham was not making--which was -silly! And one hundred and twenty thousand a year the company was not -making--which was a tragedy! - -Ashton Welles sent word to the office on the following morning that he -would not be down until late, if at all. He did not send word that he -had decided to consult his lawyer about the _Society Folk_ article. -He had received eight marked copies, addressed to him at his house in -different handwritings, and he did not know that on his desk at the -office there were a dozen more. Friends always tell you about anonymous -attacks anonymously. They wait for them. - -Jerningham seemed disappointed when he learned, at ten-thirty, that Mr. -Welles might not come to the office at all. Stewardson came upon -him looking disgruntled. That did not deter the vice-president from -broaching the subject nearest his heart. "I'd like to ask you one -question, Mr. Jerningham. Of course I know you must have a reason--a -very good reason, too--" - -"If the reason is good I'll confess," said Jerningham, pleasantly. - -"Well, I'd like to know what your reason is for not sending all your -gold to the Assay Office?" - -"My reason is that I want to make a lot of money later by not sending -the gold to the Assay Office now. Remember my very words!" - -"But how are you going to do it?" Stewardson could not help asking, -because he was so puzzled that his sense of humor was paralyzed. - -"By having the gold--that's how." - -"That's all right! But why don't you change it into coin? That way you -can have it at a moment's notice." - -"My dear chap, do you know how many hours it will take the Assay Office, -after I take my dust in there, to give me a check for the proceeds? I -get ninety per cent, of the value at once. If I cash this gold now I'll -spend it. I know it! I never could resist the temptation to spend--it -is my one weakness. And if I spent it what would I have to show for the -hardships of thirty years?" - -"But why don't you deposit it with us? We'll allow you two and a half -per cent. Or if you make it a time deposit we can do better than that by -you. You know you can always get gold for it if you ask us for it." - -"I can, can I?" laughed Jerningham, with a sort of good-natured mockery. -"How about 1907 and your old clearing-house certificates--eh? -What?" Stewardson was nettled. So he permitted himself the supreme, -all-conquering argument of business: "But you are losing one hundred -and eighty thousand dollars a year by leaving your gold uncoined and -undeposited." - -"I won't lose a year's interest, because it isn't going to take a year -for the big panic to come." Stewardson laughed--a kindly laugh. "For -pity's sake, don't wait for that! Panics have a habit of not coming -if expected. Just now everybody is bluer than indigo. You'd think the -United States was on its last legs. Invest at once, and don't wait for -the bargains at the funeral that may never come." - -"How sound is this institution?" Jerningham looked Stewardson full in -the face. - -The vice-president answered, smilingly, "Oh, I guess we'll weather the -storm." - -"Then I'll buy more stock. Mr. Welles advised me to buy all I could get -hold of. A wonderful man--" - -"Yes, indeed," acquiesced Stewardson, solemnly. "Wonderful! Great -judgment!" pursued Jeming-ham, with a sort of boyish enthusiasm that -made Stewardson think his superior had designs on the Klondike gold in -the vaults. "He is so clear-cut--and never, never loses his head! To -tell you the truth," and Jerningham lowered his voice, "I used to think -he was an icicle--the sort of man nothing can disturb; but, for all his -calmness and imperturbability, he has a great warm heart and a great big -brain!" - -Stewardson had never before heard anybody accuse the president of the -VanTwiller Trust Company of having any heart at all. Why had Welles -taken the pains to pose before the Klondike miner as a philanthropist? -And why had the imperturbable Ashton Welles been so perturbed the day -before? - -"Ablest man in this country!" said Stewardson, his mind wrapped in the -folds of his unformulated mysteries and his own half-asked questions. - -"So I'll get a little more of the stock," said Jerningham. - -"Go ahead! You can't go wrong," Stewardson assured him; "in fact, you -ought to send some of your gold to the Assay Office and--" - -"What will you lend me on my gold--on the six millions I've got -down-stairs?" asked Jerningham, with a frown. He looked intently at the -vice-president with his cold, gray eyes, and Stewardson somehow fancied -he saw a challenge in them; but he was an old bird at the game. He -laughed and said, jovially: - -"Not a penny!" - -"I know it. It shows you how incompetent all these financial -institutions are. You think you are doing your duty by being -suspicious--what? Well, you don't unless you are intelligently -suspicious. Never mind; you are only the vice-president. I'll buy the -stock just the same." And Jerningham laughed, exaggeratedly forgiving, -and went away. - -Later in the day, when Stewardson thought he might sell his own holdings -of VanTwiller Trust stock to Jerningham and trust to luck to pick it up -again here and there at a lower figure, he called up a firm of brokers -who made a specialty of dealing in bank and trust-company stocks. He was -surprised to learn that V.T. stock was scarce and thirty points higher. -The vice-president called up specialists and heard the same story--the -floating supply had been quietly bought. - -"By whom?" he asked Earhart. - -"You know very well!" retorted the last broker, in an aggrieved tone of -voice. - -"I do not!" Stewardson assured him. - -"Well, it all goes into your office." - -"Mine?" - -"Yes--yours! And it's paid by your checks. The name signed is Alfred -Jerningham. Are you going to cut a melon? Just whisper!" - -"Oh!" and Stewardson laughed. "What a suspicious man you are, Dave!" - -In the alarmingly inexplicable frame of mind in which Ashton Welles was -Stewardson did not feel like speaking to his superior about Jemingham's -investment. There was no reason why the Klondiker should not buy all -the VanTwiller Trust Company stock he could pay for; but a day or -two afterward the vice-president learned that Jerningham had secured -control, by purchase outright or by option, at prices ranging from three -hundred and ninety-five to five hundred dollars a share, of twenty-two -thousand shares. That was important for two reasons: In the first -place it was more than Jerningham could pay for even if he sold all his -gold-dust; and, secondly, such a block in unfriendly hands might work -injury to the controlling clique. He decided to see the president; but -he was told that Mr. Ashton Welles was engaged at that moment. - -Jerningham was talking to him. They had exchanged greetings with much -cordiality. - -"Have you heard from Mrs. Welles?" asked the Alaskan. - -"She hasn't arrived yet--" - -"I know it. But I received a wireless from young Wolfe--" - -"What did he say?" asked Ashton Welles before he knew it. - -Jerningham looked mildly surprised. He answered: - -"It was a funny message. He asked me to go to his room and get his -trunks, and send all his belongings to London, as he had decided to stay -there indefinitely." - -"Yes?" It was all Welles could say. - -"So I wired back, 'Are you crazy?'" - -"Did he answer that?" - -"Yes." Jerningham paused. Then he laughed. - -"What did he answer?" queried Welles. - -"Oh, he is crazy, all right. He answered, 'Yes--with joy! Please send -trunks to Thornton's Hotel--'" - -"What?" Ashton Welles rose to his feet, his face livid. It was the -London hotel where Mrs. Deering lived, the hotel to which Mrs. Welles -was going! - -"What's the matter?" asked Jerningham, in amazement. - -"N-nothing!" said Ashton Welles, huskily. He gulped twice. Then, having -spent thirty-five years in Wall Street making money, he explained, "I've -got a terrible toothache!" And he put his hand to his left cheek. - -"I'm sorry!" said Jemingham so sympathetically that Welles, for all -his distress--and nothing is so inherently selfish as suffering--felt -a kindly feeling toward the man from Alaska. "Could I ask your advice -about a business matter?" - -"Certainly!" - -Ashton Welles tried to smile. It was ghastly, but Jemingham did not -remark it. He said, placidly: - -"I've bought quite a little bunch of VanTwiller stock because you are -its president, Mr. Welles. On my honor, that is my only reason. I've -paid good prices, too; but you are worth it--to me!" And Jemingham -beamed adoringly on the efficient president of the VanTwiller Trust -Company. - -Ashton Welles said, "Thank you!" and even tried to feel grateful to -this queer character from the frozen North who was so naïve in his -admiration--and envied him for not having a young wife who had sailed on -the same steamer with an exceedingly attractive young man. - -"I guess I'm all right in my purchase--what?" - -"Oh yes!" said Welles. He was thinking of the _Ruritania_. It did not -even occur to him that this Monte Cristo might be worth while to pluck. - -"Thank you. I hope I didn't bother you. Good morning, Mr. Welles." - -"Good morning, Mr. Jemingham. Er--come in any time you think I can be of -service to you." - -As Jemingham was leaving the president's office he almost bumped into -the vice-president. - -"You've bought quite a lot of our stock," said - -Stewardson, full of his errand. His voice had an accusing ring. - -"Yes. I was just speaking to Mr. Welles about it." - -"And what did he say?" - -"Ask him!" teased Jerningham, with a smile, and went away. - -Stewardson felt it his duty to do exactly as Jerningham had mockingly -suggested. It was an abnormal situation. That being the case, there was -no regular provision--no indicated chapter and verse--for meeting it. -The principal function of a chief in business is to supply answers to -puzzled subordinates. - -Ashton Welles was sitting back in his swivel chair. He was staring -fixedly at a hook on the picture-molding that had been left there after -the picture was taken away. He was thinking that if he employed private -detectives in London he would have to hire them by cable. There are -suspicions a man cannot help having and yet cannot set down in plain -black and white. He cannot hint when he writes, for written instructions -must always be explicit and categorical. That is why no love-letter -of which the real meaning is to be read "between the lines" is ever -satisfactory to the recipient. - -Ashton Welles turned his head and, still frowning, asked Stewardson, -sharply: - -"Well, what is it?" - -"It's about Jerningham. You know he has been buying our stock. But I -thought you ought to know--" - -He wished to tell the president what a big block the Alaskan had already -secured. But the president, from force of habit, perhaps, or possibly -by reason of the irritation of his nerves, assumed the usual financial -attitude of omniscience: - -"I know all about it," he said. "Anything else you wish to say to me?" - -"No, sir!" answered Stewardson, who felt rebuffed and now would not have -turned in an alarm of fire if he had seen the place beginning to burn. -He was, after all, human. - -You cannot, in your lust for absolute power, make your subordinates -into sublimated office-boys or decorative figureheads without paying the -price some time. Stewardson was justified in assuming that Mr. Welles -was worried about business--it was perfectly obvious; and it was a -natural suspicion, also, that said deal must threaten destruction to the -company since Ashton Welles was so eager to have poor Jerningham buy so -much VanTwiller stock. Therefore Stewardson and his intimate friends, -in order to be on the safe side, very promptly sold out their own -holdings--to poor misguided Jerningham's brokers. - -Of course other people who did not wish Welles well heard about it, and -the whisper ran about the Street, getting blacker and blacker as it -ran, until everybody knew something had happened--everybody except the -directors of the VanTwiller Trust Company. And when the transfer-books -closed for the annual meeting of the stockholders it was found that -Mr. Alfred Jerningham owned, by purchase or option, and had irrevocable -proxies on, a little more than twenty-eight thousand shares of the -stock. This, together with the twelve thousand shares owned jointly by -Patrick T. Behan and Oliver Judson, the street-railroad magnates, and -the blocks controlled by the Garvin brothers, Tammany contractors, and -Mayer & Shanberg, F. R. Chisolm, John Matson & Company, and others of -the Behan-Judson clique, which once tried to secure control of the -company and were foiled by Ashton Welles, made a combination that was -bound to win at the annual election. - -Jerningham ceased going to the VanTwiller Trust Company because Ashton -Welles had sailed for London on the receipt of a cablegram that read: - -_Leaving for Continent. Mother and I cannot return before three months. -Will write soon._ - -_Anne_. - -Instead of calling on his friend Stewardson, Jerningham preferred to -spend hours and hours conversing with Patrick T. Behan, "the most -dangerous man in Wall Street!"--and the slickest. But on the day before -the election Jerningham did call on Stewardson and offered to sell his -holdings of VanTwiller stock at six hundred dollars a share. - -"Why, I thought you--" began the vice-president. - -"I know you did. I wanted you to. But six hundred dollars is only -twenty-five dollars a share more than Behan, and Judson, and Garvin, -and the rest of those pirates have offered me. I've decided not to be a -stockholder of the trust company; so just get your friends together and -tell them if they want to retain the control they can give you a check -for me--six hundred dollars a share on twenty-eight thousand, one -hundred and twenty-three shares. Put it down--twenty-eight thousand, one -hundred and twenty-three shares. Good day!" - -"Wait! I want to say--" - -"Don't say it! Write it! I'm still at the Brabant," said Jerningham, -coldly. "I advise you to get at Mr. Welles on the steamer by wireless. -Good day!" - -"But, I--" shouted Stewardson. - -Jerningham paid no attention to him and walked away. - -Later in the day negotiations were resumed. In the end Jerningham -accepted a little less; but the deal yielded him a net profit of about -two million dollars. He insisted upon being paid in gold coin. This -convinced Stewardson and the other victims that Jerningham was out of -his mind; but there is no law that enables officers of a trust company -to imprison a gold maniac or to take away his gold, particularly when -his lawyers stand very high in the profession. - -Five minutes after getting the gold coin in his possession--and drawing -every cent of it--Jerningham told Stewardson he would leave the dust in -the VanTwiller vaults. That reassured Stewardson, who otherwise might -have suspected Jerningham of various crimes. He then sent two cablegrams -to London. One was to - -_Kathryn Keogh,_ - -_Thornton's Hotel, London._ - -_Your services are no longer needed. Go ahead and have a nice time! -Thanks awfully!_ _Jerningham_. - -The other was to Francis Wolfe--same address. It read: - -_You ought to marry Kathryn Keogh. Never mind anything else. I am -disappearing for good. God bless you both, my children! Letter follows._ - -_Jerningham._ - -Francis Wolfe showed his cablegram to Miss Keogh and Miss Keogh did not -show hers to Francis Wolfe. - -A week later Frank asked Miss Keogh to read a letter he had received -from Jerningham, and to tell him what to do. - -This was the letter. - -Dear Boy,--We needed a million or two out of Ashton Welles, and the only -way we could see of getting it was by selling to him what he already -had--to wit, the control of the VanTwiller Trust Company. From previous -operations the syndicate I have the honor to represent had accumulated -enough cash to render this operation feasible; but Welles watched the -trades in VanTwiller stock so closely that we could not have bought -a thousand shares without blocking our own game. So we planned our -operations very carefully, as we always do. And because I like you I -will tell you how we went about it--that you may profit by our example. - -First, I had to become instantly and sensationally known as the -possessor of vast wealth. The mere deposit of a million or two in a -bank would not do it. We must have the cash and a stupendous cash-making -property--hence the mines in the Klondike. Purely mythical mines, dear -lad! We sent to Alaska, bought $1,686,000 of gold-dust, put it in boxes, -and put a lot of lead in other boxes--now in the VanT. vaults!--thereby -increasing our less than two million into more than eight--and nobody -hurt thereby! Then the shipment to Seattle, so that every step could be -verified--and the special bullion train to New York; and the eccentric -miner--myself--with his gold--no myth about the gold--what? in a New -York hotel; and of course the reporters were only too willing to help -and to magnify our gold-dust. - -The _Planet's_ articles were our letters of introduction to the trust -company and to Wall Street. Could not have done better--could we? But -how to catch Welles off his guard? By breaking it down, of course. Best -way? By rousing jealousy. That's where you come in. Mrs. Welles must go -to England with you on the same steamer. How? By winning your friendship -and rousing your romantic interest in an unhappy love-affair--that -would, moreover, explain my interest in Mrs. Welles. Of course there -never was any Naida Deering for me to be interested in! - -But you had to meet Welles's wife. How? By means of your sisters. How -did I make friends of them? By reforming you and making you my heir. - -How did I make Mrs. Welles take the same steamer that you did? By having -her mother cable for her. How did I do that? Ask Miss Keogh. - -I admit that much of what we were compelled to do was not gentlemanly; -but, after all, our only crime is the crime of having been business -men--buying something at four dollars and selling it at five or six -dollars. - -Take my advice, dear boy, and stay on the water-wagon! If you marry Miss -Keogh I think you can show this letter to A. Welles and ask him to give -you a nice position in the trust company. - -I am sorry I cannot see you again; but believe me, dear boy, that we -are very grateful for your efficient assistance. We would send you a -check--only we need it in our business. Tell Jimmy Parkhurst to tell you -and Amos F. Kidder all about it. - -Yours truly, - -The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, Per Alfred Jerningham. - -But it was a long time before Frank Wolfe returned to New York--without -Miss Keogh, who flatly refused to marry him. Jerningham had disappeared, -leaving absolutely no trail. Parkhurst introduced Frank Wolfe to Fiske, -but all that came of it was that Fiske added a few fresh notes to his -collection. - - - - -IV--CHEAP AT A MILLION - - -I - -TOM MERRIWETHER, only son and heir of E. H. Merriwether, finished the -grape-fruit and took up the last of that morning's mail. He had acquired -the feminine habit of reading letters at the table from his father, who -had the wasteful American vice of time-saving. - -He read the card, frowned, glanced at his father, and seemed to be on -the point of speaking; but he changed his mind, laughed, and tore the -card into bits. - -The day was Monday, and this was what the card said: - -_If Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether will go to 777 Fifth Avenue any -forenoon this week and answer just one little question about his past -life he will hear something to his advantage._ - -Idle men who live in New York are always busy. Tom had many things to -think about; but all of them were about the present or the future. His -past caused him neither uneasiness nor remorse. - -On the following Monday young Mr. Merriwether received, among other -invitations, this: - -_If Tom Merriwether will call at 777 Fifth Avenue any forenoon this week -and answer one question he will do that which is both kindly--and wise!_ - -It was in the same handwriting, on the same kind of card, and in the -same kind of ink as the first. Now Tom had the Merriwether imagination. -His father exercised it in building railroads into waterless deserts -whereon he clearly saw a myriad men labor, love, and multiply, thereby -insuring freight and passengers to the same railroads. The son had to -invent his romances in New York. - -Ordinarily the second invitation would have given him something to busy -himself with; but it happened that he was at that moment planning to do -a heartbreaking thing without breaking any heart. Billy Larremore, the -veteran whose devotion to polo was responsible for so many of the -team's victories in the past, was not aware that age had bade him cease -playing. It would break his loyal heart not to play in the forthcoming -international match. Tom Merriwether had been delegated to break the -news. - -Thinking about it made him forget all about the letter until the -following Monday, when he received the third invitation: - -_Merriwether,--Come to 777 Fifth Avenue Tuesday morning at ten-thirty -without fail and answer the question._ - -He crumpled the card and was about to throw it away when he changed his -mind. Perhaps it would be wise to give it to a detective agency. But -what could he say he feared? Then he decided it was probably a joke. -Somebody wished to put him in the ridiculous position of ringing the -bell of 777, showing the card--and being told to get out. It was to be -regretted that this would seem funny to some of his perennially juvenile -intimates at the Rivulet Club. - -An hour later, as he walked down the Avenue, he looked curiously at 777. -It was one of those newcomer houses erected by speculative builders to -sell furnished to out-of-town would-be climbers or to local stock-market -bankers who, being Hebrews, were too sensible to wish to climb, but were -not sensible enough not to wish to live on Fifth Avenue. - -Tom resolved to ask Raymond Silliman, who played at being in the -real-estate business, to find out who lived at 777. Meantime he did a -little shopping--wedding-presents--and went to luncheon at his club. He -had not quite finished his coffee when he was summoned to the telephone. - -"Hello! Mr. Merriwether?" said a woman's voice--clear, sweet, and -vibrant, but unknown. "This is Miss Hervey--the nurse--Dr. Leighton's -trained nurse. They asked me to tell you about your father. Don't be -alarmed!" - -"Go on!" commanded young Merriwether, sharply. - -"It is nothing serious--really! But if you could come home it -probably--Yes, doctor! I am coming!" And the conversation ceased -abruptly. - -Tom instantly left the club. He took the solitary taxicab that stood in -front of the club. He afterward recalled the fact that there was only -one where usually there were half a dozen. - -"Eight-sixty-nine Fifth Avenue. Go up Madison to Sixtieth and then turn -into the Avenue. Hurry!" - -"Very good, sir," said the chauffeur. - -The taxicab dashed madly up Madison and up Fifth Avenue, and finally -stopped--not before the Merriwether home, but in front of Number 777. -Before he could ask the chauffeur what he meant by it both doors of the -cab opened at once and two men sandwiched between them Mr. Thomas Thorne -Merriwether. The one on the west, or Central Park, side threateningly -held in his hand a business-like javelin--not at all the kind that -silly people hang on the walls in their childish attempts at decorative -barbarity. The man who half entered the taxicab from the east, or -sidewalk, side held in his left hand a beer-schooner full of a colorless -liquid that smoked, and in his right something completely but loosely -covered by a white-linen handkerchief. - -"Please listen, Mr. Merriwether!" said the man with the glass. "Do -nothing! Don't even move! Hear me first!" - -"Is my father--" - -"I am glad to say he is well and happy, and working in his office -down-town. The message that brought you here was a subterfuge. Your -father is as usual. We arranged it so you had to take this particular -taxicab. Don't stir, please!" - -"What does all this mean?" asked Tom, impatiently. - -"I am about to have the honor of telling you," answered the man. - -He had no hat and wore clerical garments. His clean-shaved face was -pale--almost sallow--and young Merriwether noticed that his forehead -was very high. His dark-brown eyes were full of the earnestness of -all zealots, which makes you dislike to enter into an argument--first, -because of the futility of arguing with a zealot; and, second, because -said zealot probably knows a million times more about the subject than -you and can outargue you without trouble. So Tom simply listened with an -alertness that would not overlook any chance to strike back. - -"This glass contains fuming sulphuric acid. It will sear the face and -destroy the eyesight with much rapidity and completeness. Also"--here -he shook off the handkerchief from his right hand and showed a -revolver--"this is the very latest in automatics; marvelously efficient; -dumdum bullets; stop an elephant! I am about to solicit a great favor." - -Tom Merriwether looked into the earnest, pleading eyes. Then he glanced -on the other side, at the bull-necked husky with the business-like -spear. Then he turned to the clerical garb. - -"I see I am in the hands of my friends!" said Tom, pleasantly. - -"The doctor was right," said the man with the glass, as if to himself. - -"Come! Come!" said young Mr. Merriwether. "How much am I to give? You -know, I never carry much cash with me." - -"We, dear Mr. Merriwether," said the pale-faced man in an amazingly -deferential voice, "propose to be the donors. If you will kindly permit -us we shall give you what is more costly than rubies." - -"Yes?" Tom's voice was perhaps less skeptical than sarcastic. - -"Yes, sir. Would you be kind enough to accept our invitation--the -fourth, dear Mr. Merriwether--to join us at 777 Fifth Avenue--right -here, sir--and answer one question? Please listen carefully to what I am -saying: You don't have to go. Moreover, if you should go you don't have -to answer any question. We would not, for worlds, compel you. But, for -your own sake, for the sake of your father's peace of mind and of the -Merriwether fortune, for the sake of your happiness in this world and in -the next; for all that all the Merriwethers hold most dear--come with me -and, if you are very wise, answer the question that will be asked you by -the wisest man in all the world." - -"He must be a regular Solomon--" began Tom, but the man held up the -glass and went on, very earnestly: - -"Listen, please! If you decide to accept our invitation I shall spill -this acid in the street and I shall give you this revolver. I repeat, -you do not have to answer the question. You will not be harmed or -molested. I pledge you my word. Will you, in return, give me yours -to follow me at once into 777, and that you will not shoot unless you -sincerely think you are in danger?" - -Tom Merriwether looked at the pale-faced man a moment. He was willing to -take his chances with that face. Also, he could not otherwise find the -solution of this puzzling affair. Therefore he said: "Yes. I give you my -word." - -Instantly the pale-faced man with the high forehead laid the revolver on -the seat beside young Mr. Merriwether and withdrew from the cab. Tom saw -him spill the fuming acid into the gutter. The burly javelin-man took -himself off. The temptation to use the butt of the revolver on the -clerical-garbed man with the earnest eyes came to Tom, but he saw in -a flash that if he should do such a thing he would be compelled in -self-defense to tell a story utterly unbelievable. - -Moreover, the pale-faced man was a slender little chap of middle age and -no match for big Tom Merriwether. So, assuring himself that the revolver -was in truth loaded and that it worked, he put it in his pocket, kept -his grasp on it there, and got out of the taxicab. His one impelling -motive now was curiosity. Afraid? With the pistol and his muscles and -his youth, on Fifth Avenue, at two-thirty in the afternoon? - -The pale-faced man, the empty glass in one hand, walked toward the door -of 777 without so much as turning his head. Tom followed. - -The door was opened by a man in livery who took Mr. Merriwether's hat -and cane. Tom saw in the furnishings of the house--complete with that -curious unhuman completeness of a modern hotel--the kind of furnishings -that interior decorators usually sell to first-generation rich on -their arrival at Fifth Avenue residenceship. The furniture had every -qualification possessed by furniture in order not to suggest a home to -live in. Wherefore Tom, whose mind always worked quickly, reasoned to -himself: - -"Rented for the occasion to the man who has made me come to him." - -Also Tom noticed four men-servants, all of them well built and all of -them owning faces that somehow were not servant faces. The revolver, -which had seemed amply sufficient outside, seemed less so within the -house. Supposing he killed one--or even two--the other two would down -him in an affray. He tightened his grip on the revolver and planned and -rehearsed a shooting affair in which four men in livery were disabled -with four shots. A great pity E. H. Merriwether was such a very rich -man--a great pity for his son Tom. - -At a door, on the center panel of which was a monogram in black, red, -and gold the last of the footmen knocked gently. The door was thereupon -opened from within. - -"Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether, 7-7-77!" announced the -intelligent-looking footman, with a very pronounced English accent. - -Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether entered. It was a _nouveau-riche_ library. -The Circassian-walnut bookcases and center-table were over-elaborately -carved, and the hangings of rich red velvet were over-elaborately -embroidered. The bronzes on the over-elaborate mantel looked as though -they had been placed there by somebody who was coming back in a minute -to take them away again. - -Altogether the apartment suggested a salesroom, and there was a note of -incongruity in a golden-oak filing-cabinet of the Grand Rapids school. - -At one end of the room in an arm-chair, with his back to a terrible -stained-glass window, sat a man of about forty. He had a calm, -remarkably steady gaze, with a sort of leisureliness about it that made -you think of a drawling voice. Also, an assurance--a self-consciousness -of knowledge--that was compelling. His chin was firm and there was a -suggestion of power and of control over power that reminded Tom of -a very competent engineer in charge of a fifty-thousand-horse-power -machine. - -"Kindly be seated, sir," said the man in a tone that subtly suggested -weariness. - -Tom sat down and looked curiously at the man, who went on: - -"Sir, I have a question to ask you. If you see fit to answer, be good -enough to answer it spontaneously and in good faith. Do not, I beg you, -in turn, ask me questions--such as, for example, why I wish to know what -I ask. If you decide not to answer you will leave this house unharmed, -accompanied by our profound regret that you should be so unintelligent -at your life's crisis." The man looked at Tom with a meditative -expression, then nodded to himself almost sorrowfully. - -Tom, though young, was a Merriwether. He said, politely, "Let me hear -the question, sir." - -He himself was thinking in questions: What can the question be? Who is -this man? What is the game? What will be the end of it all? - -"One question, sir," repeated the stranger. - -"I am listening, sir," Tom assured him, with a quiet, but quite -impressive, earnestness. - -"_Where did you spend your vacation at the end of your Freshman year?"_ - -Tom was so surprised, and even disappointed, that he hesitated. Then he -answered: - -"In Oleander Point, Long Island, in the cottage of Dr. Charles W. -Bonner, who was tutoring me. I had a couple of conditions and I stayed -until the third of September!" - -"Thank you! Thank you! That is all--unless, Mr. Merriwether, you wish to -do me and yourself three very great favors. Three!" - -He looked at Tom with a sort of intelligent curiosity, as of a chemist -conducting an experiment. - -"Let's hear what they are," said young Mr. Merriwether, calmly. - -It was at times like these that he showed whose son he was--alert, his -imagination active, his nerves under control, and his courage steady -and at par. He had, moreover, made up his mind that he would do some -questioning later on. - -"First favor: Concentrate your mind on how you used to spend your -bright, sunshiny days in Oleander Point and your beautiful moonlight -nights. Recall the pleasant people you were friendly with during those -happy weeks. Visualize that summer! Make an effort! Think!" - -It was a command, and Tom Merriwether found himself thinking of that -summer. He closed his eyes. His grip on the revolver in his pocket -relaxed.... He saw his friends. Some of them he had not seen in years. -Others he saw almost daily. And somehow it seemed to him that all the -girls were pretty and kindly; and in particular--well, there were in -particular three. But the affairs had come to nothing. - -He could not have told how long his reverie lasted--the mind traverses -long stretches of time, as of space, in seconds. - -"Well?" said Tom at length. - -"Thank you," said the man, with the matter-of-fact gratitude a man feels -toward a servant for some attention. - -He took from his pocket a small black-velvet bag, opened it, and spread -on the table before Tom Merriwether a dozen pearls, ranging in size from -a pea to a filbert. They were all of a beautiful orient. - -"I beg you to select one of these. You need not use it. You may give it -to your valet if you wish, or throw it out of the window. Only accept -it as a souvenir of our meeting. That, Mr. Merriwether, would be favor -number two." - -He pointed toward the pearls. Tom picked one--pear-shaped, white, -beautiful--and put it in his waistcoat pocket. The man swept the rest -into one of the drawers of the long library table. - -"I thank you very much," said Tom. He was not sure the pearls were not -genuine. - -"No; please don't," said the man. There was a pause. Presently he asked, -"Do you know anything about pearls, sir?" - -"I am no expert," answered Tom. "Characteristic. You Merriwethers are -brave enough to be truthful, and wise enough to be cautious. Have you -any opinions?" - -"I think they are beautiful," said Tom. - -"They are more than that. They represent, Mr. Merriwether, the hope of -the Kingdom of Heaven. The pearl is the symbol of purity, humility, -and innocence. Do you know the legend of the mild maid of God--Saint -Margaret of Antioch?" - -"No." - -"Margaret is from Margarites--Greek for pearl. And the reason why -faith--But I beg your pardon. Men who live alone talk too much when they -are no longer alone. I beg you to forgive me. Tell me, Mr. Merriwether, -did you ever hear of Apollonius of Tyana?" - -"Not until this minute," answered Tom. - -He felt almost tempted to ask whether the poor man was dead, but -refrained because he was honest enough to admit to himself that the -question would savor of bravado. Tom was consumed by curiosity as to -what would be the end of it all. To think of it--on Fifth Avenue, New -York, in broad daylight--all this! - -How money was to be made out of him he could not yet see. - -"I will show his talisman to you--the Dispeller of Darkness!" The -man clapped his hands twice. At the summons a negro walked in. He was -dressed in plain black and wore a fez. The man spoke some guttural words -and the negro salaamed and left the room. Presently he returned with a -silver tray on which were seven gold or gilt candlesticks and candles, -and seven gold or gilt small trays or plates, on each of which was a -pastil. - -He arranged the seven candlesticks in some deliberate design, carefully -measuring the distance of each from the other, and of all from a -point in the center. He arranged the plates and pastils about the -candlesticks. Then he left the room, to return with a lighted taper, -with which he lit the seven candles and the seven pastils. Tiny spirals -of fragrant smoke rose languidly in the still air. - -Again the negro left the room and returned with a small parcel wrapped -in a piece of raw silk which he gave to his master. He then went away -for good. - -The man began to mutter something to himself and very carefully took off -the silk cover, revealing a wonderfully carved ivory box. He opened the -gold-hinged lid and took out a silver case. He opened that and from it -took a gold box elaborately though crudely chased. He opened the gold -box and within it, oh a little white-velvet pad, was a cross of dull -gold curiously engraved. He put the pad, with the cross on it, in -the middle of the seven lights. On the arms of the cross and at the -intersection Tom saw seven wonderful emeralds remarkable as to size, -beautiful as to color. - -"Look at it, Mr. Merriwether. It is priceless. The gems alone are worth -a king's ransom. If you consider it merely as a piece of ancient art -there is no telling what a man like Mr. W. H. Garrettson would not give -for it. And as a talisman, with its tried wonder-working powers, there -is, of course, not enough money in all the world to pay for it." - -Tom stretched his hand toward it. - -"Please! Do not touch it, I beg," said the man, in a voice in which the -alarm was so evident that Tom drew his hand back as though he had seen -a cobra on the table. "Not yet! Not yet!" said the man. "It is the most -wonderful object in existence. It is a cross that antedates Christ!" - -"Really?" - -"It is obviously of a much earlier period than the Messiah. Great -scholars have thought it a legend, but here it is before you. It -belonged to Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker. Philostratus, who -wrote the life of that great man, does not mention this talisman; he -dared not! Apollonius, who to this day is not known ever to have died, -gave it to a disciple, who gave it to a friend." - -Tom looked interested. - -"We know who has owned it. It was worn by Arcadius in the fifth century. -The Goths took it and Alaric gave it to the daughter of his most trusted -captain, who commanded his citadel of Carcassonne. Clovis, a hundred -years later, secured it at the sack of Toulouse. We have records of its -having been praised by Eligius, the famous jeweler of Dagobert, in the -seventh century. It was included in the famous treasures of Charlemagne. -It went to Palestine during the first and third crusades--the first time -carried by a maid who loved a knight who did not love her. She went as -his squire, he not suspecting her sex until they were safely back in -France, when he married her. It is a wonderful talisman. The emeralds -came from Mount Zabara. They have the power to drive away the evil -spirits and also to preserve the chastity of the wearer. Moreover, they -give the power to foretell events. Apollonius did--time and again. This -is historically true. But alone he, of all the men who have owned it, -never had a love-affair; hence his clairvoyance. I have bored you. -Forgive me!" - -"Not at all. I was interested. It is all so--er--so--" - -"Incredible--yes! There is no reason why you should believe it. It is of -no consequence whether you think me a lunatic or a charlatan." - -He said this with a cold indifference that made Tom look incuriously -at the man, whose obvious desire was to excite curiosity. Then the man -said, with an earnestness that in spite of himself impressed the heir of -the Merriwether railroads: - -"Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, classified in our books as 7-7-77, you -are the man I need for this job!" - -"Indeed?" said Tom, politely. - -"Yes, you are." Tom bowed his head and looked resigned. He deliberately -intended to look that way. The man went on, "The reason I am so sure is -because I know both who and what you are." - -"Ah, you know me pretty well, then." Tom could not help the mild -sarcasm. - -"I have known you, young man, for eighty-five years, perhaps longer." -The man spoke calmly. - -"Indeed!" said Tom. He was twenty-eight. - -"Yes. On top of that cabinet is a book. After the name Thomas Thorne -Merriwether you will find 7-7-77. In the cabinet--seventh section, -seventh drawer, card Number 77--you will find clinical data, -physiological and psychological details, anecdotes, and so on, about you -and your father, E. H. Merriwether, and your mother, Josephine Thorne; -your grandfathers, Lyman Grant Merriwether and Thomas Conkling Thorne, -and of your grandmothers, Malvina Sykes Thorne and Lydia Weston -Merriwether. Indeed I know about your great-grandfathers and three of -your great-great-grandparents; but the data in their case are of little -value save as to Ephraim Merriwether, who in seventeen sixty-three -killed in one duel three army officers who laughed at his twisted nose, -bitten and disfigured for life by a wolf-cub he had tried to tame. Facts -not generally known, but, for all that, facts, young Mr. Thomas Thome -Merriwether, which enable me to say that I have known you these hundred -and fifty years--if there is anything in heredity, environment, and -education! And now, shall I tell you what favor number three is?" - -"If you please," said Tom. - -For the first time he felt that the usual suspicions as to a merrymaking -game could not be justified in this particular instance. It was much too -elaborate for a practical joke. He did not know how the matter would -end; but he did not care. In New York, on Fifth Avenue, on Tuesday -afternoon, he was having what, indeed, was an experience! - -"I beg that you will listen attentively. You will take the Dispeller -of Darkness with you. Do not open the gold box under any circumstances. -Tonight go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street so as to be there at eight -o'clock sharp. The door will not be locked. Don't ring. Walk in. Go -up one flight of stairs to the front room--there is only one. You will -stand in the middle of the room, with the talisman resting on the palm -of your hand--thus! Do nothing! Say nothing! Wait there! The talisman -will be taken from you by a person. Do not try to detain her--this -person. After the talisman is taken from you count a hundred--not too -fast! At the end of your count leave the room and come back here and -tell me whether you have carried out my instructions. Now, young sir, -let me say to you that you don't have to do what I am asking you to do. -There is no compulsion whatever. There is no crime in contemplation--no -attempt is to be made against your life, your fortune, or your morals. I -pledge you my word, sir!" - -The man looked straight into Tom's eyes. Tom bowed gravely. This man -must be crazy--and yet he certainly was not. This interested Tom by -perplexing him as he had never been perplexed in his eight-and-twenty -years. - -"Mr. Merriwether, this will be the most important step of your life. Its -bearing on your happiness is vital--also on the success of your great -father's vast plans. I give you my personal word that this is so." There -was a pause. Tom had nothing to say. The man went on: - -"If you care to take reasonable precautions against attack do so. Thus, -keep the revolver you now have in your pocket--it is excellent. Try it -and make certain. You may write a detailed account of what has happened -and leave it with your valet; but mark on it that it is not to be opened -unless you fail to return by 10 p.m. Also you may, if you wish, station -ten private detectives across the way from 7 East Seventy-seventh -Street, and instruct them to go into the house at a single shout from -you or at the sound of a shot. Believe me, it is not your life that is -in danger, sir!" - -"I believe you," said Tom, reassuringly. - -"Will you do me favor number three?" The man looked at Tom with a -steady, unblinking, earnest--one might even say honest--stare. - -Tom considered. His mind worked not only quickly, but -Merriwether-fashion. He saw all the possibilities of danger, but he saw -the unknown--and the lust of adventure won. He looked the man in the -eyes and said, quietly: - -"I will." - -"Thank you. There is the talisman. Each of the seven emeralds is -flawless--the only seven flawless emeralds of that size in existence. -Two of them have been in great kings' crowns, and the center stone -was in the tiara of seven popes; after which, the Great Green Prophecy -having been fulfilled, it came back to its place on the Cross. -Apollonius raised people from the dead, according to eyewitnesses. The -pagans tried to confute the believers in Christian miracles by bringing -forward the miracles of the sage of Tyana--and they did not know that -Apollonius wrought marvels by the Sign of the Son of Man--the Cross! -This cross! I pray that you will be careful with it. Show it to nobody. -You have understood your instructions?" - -Tom repeated them. - -"Precisely! I did not make a mistake, you see. In spite of your father's -millions you will be what your destiny wills. Young man, good luck to -you!" The man rose and walked toward the door. Tom Merriwether followed -him and was politely bowed out of the room. From there to the street -entrance the four athletic footmen, with the over-intelligent faces, -took him in tow, one at a time. And it was not until he was out on the -Avenue, headed north, walking toward his own house, that Thomas Thorne -Merriwether, clean-living miltimillionaire idler, shook himself, as -if to scatter the remnants of a dream, felt the butt of the revolver, -hefted the silk-wrapped parcel in which was the talisman, and said, -aloud, so that a couple of pedestrians turned and smiled sympathetically -at the young man, who must be in love, since he talked to himself: - -"What in blazes is it all about?" - - - -II - -His perplexing experience developed so insistent a curiosity in Tom -that he grew irritable even as he walked. That some sort of a game was -being worked he had no doubt; but the fact that he could see no object -or motive increased his wrath. He discarded all suggestion of violence, -though he was bound to admit now that anybody could be kidnapped in New -York in broad daylight. - -He decided to begin by verifying those allusions and references that he -remembered. He walked down the Avenue to the Public Library and there he -read what he could of Apollonius and of Eligius, the marvelous goldsmith -who afterward became Saint Eloi. The helpful and polite library -assistant at length suggested a visit to Dr. Lentz, the gem expert -of Goffony & Company, a man of vast erudition as well as a practical -jeweler. Tom promptly betook himself to the famous jewel-shop. - -They knew the heir of the seventy-five Merri-wether millions, and -impressively ushered him into Dr. Lentz's office. Tom shook hands with -the fat little man, whose wonderfully shaped head had on it no hair -worth speaking of, and handed him the pearl he had picked out from -the dozen the man in 777 Fifth Avenue had placed before him. Dr. Lentz -looked at it, weighed it in his hand, and, without waiting to be asked -any questions, answered what nearly everybody always asked him: - -"Persian Gulf. About fifteen grains--perhaps a little more. We sell some -like it for about thirty-five hundred dollars." - -"Thanks," said Tom, and put the pearl in his pocket. - -If it was a joke it was expensive. If not, the other pearls the man had -shown, nearly all of which were larger, must have been worth from fifty -thousand to a hundred thousand dollars. Such is the power of money that -this young man, destined to be one of the richest men in the world -and, moreover, one who did not particularly think about money, was -nevertheless impressed by the stranger's careless handling of the -valuable pearls. He concluded subconsciously that the talisman was even -more valuable. He took the package from his coat pocket and gave it to -Dr. Lentz. - -"Raw silk--Syrian," murmured the gem expert, and undid the covering. - -"Ha! Italo-Byzantine. The Raising of Tabitha. No! no!" He glared at -young Merriwether, who retreated a step. "Very rare! It's the Raising -of Jairus's Daughter. Same workmanship in similar specimen in the -Lipsanoteca, Museo Civico, Brescia. If so, not later than fourth -century. Very rare! H'm!" - -"Is it?" said Tom. "I don't know much about ivories." - -"No? Read Molinier! Græven!" - -"Thank you. I will, Dr. Lentz." - -Dr. Lentz opened the little ivory box and pulled out the silver case. - -"Ha! H'm! Not so rare! Asia Minor. Probably eighth century." - -"B C?" - -"Certainly not. Key? H'm!" - -"Haven't got it here," evaded Tom. - -The little savant turned to his secretary and said, "Bring drawer marked -forty-four, inner compartment, antique-gem safe." - -He was examining the little box, nodding his head, and muttering, "H'm! -H'm!" Tom felt the ground slipping away from under the feet of his -suspicions even while his perplexity waxed monumental. And with it came -the satisfaction of a man convincing himself that he is neither wasting -his time nor making himself ridiculous. - -The clerk returned with a little drawer in which Tom saw about a hundred -and fifty keys. - -"Replicas! Originals in museums of world!" explained Lentz. "H'm!" He -turned the keys over with, a selective forefinger. "It's that one or -this one." And he picked out two. "Probably this! Damascus! Eighth -century. Byzantine influence still strong. See that? And that? And that? -H'm!" He inserted the little key and opened the casket. He saw the gold -box within. "Ha! H'm! Thracian! How did you get this? H'm!" He -raised his head, looked at Tom fiercely, and then said, coldly, "Mr. -Merriwether, this has been stolen from the British Museum!" - -It beautifully complicated matters. Tom's heart beat faster with -interest. - -"Are you sure?" he asked, being a Merriwether. "Wait! H'm!" He lifted -it out and examined the back. "No! No! Thracian! Of the Bisaltæ! Time of -Lysimachus! But--Well! Aryan symbolism! Possibly taken to India by one -of Alexander's captains--perhaps Lysimachus himself! And--Oh! Oh, early -Christians! Oh, early damned fools! See that? Smoothed away to put -that--Oh, beasts! Heritics in art! Curious! Do you know the incantation -to use before opening?" - -"It was in Greek, and--" - -"Of course!" - -"Yes. He said this had belonged to Apollonius of Tyana." - -"How much does he ask?" - -"It is not for sale." - -"Inside is a pentagram?" - -"No; a cross, with seven emeralds as big as that, all flawless."' - -"There are only two such emeralds in the world without flaws and we have -one of them. The other is owned by the Archbishop of Bogota, Colombia." - -"He said these were flawless and that he has proofs. He says Eligius -studied this--" - -"Mr. Merriwether, you have on your hands either a very dangerous -impostor or else--H'm! He must be an impostor! How much does he want?" - -"It is not for sale!" - -"H'm! Worse and worse! If I can be of use let me know! They'll fool us -all! All! Good day!" And Dr. Lentz walked away, leaving Tom more puzzled -than ever, but now determined to go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street at -eight o'clock that night. - -He went home and wrote an account of what had happened, placed it in an -envelope, sealed the envelope, and gave it to his valet. - -"If you don't hear from me by ten o'clock tonight give this to my -father; but don't give it to him one minute before ten. And you stay in -until you hear from me." - -"Very good, sir." - -He then went to the club, ordered an early dinner for two, and invited -his friend Huntington Andrews to go with him. He did not go into -details. - -Shortly before eight he stationed Andrews across the way from 7 East -Seventy-seventh Street and told him: - -"If I am not back here at eight-fifteen come in after me. If you don't -find me go to my house and wait until ten. My man has instructions. See -my father." - -Tom was Merriwether enough to have in readiness not only an extra -revolver to give to his friend, but also a heavy cane and an electric -torch. Also he drove Huntington to within a hair's-breadth of death by -unsatisfied curiosity. - -At one minute before eight Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether went into the -house of mystery, realizing for the first time how often the mystic -number seven recurred. The Bible teemed with allusions to the seven -stars, the seven seals, the seven-branched candlestick, the seven -mortal sins. The Greeks had Seven Wise Men and Seven Sleepers, and the -Pythagoreans saw magic in all the heptamerides. And there were seven -notes of music and seven primary colors, and seven hills in the Eternal -City. Also, it had never before occurred to him that he was born on the -seventh day of the seventh month. And now it had its effect. - -He tried the door. It opened when he turned the knob. The hall was dark, -but he could descry the staircase. He grasped his revolver firmly and -entered. - -There was a smell of undusted floors and unaired walls. The darkness -thickened with each step as he climbed, compelling him to grope. And -because he groped there came to him that fear which always comes with -uncertainty. It permeated his soul and was intensified, without becoming -more concrete, by reason of the ghostly emptiness peculiar to all -unoccupied houses. The absence of furniture served merely to fill the -comers with shadows that bred uneasiness. People had been there; people -no longer were! The house was empty of humanity, but full of other -beings--impalpable suspects that made the flesh creep! It was like -death--unseen, but felt with the senses of the soul. - -There was no place, decided Tom, so fit to murder people in as an empty -house. His adventure now took on an aspect of reckless folly. But though -he felt in this ghostly house what might be called the ghost of fear, he -also felt the impelling force of an intelligent curiosity. In this young -man's soul was a love of adventure, a gambler's philosophy, a reserve -force of cold intelligence and warm imagination such as is found in the -great explorers, the great chemists, and the great buccaneers of dollars. - -That was why in the year of grace 1913 Tom Merriwether stood in the -middle of the second-story front room of a house situated in a very -good street, only three doors from Fifth Avenue, with his left hand -outstretched, and on the open palm of it a cross with a Greek name that -meant Dispeller of Darkness--in a darkness that could not be dispelled. -His right hand grasped the butt of an automatic.45 loaded with -elephant-stopping bullets--but of what avail was that against a knock in -the head from behind? - -Listening for soft footsteps, he seemed to hear them time and again--and -time and again not to hear them! People nowadays, he finally decided, -do not want to take other people's lives--only their money. Whereupon he -once more grew calm--and intensely curious! He had not one cent of money -on his person. He had left it at home intentionally. - -Presently he thought he heard sounds--faint musical murmurings in -the air about him, low wailings of violins, scarcely more than Æolian -harpings, and pipings as of tiny flutes--almost indistinguishable. Then -a delicate swish-swish, as of silken garments. Also, there came to him a -subtle fragrance that turned first into an odorous sigh and then into -a summer breath of sweet peas; and he imagined--he must have -imagined--hearing, "I do love you!" ah, so softly! - -He smelled now the odor of sweet peas, which stirred sleeping memories -without fully awakening them, as all flower odors do by what the -psychologists call association. He heard, "I do love you!"--and then the -Dispeller of Darkness was taken from his outstretched hand. - -He stood there, his muscles tense, braced for a shock, ready for a life -struggle, perhaps half a minute before the sound of footsteps retreating -in the hall outside recalled to him his instructions. He vehemently -desired to follow and see who it was that had taken the Dispeller of -Darkness; but he had pledged his word not to. He hesitated. - -The odor of sweet peas was flooding him as with waves. And he heard, "I -do love you!"--heard it again and again with the inner ear of his soul, -the listener of delights. He thrilled at the thought of being loved. It -made him incredibly happy. He felt unbelievably young! - -Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not counted a hundred as he had -promised, though he must have spent more than a minute wool-gathering. -He counted a hundred as fast as he could and then hastened from the -room. It was plain that Tom Merriwether was already doing incredible -things or, at least, failing to do the obvious. Great is the power of -suggestion on an imaginative mind! - -He flashed his electric torch. He was in a bare room with a dusty -hardwood floor, ivory-tinted wainscoting, and a Colonial mantel. The -hall was empty. - -He walked down the stairs, his steps raising disquieting echoes and -creepy creakings. - -Mindful of his waiting friend outside, he quickly walked out of the -gloom into which he had carried the Dispeller of Darkness of Apollonius -of Tyana, the cross of the seven emeralds. Huntington Andrews saw him -coming and crossed over to meet him. - -"How did you make out, Tom?" - -"I'm a damned fool, Huntington; and so are you! And so is everybody!" - -"Right-O!" agreed Andrews, who was inveterately amiable and, moreover, -loved Tom. - -"It's the most diabolical--" Tom paused. - -"Yes, it is," agreed Huntington Andrews, so obviously anxious to dispel -his friend's ill temper that Tom laughed and said, cheerfully: - -"Come on, me brave bucko!" And together they walked to the corner and -then down the Avenue to 777. - -"Huntington, you wait here; and if I am not back by nine-forty-five go -to my house. At ten o'clock have my valet deliver the letter I gave him -for my father. You can be of help to the governor if you will." - -And Huntington Andrews asked no questions--he was a friend. - -Tom rang the bell of 777. The door opened. One of the four -over-intelligent-looking footmen stepped to one side respectfully. - -"Is your--" began Tom. - -"Yes, Mr. Merriwether," answered the man, with a deference such as only -royalty elicits. - -He then delivered Tom to footman number two, who in turn escorted him -as far as number three; then number four led him to the door of the -master's library. The footman knocked, opened the door and announced, -with a curious solemnity: - -"Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, 7-7-77." - -The strange man was there in his arm-chair, his back to the window. The -room was lit by candles. The man rose and said, respectfully: - -"I thank you, Mr. Merriwether." - -"Don't mention it," said Tom, amiably. - -The man bowed his head and looked at Tom meditatively. Tom was the first -to break the silence. - -"May I ask what--" Tom began, but was checked by the other, who held up -his right hand with the gesture of a traffic policeman and said, slowly: - -"A message in the dark! You carried one to another soul, who waited for -it. And that other soul is taking one to you. Some day you will meet -her. You will marry her. There is no doubt whatever of that. None! Ask -me no questions, Mr. Merriwether. I ask nothing of you--no money, no -time, no services, no work, no favors--nothing! Your fate is not in my -hands. It never was! You will follow your destiny. It will take you by -the hand and lead you to her!" - -"That is very nice of destiny." - -"My young friend, you are very rich, very powerful. You can do -everything. You fear nothing. This is the year nineteen hundred and -thirteen. But I tell you this: the woman who will be your wife, in this -world and throughout eternity has received your message. It was ordained -from the beginning. You have not seen her; you have not heard her; you -have not touched her. And yet you will know her when you see her and -when you hear her and when you feel her. Into the darkness you went. Out -of the darkness she will come. Nothing you can do can change it. Improve -your hours by thinking of her. Think of the love you have to give her! -Think of it constantly! Of your love! Yours! Of hers you cannot guess. -The love you will give will make her your mate! Your love! And so, -Thomas Thome Merriwether, think of the One Woman!" - -"I think--" - -"I know! Amusement, sneers, skepticism, anger--all are one to me. I -ask nothing, expect nothing, desire nothing, and fear nothing from you, -young sir. A queer experience this--eh? An unexplained and apparently -unconcluded little game? A plot foiled by your cleverness--what? A joke? -A piece of lunacy? Call it anything you wish. Again I thank you. Good -evening, Mr. Merriwether." - -And Tom was politely ushered from the room by the strange man and from -the house by the four over-intelligent footmen. - - - -III - -Next day Tom Merriwether found himself unable to think of anything but -the mystery of the fateful Tuesday. He felt baffled. His curiosity had -been repulsed at every step. In their definite incomprehensibility all -the incidents that he so vividly recalled took on an irritating quality -that made him a morose and uncomfortable companion. Huntington Andrews -noticed it at luncheon; and so admirable was the quality of his -amiability that after the coffee he said: - -"Tom, I've got important business to attend to to-day, and if you don't -mind I'll be off now. Of course if you think I can help you in any way -all you have to do is to tell me what it is." - -"Huntington, you are the best friend in the world. I've been thinking--" - -Tom paused and stared into vacancy. He was trying to recall whether the -man at 777 Fifth Avenue had a criminal look about the eyes. Huntington -Andrews rose very quietly and walked away. He knew his friend wished to -think--alone. - -Lost in his exasperating speculations, Tom finally ceased, thinking -of the man and began to think of the girl. Was the game to rouse his -interest in an unknown, later to be introduced to him? Was the scheme -one that involved an adventuress? Why all the claptrap? And why had -his thoughts, in spite of himself, dwelt so persistently on love and -somebody to love? Why had the springtime--since the night before--come -to mean a time for loving? Why had he begun to see, in flashes, -tantalizing glimpses of rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Why had he -permitted his own mind to be influenced by the strange man's remarks, -so that Tom Merri-wether was indeed thinking--if he would be honest with -himself--of marriage? Was his affinity on her way to him at this very -moment, as the man said? He began to hope she was. - -He dined at home and was so preoccupied at the table that even his -father noticed it. - -"What's up, Tom?" - -"What? Oh! Nothing, dad! I was just thinking." - -"Terrible thing, my boy--thinking at meal-time," said E. H. Merriwether, -with a self-conscious look of badinage. - -"Yes, it is. I'll quit." - -"Is it anything about which you need advice--or help, my boy?" said the -great little railroad dynast, very carelessly. - -His eyes never left his son's face; but when Tom raised his gaze to -meet his father's the elder Merriwether showed no interest. Tom knew his -father and felt the paternal love that insisted on concealing itself as -though it were a weakness. - -"No, indeed. There is nothing the matter--really. I was thinking I'd -like to do a man's work. I guess you'd better let me go with you on your -next tour of inspection." - -The face of the czar of the Southwestern & Pacific lighted up. - -"Will you?" he said, with an eagerness that made his voice almost -tremble. - -"Yes." - -And that evening E. H. Merriwether delivered a long lecture on railroad -strategy and railroad financing to his son, which brought them very -close to each other. - -On the next day, however, all thoughts of being his great father's -successor were subordinated to the feeling that, if Mr. Thomas Thome -Merriwether had to be the successor of a railroad man, he should himself -take steps to provide his own successors. Feeling that he was his -father's son made him think of paternity. And that made him think of the -message he had delivered in the dark and of the message the man had -said would some day come to Tom Merriwether. He drew a deep breath and -thought he smelled sweet peas. And that somehow made him think of the -girl he should marry. Try as he might, he could not quite see her face. -He thought he kissed her, and he inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas. -Her complexion was beautiful. No more! - -On the afternoon of the third day Tom decided that he was wasting too -much time in thinking of the possible meaning of his queer experience, -and also that it was of little use trying not to think about it. -Therefore he would try to put an end to the perplexity. - -He went to 777 Fifth Avenue and rang the bell. A footman opened the door -and stared at him icily. Tom perceived he was not one of the men whose -faces looked too intelligent for footmen. - -"I wish to see Mr.--er--your master." - -"Does he expect you, sir?" The tone was not as respectful as footmen -in Fifth Avenue houses used in speaking to the heir of the Merriwether -millions. "No; but he knows me." - -"Who knows you, sir?" - -"Your master." - -"Could you tell me his name, sir?" - -"No; but I can tell you mine." - -"He's not at home, sir." - -"I'm Mr. Merriwether. Say I wish to speak to him a moment." - -"I'm sorry, sir. He's not in." - -The footman was so unimpressed by the name of Merriwether that Tom -experienced a new sensation, one which made him less sure of his own -powers. He took out a card and a bank-note and held them out toward the -man. - -"I am anxious to see him." - -"Im sorry. I can't take it, sir," said the footman, with such melancholy -sincerity that Tom smiled at the torture of the cockney soul. - -Then he ceased to smile. The master of this mysterious house had -compelled even the footmen to obey him! - -"But if you will call again in an hour, sir, I think perhaps, sir--" - -"Thank you. Take it anyhow." - -He again held out the bank-note. The man saw it was for twenty dollars, -and almost turned green. - -"I--I d-daresent, sir!" he whimpered, and closed his eyes with the -expression of an anchoret resolved not to see the beautiful temptress. - -Tom left him, walked across the Avenue to the Park, and sat down on a -bench. He settled down to think calmly over the mysterious affair, and -looked about him. - -The grass in the turf places had taken on a definite green, as though -it were May. The trees were not yet in leaf, making the grass-greenness -seem a trifle premature, but Tom noticed that the buds on the trees and -shrubs were bursting; there were little feathery tips of tender red and -pale green--tiny wings about to flutter upward because the sun and the -sky beckoned to them to go where it was bright and warm. The sky was of -a spotless turquoise, as though the spring cleaning up there had been -thorough. The clouds were of silver freshly burnished for the occasion. -The air was alive, laden with subtle thrills; it throbbed invisibly, -as though the light were life, and life were love. He saw hundreds of -sparrows, and they all twittered; and all the twitterings were very, -very shrill, and yet very, very musical. And also they twittered in -couples that hopped and darted and aerially zigzagged--always together -and always twittering! - -A policeman stopped and said something to a nurse-maid. The nurse-maid -said something to the policeman. He was young and she was pretty. Then -the policeman said nothing to the nurse-maid, and the nurse-maid said -nothing to the policeman. Then two faces turned red. Then one face -nodded yes. Then the other face walked away, swinging a club; and--by -all that was marvelous!--swinging the club in time to the tune the -sparrows were twittering--in couples--the same tune, as though the -club-swinger's soul were whistling it! - -Tom smiled uncertainly--he wanted to give money, lots of it, to the -policeman and to the nursemaid; and he knew it was impossible--it was -too obviously the intelligent thing to do! So, instead, he drew a deep -breath. - -Instantly there came to him not the odor of spring and of green things -growing, but of sweet peas and summer winds, and changing, evanescent -faces, pink-and-white as flowers, with flower-odor associations and eyes -full of glints and brightnesses that recalled dewdrops and sunlight and -stars. And these glittering points shifted in tune to the twittering of -birds and the swinging of Park policemen's clubs. - -Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that -love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man. - -He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to -do something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he -walked briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had -begun to walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to -think. So he shook himself free from the spell and walked back. - -An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman -opened the door. - -"Is he in?" asked Tom, impatiently. - -"Yes, sir--he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir." He looked -as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted. - -"What did he say?" asked Tom. - -"He said: 'How much did he offer to give you when you said I wasn't at -home?' Yes, sir. That's what he asked me." - -"And you said?" - -"I said it was a yellowback, sir. That's all I could see. I said I -wouldn't take it, and he said I might just as well have taken it. Thank -you, sir! This way, sir." - -The footman led the way to the door in the rear, rapped, and in the -sonorous, triumphant voice that a twenty-dollar tip will give to any -menial he announced: - -"Mr. Merriwether!" - -The same man was in the same chair in the same room, with his back to -the stained-glass window. Tom recalled all the incidents of his previous -visits--recalled every detail. Also the old question: What is the game? -Also the new question: Where is she? - -The man rose and bowed. It was the bow of a social equal, Tom saw. - -"Good morning, Mr. Merriwether. Won't you be seated, sir?" And he -motioned him to a chair. - -"Thank you." - -"How can I serve you?" - -"Who is the woman?" said Tom, abruptly. "Your fate!" answered the man. - -"Her name?" - -"I cannot tell you." - -"Her address?" - -"I don't know it." - -"What is your game?" - -"I have money enough for my whims and time enough to gratify my desire -to help you. Eugenics is my hobby. I recognize that I cannot fight -against the decree of destiny." - -"I am tired of all this humbug." - -"I ask nothing of you now. You can go or you can come. You can go to -India or to Patagonia--or even farther. You may send detectives and -lawyers, or even thugs, to me. You may cease your search for her--if you -can!" - -"You have roused my curiosity--" - -"That is a sign of intelligence." - -"I tell you now that I don't believe a word of what you say." - -"Free country, young man." - -"I've had enough of this nonsense--" - -"Though I am always glad to see you, young sir, and would not wound your -feelings for worlds"--the man's voice was very polite, but also very -cold--"I might be forgiven for observing that I did not ask you to -call." - -"I'll give you a thousand dollars--" - -The man stopped him with a deprecatory wave of the hand. - -"One of the pearls I offered you, Mr. Merriwether, is valued at ten -thousand dollars. You did not select that one; but I'll exchange the one -you took for it--now if you wish." - -"That's all very well, but--" Tom paused, and the man cut in: - -"Do you wish to see her from a safe distance? Or do you wish to talk to -her without seeing her? Or--" - -"To see her and talk to her!" - -"Wait!" - -The man intently regarded the tip of Tom's left shoe for fully five -minutes. Then he raised his head and clapped his hands twice. The black -manservant with the fez appeared. - -The man said something in Arabic--at least it sounded so to Tom. The -black answered. The man spoke again. The black replied: - -The man said what sounded to Tom like, "_Ay adad_." - -The negro answered, "_Al-sabi! Al-sabi wal Saboun_." - -The man waved his hand dismissingly and the negro salaamed and left the -room. - -After a moment the man turned to Tom and said, with obvious perplexity: -"I am not sure it is wise for me to meddle, but perhaps it is written -that I am to help you three times. Who knows?" - -He stared into Tom's eyes as though he would read a word there--either -yes or no. But Tom said, a trifle impatiently: - -"Well, sir?" - -"Go to the opera to-night. Take seat H 77. No other seat will do." - -"H 77--to-night," repeated Thomas Thorne Merriwether. - -"The opera is 'Madame Butterfly.'" - -"Thanks," said Tom, and started for the door. He halted when the man -spoke. - -"It is the seat back of G 77. None other will do." - -"Good day, sir," said Tom, and left the room. - - - -IV - -The telephone operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the -plugs in the switchboard and answered in advance: - -"Mr. Merriwether's office!" - -From the other end of the wire came: - -"This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. -Merriwether. Personal matter." - -"He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?" - -"No. Say it is Mr. Waters--about Mr. Tom Merriwether." - -People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. -E. H. Merriwether--deluded people who thought they could get what they -wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never -succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented -the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her -business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private -secretary's line, saying: "Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to -Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether." - -"I'll talk to him," hastily said the private secretary. - -"Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private -secretary. Has anything happened to Tom that--Oh! Yes--of course! At -once, Mr. Waters." - -McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire. - -"Who?" said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. "Waters? Oh yes. Go -ahead!" - -And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice: - -"Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak -to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean -crazy or--er--alarming; but--don't you know?--unusual.... Yes, sir! A -little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about the opera. -Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs. Of course -it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No; never! We -don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan, where he -has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't bring -us into any--you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a little -worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about -being in love, and he--er--he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes, Mr. -Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It -was a very delicate matter and--Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether. We'd -all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by." - -E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his -admirers called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive -gambler's face which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could -be that he was wounded in a vital spot. - -His son Tom was all this great millionaire had! - -His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste -paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was -it one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by -baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond -the reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend -of Tom's; but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private -secretary. - -"McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to -find out whether my son Tom has been up there--box-office--and what he -is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy -goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist -on--er"--he could not bring himself to say mental diseases--"on nervous -troubles, and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow -morning. He will have breakfast with us--say, at eight-thirty. I don't -want Tom to know." - -He avoided McWayne's eyes. - -"Yes, sir," said McWayne. - -"Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about -Tom. I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop -everything else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that -Tom is acting a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke--or a trick. I -want to find out--that's all." - -He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in -his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him -from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and -drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would -be a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could -not afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said -in his calm, emotionless voice: - -"I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in." - -There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick -of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that -at will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart--this little chap -that people called ruthless. - - - -V - -Tom Merriwether went to the box-office at the Metropolitan and said, -pleasantly, as men do when they ask for what they know will be given to -them: - -"I want the seat just back of G 77--orchestra--for to-night. I suppose -it will be H 77." - -The clerk, who knew the heir of the Merriwether millions, said, "I'll -see whether we have it, Mr. Merriwether." He saw. Then he said, with -sincere regret: "I'm very sorry. It's gone." - -"I must have it," said Tom, determinedly. - -"I don't quite see how I can help you, Mr. Merri-wether. I can give you -another just as--" - -"I don't want any other seat. Who bought it?" - -"I don't know. It may be a subscription seat, sold months ago." - -"It's the double seven on the seventh row that I am concerned about. I -want the seat just back of it." - -"I'll call up the ticket agencies. There's a bare chance they may have -it." After a few minutes he said, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but -I can't get it. They haven't it." - -"I'm willing to pay any price for H 77. I'll give you a hundred dollars -if you--" - -"Mr. Merriwether, I couldn't do it if you offered me a thousand! If I -could do it at all I'd be only too glad to do it for you--for nothing," -the clerk said, and blushed. - -Everybody liked Tom. - -The sincerity in the clerk's voice impressed young Mr. Merriwether, who -thanked him warmly and withdrew. The baffled feeling that he took away -with him from the ticket-window grew in intensity until he was ready to -fight. - -It was a natural-enough impulse that led him back to 777 Fifth Avenue; -but he was not quite sure whether he was angry at the man for telling -him to do what was obviously impossible or at himself for determining to -find her! - -He rang the bell of the house of mystery. The footman that answered was -one of the intelligent four; but his face was impassive, as though he -had never before seen Tom. - -"Your master?" asked Tom, abruptly. - -"Your card, please," said the footman, impassively. - -Tom gave it to him. The man disappeared, presently to return. - -"This way, sir." And at the door in the rear he paused and announced, -"Mr. Merriwether!" - -The master of the house was in his usual place. He bowed his head -gravely and waited. - -"I couldn't get the seat," said Tom, with a frown. - -"It is written, 'Vain are man's efforts!'" - -"That's all very well, my friend. But the next time--" - -"Fate deals with time--not with next time! There is no certainty of any -time but one. If you can do nothing I can do nothing. I still say, The -seat back of G 77 to-night." - -Tom Merriwether looked searchingly into the calm eyes before him. The -baffled feeling returned; also, a great curiosity. What would the end -be? At length he said, "Good day, sir." He half hoped the man would -volunteer some helpful remark. - -"Good day, sir," said the man, with cold politeness. - -Tom went back to the Opera House and asked for somebody in authority -to whom he might talk. They ushered him into Mr. Kirsch's presence. Mr. -Kirsch, amiable by birth, temperament, and training, listened to him -with much gravity; also, with a concern he tried to conceal, for it was -too sad--a bright, clean-living, intensely likable chap like Tom, only -heir to the Merriwether millions! - -Fearing a scene, he told Tom that he would speak to the ticket-takers in -the lobby to be on the lookout for ticket H 77. Then he conferred with -the emissary McWayne had sent, who thereupon was able to send in a most -alarming report. - -The private secretary softened it as much as he could, and even dared to -suggest to the chief that it might be a bet; but the little czar of -the Pacific & Southwestern, who had never flinched under any strain -or stress, grew visibly older as he heard that his son was offering -thousands for an opera-seat--for the seat back of the double seven, -seventh row. It could mean but one thing! - -Tom was so fortunate as to be standing beside the ticket-collector at -the middle door of the main entrance when the owner of H 77 appeared. He -was a fat man with a pink and shiny face, a close-cropped mustache, and -huge pearl studs. The fat man was fortunately alone. - -"Sir," said Tom, "I should like to speak a moment with you." - -The man looked apprehensive. Then he said, "What is it about?" - -"For very strong personal reasons I should like to exchange tickets with -you. I can give you G 126--every bit as good--on the other side of the -aisle." - -"Why should I change?" queried the shiny-faced man, suspiciously. - -"To oblige a very nice young lady and myself. Of course, if you prefer -to be paid--" - -"I don't need money." - -"Well, I'll pay you a hundred dollars for your ticket," said Tom, -coldly. - -The man shook his head from force of habit, in order that Tom might see -he was offering too little. Then he said, recklessly: - -"It's yours, my friend. I have a pet charity. I'll give your money to -it. Where's the hundred?" - -Tom took out a small roll of yellow bills, pulled off one, and handed it -to the man with the pet charity, who took it, looked at it, nodded, put -it in his pocket, gave the coupon to Tom, and then held out his right -hand. - -"Where is the ticket for G 120 that you'll give me in place of mine?" - -Tom gave it to him and walked into the house, not knowing that McWayne's -emissary had listened and reported. He sat in H 77 and tried to laugh -at his own absurd behavior; but somewhere within him--away in, very -deep--something was thrillingly alert, tantalizingly expectant. - -The seat before him was empty. It remained empty during the first act. -It angered Tom that the climax should be so long in coming. The three -seats in front of him remained vacant until just before the curtain went -up on the last act. Somebody came in just as the lights were lowered and -occupied seat G 77. - -Tom sat up and braced himself. He leaned over, vaguely desiring to be -near her. Unconscious that he was under a strain he, nevertheless, drew -a deep breath. - -Instantly there came to him the odor of sweet peas, and with it thoughts -of summer, of a beautiful girl, of a soul-mate, of a wife. Love filled -his being. He wished to love and be loved. He wished to be somebody's -husband, so that he might begin to live the life he was to live until -the day of his death! - -He leaned back in his chair and again inhaled the fragrance of sweet -peas--the odor that must mean kisses in the open; the inarticulate -love-making of breezes and blossoms; the multitudinous whispers of -midsummer nights heard by love-hungry ears. And then the music! There -came the breaking of a heart about to cease beating and the sobbing -crash of the brasses in the finale. It was almost more than Tom could -bear. - -Then the curtain fell and light flooded the house. People streamed out. -Tom twisted and turned to see the face of the lady who made him think -of the sweet peas, which made him think of love and marriage and -children--but she was wrapped to the cheeks in a fur-edged opera-cloak -and her head was covered with a black-lace wrap. He could not see her -face; and after rivulets of people reached the main stream in the middle -aisle he found himself hopelessly separated from her. He tried to jostle -his way through. McWayne, his father's private secretary, suddenly -happened to be there. - -"Hello, Tom!" he said. "What's your rush?" - -Tom saw that it was useless to pursue the phantom of sweet peas and -dreams of love unless he vaulted over the stalls. McWayne's presence -made him realize how his friends would be shocked by such actions. - -"No hurry at all," said Tom, who, after all, was a Merriwether. "Just -wanted to smoke and to see whether I knew that girl." - -"I'll bet she's a pippin!" said McWayne, with a friendly smile. It -irritated Tom. - -"I don't know any of your friends," said Tom, coldly; "lady friends and -pippins, fellows like you call them, I believe." - -That was what convinced McWayne that the worst was to be feared about -poor Tom, who was so considerate and amiable when normal. Poor Tom! -McWayne telephoned to the waiting E. H. Merriwether, whose only reply -was to ask the private secretary to arrange to have Dr. Frauenthal, -the great specialist, at breakfast in the Merriwether house the next -morning, without fail. - -It was a common occurrence for Dr. Frauenthal to meet--under false -pretenses, as it were--persons whose sanity was suspected by fond -relatives who dared not openly acknowledge their suspicions. He was a -man whose eyes had been compared to psychic corkscrews, with which he -brought the patient's secret thoughts to the light of day. Some one -said of him that, by inducing a feeling of guilt and detection among the -predatory rich, he was able to exact colossal fees from them. He was the -man who had made Ordway Blake give up making six millions a year in Wall -Street by quitting the game. Mr. Blake was still alive. - -Frauenthal was introduced to Tom as a gentleman whose advice "E. H." -desired. The men conversed on various topics apparently haphazard; but -in reality Tom, without knowing it, was answering test questions. The -answers could not conclusively prove insanity, but they would certainly -show whether a more thorough examination was necessary. - -Mr. Merriwether and Frauenthal left the house together. They entered the -waiting brougham. The great little railroad magnate gave the address of -the doctor's office to the footman, then turned to Frauenthal and said, -calmly: - -"Well, what do you think of him?" - -His voice was steady and cold; his face imperturbable; his eyes were -fixed with intelligent scrutiny on the specialist's, but his fingers -tightly clutched a rolled morning newspaper. - -Frauenthal turned his clinical stare on E. H. Merriwether, as though the -financier were really the patient. He swept the little man's face--the -eyes, the mouth, and the poise--and then let his eyes linger on the -clenched fingers about the newspaper. - -The iron-nerved, glacial-blooded, flint-hearted Merriwether could not -control himself after forty-five seconds of this. He flung the newspaper -on the floor violently. - -"Go ahead!" he said, harshly. - -The doctor did not smile outwardly; but you felt that within himself -he had found an answer to one of his own unspoken questions about the -father of the suspect. - -"There are, Mr. E. H. Merriwether," he began, in the measured tones -and overcareful enunciation of a lecturer at a clinic, "various -forms of--let us say--madness; and your son Tom, a fine young man of -twenty-eight, is quite unmistakably suffering from--" - -He paused to give the fine young man's emotionless father an opportunity -to show human feelings. Frauenthal was always interested in the struggle -between the emotional and the physical in his millionaire patients. - -"Go on!" said E. H. Merriwether, so very coldly as to irritate. - -His eyes never left the alienist's own secret-draggers; but he was -drumming on his thigh with the tips of his uncontrollable fingers. -Ordinarily his desk would have screened from sight this betrayal of -human feeling. - -"Your son, sir, is suffering, beyond any question, from the oldest -madness of all--love!" - -"What?" - -"Your son Tom is in love. That is what ails him." - -"Are you serious?" Mr. Merriwether was frowning fiercely now. - -"You'll think so," retorted Frauenthal, coldly, "when you get my bill." - -"My boy Tom in love?" repeated the czar, blankly. "Yes." - -"With whom?" - -"I don't know. I'm a neurologist--not a soothsayer." - -"Well, suppose he is in love--what of it?" - -"Nothing--to me." - -"Then what is serious about it?" - -"I can't tell you, for its seriousness to you depends on your point -of view toward society at large. There are, of course, the obvious -disquieting circumstances." - -"For instance?" - -"He is a fine chap--healthy, bright, honest. What is the reason he has -said nothing to you? Is he ashamed or afraid? If he is ashamed it is -very serious to both of you. If he is afraid--well, then the seriousness -depends on how intelligent a father you have been to him." - -"Don't talk like a damned fool! I've been a good father to him; of -course--" - -"Wait! Wait! First tell me why you do what you ask me not to do?" In the -specialist's eyes was a sort of professional curiosity. - -"What do you mean?" said E. H. Merriwether, impatiently. It exasperated -him to be puzzled. - -"Why do you talk like a damned fool?" said Frauenthal. - -Nobody ever talked that way to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, overlord of the -greatest railroad empire in history. He flushed and was about to retort -angrily, but controlled himself in time. The brougham had reached -Frauenthal's office. Mr. Merriwether spoke too calmly--you could feel -the tense restraint: - -"Dr. Frauenthal, I've heard a great deal of your wonderful ability." - -He paused. It came hard to him to be ingratiating. This difficulty -is the revenge which nature takes on people who acquire the habit of -'paying money for everything in this world. Such men cannot talk except -with a check-book, and the check-book loses the power of speech before -happiness--and before death. - -"What very difficult thing is it you wish me to do for you?" asked -Frauenthal, coldly. - -"You are sure Tom is not--" He hesitated. - -"Crazy?" prompted the specialist. - -"Yes." - -"Yes; I'm sure he is not. Therefore he is saner than you who are a -money-maker." - -Mr. Merriwether let this remark pass. He was anxious to save Tom. This -man was uncannily sharp. He said, "And can't you do something, so that -Tom will not--" - -"I am not God!" interrupted Frauenthal. - -"Then, what can I do? What do you suggest might be done?" - -"As a neurologist?" - -"Yes." - -"Nothing." - -"Then, as a man of the world--as one who knows human nature? You see, -this--this--er--sort of thing is not in my line. What shall I do?" It -was a terrible thing for the great Merriwether to confess inefficiency -in anything. - -"Pray!" - -The little magnate flushed. "Dr. Frauenthal," he began, with chilling -dignity, "I asked--" - -"And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to -whatever other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a -prima donna nor a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really -worse than you deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There -are check-book gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd -pray to Him if I were you. Good day, sir!" - -The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without -another look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house. - -"Where to, sir?" asked the footman. - -Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his -anxiety over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread -question--Why had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be -either crazy or in love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? -What was she? Why was she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: -"Hell!" - -"Yes, sir--very good, sir," said the footman, from force of habit. Then -he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed -deeply and said, tremulously, "B-beg p-pardon, sir?" - -"Nearest Subway station!" said E. H. Merriwether. . - -He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important -business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best -in his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was -an autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands -that were obeyed. He had much thinking to do--Tom was concerned, his -son Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's -future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether! - -Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of -a clear sky--this love-affair was a million times worse! It was -mysterious--and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is worse -than nitroglycerine--infinitely more dangerous. - -What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the -dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could -not Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good -girl who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding -her own business--to wit, a few little male Merriwethers? - -It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether -had loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his -pleasure. But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far -greater importance than the worker. The work was the work of the -Merriwethers--not of one Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but -of all the Merriwethers, living and to be. - -Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be -himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad -expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a -successor--flesh and blood the same; the fortune the same. - -And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H. -Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness -Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only -Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom. - - - -VI - -After his father and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel -that he had finished his breakfast--that is to say, he attempted to read -the newspapers. But the printed letters failed to combine themselves -into intelligible forms, and even when he read a word here and there his -mind did not record it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose. - -Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to -reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in -that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to -him in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open -air, and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies -to soar unchecked. - -Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he -did not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his -mind that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with -precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime--also -young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and -burros--and even bankers! - -Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave -up trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning -papers. His nervous system coined a proverb for him: "When in doubt, -walk out!" So he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue. - -He found himself in Central Park--the remedy which the very rich do not -and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as he -walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite -cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about -them systematically. - -The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth -Avenue--on Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the -jewelry-shops where the wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. -Everybody was getting married! What business had people to make people -think of wives--yes, wives--plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all -desirable and worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to -be rolled into one--Tom's? - -It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one -he desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the -amorous crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the -springtime--a nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion -from a distant relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the -heart of the sun--and lo! the wife-to-be! - -And so the wedding-presents--a silver service, to be used by two -sitting on opposite sides of a table, looking into each other's eyes; -a glittering string, to be admired on a wonderful throat--were heavy -enough to keep Tom's soul from soaring. And because his feet were on the -pavement he soon found himself--of course!--before 777 Fifth Avenue. - -Why should he not go to that house? And why should he not ring the bell? -Why not? He was just in the mood to meet her! - -His intentions were above suspicion, though marriage is a serious thing; -but, really, now was the time for the adventure to appear--even if the -adventure turned out to be merely the adventuress. - -Therefore, with the inexorable logic of the most illogical state of mind -known, he rang the bell and waited with an eagerness--half hope, half -curiosity--most unusual among people who, like Tom, early acquire the -habit of asking, check-book in hand, for whatever they wish. - -The footman who answered was one of the men with the over-intelligent -faces. - -"I am Mr. Merriwether. I wish to see your master." - -Tom's voice rang a trifle more commandingly than the occasion appeared -to call for. There was a physiological reason for it. The man hesitated -so that Tom wondered; but presently all expression vanished from the -non-menial face and the footman said: - -"This way, if you please, sir." - -He preceded Tom to the door of his master's library. He rapped twice -smartly and waited in an attitude of listening. Tom also listened -intently; he could not have told why he did it--though it was, of -course, inevitable. - -Not a sound was heard. The over-intelligent footman's lips moved for all -the world as though he were counting, and presently he opened the door -and announced: - -"Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether--7-7-7 7." - -Tom entered. The master of this strange house was seated at the -over-elaborate library table, writing. He looked up, but before Tom -could speak the man said, coldly: - -"I cannot do anything for you, sir." - -It was so much like a refusal to give alms to a beggar that Tom flushed -angrily. He managed to check a sharp retort on the very brink and, -instead, began in a mildly ironical tone: - -"Of course you know what I--" - -"Of course!" interrupted the man, rudely; and he began impatiently to -drum on the edge of the table with his penholder. "Do you imagine for a -minute that you are the only mateless male in New York looking for his -destined bride? And do you really think that the fruitlessness--until -now--of your search is a world-tragedy? Because your name happens to -be Thomas--which is a descriptive title when applied to marriageable -felines of your own sex--do you fancy I am concerned with your affairs? -Young man, you are the only son and heir of a very rich man; but there -are some things that money cannot buy. Love is one of them." - -He frowned at Tom, but something in the young millionaire's face made -him relent. He went on, more kindly, more encouragingly: - -"My boy, she is seeking you, even as you are seeking her. She is very -beautiful! You will meet her at the appointed hour--have no doubt of it. -After your perfectly stupid failure at the opera--Wait!" He held up a -hand as Tom was about to speak in self-defense. "The very futility of -your manoeuvers shows that youth, brains, money, persistence, and desire -are all powerless to hurry fate. As you, who have never seen her, love -her, she loves you, though she has never seen you. She will know you as -you will know her; but she is gone!" - -"Where?" Tom spoke before he knew it. - -"Be patient! After you meet her you will live with her until death parts -you." - -He said this, without theatrical emphasis, in a most matter-of-fact way. -Tom's suspicions, always present in this house of mystification rather -than of mystery, were not made livelier by the man's words; but neither -were they allayed by the tone of his voice. He hesitated, and then, -adventure whispering, he said: - -"To be perfectly frank, I am interested in this--" - -"Young man, I told you before that I ask nothing of you--no favor, no -money, no service; not even your interest. When I asked you to do a -certain thing you did it. I am not particularly grateful. You could not -have refused! Possibly you can explain to your own satisfaction your -own inexplicable acquiescence; you doubtless have evolved a dozen most -ingenious theories to account for your doings and mine. The shortest -and easiest explanation is the true one--fate. After you marry you will -compare notes with her--and yet you will not understand why I concerned -myself with your lives. You will perplex yourselves so unnecessarily; -all because of your unwillingness to say, fate! Men hate fate as a -hypothesis. It is not flattering to admit that we are but puppets--the -strongest of us no stronger than an autumn leaf in the wind. And because -you do not see fate you do not believe in it. And, for fear of being -considered an ass by a lot of asses, who also do not believe in fate, -you will never tell any one your romantic story. And yet, of the scores -you call friends, there are only seven men who are happily married. And -those seven I helped, as I have helped you and as I shall help those I -am ordered to help. Even now the Dispeller of Darkness is out, making -one heart send a message in the dark to another heart waiting for it!" - -"Do you mean to say you cannot or will not arrange for my meeting the -mysterious person you tell me I am going to marry?" - -"I mean to say that your coming to this house with such a hope merely -means a waste of your time, young sir, and of mine. You will meet your -love, but you cannot find her. No man finds happiness by means of a -systematic or diligent search. It comes or it does not come--as God -wills." - -The man rose. Tom also rose and said: - -"But at least tell me where this--this alleged fate of mine is." - -The man shook his head with a smile that was in the nature of a mild -sneer. - -"Doubting Thomas! He won't admit it, but he can't deny it! Ah, so wise! -So clever in his suspicions! So intelligently skeptical! Ah yes!" - -Still nodding in ironical admiration, he approached the filing-cabinet. - -"Let me see--you are 7-7-77." He pulled out drawer seven in section -seven and took out an envelope from which he drew a lot of papers. He -read a typewritten sheet. He replaced the papers, closed the drawer, -turned, and stared doubtfully at Tom, muttering half to himself: "I -don't know! I don't know!" - -"What?" asked Tom. - -"Do you really want her? Do you feel that you must meet her soon or -die?" - -Tom knew he would not die if he did not meet her soon, but as for -wanting her, he certainly did. Every cell in his body was on the alert, -waiting for her, hoping to see her; and adventure, through a megaphone, -was vociferating in the middle of his soul: "Come! Come!" Therefore Tom -looked the man straight in the eyes and answered: - -"Yes, I do!" - -The man hesitated. Then he said: - -"Listen! It is for the last time. Do you hear? For the last time! Do you -agree?" - -He looked sternly at Tom, who thereupon answered, impatiently: - -"Yes! Yes!" - -"Boston! Hotel Lorraine! Secure Room 77, seventh floor. On Thursday -at exactly 7 p.m. be in the southeast corner of the library or -reading-room, which is on the left of the hall as you go to the main -dining-room. Green arm-chair. Hold your hat between your knees--bottom -side upward. Close your eyes. A letter will be dropped into the hat. -Then do as you please. Personally I don't think it will help or hinder. -But you are young; and perhaps if you wish hard enough it may happen -according to your desire. Good day!" - -The man turned his back squarely on Tom, leaving to the heir of the -Merriwether millions no alternative but to go out dissatisfied, excited, -skeptical, hopeful, and determined to go to Boston--danger or no danger, -swindle or no swindle. - -The mysterious man, too mysterious to be anything but a charlatan, -who said he did not wish Tom's money and, for that reason, probably -did--this man promised Tom he should meet a girl--a beautiful girl, the -girl he would marry. If there was to be no compulsion about it; if they, -the man and his accomplices, counted on her charms to capture Tom's -heart and hand--why, the sooner she began the attack, the better. Also, -it was one of those things that only an ass would talk about, since the -telling would put an end to all doubts as to the teller's asininity. - -Therefore, without saying a word to anybody, Tom went to Boston, not -knowing that McWayne's detectives had orders to follow Tom wherever -he went and to report in detail what he was seen to do and what he was -heard to say and to whom. - -Tom arrived in Boston, went to the Hotel Lorraine, registered, and asked -the polite room clerk for Room 77 on the seventh floor. The clerk smiled -pleasantly, as he always did whenever a guest-to-be asked for rooms that -did not end in thirteen, disappeared to look at the index, and returned. - -"I'm sorry, sir, but that room is taken. I can give you--" - -"Taken!" said Tom, in such a disappointed tone that the clerk deigned to -explain sympathetically: "Engaged by telegraph." - -"Who engaged it?" - -Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with -raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of -once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with -a cold determination in his voice: "I made a mistake. I thought we had a -vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere. -I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left." - -He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He -evidently considered the incident closed. - -Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His -business in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son -of his father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the -clerk: - -"I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no -consequence. I am Mr. Merriwether." - -"I told you it was engaged." - -"And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?" - -"Don't you?" said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness -with a sneer. - -This made Tom calm. He said, quietly: - -"Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of -this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should -have forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, -Wilkinson & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket -National Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good -heavens! there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the -last twenty years!" The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether -had a familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more -politely: - -"I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want--and three others -with it--have been engaged." - -"By whom?" - -"You are asking me to break one of our rules." - -"Well, can you tell me whether it has been engaged since yesterday?" - -"Oh, longer than that!" He disappeared, consulted a book, and came back -with the triumphant expression human beings put on when they do not wish -to say "I told you so," aloud, "Engaged and paid for since the eighth, -Mr. Merriwether. That's nine days ago. So, you see, we can't do what you -ask us to. Sorry!" - -Wherever he went, Tom thought he was confronted by crude attempts at -mystery. To send him to this particular room, 77 on the seventh floor, -was merely the same as an effort to impress children by using the -magical number seven. - -Who had engaged the room? Was it an accomplice or some stranger -guiltless of participation in the rather juvenile joke? - -Still, Tom was in Boston to do a particular thing; and, though much -of the spring restlessness had gone from his veins, there remained the -desire to see the affair through to the end, whether the end should be a -smile or a mild oath. Therefore, after a pause, Tom said to the clerk: - -"Can you give me the room exactly opposite 77 on the seventh floor?" - -The clerk hesitated, then said: - -"Just a minute, please." - -He consulted one of the bookkeepers, from whom he must have learned -whose son Tom was. And, though Boston is not New York, money is money, -even in Massachusetts; and the heir to fifty or a hundred million -dollars is something, whether or not he is somebody. - -"Certainly," said the clerk, and handed the key to a young man called, -in New York, a bell-boy. The young man now preceded Tom to the seventh -floor and ushered the New-Yorker into Room 78. - -Tom gave the studious youth a dollar and never noticed that the boy -regarded the bill with a mixture of suspicion and alarm, put it gingerly -into his pocket, and left the room, closing the door. Tom opened the -door. The boy thought it had opened itself and returned to close it. Tom -waved him away. The boy hastily retreated. He did not, however, throw -away the dollar. He had discovered it was not "phony." - -The bell-boy found the room clerk engaged in conversation with two men. -He, divining that the talk concerned the generous lunatic, flung at -the room clerk that look of exaggerated perplexity which will cause any -normal human being inevitably to ask: "What is it?" - -The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men; -whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and -muttered, "He is in his room!" - -"What's that, boy?" - -"I said," retorted the studious youth, glacially, "he was in his -room--78. He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close -it, but he opened it again--after he gave me the dollar." - -The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively. - -"Your man!" he said. "Of course we don't want any fuss--" - -"We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow -isn't violent, you know." - -The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing: - -"Only son, too--isn't he?" - -"Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard." The detective, -induced thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed -inside information. - -"Too bad!" murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom. -"Too damned bad!" he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million -and himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, -sternly, "No trouble, you understand!" - -One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the -lobby just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's -permission, went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor -telephone operator. From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on -Room 78. - -Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit -still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. -The thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him -that perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely -on rousing the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise -awaited the man who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied -by some one who had nothing to do with her--and therefore nothing to -do with him. Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. -Perhaps a million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously -the unwise thing to do to go into Room 77. - -All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with -him. The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more -difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across -the hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked -again. A hotel maid approached him. - -"I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?" - -"What party?" - -"In Room 77." - -"No. I am in 78." - -"I am very sorry--but it is against the rules of the house, sir." - -Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own -room, conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much -concerned over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to -either of his Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever -Mr. McWayne's star sleuths. - -Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had -come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it -was not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So -long as no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no -mystery is laughable--at least, not while in the act of mystifying. - -So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or -not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked -man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two -men from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the -liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity. - -All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock; -but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most -human beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not "act right" -to the watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused -of being mad, will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five -minutes. People who never think and never imagine are never taken for -lunatics. That nowadays is about the only compensation for being an ass. - -At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the -green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an -elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at -exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid -of the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming -the office. - -His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for -insanity, and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his -inventiveness. He merely drew his chair very close to the startled old -lady and opened a magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the -exasperating undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to -yours at the opera. - -Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, -and at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched -fist bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, -looked at it, exclaimed, "Gracious!"--and blew his nose loudly and -determinedly. - -Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose, -looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the -room. In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked -hats and coats near the entrance of the main dining-room. - -"I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! -He simply drove me out." - -"Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case." - -"Goodness! What a narrow--". - -"Oh, he is quite harmless, madam." - -"It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows--" - -"You are right!" agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to -encourage generosity. - -The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down -in the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The -mahogany clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom -felt a pang of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened--except that -he again had made an ass of himself! - -A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at -Tom, saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last -person in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether. - -Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the -room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way -to attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was -not a good place in which to do any robbing or murdering. - -Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into -his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils--the odor he -had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, -and therefore with love. - -This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him--that -made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife--that made -him thrill obediently at the call of adventure--made him feel that the -mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan. - -Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within -his hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what -it said, rushed from the room into the corridor. - -He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was -among them or whether the man who had entered the library--who probably -was the man that put out the light--was among the crowd. But the sleuths -and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt could remain? -In their minds there was none. - -Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He -was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it -were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a -woman's hand: - -_For T. M._ - -He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, -on which he read, in the same handwriting: - -_Too late!_ - -He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk. - -"I must--" he began, but stopped. - -"Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!" The clerk used the voice and manner of a -man saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother. - -"About Room 77 on the seventh floor," said Tom. - -"We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir." - -"What? Has she--Is it vacant?" - -"Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see -whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll--" - -"I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once." - -He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous -occupants. - -"Certainly. Front!" - -Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He -thought he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but -the odor, which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented -him from thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. -There was no sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the -mist of dreams and longings. - -He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often -had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors -to look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife--the mother -of his children--the woman whose mere existence will influence his -life more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a -different man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different -point of view. - -Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of -view would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she -be the girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the -mysterious person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with -whom he might fall in love--adventuress or not? His love of love had -not yet changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a -definite love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that -this affair was being stage-managed for his benefit. - -He would forgive everything so long as in the end something -happened--something in which there was a girl, whether or not she was -the girl. What most irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery -so far. The spice of danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of -adventure; the call of the unusual; the attraction of the unknown and -therefore of the interesting--were no longer quite enough. The glimpse -of a face--of a living face--and a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and -lips to kiss--these things he now desired. - -His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew -keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the -mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue. - -He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New -York. - - - -VII - -Some men are so picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and -so intelligent that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. -E. H. Merriwether was one. He employed the ablest experts for his -corporations and they got more than their share of publicity; but for -himself--nothing. Possibly he realized that ungratified curiosity is a -valuable asset; and, of course, he knew that in a democracy the less a -man raises his head above the level of the mass the better it will be -for his comfort. - -He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because -that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was -not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned -with despoiling the public--which, in turn, clearly proved he was not -dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers -the more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. -Everything he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about -him were so hard to get that the brightest minds in the profession -manufactured a few. They had to be very good anecdotes--and they were. - -To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known -to be mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, -and, besides, devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from -reporters, because they had learned to save themselves time by the -simple expedient of writing their interviews with him in their own -offices, after this fashion: - -_Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor -denial could be obtained at his office._ - -The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never -too busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers. - -On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the -Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A -stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the -general and unwelcome public. - -At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a -man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a -letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: "Well?"--but kept -on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by -making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire -magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary. - -"I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether," said the young man, pleasantly -and unimpressed. - -The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked, -wearily: - -"Got an appointment?" - -"No; but--" - -The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped -insolence, said, still without looking up: - -"What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see -any one to-day. Good day!" - -There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an -exaggerated and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the -stranger without the gate said: - -"When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me." - -The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance -about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young -man, of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight, -well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and -general air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as -good an account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of -wits. - -The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of -hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police -nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good -standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made -possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington. - -"My good James," said the new-school reporter, with a mocking -superciliousness, "I would see your boss. Be expeditious." - -The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed -dangerously; but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his -temper under control. For all that, his voice shook as he said: - -"If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger -from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I--I'm sorry!" Here Doyle -gulped. Then he finished: "Good day!"--and resumed, his writing. - -The reporter said, "Look at me!" so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed -back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man -who dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office. - -"My Celtic friend," pursued the reporter, in a voice of such -cold-blooded vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment -and respect, "for years the domestics of this office have been rude -and impolite to my profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry -reporters might feel or what they said about him; but to-day I am the -one who does not care, and E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally -concerned. _I_ don't give a damn whether he sees me or not. And as -for you, in order to avenge the poor chaps to whom you have been -intelligently rude, I, to whom you have been unintelligently impolite, -shall have you fired. I've got E. H. Merriwether where I want him. If I -can end your boss I can end your job--can't I? Oh no, Alexander! I am -not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound to happen, for Waterloo -comes to all great men who are not clever enough to die at the right -time. Now you go and get McWayne--and be quick about it!" - -Doyle at times saw things through the top of his head, which was red. He -said, a bit thickly: - -"When you tell me in plain English, so I can understand--" - -"You are not paid to understand; you are paid to use common sense and -discrimination. You go to McWayne and say to him a reporter is here and -wishes to speak to him about a sad Merriwether family matter." - -Doyle knew from the office gossip that something was supposed to be -wrong with Tom Merriwether; so, his heart overflowing with anger because -chance had put the one weapon in the hands of an insolent newspaper man, -Doyle went off to tell the boss's private secretary. Presently McWayne, -walking quickly, came from an inner office, and asked: "You wish to see -me?" - -"No!" answered the reporter, flatly. - -"Then--" began McWayne. - -"I don't wish to see you. I wish to see if you have the sense to -understand that I wish to do Mr. E. H. Merriwether the favor of letting -him talk to me. Do you want me to tell you what I want you to tell Mr. -E. H. Merriwether?" - -The reporter looked as though he hoped McWayne would say no. Reporters -did not usually look that way; therefore McWayne was perturbed. He -replied, with a polite anxiety: - -"If you please--" - -"Tell Mr. Merriwether that I wish to see him about his son's marriage. -Tell him that if he does not wish to talk about it, he needn't. You -might add that there is absolutely no use in his trying to keep it out -of the newspapers. Make that plain to him, McWayne." - -McWayne did not dare deny the marriage. Tom was, alas! capable of even -worse things. He did the only thing possible while there was still a -chance to suppress the news; he said: - -"And you represent which paper, please?" - -Reporters do not always know why or how news is suppressed, nor the -price; but this reporter laughed good-naturedly, and replied: - -"McWayne, the trouble with you Irish is that you are so infernally -clever that plain jackasses like myself are prepared for you. I -represent myself and I don't want to be paid to suppress. No blackmail -here; no threats; nothing except amiability and good-will. Have you -begun to accumulate a few suspicions that your taciturn boss is going to -talk to me?" - -"I'll see!" promised McWayne, non-committally; but he was so perturbed -that he could not help showing it. - -Doyle, who had made a pretense of resuming his letter-writing, noticed -it, and felt uncomfortable. - -"And--say, McWayne," pursued the reporter, "could you let a fellow have -a photograph or two? You know we've got some, but we'd prefer to publish -those you think the family consider the best. Some people are queer that -way." - -McWayne shook his head and went away, convinced of the worst. He -returned and beckoned to the reporter, who thereupon said, sharply, to -Doyle: - -"Open the door--you! Quick!" And Doyle, who saw McWayne beckoning, had -to do it. - -Four hundred and seventeen reporters were avenged! - -Doyle was so angry that he was full of aches. He was tempted to throw -up his job. Then he hoped E. H. Merriwether, who was a very great man, -would order him to throw the insolent dog out of the office. Doyle would -earn a bonus. - -E. H. Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, -fearless fighter, iron-nerved stock gambler, but, alas! also a father, -was seated at his desk. He turned to the reporter the inscrutable -poker-face of his class: - -"You wished to see me?" - -"Yes, sir," said the reporter, and waited; two could play at that game. -The great financier was compelled to ask: - -"About what?" - -"About what McWayne told you." The reporter spoke unemotionally. - -"About some rumor concerning my son?" - -"No, sir." - -"No?" E. H. Merriwether looked surprised. - -"No. I wished to know what statement you desire to make about your son's -engagement and marriage. If you do not care to say anything we shall not -publish any fake interview, no matter what opinion I personally may form -as to the real state of your feelings." - -"I take it you are from one of the yellow papers, young man?" E. H. -Merriwether spoke coldly; but, within, his heart-tragedy was being -enacted. - -"You usually take what you wish if it isn't nailed down, I have heard; -but that, doubtless, is one of the slanders that automatically grow -up about a great man, sir," said the reporter, without the shadow of a -smile or frown. - -"If I am mistaken about the newspaper you represent--" Here Mr. -Merriwether paused, as if to allow the young man to introduce himself; -but the young man said: - -"If I told you the name of the newspaper that honors itself by playing -fair with you, I suspect you would set in motion the machinery that -you--er--men of large affairs use to suppress news. You couldn't -reach my city editor, who is a poor man with a family of eight, or the -reporter, who is penniless; but you could reach the owner, who is a -millionaire. This is my first big story in New York and it will make me -professionally. It means a lot to me!" - -"About how much does it mean to you, young man?" asked E. H. -Merriwether, with a particularly polite curiosity. - -"Speaking in language that should be intelligible to you and using the -terms by which you measure' all things down here--" He paused, and then -said, bluntly, "You mean in cash, don't you?" - -"Yes." - -"Well, I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that this story is worth to -me--Let me see!" And he began to count on his fingers, like a woman. -This habit inexpressibly angers men who find no trouble in remembering -numbers of dollars. "I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that it is worth -about three thousand two hundred and eighty-six--millions of dollars. If -I am to stop being a decent newspaper man to become a blackmailer and -general damned fool I'd want to make enough to endow all my pet -charities and carry out a series of rather expensive experiments in -philanthropy." - -"But--" began the magnate. - -"No, sir," interrupted the reporter, "no money, please. Just assume that -I am a damned fool and, therefore, refuse to consider a bribe." - -"I have not bribed you," suggested E. H. Merriwether, calmly. His eyes -never left the reporter's face. - -"Then I misjudged you, and I apologize abjectly; but permit me to -continue to be an ass and blind to money. What about Thomas Thorne -Merriwether, only son and heir of the railroad king of the Southwest?" - -"Well, what about him?" The face of E. H. Merriwether showed only what -you might call a perfunctory curiosity. The reporter looked at him -admiringly. After a pause, he asked: - -"Do you know her?" - -"Do you?" - -"Then you don't!" exclaimed the reporter, triumphantly. "This is better -than I had hoped." - -"Better?" - -"Certainly; it means a better introductory article. The first of the -series will be: 'To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged?' Think of it, -sir," he said, with the enthusiasm of the true artist, "the heir of -the Merriwether millions! By the way, could you tell offhand how many -millions I might safely say?" - -Whatever Mr. Merriwether may have thought, he merely said, with the cold -finality that often imposes on young reporters: - -"Young man, if you begin your career by being vulgar your ruin will be -of your own doing." - -"My dear sir, vulgarity never ruined any career. All the great men of -history were at the beginning accused of hopeless vulgarity--by those -on whom they trod. I tell you it is not vulgarity that prompts me, but -mastery of the technic of my trade. Do you care to have me tell you -about my article?" - -What Mr. E. H. Merriwether really wished to hear was that Tom was not -in love--that he was not on the verge of brutally assassinating all -the hopes and dreams of a fond father. What he said to the unspeakable -reporter was: - -"Yes." - -"Well, I start with this basis--my knowledge of your son's engagement." - -"Where did you get that knowledge?" - -"One of the few things a reporter is incapable of doing is betraying -a confidence. To tell you the source of my information would be that. -Starting with that one fact, my problem is to make that one fact so -important as to enable me to write several thousand words. To justify -this I must make your son very important. He is not really very -important, but you are. I shall slightly over-accentuate here and -there"--he waved his hand in the air, and repeated, dreamily--"here -and there! You will be the Napoleon of railroads, the Von Moltke of the -ticker, doer of deeds and upbuilder, indisputably the greatest captain -of industry that America has yet produced!" - -"Heavens!" burst from the lips of the imperturbable little magnate. - -"You are a stunning study for a novelist. Yours is the great romance -of the American business man! Having made you romantic, I wave my -magician's wand and quadruple your millions. Yours, my dear sir--if -you don't happen to know it--is one of the great fortunes of the world! -You've got Croesus skinned to death and John D. whining over his lost -pre-eminence!" - -"Now look here--" interjected E. H. Merriwether, sternly; but the -reporter retorted, earnestly: - -"Hold your horses!" And the great millionaire did. The young man -continued in his enthusiastic way: "It is much to have the hundreds -of Merriwether millions, but it is infinitely more to have all the -Merriwether millions and such a father and youth. I thus make Tom, who -is really of no importance, of even greater importance than the great -E. H. Merriwether. Do I know my business?" And he bowed in the general -direction of the elder Merriwether. - -"I begin to suspect," replied the elder Merriwether, "that you do." - -He was watching the reporter closely. He always had found it profitable -to let men talk on. A man who talks is apt to show you what he is; and -that furnishes to you the best available weapon. You also may learn when -it is better not to fight. - -"When it comes to picturesque writing about people I do not know, I -can assure you, Mr. Merriwether," the young man said, modestly, "that -I haven't an equal in the United States. In your case I shall not be -handicapped by either facts or knowledge, which are always fatal to the -creative faculty. I shall be free--absolutely free to write!" - -Mr. Merriwether permitted himself a frown in order to conceal his -uneasiness. This young man was talking like a humorist. The eyes were -intelligent and fearless. The combination was formidable. - -"Your theory has doubtless many supporters among your colleagues." - -"There are," admitted the reporter, cheerfully, "other bright young -creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a -paragon--a clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire." - -"Which he is!" interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly. - -"Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that -even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention--with a cleverness I'd -call devilish if it wasn't my own--to the strange and, on the whole, -agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, -a hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great -engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are--do you know -what?--a poet!--a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel, whose numbers -are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand purring wheels -of your tireless cars." - -"My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr," mildly objected the -railroad poet. - -"They do in my story," said the reporter, firmly. "And to prove it -I'll quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great -writers always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the -creation of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on -the map of America--in green!" - -"That sounds good to me," said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached -air of a critic of literature. - -He did not know just how to win this young man's silence--perhaps by -letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the -inauguration of a molasses diet at once! - -"Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This -young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world--handsome, rich, a -fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself -inviolate--pretty swell word that?--in-vi-o-late--all these years, opens -at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the engagement. High -society is more than interested--more than startled. As thinks society, -so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of her. What -society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To whom is -Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article? I -leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!" The young man looked inquiringly at -Mr. Merriwether. - -"I'd read it myself," said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. "I -couldn't help it!" You could see that literature had triumphed over the -stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker. - -"Thank you! And what do you find at the end of the article? What? Why, -a nice psychological little paragraph to the effect that we propose to -print the name of the one woman who, of all the tens of thousands who -have tried, has won the heart of Thomas Thome Merriwether, whose father -you have the honor to be. We refrain, in order to have the parents of -the young people formally announce the engagement. By doing this we -get the full value of the to-be-continued-in-our-next suspense, for the -first time utilized in a news story; and we also increase our reputation -for gentlemanly conservatism, which prevents the refined reporter of -the--of my paper from intruding into a family affair." - -"Will your paper be damned fool enough to--" began E. H. Merriwether, -intentionally skeptical. - -"It is not damned folly to extract all the juice contained in the scoop -of the century--it is technical skill of a very high order. Now what -happens? My esteemed contemporaries, morning and evening, chuck a fit -and bounce their society editors. They then rush for the telephone and -despatch their strongest photographers, sharpest sleuths, and entire -dictagraph corps to the scene. They can't find Tom--because, as you -know, he is in--he is out of town. And they can't find her--because I -haven't said who she is. There remains you!" - -"That won't do them any good," said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, decisively; -but he shuddered. - -"Precisely! I banked on that. But, even if you did see them, what could -you tell them? Deny what is bound to be confirmed in the next issue of -my paper? You know better than to acquire a reputation for lying in the -newspapers. No, siree! Your game is to deny yourself to all inquirers -and say nothing. My esteemed contemporaries have now but one desire--to -wit: to print the name and publish the portrait of your son's fiancée. -Of course you see what happens then, don't you?" - -The reporter looked at the iron-hearted E. H. Merriwether, with such -pity in his eyes that the great little czar of the Southwestern Railroad -for the first time in his life realized he was merely a man--a human -being; an ordinary, every-day father; one drop in the vast ocean; one -of the crowd temporarily aboveground and therefore exposed to the same -sorrows and troubles and sore vexations as all mankind. His millions, -his position in the world, his great work, his undoubted genius--could -not avail even to rid him of annoyance. Can you imagine John D. -Rockefeller living on Staten Island in June and unable to buy -mosquito-netting--price, five cents a yard? - -"What will happen?" asked the great millionaire, who was also a father. - -"My intelligent colleagues, of course, will look for the lady. Where -there is a strong demand the supply automatically offers itself for -consumption. And what will the seven hundred and fifty alert young men, -with great capacities for fictional art, who are temporarily assisting -actress-ladies and self-paying authoresses and unprinted poetesses -and fertilizer-manufacturers unmarried daughters, do? What will those -estimable young artists, miscalled press agents, do when they encounter -the demand for Tom's fiancée's photograph? What except 'Here she -is!'--six thousand words, thirty-two poses, and a facsimile of a -love-letter or two, to prove it! And then--chorus-ladies, poetesses, -fair divorcées about to honor the vaudeville--" The reporter stopped--he -had seen the look on E. H. Merri-wether's face. He felt sorry. "But it -is true," he said, defensively. - -"Yes!" Tom's poor rich father felt cold all over. - -The reporter pursued, more quietly: "You know the ingenuity of my -colleagues, the great American respect for a millionaire's privacy, and -the national sense of humor. Will your son's love-affair be discussed? -Will it be discussed with the gentlemanly reticence and innate delicacy -of feeling of _my_ story?" - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether never before realized that the law against -homicide was even more absurd than an Interstate Commerce Commission -order; but he had to bow to the inevitable. He was beginning to -understand how Napoleon felt on the deck of the _Bellerophon_ when on -the way to St. Helena., Do you remember the picture? He nodded--not -dejectedly, but also not far from it. - -"Well, in a day or two or three, according to conditions; we come out -with it. We print the lady's name and her portrait--possibly not the -best of all her photographs, but the only one I could--" - -"Who is she?" burst from the lips of the reporter's victim. - -Instantly the reporter's face became very serious. "I feared so, Mr. -Merriwether," he said, very quietly. - -"Look here, my boy!" interrupted Mr. Merriwether, with an earnestness -that had in it a threat. "I don't know what your game is and I don't -care. I'll admit right now that you are a very clever young man and -probably not a crook; but I tell you calmly, quietly, without any -threats, that you are not going to publish any damned-fool article about -my family in any paper in New York." - -The reporter rose and looked straight into the unblinking eyes of the -great financier. Then he said, slowly, and, the old fellow admitted, -distinctly impressively: - -"And I tell you, twice as quietly and ten times as calmly, without -any fool threats, that all the daily newspapers in New York and -Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and ten thousand other -towns in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Canal Zone, and -countries in the Postal Union, are going to publish articles about your -son Tom's engagement, and later on about his marriage. Understand once -for all, that there are some things all your millions and all your -will-power cannot do. This is one of them. It is the penalty of being -a public character--or, if you prefer, of being an exceptionally great -man. Do I understand that you have nothing to say about your son's -coming marriage?" - -E. H. Merriwether in less than five seconds thought of more than five -thousand possibilities, all in connection with his son's marriage. Then -he said, very slowly, fighting for time and a chance to escape: - -"My son will marry whenever he and the young lady chiefly interested -judge fit to do so. He and I are in perfect accord, as always." Mr. -Merriwether was looking into the too-fearless and too-intelligent -gray-blue eyes of the reporter. Then he did what he did not often do -in his Wall Street affrays--he capitulated. "Will you give me your word -that you will not use for publication what I am about to tell you?" - -"No, sir, I won't!" emphatically replied the reporter. "You might tell -me something I already know and then you'd always think I had broken -my word. I will not pledge myself not to print the name of your -daughter-in-law-to-be; but anything that concerns you personally or your -attitude toward your son's finacée, or hints of a family quarrel--or -those things that offend a sensitive man--I promise not to print. You -have some rights; but I also owe certain things to myself and my paper. -I've been frank with you. You can be frank with me if you wish. I put it -up to you." - -Mr. Merriwether, after a thoughtful pause, said: "Look here! I don't -know anything about my son's engagement. I cannot swear he is not -engaged, but I don't know that he is. It follows that I do not know the -young lady. You don't have to print that, do you?" - -The reporter gazed on the financier meditatively. Presently, instead of -answering the question, he asked: - -"Have you had no suspicion of any romance?" - -"Well"--and it was plain that E. H. Merriwether was telling the truth, -having made up his mind to that policy as being the wisest--"well, I -have of late suspected that such a thing might be possible. It is, I -will confess to you, a terrible predicament, because a man naturally -cherishes certain hopes for his only son." On Mr. Merriwether's face -there was a quite human look of suffering. - -"Of course," said the reporter, apologetically, as though offering an -excuse for a friend's misdeed--"of course a man in love is not always -wise." - -"No. And though I have no intention or desire to bribe you, and though I -would not presume to interfere with you in your professional activities -or influence you by pecuniary considerations, you will pardon me for -suggesting--" - -The reporter did not let him go on. He rose and said, with real dignity: - -"Mr. Merriwether, suppose we drop the matter right here?" - -"You mean?" - -"I will not print any story yet--on one condition." - -"Name it. I think likely I can meet it." - -"Give me your promise that you will give me an interview the next time -I come to see you. It may be in a day or two or a week. I don't promise -not to print the story, you understand, but it will give you time -to--well, to see your son." - -E. H. Merriwether held out his hand and said: "I will see you any time -you come. But let me say, as an older man, that if you should suffer any -loss by not printing--" - -"Oh no--I shall not suffer. I propose to print my story. I am simply -deferring publication; but I thank you for the offer you were going to -make. It shows more consideration and, therefore, far greater common -sense than most men in your position habitually display before a -reporter. I'll do even more--I'll give you a friendly tip." He stopped -talking and looked doubtfully at E. H. Merriwether. - -"Thank you," said Mr. Merriwether, with a remarkable mixture of -gratitude, dignity, and anxiety. "I am listening." - -"Find out why he goes to 777 Fifth Avenue. There are some things a -really intelligent father, poor or rich, should--" He caught himself. - -"Please finish, my boy!" cried the great little man, almost -entreatingly. - -"There are just a few things"--the reporter was speaking very slowly and -his voice was lowered--"which an intelligent father does not trust to -others--not even to the most loyal confidential men--things that should -be done by the father himself. The number is 777 Fifth Avenue!" - -"I thank you, Mr.--" - -"William Tully," said the reporter. - -"Mr. Tully, I thank you. I think you are throwing away time and brains -in your present position, and if you should ever--" - -"Thank you, sir. Don't be afraid. I shall not bother you by--" - -"But I mean it," said E. H. Merriwether. - -The reporter smiled and said, "If you knew how often my fortune has been -made by men whose story I have not printed you'd be deaf, too." - -"Young man, I sometimes forget favors, but not the possession of brains. -I need them in my business." - -"Well, then, suppose you show your appreciation by telling the -red-headed person in the outer office that he is to take in my card to -you when I call again?" - -"Certainly!" And the czar of the great Pacific & Southwestern system -nearly slew Doyle by accompanying the reporter to the outer door and -saying: - -"Doyle, any time Mr. Tully comes to see me let me know instantly, no -matter what I may be doing or who is with me. Understand?" - -"Yes, sir!" gasped Doyle, looking terrifiedly at the sorcerer. - -Tully! Irish! That was the reason, of course; but he was a wonder, all -the same. - -"Good day, Mr. Tully. I thank you. And don't forget my offer." - -Mr. Merriwether bowed as the door closed on Mr. William Tully and then, -walking like a man in a trance, returned to his private office. He rang -the push-button marked No. 1, and when McWayne appeared turned a haggard -face to his private secretary. - -"McWayne, that reporter has a story of Tom's engagement, but he wouldn't -tell me who the girl is." - -"I don't believe it!" cried McWayne, with a not very intelligent -intention of comforting his chief. At times the male Irish mind works -femininely. - -"Neither do I--and yet I do. It confirms Dr. Frauenthal's diagnosis. -I guess he knows his business, after all. Well, the story will not be -published yet. He acted pretty decently." - -McWayne wondered how much it had cost the old man, but he said, "Didn't -he intimate--" - -"That reporter knows his business," cut in E. H. Merriwether. "He ought -to be a dramatist. Have you heard from your men?" - -"Yes, sir. Tom has gone to Boston. Two of them are with him. He suspects -nothing." - -"What else?" - -"They will let me know by long distance if anything happens." - -"If anything! Great Scott! isn't it enough that--Let me hear what they -report--on the instant!" - -"Yes, sir." - -"And, McWayne--" He hesitated. - -McWayne, his face full of sincere solicitude, prompted, gently: - -"Yes, chief?" - -It was the first time he had ever used that word. It made his speech so -friendly, so affectionately personal, that E. H. Merriwether said: - -"Thank you, McWayne. I wish you would find out for me at once who lives -in 777 Fifth Avenue." - -"Yes, sir," said McWayne. "That's where--" He caught himself. . - -"I am afraid so!" acquiesced the railroad czar, listlessly. - - - -VIII - -Within an hour McWayne walked into the private office. His chief closed -his jaws--a weaker man would have clenched his fists--in anticipation. - -"Breese & Silliman, the real-estate men, say they rented 777 Fifth -Avenue, furnished, to a Madam Calderon--an American woman, widow of -a Peruvian nitrate king. She came up here and asked Breese about a -suitable location. She has a daughter she wishes to marry in America. -She talked quite freely about her affairs. The house was for sale, but -she leased if, furnished, with privilege of purchase. Belongs to the -Martin-Schwenk Construction Company. The daughter is about thirty, dark, -Spanish-looking, and fleshy; rather--er--inclined to make googoo eyes, -as Breese says, in a kind of foreign way." - -"Go on," commanded E. H. Merriwether. - -"Mrs. Calderon said point-blank that she wished her daughter to marry a -nice young man of wealth and position, preferably a blond. I gather that -the agents were rather anxious to let the house and probably encouraged -her. She has paid quarterly in advance, and her banking references are -O. K.; but nothing about her personally is known to any one. That's all -I could get." - -"Very well. Thank you, McWayne." - -The private secretary stood beside the desk, hesitated, and presently -walked out. Shortly afterward, the great and ruthless E. H. Merriwether, -full of perplexity and regret--and some remorse over his neglect of -his only son for so many years--went uptown. He desired to know what to -expect, in order to be able to think intelligently, and, therefore, -to fight efficiently. How could he fight--not knowing what or whom to -fight? - -He told the chauffeur to wait, and then rang the bell of 777. - -One of the four footmen whose faces had impressed Tom as being -distinctly too intelligent for menials, opened the door. - -"I wish to see Madam Calderon." - -"I beg pardon, sir. Have you an appointment?" - -"No. Say it is Mr. Merriwether." - -"Mr. who, sir?" - -Mr. Merriwether took out a card. The footman received it on a very -elaborate silver-gilt card-tray and, pointing to a particularly -uncomfortable, high-backed Circassian-walnut chair in the foyer, left -the great little multimillionaire under the watchful eye of footman -Number Two. This annoyed Mr. Merriwether. Nobody is altogether -invulnerable. - -The footman returned, with the card and the tray. - -"Madam is not at home, sir; but her brother would be glad to see you, if -you wish, sir. He is madam's man of affairs." - -"Very well." - -"If you please, sir, this way." And the footman led the way to the door -of the library, where Tom had been received so often. - -"Mr. Edward H. Merriwether!" The emphasis on the first name made the -little czar of the Southwestern roads think it was done in order to -differentiate him from Mr. Thomas Merriwether. Even great men are not -above thinking themselves clever. - -He entered the room and took in its character at one glance, just as Tom -had done. He became cool, watchful, alert, and observing, as he always -did when he went into a fight. He looked at the man who was said to be -the brother of the woman who had leased the house--the woman who had a -daughter she wished to marry to a blond with money and position. - -The man had a square chin and, even in repose, suggested power and -self-control. Mr. Merriwether met the remarkably steady, unblinking -gaze of two extremely sharp eyes, and recognized without any particular -motion that he confronted a man of strength and resource, who, moreover, -had the double strategical advantage of being in his own house and of -not having sought this interview. - -"Be seated, sir," said the man, in the calm voice of one who is -accustomed to obedience, even in trifles. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether sat down. He noticed little things, as well as -big. He noted, for instance, that he had begun by doing exactly what -this man told him to do. The man intelligently waited for Mr. E. H. -Merriwether to speak. Mr. E. H. Merriwether did so. He said: - -"I called to see Madam Calderon." - -"About?" The man spoke coldly. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether raised his eyebrows. He did it in order not to -frown. There is no wisdom in needless antagonisms. His only son was -concerned. - -"About my son," he said. - -"Tommy?" - -The great railroad magnate, accustomed to the deference even of the -self-appointed owners of the United States, flushed with anger. Had -things gone so far that such intimacy existed? - -"I understand," he said, trying to speak emotionlessly, "that my son -visits this house." - -"Of his own volition, sir." - -"I did not think there was physical coercion; but, of course, as his -father--" He stopped in the middle of the sentence. - -This never before had happened to this man, who always knew what to -do and what to say, and always did it and said it with the least -expenditure of time and words; but, as a matter of fact, what could he -say, and how? - -"That relationship," the man said, calmly, "often interferes with the -exercise of what people formerly called common sense. Will you please do -me a very great favor, sir?" - -"A favor?" Mr. Merriwether, skilful diplomatist though he could be at -times, now frowned in advance. - -"Yes, Mr. Merriwether--indeed, two favors; or rather, three. First: Will -you please ask me no questions now? Second: Will you please return to -this house at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning? And third: Will you -promise not to speak to your son about your visit here until after you -have paid your second call, to-morrow?" - -It flashed through Mr. Merriwether's mind that to grant the favors -might expedite Tom's appalling marriage. He said, decisively: - -"I cannot promise any of the things you ask." - -"Very well," said the man, composedly. "Then, I take it, there is -nothing more to be said." - -He rose politely, and as he did so pressed a button on the table. The -footman appeared and held the door open for Mr. Merriwether to pass out. - -The autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, with unlimited -credit in the money-markets of the world, was not accustomed to being -treated like this: but, precisely because he felt hot anger rising in -tidal waves to his brow, he instantly became cool. - -He remained sitting, and said, very politely: - -"If you will allow me, sir, to tell you that my reasons--" - -The man, who was still standing, held up a hand and broke in: - -"And if you will allow me to tell you that I am neither a criminal nor -a jackass I shall then proceed to say that nobody in this house has any -intention of entering into any argument or controversy with you. I am -actuated much less by personal considerations of my own than by a desire -to avert from you eternal regrets and--er--unseemly displays of temper." - -E. H. Merriwether knew exactly what he would like to do to this man. -What he said--very mildly--was: - -"You must admit, sir, that your requests might be interpreted--" - -"Oh, I see!" And the man smiled very slightly. "Well, suppose you take -Tom to your office with you to-morrow morning, and keep him there -while you come here? Tell him to wait for you, because you wish to have -luncheon with him. I do not care to discuss my reasons--for example--for -not wishing you to speak to Tom about this visit. I do not wish to wound -your feelings; but I am not sure that you know Tom as well as a father -ought to know his only son. And there are times when a man must be -more than a father, when he must be a tactful man of the world, and a -psychologist." - -Mr. Merriwether realized the force of this so clearly that he winced, -but said nothing, since he could not admit such a thing aloud. The man -proceeded coldly: - -"If you are both an intelligent man and a loving father, you will -promise what I ask--not for my sake, for yours. There are many things, -Mr. E. H. Merriwether, that money does not cure, and that not even time -can heal. Ask me nothing now; come here at eleven to-morrow morning, and -in the mean time do not speak to Tom about himself--or your fears." - -"If you were only not so--er--well, so damned mysterious--" And Mr. -Merriwether forced himself to smile pleasantly. - -"Ah--if!" exclaimed the man, nodding. "Do you promise?" - -"Yes!" answered Mr. Merriwether. - -He had made up his mind that Tom would not be abducted. As for worse -things, if Tom had not already committed matrimony, he could not very -well do it in his father's private office. It was wise to keep Tom -virtually a prisoner without his knowledge. And parental opposition has -so often served merely to add gasoline to the flame of love that one -father would not even whisper his objections. - -He bowed and left the room, angry that nothing had been accomplished, -relieved that within twenty-four hours the matter would probably be -settled, and not quite so confident of the power of money as he had been -for many years. - - - -IX - -Tom arrived at his home early enough to have his bath at the usual -hour. Though he had never been asked to account for his movements, he -nevertheless made it a point to breakfast with his father. He would do -so to-day. There was no occasion to say he had been to Boston or that he -had slept in a Pullman. - -As a matter of fact, he had not slept well. The stateroom seemed full -of those elusive flower-fragrances that always made him think of her, -particularly sweet peas--a beautiful flower, and of such delicate -colors, he now remembered, who had not thought of them for years. He -really loved them, he now discovered. Their odor always tinged his. -thoughts with a vague spirit of romance; and this, in turn, in some -subtle way, rendered him more susceptible to the lure of adventure. It -almost made him feel like a boy. - -For all the stimulating reaction of his cold plunge, Tom looked a trifle -tired about the eyes at breakfast. - -Mr. Merriwether looked at his son with eyes that also looked tired; -said, "Good morning, Tom!" in his usual tone of voice, and hid behind -his newspaper. Instead of reading about the absurd demands of the -railroad workers all over the United States for higher wages, he was -thinking that he had never allowed anybody to do his work for him, -because he had always intended that Tom should succeed him. He had at -one time fully intended to train Tom for the succession, to have him -learn railroading from brake-man up. - -Indeed, the boy after leaving college had seemed much taken with the -idea and listened with interest to his father's talks about his plans -and desires and hopes. But with the great boom, that wonderful era of -amazing reorganizations and stupendous consolidations, the great little -man had been swamped by the flood of gold that poured into Wall Street. - -And gold, as usual, had been ruthless in its demands on the great little -man's time. For years he had averaged a net personal profit of a million -a month; but it was not that he wished to make more money. It was that -his time no longer belonged to himself; it was not his family's, but his -associates'--not his only son's, but his many syndicates'. And he had -devoted himself to the welfare of his syndicates and had written a -dazzling page in the annals of Wall Street. - -But what about his son's present and the future of the Merriwether -roads? If Tom died, the Merri-wether dream would follow him, but that -would be a natural death at the hands of God. If Tom lived and refused -to be a Merriwether, the death of the Merriwether dreams would be by -slow strangulation. In short, hell! - -His promise to the brother of the woman who had a daughter that might -prove to be the executioner of his dreams stared him in the face. The -situation called for tact and skill and superhuman self-control. He -liked to fight in the open; but this was not a battle for more millions; -it involved more than the deglutition of a rival railroad. - -McWayne had reported that Tom had acted like a lunatic when he could -not secure the room in the Hotel Lorraine that had been engaged by Mrs. -Calderon and daughter. The only ray of light was that Tom had not talked -to the ladies. - -"Tom," asked Mr. Merriwether, casually, "have you anything on special -for this morning?" - -Tom had in mind a visit to 777 Fifth Avenue, at which he promised -himself to end the affair; but he answered: - -"N-no." - -"I mean," said the father, speaking even more casually, because he noted -the hesitancy, "anything that could not be done just as well in the -afternoon." - -"Oh no, I have nothing special; in fact, nothing at all," said Tom. - -Mr. Merriwether saw in his reply merely Tom's way of not declaring his -intention to see the girl. - -"Then I wish you would come down-town with me. I have some papers I want -you to look over, and we'll have luncheon together. What do you say?" - -A prisoner accused of murder in the first degree does not listen to -the jury's verdict with more interest than E. H. Merriwether waited for -Tom's reply, for at this crisis he realized that he had not been in his -son's confidence in those other important little crises of boyhood that -breed in sons the habit of confiding in fathers. - -"Sure thing!" said Tom', cheerfully. - -Though thus relieved of some of his fears, there remained with E. -H. Merriwether the determination that Tom had not volunteered any -information. The little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern was so -intelligent that in general he was fundamentally just. He did not -exactly blame Tom for not confiding in him, but, also, he did not blame -himself. And this was because he had habituated himself to paying for -his mistakes in dollars. What could not be paid off in dollars was never -a mistake, though it might well be a misfortune. - -They went down-town together. Mr. Merriwether took Tom into one of -his half-dozen private offices, made him sit down in one of those -over-comfortable arm-chairs that you paradoxically find in busy Wall -Street offices, and said to him very seriously: - -"My son, here is the history of the Pacific & Southwestern system from -its very start. It goes back to the early stage-line days and is brought -up to to-day. I had it prepared in anticipation of an ill-advised -Congressional investigation. I have thus far succeeded in staving off -the investigation, not because I was afraid of it or because it might -hurt me, but because the market was in bad shape to stand the alarmist -rumors and canards and threats that always go with such affairs. -Other people would have quite unnecessarily lost money. As soon as the -investigation cannot be used as a bear club I'll let up opposing it. -I'll even help it." He paused and gave to Tom a book bound in limp -black morroco. "I want you to read this book because it is written with -complete frankness in order to spike certain political guns. You will -get in it the full story of what has been done and what we hope still -to be allowed to accomplish. When you get through with it you'll know as -much about the system as I do!" - -The old man had spoken quietly and impressively. Tom was so pleased at -having something to occupy his mind and keep it from dwelling on the -girl he had never seen and the exasperating scoundrel at 777 Fifth -Avenue that his face lighted up with joy. - -"You could not have given me anything to do that I'd like better, dad!" -he said, with such obviously sincere enthusiasm that Mr. Merriwether -felt profoundly grateful for this blessing. - -Then came the inevitable reaction and with it the thought: "Have I -gained a successor only to lose him to some--" - -He shook his head, clenched his jaws, and looked at his watch. It was -not yet time to go to fight for the possession of his son. He had much -to do before he left his office to go to 777 Fifth Avenue. - -"Tom," he said, "'you stay here until I return--will you?" - -"You bet!" smiled Tom, looking at the thickness of the system's history. - -"I have a meeting or two before luncheon, but I'll try not to let them -interfere." - -"Any time before three, boss," said his son, cheerfully. - -His heir and successor, but, above all and everything, his son! There -was no sacrifice he would not make for this boy to keep him from -blighting his own career--and his father's hopes, he added, with the -selfishness of real love. - -Knowing that Tom was safely imprisoned and could not marry at least -for a few hours, he was able to concentrate his mind on his railroad's -affairs. He disposed of the more urgent matters. At ten-forty he sent -for McWayne. - -"I'm going to 777 Fifth Avenue." - -"Again?" inadvertently said the private secretary. - -Mr. Merriwether looked at him. - -McWayne went on to explain: "I've had a man watching it since we found -Tom called there, just before going to Boston." - -"Right! I expect to be back in time to lunch with Tom; but if I should -be delayed--" He paused. - -"Yes, sir?" - -"--delayed beyond one o'clock have luncheon brought from the Meridian -Club and tell Tom I wish him to stay until I return. This is important." - -"Yes, sir." - -"I think that is all." - -"If no word is received from you by--" McWayne paused. - -Mr. Merriwether finished. "By two o'clock, come after me. But always -remember the newspapers!" - -"Yes, sir." - -"I'll telephone before two in case I expect to stay beyond that hour." - -"Very well, sir." - -E. H. Merriwether put on his hat, familiar to the world through the -newspaper caricaturists--and walked toward the door. Then he did what he -never before had done--he repeated an order! He said to McWayne, "Look -after Tom!" - -"Yes, sir." - -Then he went to 777 Fifth Avenue to learn whether Tom was to be his -pride and successor or his sorrow and dream-slayer. - - - -X - -E. H. Merriwether drove to the house of mystery in his motor, -told the chauffeur to wait, and rang the bell. One of the -over-intelligent-looking footmen opened the door. - -"I wish to see Mr.--whoever is master in this house." - -"Yes, sir!" - -The footman led the way. At the door of the library he knocked twice, -sharply, then, after a pause, once, and then twice again. He waited; -and presently, having evidently heard some answer not audible to the -financier, he opened the door and announced: - -"Mr. E. H. Merriwether!" - -Why had there been any necessity for signals? Why such cheap theatrical -claptrap? To make him think things? These questions in Mr. Merriwether's -mind showed that the mysterious master of the house knew the advantage -of suggesting the important sense of difference. - -"Good morning, sir." - -"Good morning," answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room. - -No girl! - -It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking -very deliberately, as one to whom time is no object: - -"Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?" - -"I am a very busy man," began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of -railroad. - -"Sit down, anyhow," imperturbably suggested the man. - -The autocrat sat down. He said, "But please understand that." - -"I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down -to business?" - -"Yes." - -"Mr. Merriwether"--the man spoke almost dreamily--"do you know why I -asked you to call to-day at eleven?" - -"No." - -"Because when you were here yesterday it was after banking hours." - -"And?" The little czar was in a hurry to finish. - -"You, Mr. Merriwether, are one of those fortunate mortals about whom the -newspapers do not lie." - -"Oh, am I? I take it you haven't seen a newspaper in twelve years." Mr. -Merriwether, after all, was an American. His sense of humor helped to -make him great. - -"I've read every line that has ever been printed about you--I had to, -in order to study you exhaustively. I find that you are acknowledged by -both friends and foes to be an intelligent man." - -"Oh yes!" - -"A very intelligent man," continued the man. - -"And therefore?" said the very intelligent man. - -"And, therefore, I now ask you to give me one million dollars." - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether never so much as batted an eyelid. He kept his -eyes fixed on the stranger's eyes. He repeated, a trifle impatiently: - -"And?" - -"A certified check will do." - -"Come to the point. I am a busy man," said Mr. Merriwether. - -The man looked at the little financier admiringly. Then he said, "You -mean you wish to know why you should give the million, or what you will -get for it?" - -"Either! Both!" - -"You should give it because it is I who ask it. You will get for it what -is very, very cheap at a million." - -"My dear sir, we'd do business quicker if you'd play show-down." - -Now that it was a matter of money, of paying, of trading, Tom's father -felt a great sense of relief. Still, there was Tom's unhappiness to -consider. Poor boy! - -"I want you to give me a million so that in return I may give you a -daughter-in-law." - -"You mean you will not give me a daughter-in-law if I give you a -million, don't you?" - -"I am in the habit of meaning what I say. The sooner you learn that, -the quicker we'll close the deal. I mean that for a million dollars I'll -give you a daughter-in-law." - -Mr. Merriwether shook his head. It was plainly to be seen on his face -that every moment spent in this room was a sad waste of time. - -"Isn't it worth a million to you?" asked the man, as if he knew it was. - -Mr. Merriwether proceeded to look as though it were worth even less than -a Santo Domingo mining concession. Then he said, with finality: - -"No." - -The man rose. - -"Then," he spoke indifferently, "come back when it is. I'll ask you to -excuse me. I, also, am a busy man. Good day, sir." - -Mr. Merriwether rose and bowed. He looked straight into the man's very -shrewd eyes, smiled very slightly--and sat down again. - -"Do you mean," he asked, very pleasantly, for his bluff had been called, -"Miss Calderon?" - -The man sat down. - -"Oh no!" he answered, unsmilingly. - -"No? Then?" Mr. Merriwether was so surprised that he forgot not to show -it. - -"I am sorry you are a busy man, because what I have to say can not -be hurried. First, you must chase from your mind all thoughts of Wall -Street, high finance, railroad systems--and fill it with love!" - -Mr. Merriwether looked alarmed. Would it all end with a Biblical text -and an exhortation to endow some sort of a Home? - -"You can do this," pursued the man, imperturbably, "by thinking of your -son Tom. He is your only son. You should love him. Once your mind is -attuned to thoughts of love, you will be able to understand me more -easily. Concentrate on love!" The man leaned back in his chair as though -he were certain the attuning process would consume an hour, this being, -alas! a Wall Street man; but Merriwether said, very promptly: - -"I am ready for chapter two." - -"I doubt it. Love! The love of father for son, of son for mother, of son -for wife, of son for father!" - -"I understand. My mind works quickly. Go on!" - -"Do you by any chance happen to know that your son is in love?" - -"Yes. Where is the girl?" - -"It isn't the girl. It's just girl." - -"Oh, hell! Quit vaudevilling!" - -"There is no girl who is the girl. There never was. There doesn't have -to be any!" - -Quite obviously this man was a lunatic--with the eyes of a particularly -sane person. If there was no girl Tom was in no danger of marriage. A -million for not marrying an undesirable person, yes, but a million for a -daughter-in-law, when Tom was not in love! - -"Only," thought Mr. Merriwether, "in case I have the selecting of her! -And if I pick her I don't have to pay." - -"And yet," said the man, musingly, "Tom loves her!" - -Mr. Merriwether's perplexity was fast rising to the dignity of anger. - -"If there had been a girl of Tom's own class," the man went on, as if -talking to himself, "why shouldn't he have been seen in public with -her?" Mr. Merriwether was listening now with his soul. "And if this girl -were of the other class--that financial geniuses, alas! sometimes have -to accept for daughters-in-law--a nice, vivacious chorus-lady, or a -refined Reno graduate, or worse--she would have insisted on being -seen in public with Tom, to show her power and to raise the paternal -bid-price for a trip to Europe--alone!" - -The man ceased to speak and began to nod his head slowly, his gaze on -the rug at his feet. Mr. Merriwether could stand it no longer. - -"If there is no girl, what in blazes do I get for my million?" - -"Your pick of eight." - -"Eight what?" - -"Eight perfect daughters-in-law!" - -A thought shot through Mr. Merriwether's mind: Was any form of insanity -contagious? He looked at the lunatic. The eyes were sane, cold, shrewd, -mind-reading eyes full of a sardonic humor. - -"They are all," added the man, as if he wished to dispel unworthy -suspicion, "in love." - -"With Tom?" - -"With love--like Tom!" - -"With love--like Tom!" helplessly repeated Mr. E. H. Merriwether. - -"Your mind"--the man spoke very slowly and distinctly, as if he wished -to deprive Mr. Merriwether of every excuse for not understanding -him--"does not seem to be working this morning with its usual -efficiency!" - -"No!" admitted Mr. Merriwether, sadly. "If you'd only use words of one -syllable I think I could follow you better." - -"It isn't that. It is that your mind was not attuned in the beginning -to the thought of love, and, therefore, could not follow my words. You -compel me to spend time in explaining the obvious. Listen! If you wish -Tom to become the heir to your name, to your railroad, to your work, and -to all the dreams you have dreamed about your work and about your -son; if you want him to be your successor, to continue your work, to -perpetuate the name and influence of Merriwether in his country--I say, -if you wish all this, he must do one thing, and you must see that -he does it. And that one thing, Mr. Merriwether, is for him to marry -wisely. Do you get that?" - -"Yes," answered Mr. Merriwether, very simply. - -"If he doesn't, it will be death to your hopes, a tragic break in the -Merriwether succession. No, don't shake your head. Admit it. Face it -frankly. I know it. I know that you also know it. Can you expect me to -believe that you want Tom to be the fool husband of a fool girl whose -influence on him--" - -"Tom isn't that kind," interrupted E. H. Merri-wether. - -"All men are that kind. Does history record the case of a man, greater -even than E. H. Merriwether, who, when it came to women, was an utter -ass? Yes, of a thousand; in fact, the stronger the man, the weaker she -makes him--the better his brain, the worse his folly. And the cure? When -an intelligent man realizes that he is a hopeless ass over one woman -he realizes that his only escape is by the suicide route. No! It's much -cheaper for you to pay the million. Oblige me by thinking. Isn't it -cheaper to pay a million?" - -He held up a silencing hand, as though he wished Mr. Merriwether -to spend a full hour thinking of the bargain he was getting. Mr. -Merriwether thought--quickly and accurately as was his wont. And he -admitted to himself that it was indeed cheap at a million. But there -must be value received. Promises, however plausible, are no more to be -capitalized blindly than threats. It depends on who promises, and why; -and also on what is promised. He thought of offering a smaller sum and -of going through the usual preliminaries of a trade, but decided to be -frank. - -"If you can deliver the goods, I'll pay the million." And, after a -pause, he added, "Gladly!" - -"I banked on that when I decided you ought to contribute a million to -our fund," said the man, simply. "I studied you and your fortune and -your vulnerability, and I decided to attack _via_ Tom. This was easier -and cheaper than a stock-market campaign." - -The man somehow looked as though he had said all that was necessary; but -Mr. Merriwether reminded him: - -"You must prove your ability to deliver the goods." - -"I thought"--the man seemed mildly surprised--"we had." - -"Certainly not. The million hasn't stirred." - -"You are a brave man, Mr. Merriwether." - -Mr. Merriwether laughed, and said: - -"What should I fear? People don't murder a man like me and get away with -it--not when the motive is money. Political assassination, perhaps; but -not for a few dollars--especially when my heirs would spend millions to -see that justice did not miscarry." He shook his head, smilingly. - -"My dear sir, when we decided to go into the gold-mining business--" - -"Gold-mining business!" - -"Exactly! We thought to save time and effort by getting our gold already -coined. Our general staff studied various methods--the ticker, for -instance, and legislative attacks on your roads; but we went back -to Tom. It is, of course, nearly as stupid to overestimate as to -underestimate one's opponent; so, while we provided against every -contingency arising from your undoubted possession of a resourceful and -fearless mind, we also thought--please take note--that you might display -stupidity; and we prepared for it. Such as, for instance, in case you -point-blank said No! We have also provided ways of preventing you and -your uncaptured millions from hurting us. Of course we could make the -stock-market pay us for the trouble of kidnapping you or of murdering -you. Don't you see clearly what you would do if you were in my place?" - -"Oh yes--I see it clearly; but I don't believe you could do what I could -in your place?" - -"Nobody is free from vanity, for everybody seems to be a natural -monopolist when it comes to brains. You are kidnapped at this very -moment, aren't you?" - -"People know I am here--" - -"Oh yes! We expect to have you telephone McWayne presently not to expect -you to lunch, and that we have extended every facility to his detectives -for having this house under surveillance. We kidnapped the great -Garrettson and kept him out of reach of the great world of finance long -enough to enable us to cash in. Not only that, but he never told how we -did it. You remember when Steel broke to--" - -"You didn't do that!" exclaimed E. H. Merri-wether. - -"Oh yes, we did; and I'll tell you how." And the man briefly outlined -the case for him. - -E. H. Merriwether listened with much interest. When the man made an end -of speaking, the financier shook his head skeptically, which made the -man ask: "You don't believe it?" - -"No!" answered Mr. Merriwether. - -"Nevertheless, it is so. We also might have engineered in your case some -deal such as that by which we compelled Ashton Welles to disgorge some -of the money he had no business to have." And he proceeded to enlighten -the financier. - -"Very clever!" said Mr. Merriwether. - -"Rather neat!" modestly acquiesced the man. "Suppose we had decided -to kidnap you? The first thing to do is to get you here. Well, you are -here." - -"How will you make money by that?" asked the financier, smiling. - -"We don't expect to. We have not planned to make money by kidnapping -you. Nevertheless, you must admit it can be made a very expensive matter -for you. But please let me kidnap you without interruption!" - -"I beg your pardon!" said Mr. Merriwether, gravely. - -It struck him that the possession of a sense of humor makes a crook -ten times more dangerous. It was what made the reporter, Tully, really -formidable. - -"We assume that you foresaw the danger to yourself in coming alone to -this house. You'd employ private detectives to watch it at ten dollars -a day a man, exactly as you have had your son watched the moment -we decided it was time for you to begin the watching. McWayne, your -efficient private secretary, is ready to move to your rescue. I don't -see what else you could have done to protect yourself that we have not -provided for." - -"The police!" mildly suggested Mr. Merriwether. - -"And the reporters!" mocked the man. "Pshaw! We know what we are doing. -Why, we have rehearsed your kidnapping and even your death. Our ablest -members have in turn impersonated you--put themselves in your place and -fought us. I will not bore you with more details, and I admit that the -human mind cannot foresee accidents; but we have studied how your mind -would work. Suppose you assume that you are kidnapped and beyond the -possibility of help from your friends. Shall I tell you what we have -done to make Tom marry one of our eight desirable candidates?" - -"If you still wish that million." - -"Having decided to attack through Tom, we studied him and his ancestry -on both sides. We easily learned that he had never had a serious -love-affair, and that he was imaginative and adventurous, like yourself. -There were many young women who would have liked to become your -daughter-in-law--too many. That was Tom's trouble. But our problem was -really made easier by that. We simply had to turn his thoughts to love -and to one girl. We therefore did." - -"How?" - -"We got him here. I piqued his curiosity and made the affair an -extraordinary one by saying all we wished him to do was to answer one -question. As we had rather expected, he would not come; but, of -course, we had foreseen that, and so we got him here in one of our own -taxicabs." - -"How?" - -"We telephoned him that the doctor said he should come instantly, and -that you were not really in danger. We don't believe in lies; but we -took pains that no other cab should be in front of the club when we -telephoned him from the corner drug-store. Attention to details, my dear -sir, always brings home the bacon. Having roused the spirit of adventure -in a remarkable way, I then asked him the great question. What do you -think it was?" - -Tom's father shook his head. - -"It was this: Where did you spend your summer at the end of your -freshman year? He told me. Then I gave him a box made to order for me by -a French expert, which would deceive other experts so long as we did not -try to sell it. Anybody can imitate the goldwork of any period. In all -the museums of the world you will find fakes. Attention to details! I -was prepared to have him show that box to local experts. I assumed he -would do so, being a Merriwether and, therefore, intelligently curious." - -"Box with what?" asked Mr. Merriwether, also intelligently curious. - -"Wait! When your son told me where he spent his summer at the end of his -freshman year I knew he was then about nineteen--too young to think of -marriage, but old enough to think of love. He had for the first time in -his life been free from home influences and direct parental supervision. -He was bound to regard himself as a man of the world and think of -innocent flirtations as a manly art. Being in that frame of mind, and at -the same time being a nice, rich, good-looking chap, all the girls would -naturally make a dead set for him. Their numbers would keep him from -having one love-affair. All love-affairs at twenty are much the same. -A boy always begins by being in love with love. Indeed, I believe -twenty-year love to be exclusively a literary passion--that, is, -boys get it from reading about it. Of course I studied time, period, -locality, and manifold probabilities; and, therefore, I sent him on a -mission that suggested love--love for the one girl that Fate intended -him to love and to marry. In order to fix, accentuate, and accelerate -his love-thinking I used the perfume of sweet peas." - -"How does that work?" - -"I picked out sweet peas because they are found everywhere. Their odor -is strong and characteristic. He must have inhaled that odor thousands -of times when he was flirting with pretty girls the summer he spent at -Oleander Point with Dr. Bonner." - -"Yes; but about suggesting--" - -"I advise you to read up on the psychology of odor associations. You -will learn that there is a very close relation between the olfactory -sense and the desire to love. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that -memory, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily -reached through the sense of smell than by almost any other channel; -and, also, that 'olfactory impressions tend to be associated with a -sum-total of feeling-tone.' This has been known for thousands of years. -A very interesting paper was written by Mackenzie, of Johns Hopkins. If -you read it you will know more than I can now take the time to tell you. -The Orient understands the value of perfumes in lovemaking, and I could -tell you amazing things; but I will refer you to Cabanis, Dadisett, -Hobbes, Jaworski, Jwanicki, Schiff, Wolff, and Zwaardemaker. If you -wish, my secretary will prepare an exhaustive bibliography of the -subject for you." - -"No, thanks," said Mr. Merriwether. "But I still don't understand--" - -The man sighed. Then he said, "I'll tell you, of course." He then told -Tom's father about the message in the dark that Tom had carried. - -"But he couldn't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Merriwether. - -"No; he couldn't--but he did. Of course I have taken you behind the -scenes---that is, I have opened your eyes and turned your head in the -proper direction and held it firmly there and shouted, 'Look!' And of -course you see the machinery standing still and you can't imagine it in -motion. You are not as imaginative as I thought you were." - -"Huh!" said E. H. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then after a pause he said: -"I see the wheels revolving. Ingenious!" - -"More than that, practical! My object in having Tom fall in love -with love, suggesting that there was one girl born to be his bride, -accentuated by my use of the sweet-peas odor as a _leit-motif_, was to -have something to offer you which would be cheap at a million. The next -step was to make Tom do foolish things--for effect on you. First, to -make you fear Tom was crazy. I had a girl who knew young Waters talk to -him about Tom's new and alarming queerness and suggest that he telephone -to Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Of course Waters wouldn't telephone--and of -course I did. And, of course, if you had disbelieved or suspected -you would have sent for young Mr. Waters and he would have denied the -telephone, but admitted the queer actions of Tom and the fact that -people were talking about them. That would have allayed any suspicion -you might have entertained. So I stage-managed the opera scene and the -Boston trip to make you fear the worst. In that frame of mind you could -be induced to come here voluntarily. I sent Tully to you. You had to -come!" - -"Very clever!" said Mr. Merriwether, with a thoughtful absence of -enthusiasm. - -"Therefore," continued the man as if he had not heard the other's -interpolation, "your son, being full of the thought of love and, even -worse, of marrying the mate that Fate selected for him five million -years ago, is now ready to marry any girl that smells of sweet peas. -We thought that, instead of vulgarly extracting the million from you by -torture or threats, we would place you in our debt by perpetuating -the Merriwether dynasty. Hence the preparation of eight very nice -girls--three of them in your own set, three others children of people -you know, and the remaining two equally desirable but less historical, -as it were." - -"Who are they?" If Mr. Merriwether was to pay a million he might as well -see the label. - -"Cynthia, Agnes, and Isabel, daughters respectively of Gordon Hammersly, -William Murray, and Vanderpoel Woodford. Any objections?" - -"No; but you can't--" - -"Yes, I can. Also, Louise Emlen, daughter of Marbury Emlen, the -lawyer--" - -"He's a crook!" interrupted Mr. Merriwether. - -"He doubtless interfered with one of your deals; I see you respect him. -He's a crank, but she is a brick. And a Miss Lythgoe, daughter of -Professor Lythgoe, of Columbia, the most beautiful girl in New York. -Ramona Ogden; her father is Dr. Ogden, the lung specialist; her mother -was a Jewess. The remaining two are of humble birth. But all of them are -healthy and beautiful, plenty of honesty, brains, and, above all, -imagination. Any one of them will not only make Tom happy, but will make -him a worthy successor of a great man. And such grandchildren as they -will give you! I envy you!" The man spoke with such fervent sincerity -that E. H. Merriwether merely said: - -"It is a risky business, even though the chances appear to be--" - -"That's why we ask one million dollars--because we have eliminated the -risk. Very cheap. Are you ready?" - -"Yes," said Mr. Merriwether, grimly. - -"Then, will you kindly--" - -"Yes; I will kindly tell you that you are a damned fool! You've wasted -my time. I'm going to my office, and if I don't have you put in jail it -will be because I don't want the publicity. But don't push me too far or -I'll do it anyhow!" And Mr. E. H. Merriwether rose. - -"Sit down!" said the man, with a pleasant smile. - -"Go to hell!" snarled the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, and looked -at the man with the eyes that Sam Sharpe once said reminded him of a -mink's when it kills for the sheer love of killing. - -For all reply the man clapped his hands sharply twice. Four men--the -over-intelligent-looking footmen--came from behind the heavy plush -portières. Also, the ascetic-looking man who had held the glass of acid -in the taxicab and had brought Tom into the house the first time. The -ascetic-looking man held a cornet to his lips, and his lungs were filled -with still unblown blasts. - -"Three weeks ago, Mr. Merriwether," explained the mysterious master -of the house, "this worthy artist began to practise on his beautiful -instrument at exactly this time every morning. This was in anticipation -of the morning when you should be here--the idea being to drown your -cries. The neighbors have complained and I have promised to play -pianissimo; but a few loud blasts, which will do the trick, will be -forgiven. Attention to details, Mr. Merriwether! Ready!" - -The cometist inflated his lungs and held the comet to his lips in -readiness. The footmen seized Mr. Merriwether by the arms and legs, one -man to each limb. - -"Doctor!" called the master. - -A sixth man came from behind the portières. He had some tin cans in -his hand--plainly labeled ether--and also a cylinder of compressed -laughing-gas and an inhaler. - -"Expert! Anesthetics!" said the man, curtly, to Mr. Merriwether. "We -propose to take you out of this house if we kidnap you. If we decide to -kill you we have arranged to do it right here at home. I think we'll -kidnap you. A week or two will make you amenable to reason. We realize, -of course, that every day you spend under our hospitable roof will make -it a little bit more difficult to get the million into our clutches. -Would you like to know how we propose to kidnap you and get away with -it?" - -"Yes," replied Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with a pleasant smile. - -"Tell our Mr. E. H. Merriwether to come in," said the man to the -cometist, who thereupon disappeared and presently returned, followed by -a man made up to resemble the great financier. - -The task was rendered easy by the famous flat-brimmed hat, with the -crown like a truncated cone, so familiar to newspaper-readers through -the cartoonists' efforts. The resemblance was not striking enough to -deceive at close range, but it probably would work at a distance. - -"Walk like him!" commanded the master. - -The fake Mr. Merriwether walked up and down the room with the curious -swaggering, jockey-like jauntiness of the little railroad man. From time -to time he snapped his fingers impatiently in the same characteristic -way Mr. E. H. Merriwether almost always used when giving an order to -subordinates. - -"That will do!" said the man, with a broad grin at the impersonator of -the little financial giant. The double left the room--still walking _à -la_ E. H. M. - -"I have had that man--an actor of about your build with a gift of -mimicry--coached for weeks to imitate you. We told him it was a joke and -guaranteed him an appearance before the most select audience in New York -at one of Mrs. Garrettson's world-famous functions. We pledged him to a -secrecy so natural, under the circumstances, as to rouse no suspicions. -A few minutes ago we sent a footman to tell your chauffeur to go away -and return at one. He wouldn't do it. The footman said the boss said -so. Your man retorted that he took orders from only the boss -himself--especially when countermanding previous orders. - -"So our Mr. Merriwether went out to the front door, yelled 'One!' in -your voice, and snapped his finger at the intelligent chauffeur, who -thereupon beat it. But the sleuth remains. It makes us laugh! But, -after all, since we have provided for him, it would be a pity not to go -through the entire program. Does this bore you?" - -"Must I tell the truth?" asked Mr. Merriwether, anxiously. - -"Yes." - -"I can stand more." In point of fact, Mr. Merriwether was sure the -situation was serious for him. That is why he joked about it. - -"Over six months ago we opened an antique-shop on Fourth Avenue. We -had the usual truck. Also we have had this antique-dealer--who is your -humble servant--go from house to house on the Avenue offering to buy or -exchange those antiques of which people have grown tired. We even asked -you. We have offered such good prices and such excellent swaps that we -have taken antiques from some of the wealthiest houses on the Avenue. -Also we have made a practice of importing antiques from Europe, which -we auction off every two weeks. The money we get we deposit in various -banks, and then we buy bills on Paris. The banks now know us. Remember -that--it is important. Well, we also have an exact copy of your motor, -even to the initials in the door panels. Pretty soon we send for our -Merriwether motor and our E. H. Merriwether emerges from this house and -gets into his car and off he goes--and the watching sleuth with him." - -"But if there should be two, and one stay?" - -"Then number two will see not long afterward an elaborately carved -Gothic chest taken from here into the antique-dealer's wagon--a wagon -now known to the traffic squad. We carry you away and lock you in a -small sound-proof room, to get to which people would have to move out of -the way a lot of heavy pieces of furniture. There is no question of our -ability to kidnap you and to keep you a prisoner. I tell you we have -paid attention to details persistently and intelligently. Meantime what -does Sam Sharpe do to the stock-market? And Northrup Ashe? How much will -a month's absence from your office cost you?" - -"Not half as much as it will cost you when I get out." - -"And if you don't get out?" - -For reply Mr. E. H. Merriwether grinned broadly. - -"My dear Mr. Merriwether"--the man spoke very seriously now--"we had -not really expected such unintelligent skepticism from you; but, as -we prepared for everything, we, of course, prepared for even crass -stupidity on your part. In demonstrating our power to do what I say some -painful moments will be your portion. This I regret more than I can say. -Just now our problem is to prove our complete physical control of you -and also our utter indifference to your feelings. I am going to do what -will make you hate me to the murder point. In deliberately making a -violent enemy of a man like you we pay ourselves the compliment -of thinking ourselves absolutely fearless. I propose to have you -spanked--to whip you as if you were a bad little boy. We shall at first -use a shingle on you--undraped. You may begin when ready, James." - -"Sir," said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H. -Merriwether, "will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat, -preliminary to the removal of your trousers?" - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the -men's faces had taken on a grim look--as if they knew that after the -whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an -impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless -appreciated the gravity of the offense. - -"We know," said the master, solemnly, "that for every blister we raise -you will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish -to be spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?" - -"No." - -"The alternative is the million--or death." - -"You can't kill me and get away with it." - -"Oh yes--even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it." -He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small, -morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether -a lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. "Cultures!" explained the -man--"typhoid; bubonic plague; anthrax; _Bacillus mallei_--that's -glanders--meningitis; Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for -instance--number thirteen--is the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with -an ordinary culture would take days; but with this virus it will take -hours. What a wonderful thing science is! You know what tetanus is?" - -"Yes," answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, "lockjaw." - -"Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't -be able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't -help you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last--and you -will not make yourself understood. The _risus sardonicus_, which is -a most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile -naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really -ought to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a -warning to those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. -And, of course, I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the -mildest and slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?" - -"I'll do that much to please you," said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still -believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did -not believe they would go that far. - -"Would you like to know how we propose to dispose of the body?" - -"I might as well see everything," he answered, in a resigned tone of -voice. The man looked at him admiringly, and said: - -"Come on!" - -They led the great E. H. Merriwether to the cellar. There he saw that -the furnace coal had been taken out of its bin and put in the adjoining -compartment. The plank floor had been taken up, and what looked like a -short trench--or a grave--had been dug. Outside stood a pile of crushed -stone, some bags of cement, some bundles of steel rods, a section -of five-inch iron soilpipe with a mushroom-head trap at one end, and -concrete-workers' tools. - -"After we make absolutely sure that you are dead we throw a lot of -soft mortar into the grave, deposit the corpse, and then pour in more -cement--so that you will be completely surrounded by it. It will make -it very difficult indeed to recognize you when they try to chip away the -hard cement--if they ever try! Then we fill the grave up to the top with -concrete, using plenty of steel rods--not to re-enforce the concrete at -all, but to make it very hard digging with a pick. - -"We also stick the soilpipe into the--er--cavity in order to account -for the disturbed pavement. Intelligent searchers--your son and his -detectives--will assume it is plumbing--and seek no further. We replace -the plank flooring in the bin and fill it up with coal, thereby further -obliterating all traces of your grave. - -"We have provided for that part, you see. Why, my dear Mr. Merriwether, -what we really do to you is confer immortality on you. We elevate you -to the rank of one of the mysteries. Charlie Ross and E. H. Merriwether! -Just assume that we'll do what I say. Very well! Now, visualize the -search made for you. Endow your people with superhuman ingenuity. -Useless!" - -The man waved a hand toward Mr. Merriwether; but Mr. Merriwether said: - -"You assume that the search will be exclusively for me--but they will -also search for you!" - -"My dear sir, that is unkind of you!" The man spoke reproachfully. "We -know that when we go into the plunder-recovery business we must guard -against the chief contributory cause of the vast majority of -all business' failures, according to the statistics of Dun and -Bradstreet--to wit, insufficient capital. Murderers are caught when -their faces and habits and families are known. Usually their lack of -means forces them to betray themselves. But nobody knows how the men who -will kill E. H. Merriwether look, simply because we have enough money to -go anywhere. We will become tourists--like thousands of others. Some of -us will stay in New York; others will go on round-the-world tours. See -this?" - -The man pulled from his pocket some packages of well-worn bills, with -the bank-wrappers round them, though a finger hid the bank name. Also -the man showed to Mr. Merriwether several books of travelers' checks of -the fifty-dollar denomination--the specimen signature also being covered -by the man's finger. - -"Enough for all," said the man. "Kindly oblige me by thinking of -what you would do in my place; and, in all frankness, acknowledge that -nothing would be easier than to get away. Ordinary crime is so largely -accidental that the average criminal is at the mercy of even the -unintelligent police. Professionals do the same thing over and over and -acquire telltale mannerisms. Also, they lack culture, and find the -class attraction too strong to resist--besides always being hard up and -therefore defenseless. Whenever you find a crook who is thrifty, you -will find him always out of jail--like any other business man of equal -thrift. We have gone about this case systematically. We wanted your -million--but, more, we wanted the sport of taking it from a man who had -no moral right to the particular million we desired. If you had been -a really conscienceless financier we'd have made it five millions; in -fact, it is because we are not sure that even this million is tainted -that we ask you to pay it to us for giving you a fine daughter-in-law. -Shall we go up-stairs?" - -The master of the house led the way up-stairs and Mr. E. H. Merriwether, -escorted by the stalwart footmen with the intelligent faces, followed, -his own intelligent face impassive. That he was thinking meant only that -he was doing what he always did. - -The man sat down in his chair, with his back to the stained-glass -window. He asked, pleasantly: - -"What do you say now, Mr. Merriwether?" - -"I say," the little czar answered, with a frown of impatience, or anger, -or both, "that when you are tired of playing the damned fool I'd like to -return to my business." - -The man rose to his feet quickly, his face pale with anger. He took -a step toward the financier, his fists clenched--and then suddenly -controlled himself. - -"You jackass!" he said. "You idiot! Have you no brains whatever? Must -I lash common sense into you? Take 'em off!" It was a command to the -footmen. - -"Will you disrobe, sir?" very politely asked the oldest of them. - -Mr. Merriwether, six inches shorter than the speaker, and a hundred -pounds lighter, drew back his fist, but the four men seized him -and began to take his clothes off. Mr. Merriwether, recognizing the -uselessness of resistance and the folly of having garments torn so far -from home, helped by unbuttoning here and there. Presently he stood _in -puris naturctlibus_. - -His face was pale and his jaw set tight. - -"Tie him!" commanded the master. - -They tied him to the library table, face down. - -"Music!" cried the man; whereupon the cometist began to play the -Meditation from "Thaïs" softly, but obviously ready to play fortissimo -at a signal from the chief. - -"I am going to lick you with a whip; and, for every lash I give you, -you will have to pay me one hundred thousand dollars in addition to -the original million. Theatrical, is it?" And his voice was hoarse with -anger. "Yes? Well, look at this melodramatic whip. Your tragedy will be -my comedy, you--------jackass!" - -He showed to Mr. E. H. Merriwether a quirt--a veritable miniature -blacksnake of plaited leather. - -"You can stand twenty; that will make three million in all. I'll draw -blood after the fifth. I'll stop when you've got enough. Remember the -price!" - -He snapped the whip viciously and walked round the table until he -stood behind Mr. Merriwether. He lifted his arm and then the -great Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, -iron-nerved, fearless, imaginative, and intelligent, yelled: "Wait!" - -"The million?" - -"Yes!" - -"Help him!" said the man; and the intelligent-looking footmen -respectfully served as valets. - -"I don't believe you would kill me--but I never liked spankings." Mr. -Merriwether spoke jocularly--almost! - -The man confronted Mr. Merriwether and said, very seriously: - -"Mr. Merriwether, we should certainly have killed you if you had -persisted in your stubbornness to the end. We knew we had to convince -you." - -The man looked inquiringly at the financier to see whether any doubt -remained; but Mr. Merriwether asked, quizzically: - -"Honest, now, would you--" - -"We would!" interrupted the man, looking straight into Mr. Merriwether's -eyes. And what Mr. Merriwether saw there made him ask: - -"How will you have the million?" - -"In cash. I'm glad you will make the payment. But really, sir, I wish to -impress on you that Tom is ripe to be taken for better--or for worse." - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether looked long and earnestly into the eyes of the -mysterious man who was despoiling him of a million dollars. It began to -seep into his understanding that if Tom could be married to a nice girl -the resulting peace of mind would indeed be cheap at a million. - -"Now, if you please," pursued the man, pleasantly, "telephone to McWayne -that you wish him to come here with certified checks on your different -banks, aggregating one million dollars, made payable to Michael P. -Mahaffy." - -Mr. Merriwether started. The name was that of the world-famous -political Boss of New York City. Explanations as to the million might -be embarrassing to any political boss; but for a million dollars in cash -any political boss would be glad to explain--or even not to explain. - -"From this house Mr. McWayne will go to the banks, accompanied by the -studious gentleman who had the honor of holding your left leg. You will -indorse each check by writing 'indorsement correct' and signing your -name. McWayne will go with our Mr. Michael P. Mahaffy and get the money -in fives, tens, and twenties, in handy wads--old bills preferred and -so requested from the paying tellers, who will intelligently understand -that Mr. Mahaffy is not signing his name in person, so he can swear in -any court of justice that he never saw the checks. Asking for old bills -is to make them impossible to trace. This will also allay the banks' -suspicions. The worst that can happen will be that a few tellers will -wonder what Mr. Merriwether has to do with city politics that he needs -Mahaffy's aid." - -"I see!" said Mr. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: "Where -is the telephone?" - -"There!" - -In plain sight and hearing of the master of the house the master of the -Pacific & Southwestern called up his own office. He spoke to McWayne: -"Make out checks on all banks according to my balances in them, so that -the checks will aggregate one million dollars, payable to Michael P. -Mahaffy.... What? Yes?... Have the checks certified.... Of course, if -there isn't enough!... We shall want bills that have been used--fives, -tens, and twenties.... Yes, all cash. Come up to 777 Fifth Avenue. You -will go to the banks with a man--" - -"With Mr. Mahaffy," prompted the man. - -"With Mr. Mahaffy," repeated Mr. Merriwether. "And tell Tom to have -luncheon and wait for me," again prompted the man. - -"And tell Tom I can't go to luncheon with him, but to wait for me." - -Mr. Merriwether hung up the receiver and turned to the man, saying: - -"The idea of using Mahaffy's name--" - -"Rather good, isn't it?" smiled the man. "Of course you wondered how -we were going to cash the checks, didn't you? Well, that's the way. The -bank officials will be surprised to see the checks and they will watch -McWayne and my man to the last. They will thus be able to hear my man -say loudly to the chauffeur, 'Tammany Hall, Charlie!' Attention to -details, my dear sir!" - -"I still am not quite convinced that--" - -"My dear Mr. Merriwether, there are so many ways of safely getting money -from you Wall Street magnates that the only thing that really protects -you is the sad fact that the professional crooks are even more stupid -than you. Men like you are compelled to bet your entire fortune, your -very life, on averages. The average man is both stupid and honest; so -you and your like are fairly safe for fairly long periods of time. Of -course if we had been obliged to kill you we should have done so and -buried you, and we should have been wise enough to utilize your death -in as many ways as possible in the stock-market--and out of it. For -instance, I should have instantly telephoned to all the men in your -class and told them we had eliminated you--as an example--and to -remember that in case we ever had occasion to ask anything from them. -We should also give them a countersign, so that they would be able to -recognize us when the proper time came. I can kidnap or permanently -suppress any millionaire in New York, with neatness, despatch, and -safety." - -"But killing a well-known man--" began Mr. Merriwether. - -"If Big Tim Sullivan could be killed and lie in the Morgue for days -unrecognized, what chance do relatively unknown people like you great -millionaires stand to be found, once dead? A dead capitalist, remember, -is no more impressive than a dead streetcar conductor. If I got you -into this house on the strength of Tom, as I got Tom to come in on the -strength of you, what millionaire would refuse, for example, to go, in -answer to a telephone message that his child had been run over and was -now, let us say, at 128 East Seventy-ninth Street? Or that his wife, -acting more or less as if she were intoxicated, was scattering money at -the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street? And suppose the -millionaire is bound and chloroformed, and taken to the top floor of a -tenement hired by a humpback with red beard and one leg shorter than -the other--same humpback not being really a humpback or red-bearded or -a cripple, but a fake, to furnish false clues in advance--and this -humpback has previously given fire-extinguishing hand-grenades to all -the other tenants, as advertisements! Then we have a charge of dynamite -inserted in the thoroughly prepared corpse of the millionaire--his face -burned off in advance--and he is also soaked in inflammable material and -set on fire. And the deed is done at 11 a.m.; so that all the children -will be in school and all the adults awake and able to get out. Find -you? Bits of flesh and sympathy for the poor humpback is all the police -would find in that tenement. Oh! sir, you were wise to pay--very wise -indeed!" - -Mr. Merriwether looked at the man a long time. He could not deny that -to really desperate men such deeds offered no particular difficulty. The -average crook is not dangerous to a millionaire; but a man like this -is more than dangerous. He thought quickly and formed his conclusions -accurately. - -"How are you going to make Tom marry one of the girls whose names you -mentioned?" he asked, in the tone of voice one uses toward physicians. - -The man smiled slightly and said: "Oh, I am not going to do it. I don't -care whether he marries or not. You must do that. But I'll tell you how, -if you wish,--after McWayne gets here. Just think over the affair. It -will put you in a more intelligently receptive frame of mind." And with -a pleasant smile the man took a little book bound in green leather and -began to read. - -Mr. E. H. Merriwether, as was his wont when thinking, began at the -beginning and reviewed the entire affair quickly but carefully. He did -this again--it did not take him long--and then he began to co-ordinate -his ideas and study the case. Within ten minutes he had forgotten his -animosity. In fifteen he felt respect for this man. In twenty he was -thinking how helpless any one man is against his ten billion trillion -natural foes--microbes, seismic disturbances, floods, and the chemical -reaction of hostile brains. This man, whose very name was unknown to -him, had vanquished the victor--had looted the tent of the victorious -general! - -This was incredible when spoken in a conversational tone of voice. -Perhaps this same remarkable man might tell how to make Tom choose a -desirable wife. It was worth while making the experiment. It was in the -nature of a gamble in which E. H. Merriwether stood to win a happiness -worth all the money in the world and stood to lose nothing! - -A knock at the door roused him from his reverie. One of the footmen -arrived from the threshold. - -"Mr. McWayne!" - -Mr. Merriwether's private secretary entered. E. H. Merriwether held out -his right hand. - -Mr. McWayne took four slips of paper and gave them to his chief, who -quickly looked at them and passed them over to the master of the -house. The man looked at them, indorsed them, and handed a pen to Mr. -Merriwether. The czar of the Pacific & Southwestern wrote on each of the -checks: - -Indorsement correct. - -E. H. Merriwether. - -He returned the checks to the man, who thereupon pushed a button a -number of times. - -One of the footmen with the non-menial faces appeared dressed for the -street. He looked Irish. He wore a big solitaire scarf-pin. His hat -inclined to one side noticeably. He carried a square valise in each -hand. They looked as if they had seen service. On each was printed, -"Treasurer Tammany Hall." - -"Go with Mr. McWayne to the banks and cash the checks. Mr. McWayne will -identify you," said the master of the house. - -"Yis, sor!" said the footman. - -The brogue was unnecessary, but E. H. Merri-wether smiled slightly. -McWayne and the footman in mufti left together. - -"Think some more!" said the man to E. H. Merri-wether, and resumed his -reading of the little green-leather book. - -Mr. Merriwether leaned back and thought some more. To him the -million-dollar loss was already ancient history. The only virtue that -the Wall Street life gives to a professional is the ability to take a -loss of money with more or less philosophy. That philosophy is also -met on the race-track, and among experts in faro as well as among real -Christians. - -McWayne and the man were gone an hour and eighteen minutes. Mr. -Merriwether had time to think of Tom and of himself and of the relation -that had existed between himself and his son, and of the relations that -would exist between them in the future--God willing. - -"Mr. McWayne!" announced the servant. - -The private secretary entered; also the Irishman with the two valises. - -"Tell the others! At five o'clock!" said the master of the house, and -the footman left the room--with the valises! - -"Mr. McWayne, will you kindly wait in the other room?" The man rose and -parted the portières for the secretary to pass through. - -"Certainly," said McWayne, frowning politely. "Now, Mr. Merriwether," -said the man, "as I told you, Tom's mind and soul are prepared for love. -The romantic vein in him has been worked to the limit. He can be laughed -out of it very easily, for he is not entirely convinced; but it is too -valuable a frame of mind for a really intelligent father to destroy. The -young ladies, also, are ripe for the coming of the one man in all the -world. They will respond readily--and, I may add, respond with relief if -they see he is a man like your son, against whom nothing can be said. It -will clinch the affair. My advice is for you to call on the young -ladies I have mentioned and judge for yourself, and then you be your own -stage-manager!" - -"Have you any choice yourself?" - -"You know Woodford?" - -"Very well." - -"And his daughter Isabel?" - -"No." - -"Well, she has the complementary qualities. She will, as it were, -complete Tom. She is bright, healthy, very handsome, utterly unspoiled -by the knowledge of her good looks--that is, she is highly intelligent. -Her mind functionates quickly and is regulated and made to work safely -by her keen sense of humor. You will love her for herself, as well as -for Tom's sake and for Tom's children's sake. Arrange two things and you -can do it. One is prepare her to meet Tom. Tell her you don't know why -you want her to know him, but you do. Tell her you wanted this before -you ever saw her. And tell her you know she must think you must be going -crazy--but will she meet Tom in her father's home?--in some room with -the lights turned out? She will ask you why you ask such things. And you -will rub your hand across your eyes and say, dazed-like: T don't know! -I don't know! Will--will you do it?' And when you take Tom to her, take -advantage of the dark, and open this little bottle and touch Tom's lapel -with this. It is essence of sweet peas. He will associate Isabel with -the mysterious girl to whom he took a message in the dark, and by the -same token she will know he is the man who destiny decrees shall be -her husband. Then leave the rest to nature. They won't struggle. They -couldn't if they wished; but they won't wish to fight. My parting words -to you are: the man who was smart enough to get a million dollars out of -you finds it even easier to make a young man who wants to love fall in -love in the springtime with a handsome, healthy girl who wants to be -loved. You and McWayne will now use one of my prisoner-carrying motors. -This way, sir!" - -He led the way into the next room, picked up McWayne, and escorted the -financier and his private secretary to the curb. A neat little motor -stood there. - -Mr. Merriwether climbed in. McWayne followed. And then the man said: - -"You will find that the doors cannot be opened from the inside. The -chauffeur was told this queer feature was due to the fact that his -master expects to use this car for his two very active and very -mischievous children. He will drive you anywhere. You can arrest him if -you wish; but it will be useless. We have spent a good many thousands -of dollars in accessories that will be thrown away to-day." And the man -sighed. - -"Who do you mean by we?" asked E. H. Merriwether, politely. - -"The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, which, having completed its operations, -will now dissolve. Good day, sir." - -In the issue of the _World_ of June 9th two advertisements appeared. -One, under "Marriages," read: - -Merriwether-Woodford.--On June 8th, at the Church of St. Lawrence, -by the Rev. Stephen Vincent Rood, Isabel Woodford to Thomas Thome -Merriwether. - -The other, under "Personals," read: - -P. R. Syndicate,--It was cheap at a million! - -E. H. M. - -On June 10th the great railroad financier received a typewritten letter. -It read: - -_In the course of our operations, having for an object the recovery -of plunder taken from unidentified individuals by malefactors of -great wealth, it has happened that we have grown fond of some of our -contributors. We thus are able most sincerely to extend to you our -hearty congratulations. It was indeed cheap at a million, and we shall -remember your good fortune if ever we need advice or additional funds. -What we took from you and from some of your fellow New-Yorkers we -propose to return to the public at large. Mr. Amos F. Kidder will tell -you his suspicions, if you ask him. In return you might tell him that -we propose to capitalize time. We shall make a present of fifty years to -the world by transmuting the recovered plunder into unspent time. Don't -forget that we who were the Plunder Recoverers are now,_ - -_The Time Givers._ - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - -***** This file should be named 51970-8.txt or 51970-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51970/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/51970-8.zip b/old/51970-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index de74188..0000000 --- a/old/51970-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51970-h.zip b/old/51970-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e55253b..0000000 --- a/old/51970-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51970-h/51970-h.htm b/old/51970-h/51970-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index c41aeca..0000000 --- a/old/51970-h/51970-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14375 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - </title> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Plunderers - A Novel - -Author: Edwin Lefevre - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51970] -Last Updated: March 16, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE PLUNDERERS - </h1> - <h3> - A Novel - </h3> - <h2> - By Edwin Lefevre - </h2> - <h4> - Harper & Brothers Publishers - </h4> - <h4> - New York And London - </h4> - <h3> - 1915 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0012.jpg" alt="0012 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0012.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0013.jpg" alt="0013 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0013.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE PLUNDERERS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I—THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II-THE PANIC OF THE LION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III—AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV—CHEAP AT A MILLION </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE PLUNDERERS - </h2> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - I—THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N the day before - Christmas a man of middle age, middle height, and middle weight, - smooth-shaven, dressed in black and wearing black gloves, walked into the - business office of the New York <i>Herald</i>. He approached the first - “Advertisements” window, looked at the clerk a moment, opened his mouth, - and said several words-at least, so the clerk judged from the motion of - the man's lips. - </p> - <p> - “I didn't hear that, Cap,” said the clerk, Ralph Carroll. - </p> - <p> - The stranger thereupon made another effort. - </p> - <p> - “You'll have to come again,” Carroll told him, kindly, at the same time - leaning over the counter and presenting his left ear to the voiceless - talker. He heard: - </p> - <p> - “How much to print this ad under Male Help Wanted, in big type, so it will - make about two inches?” - </p> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p> - He handed a slip to the clerk, which the clerk read, counting the words - from sheer force of habit: - </p> - <p> - Wanted-A Man With St. Vitus's Dance and an Introspective Turn of Mind. - High Wages to Right Party. Apply Saturday Morning, Room 888, St. Iago - Building. - </p> - <p> - “Four-sixty-four,” said the clerk. - </p> - <p> - The man raised his eyebrows inquiringly. - </p> - <p> - “Four dollars and sixty-four cents,” repeated Carroll. - </p> - <p> - The man took out a wallet and tried to pull out a bank-note, but could not - because of his gloved hands. He took off the right glove, fished out one - five-dollar bill and gave it to the clerk, who handed him back thirty-six - cents. As the man took the change the clerk distinctly noticed that he had - a big ivory-colored scar which ran from the knuckles to the wrist and - disappeared under the cuff. He remembered it by reason of the freak ad and - the man's voice. - </p> - <p> - The advertisement appeared in the <i>Herald</i> on the next day. Being - Christmas, the one day of nonreading in America, few people saw it. - Nevertheless, at nine on Saturday morning, ten men with spasmodically - twitching necks or limbs waited for the advertiser to open the door of - Room 888, on which they saw in gilt letters: - </p> - <h3> - ACME VIBRATOR COMPANY - </h3> - <h3> - W. W. LOVELL, MANAGER - </h3> - <p> - The elevator man was heard to tell an inquirer, “Here's Lovell!” And - presently the voiceless man, dressed as usual in black, with black gloves, - stepped from the elevator, nodded to the waiting men in the hall, and - opened the door of 888. At first they thought he was a mute, but realized - later that he was merely saving his bronchial tubes, just as asking men to - come Saturday forenoon—pay-day and pay-hours—would save effort - by bringing only men without employment. - </p> - <p> - Lovell and the afflicted entered. The outer office had half a dozen - chairs, and a table, on which were some medical magazines. Lovell - scrutinized the ten applicants keenly, and finally beckoned to a tall, - well-built chap with a blond mustache, whose unfortunate ailment was not - so extreme as the others, to follow him into the inner office. The man did - so. There were a desk, three chairs, a table, and a dozen polished-oak - boxes that looked as though they might contain vibrators. Lovell closed - the door, sat down at the desk, motioned to the blond man to approach, and - whispered: - </p> - <p> - “What's your name?” - </p> - <p> - “Lewis J. Wright.” - </p> - <p> - “Age?” - </p> - <p> - “Thirty-six.” - </p> - <p> - “Working?” - </p> - <p> - “Not steadily.” - </p> - <p> - “Profession?” - </p> - <p> - “Cabinet-maker.” - </p> - <p> - “Family?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you object to traveling?” - </p> - <p> - “No; like it.” - </p> - <p> - “We pay sixty dollars a week, all traveling and living expenses. Will you - go to London, England?” - </p> - <p> - “To do what?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing!” - </p> - <p> - “What?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing!” again whispered the manager, very earnestly. He seemed anxious - to convince Mr. Wright of his good intentions. “Nothing at all! Sixty a - week and expenses!” - </p> - <p> - “I don't understand,” said Mr. Lewis J. Wright, with an uneasy smile. His - excitement aggravated the malady and his neck jerked and twitched almost - constantly. - </p> - <p> - “I want a man with St. Vitus's dance.” - </p> - <p> - “That's me,” said L. J. Wright, and proved it. - </p> - <p> - “And with an introspective turn of mind. Understand?” - </p> - <p> - “Not quite,” confessed the cabinet-maker. - </p> - <p> - “A man who likes to think about himself.” - </p> - <p> - “I guess I can fill the bill all right,” asserted L. J. Wright, - confidently. Sixty a week, all expenses, and a trip to London began to - look very attractive. - </p> - <p> - “Then you're engaged.” The manager nodded. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know yet what I'm to do,” ventured Wright. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing, I tell you.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'll do it, then!” And L. J. Wright smiled tentatively; but the - manager of the Acme Vibrator Company looked at him seriously—almost - reprovingly—and whispered so hoarsely that Wright felt like going - after cough-lozenges for him: - </p> - <p> - “Listen, Wright. You will go to London with a letter to Dr. Cephas W. - Atterbury, 23, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. Every day you will sit - down in a comfortable chair in the doctor's anteroom, where the patients - wait, from nine to eleven a.m. and five to seven p.m. You will think of - your St. Vitus's dance. For doing this you will get sixty dollars a week - from us and your hotel bill will be paid by the doctor. You may not have - to sail for a month, but your salary begins on Monday. Come here every - Saturday and get twenty-five dollars on account. When you sail you will - get all that's owing to you besides four weeks' salary in advance, and a - round-trip ticket, first-class.” - </p> - <p> - “But if I get stranded in London—” - </p> - <p> - “How can you, with three or four hundred dollars in your pocket, a - return-trip ticket, and no need to spend except for clothes, which are - very cheap there? Come next Saturday, but leave your name and address in - case we need you. Can we depend on you?” He looked searchingly into the - grayish-blue eyes of Lewis J. Wright, and seemed comforted when Lewis J. - Wright answered: - </p> - <p> - “Yes. I'll go on a minute's notice.” He wrote his name and address on a - slip, gave it to the manager, and went out. Lovell followed him to the - outer office and, beckoning to the afflicted nine to draw near, whispered: - </p> - <p> - “I've hired a man, but I shall need more soon. Write your names and - addresses and leave them here. Don't come unless I send for you,” and he - distributed printed blanks on which each applicant wrote out his name, - address, and answers to the questions: - </p> - <p> - 1—Do you object to traveling alone? - </p> - <p> - 2—Do you object to sitting in comfortable chairs? - </p> - <p> - 3—Do you object to people making remarks about you? - </p> - <p> - 4—Do you object to minding your own business or earning your wages? - </p> - <p> - One of the applicants spoke: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Lovell, I'd like to know—” - </p> - <p> - Lovell, however, cut him short with a hoarse but peremptory “Don't talk! - Can't answer!” pointed to his throat, and disappeared in the inner office, - the door of which he closed. - </p> - <p> - Whereupon the disappointed applicants, expressing their feelings in a - series of heartrending jerks, twitches, tremors, and grimaces, trooped out - into the hall. There they cross-examined Wright and arrived at the - conclusion that they were to be used as living advertisements for the Acme - Vibrator. Doctors were employed to boom it and the company supplied - dummies or “property” patients. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o the same clerk - in the <i>Herald</i> office, a fortnight later, came the same man in - black, and whispered something. The clerk recognized him, leaned over, and - asked, pleasantly: - </p> - <p> - “What is it this time?” He had a good memory. He afterward remembered - thinking that the hoarseness was chronic. - </p> - <p> - “How much for one inch in Help Wanted, Male?” - </p> - <p> - “Pica caps?” - </p> - <p> - The man nodded eagerly, half a dozen times. - </p> - <p> - “Two dollars and thirty-two cents.” - </p> - <p> - The stranger, in trying to take the exact amount from his pocket, dropped - a dime on the floor and had much difficulty in picking it up by reason of - his black gloves. This naturally made the clerk remember about the scar, - which the man evidently desired to conceal. Carroll, the clerk, - alert-minded and imaginative—as are all American Celts—caught - a glimpse of the scar between the end of the glove and the beginning of - the cuff. - </p> - <p> - On the next day, the unemployed males of New York read this in the <i>Herald</i>: - </p> - <p> - <i>Wanted—A Brave Man. Wages One Hundred Dollars a Day. No Questions - Answered. Apply Room 888, St. Iago Building.</i> - </p> - <p> - There are many brave men in New York. When W. W. Lovell stepped from the - elevator at the eighth floor he had almost to force his way through a - crowd of men of all kinds—brutes and dreamers; sturdy animals, and - boys with romance in their eyes; fierce-visaged, roughly dressed men, and - fashionably attired chaps, with high-bred, impassive faces; young men - seeking adventure and old men seeking bread. Lovell was darting keen - glances at the men. He let his gaze linger on a man neither short nor - tall, of about forty, who suggested determination rather than reckless - courage. He was shabby with the shabbiness of a man who not only has worn - the clothes a long time, but has slept in them. Lovell approached him and - whispered: - </p> - <p> - “Come about <i>Herald</i> ad?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” Others drew near and listened. - </p> - <p> - “Are you really brave?” He looked anxiously into the man's face. The man, - at the question and at the grins of his fellow-applicants, turned a - brick-red. - </p> - <p> - “Try me!” he answered, defiantly. - </p> - <p> - “Before all these men?” There was a challenge in the hoarse whisper. - </p> - <p> - “If you want to,” answered the man, with quick anger. He clenched his - fists and braced his body, as for a shock. - </p> - <p> - “Come in!” and W. W. Lovell opened the door of 888. - </p> - <p> - “I'm braver than that guy!” interjected a youth, extremely - broad-shouldered and thick-necked. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Lovell looked at him coldly, steadily, inquisitively, as though he - would read the man's soul. He stared fully a minute and a half before the - thick-set youngster dropped his gaze, whereupon Mr. Lovell pushed in the - man he had picked out, followed him, and slammed the door in the faces of - the others. They tried the door-knob in vain. It was a spring lock. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Lovell sat down at his desk, motioned to the man to draw near, and - said, sternly: - </p> - <p> - “No questions answered!” - </p> - <p> - “I'll ask none.” - </p> - <p> - Lovell gazed at him intently. He nodded to himself with satisfaction, and - proceeded, in a painful whisper: - </p> - <p> - “Your name is W. W. Lowry.” - </p> - <p> - The man hesitated. Lovell frowned and, leaning forward, said: - </p> - <p> - “One hundred dollars a day!” - </p> - <p> - “My name,” said the man, determinedly, “is now W. W. Lowry.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know anything about travelers' checks used by the American Express - Company?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Ever used any yourself?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Ever in Paris?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “When?” - </p> - <p> - “When I was—er—years ago.” - </p> - <p> - “How many years?” - </p> - <p> - “Ten; no—eleven!” The man's face twitched. Remembrance was evidently - not pleasant. - </p> - <p> - “I'll pay you one thousand dollars for eight days' work in Paris.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll take it.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen carefully.” - </p> - <p> - “Go ahead.” The man looked alert. - </p> - <p> - “You will get a first-class ticket from New York to Paris and return, and - hotel coupons for ten days in the Hotel Beraud, in Paris. You will leave, - in all probability, on February first, arrive on the eighth. On the ninth - you will go to the American Express office and cash some of your checks. - They will serve to identify you. Do it again on February tenth. At exactly - eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh you will whisper to the mail - clerk: 'It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven - letters for W. W. Lowry.' If you do not receive eleven letters, don't take - any, but return the next day at precisely the same hour, and say exactly - the same words. What was it I said you should say to the correspondence - clerk?” - </p> - <p> - “It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven letters for - W. W. Lowry,” repeated the man. - </p> - <p> - “Right! When you get the eleven letters you will bring them unopened to me—here. - Now go to Mrs. Brady's boarding-house, 299 East Seventy-third Street; tell - her you are Mr. Lowry. Your room and board are paid for. Make it a point - to be at the house every day at eleven in the morning until after luncheon - and at six p.m. You must not go out evenings under any circumstances. I'll - allow you eleven dollars a week for tobacco and will bring you some - clothes. Come back Wednesday at eleven-thirty. Here's this week's eleven - dollars. That will be all.” - </p> - <p> - “That's all right, my friend; but—” began the man. - </p> - <p> - Lovell frowned and interrupted sharply: - </p> - <p> - “No questions answered.” - </p> - <p> - “I wasn't going to ask; I was going to remark that you would have to show - me that one thousand dollars for the week's work.” - </p> - <p> - “Next Wednesday I'll take you to the American Express Company. I'll give - you one thousand dollars and you will buy the checks yourself and sign - them. I'll keep them until sailing-day and I'll give them to you on the - steamer. Forging,” he went on with a sneer, “is signing another man's name - with intent to defraud. You will sign your own name—your own - signature—on travelers' checks that you yourself have paid for. See? - A thousand dollars for asking for eleven letters and bringing them to me, - unopened, is good graft, friend. If you make good I'll keep you busy.” - </p> - <p> - “You are on!” said W. W. Lowry. - </p> - <p> - “No drinking. Above all things, no talking! I may be crazy, my friend; but - what would you be if you gave up a job worth a thousand dollars a week and - all expenses paid? Remember our motto: No questions answered!” - </p> - <p> - “Damned good rule!” agreed W. W. Lowry, with conviction. - </p> - <p> - “Look out for reporters and for men who say they are reporters!” warned W. - W. Lovell. “When you go out, close the door quickly behind you and hang - this sign on the door-knob. I don't want to see anybody.” - </p> - <p> - W. W. Lowry obeyed. The sign said: - </p> - <h3> - POSITION FILLED - </h3> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> particularly - beautiful limousine stopped before the door of Welch, Boon & Shaw, the - renowned jewelers, on Fifth Avenue. There alighted from it, on this cold - but bright January day, a tall, well-built man, erect, square-shouldered, - head held high. He wore a fur-lined overcoat with a beautiful mink collar, - and a mink cap. He was one of those blond-mustached, ruddy-complexioned, - daily-cold-plunge British officers you sometimes see in Ottawa. He walked - quickly into the shop and spoke to the first clerk he saw. - </p> - <p> - “Where's the proprietor?” - </p> - <p> - “Who?” - </p> - <p> - “The proprietor of the shop!” He spoke with a pronounced English accent. - His eyes were gray and cold. They looked a trifle close together, but that - may have been from the frown—said frown impressing even a casual - observer as a chronic affair. His appearance, even without the frown, was - aristocratic. - </p> - <p> - “Do you wish,” said the clerk, politely, “to see Mr. Boon or Mr. Shaw?” - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see the man who owns this shop; the—ah—boss, I - think you call it here.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, Mr. Boon—” began the clerk, about to explain. - </p> - <p> - “I don't care if it's Mr. Loon or Mr. Coon. Be quick, please!” he said, - peremptorily. - </p> - <p> - The clerk, now resenting the stranger's words, tone, manner, attitude, - nationality, and ancestry, turned to a floor-walker person and called: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Smith, this—ahem—gentleman wishes to see one of the - firm.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Smith came forward, smiling suavely. - </p> - <p> - “You wish to see one of the firm, sir?” He bowed in advance. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. That's the third time I've said what I wish. I have no time to lose - and not much patience, either!” He twitched his neck and twisted his head - as though his collar were too tight. It was a habit, and it became more - pronounced with his annoyance. All the clerks noticed it. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Smith bit his lip and said, very politely: “Yes, sir. It happens that - none of them is in at present. If you will tell me what you wish to see - them about I may suggest—” - </p> - <p> - The fur-coated man turned on his heel, his face dark red with annoyance, - and started to leave the shop. - </p> - <p> - “Good-by, old Jerk-Neck!” muttered the offended clerk. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon entered at that very moment. - </p> - <p> - “Here's Mr. Boon, our senior partner,” said Mr. Smith, with an irritation - in his voice that he could not conceal, and that now gave Mr. Boon his - cue. - </p> - <p> - “You wish to see me?” Mr. Boon asked it very coldly, ready to say no. - </p> - <p> - “You have an annoying set of clerks here,” said the fur-coated stranger. - “I wished to see one of the firm and—” - </p> - <p> - “You see him now,” interrupted Mr. Boon, letting the words drop out with - an effect of broken icicles. “I am Mr. Boon.” - </p> - <p> - “My good man, I came after some pearl necklaces and a few rings, and - trinkets. Do make haste! I am Colonel Lowther.” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed! Well, what if you are Colonel Lowther?” - </p> - <p> - In Mr. Boon's eyes was a look that made all the clerks in the store busy - themselves with their own affairs. Explosions scatter dangerous fragments - that may injure lookers-on. The fur-coated Englishman stared at the - sizzling jeweler in amazement. - </p> - <p> - “Damme!” he sputtered. “Do you mean to say—Oh—I see! Yes! I am - the secretary of the Duke of Connaught. The jewels are for his Royal - Highness.” - </p> - <p> - The change was instantaneous and magical. They all understood now, and - forgave. There wasn't a clerk in the store who did not stare with - unchecked interest at the fur-coated member of the royal party, concerning - which the newspapers were printing columns and columns. - </p> - <p> - The man opened his coat, took a card from a Russia-leather case, which he - gave to Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “Colonel the Honorable H. C. Lowther, K.C.B.,” it read, “Private Secretary - to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught.” - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Lowther,” said Mr. Boon, in a voice from which all the icicles - had melted and turned into warm honey, “I regret exceedingly that you have - had to wait. Had I known you were here, or if you had only mentioned who - you were—” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly so. Yes! And now I'll have a few words with you in private, - Boon.” - </p> - <p> - The colonel could not know that Mr. Boon was not a misterless Bond Street - tradesman, but a millionaire expert in gems and human vanity. So Boon - forgave the omission of “Mr.” and magnanimously said, “This way, Colonel - Lowther, please!” - </p> - <p> - In the office Mr. Boon opened a box of his good cigars—and they were - very good, indeed—and held it toward the colonel, who took one with - his gloved hands, lit it at the flame of the match which Mr. Boon himself - held for him, and puffed away, with never a “Thank you.” - </p> - <p> - Again Mr. Boon was magnanimous. - </p> - <p> - Colonel Lowther wiggled his neck as if his collar were uncomfortably - tight, and then shot his head forward with a motion that made the chin go - up six inches—a nervous affliction that Mr. Boon politely ignored by - looking exaggeratedly attentive. - </p> - <p> - “His Royal Highness wishes to leave some remembrances to gentlemen he has - met, you know—chairmen of committees and presidents of clubs, and - others who have been very nice to him. At home he would have given them - snuff-boxes or cigarette-cases, with his arms on them; but there won't be - time to engrave them, so he will give scarf-pins.” He paused, puffed at - his cigar, and cleared his neck of the constricting collar. - </p> - <p> - “I understand,” Mr. Boon assured him, deferentially. - </p> - <p> - “And the duchess will give rings and—ah—lorgnette-chains—trinkets—ah—you - know. Everybody in New York has been so kind to the party. 'Pon my honor, - Boon, I really think Americans are keener for royalty than the British. I - do! What?” - </p> - <p> - “Blood,” observed Mr. Boon, with the impressive sententiousness of a man - inventing a proverb, “is thicker than water!” - </p> - <p> - “Eh? What? Oh! I see! Yes! Quite so!” - </p> - <p> - “Our people,” pursued the encouraged Mr. Boon, “have always thought a - great deal of the English—er—British royal family.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, indeed! Now, Boon, I didn't think you showed great affection for - George III! What?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon blushed to think of Bunker Hill. His daughter was a D. A. R., - too! He hastened to change the subject. - </p> - <p> - “You mentioned,” he said, as though he were reading aloud from one of the - sacred books, “some pearl necklaces. At least, I think you did.” He put on - the tradesman's listening look in advance. It is the look that courtiers - assume when they listen to his Majesty excitedly telling how once, on a - hunting-trip, he almost dressed himself. - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes! The pearls are for the Princess Patricia. A necklace to cost not - over ten thousand. You see, the duke is not one of your Pittsburg - millionaires. He's not what you'd call rich, in America!” He smiled, - democratically, as a man always does when he is pleased with his own wit. - Mr. Boon smiled uncertainly. - </p> - <p> - “You can't, of course,” he said, regretfully, “do much with ten thousand - dollars.” - </p> - <p> - “Not dollars—pounds! Perhaps we may go up to fifteen thousand; but - his Highness would prefer to keep at about ten thousand pounds. That's - fifty thousand dollars.” - </p> - <p> - “I am sure we can please his Highness,” said Mr. Boon, with impressive - confidence. There fleeted across his mind the vision of the tremendous - value of the advertisement which the royal patronage would give him. The - papers were full of the doings of the distinguished visitors. He himself - on his way to the office had been guilty of the pardonable curiosity which - the lower classes call rubber-necking; and he had even discussed—in - common with 89,999,999 fellow-Americans—the personal pulchritude of - the royal ladies. Usually democracy is enabled to apologize to itself for - its undemocratic interest in feminine royalty by saying, “She isn't at all - goodlooking.” That excuse, however, did not serve in this instance. The - Princess Patricia was the most popular girl in New York—with the - classes because she was the princess, and with the masses because she was - so pretty! And to think of selling pearls to her! - </p> - <p> - He closed his eyes and ecstatically read what the papers would print about - the sale! He heard himself saying to Mrs. Carmpick, of Pittsburg: “This - necklace is handsomer than the one we sold to Princess Patricia!” He heard - the rattle in the throats of Johnson & Pierce, of J. Storrs' Sons, of - the sixteen partners of Goffony's, dying from apoplexy superinduced by - envy, or from starvation following the loss of all the swell customers! - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you realize, of course, Boon, that his Royal Highness's patronage is - worth many thousands to your firm. What?” - </p> - <p> - The colonel's eyes, Mr. Boon thought, were cold and greedy, as befitted a - common grafter. Mr. Boon resented this, having himself been caught - red-handed getting something for nothing. If he had to pay a commission—“We - appreciate the honor, of course, Colonel Lowther,” he said, deferentially—and - non-committally. - </p> - <p> - “Quite so! You ought to, considering how the newspapers will mention your - shop.” - </p> - <p> - “I may suggest, Colonel Lowther, that our firm's reputation—” - </p> - <p> - “I know its reputation. That's why I am here”—the colonel's voice - seemed colder than a Canadian cold spell—“but it is no better than - your competitors'—Goffony, Johnson & Pierce, or J. Storrs' Sons. - I figured that the duke's patronage should be worth thousands to Welch, - Boon & Shaw; so you must make me a special price.” - </p> - <p> - “We have but one—” - </p> - <p> - “I've heard all that, Boon,” the colonel interrupted, angrily. “If you are - going to talk like a bally ass I'll waste no more time here. Bring in the - pearls. I can't take over a half-hour to this.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon's hard sense and knowledge of advertising values triumphed over - his injured dignity. He excused himself, and presently returned with a - tray full of pearl necklaces. - </p> - <p> - “I say, Boon, on second thought, you must not reduce your prices. It's a - bad principle.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is,” agreed Boon, cordially. - </p> - <p> - “Therefore, my good fellow, name me one price—the lowest possible - after considering how much the duke's patronage is worth to your house. - The very lowest! Put it in plain figures on new price-tags. The duke is - accustomed to the prices across the pond, you know; so don't frighten him. - Now that one?” - </p> - <p> - He picked up at once the most beautiful necklace—and also the most - valuable, though by no means the most showy. Mr. Boon's respect jumped. He - looked at the colonel, whose neck and head were twitching and twisting - violently. - </p> - <p> - “This one—” he began. The colonel interrupted him: - </p> - <p> - “Now, Boon, think carefully—the very lowest price,” he said, - sternly. “If you name a really reasonable figure I'll pledge you my word - to recommend its purchase and not visit the other shops. Take your time!” - </p> - <p> - Thus placed on the rack, Mr. Boon figured and cut and restored and reduced - again until he was angry at the torturer and at the opportunity for a - glorious advertisement. Finally he said, vindictively: - </p> - <p> - “This I'll sell for sixty-five thousand dollars!” Immediately he regretted - it. Perhaps he was overestimating the advertising value of the Princess - Patricia's beautiful neck to exhibit his pearls on. The price was exactly - thirty-five thousand dollars less than he had expected to get for it - during the next steel boom. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come now, I say,” remonstrated Colonel Lowther, impatiently. “That's - thirteen thousand pounds. It's too much, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Lowther,” said Boon, pale but determined, “I am losing - considerable money on this, which I am charging to advertising account and - may never get back. If the price is not satisfactory, I'm sorry; and I can - only suggest that you'd better go to the other firms you've mentioned. - They are all,” he finished quietly, “very good firms.” - </p> - <p> - Colonel Lowther, who had not taken his keen eyes off the jeweler's face - during the speech, appeared impressed by Mr. Boon's earnestness. His neck - jerked spasmodically half a dozen times before he said: - </p> - <p> - “I believe you. I'll take it. But first mark it—in pounds; thirteen - thousand pounds.” And he looked on, eagle-eyed, while Mr. Boon himself - wrote out a new price-tag. Evidently he would take no chances with - sleight-of-hand substitutions. “Put it here,” he said, “beside me.” - </p> - <p> - It made Mr. Boon say, half angry, half amused: “We won't change it for an - imitation string. We are really a reputable firm, Colonel Lowther.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh! Ah! Really, I—ah!” stammered the colonel, “I wasn't thinking of - such a thing!” He looked so absurdly guilty, however, that Mr. Boon - forgave him. “I think you'd better show me others—ah!—cheaper, - you know, in case the duke should not wish to go above ten thousand - pounds. Say, that one—and this!—and this!” - </p> - <p> - He had selected the three next best; but Boon figured very closely and in - all instances named a price below cost: fifty-seven thousand five hundred - dollars, fifty thousand dollars, and forty-five thousand dollars. - </p> - <p> - “Put them here also with the first one,” said Colonel Lowther.. - </p> - <p> - “Don't you wish us to put them in boxes?” asked Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “Ah—ah!—I say, bring the boxes in and I'll put them in. We'll - do it more quickly,” he finished, lamely. - </p> - <p> - There flashed across Mr. Boon's mind the possibility of crookedness. - Colonel Lowther did not trust them—perhaps because he hoped to avert - suspicions by that same attitude of distrust! Mr. Boon determined to watch - closely. He asked a clerk to bring some cases for the necklaces. - </p> - <p> - “You fix them, Boon,” said Colonel Lowther, who was watching the jeweler's - hands as children watch the hands of a prestidigitator. - </p> - <p> - It actually eased Boon's mind to be taken for a crook. He arranged the - necklaces, each in its own Russia-leather case, and then gratefully helped - Colonel Lowther to select two dozen scarf-pins, amounting in value to - eighteen thousand dollars, a score of rings worth in all a little over - twenty-five thousand dollars, and a few lorgnette-chains and other - trinkets. Once all these were duly price-tagged, packed, and placed beside - the necklaces, Colonel Lowther, after a series of mild cervical - convulsions, said, calmly: - </p> - <p> - “Now, Boon, you and I must settle a personal matter. You know, of course, - the royal party never pays cash.” - </p> - <p> - “Then,” said the impetuous Mr. Boon, “the deal is off!” - </p> - <p> - “Silly ass! The royal family of England always pays. You know very well - that the jewels bought by King George for gifts for his coronation guests - have not been paid for yet. It's all a matter of red tape. The money is as - safe as the Bank of England! Any banker here would be glad to guarantee - the account—only that would never do, of course. Now you know I - can't take any commission. I've made you give me the lowest prices for the - duke, haven't I? What?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, you have; and therefore I can't—” - </p> - <p> - “If I were a bally Russian I'd have made you name a price twice the usual - figure and I'd have taken the difference as a commission. It's what you - Americans call graft, I believe. What?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said Boon, coldly, disgusted with the venal aristocracy, - “we'd never have done such a—” - </p> - <p> - “Tut, tut! It's done everywhere; but not to me!” Colonel Lowther said, so - sternly that Mr. Boon considered himself accused of unnamed crimes. He - resented this, but, being unable to fix the exact accusation, contented - himself with remarking, diplomatically: - </p> - <p> - “Of course not! But at the same time—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes,” rudely broke in the colonel, with a silencing wave of his - gloved hand. “Now I can myself pay you in cash for whatever the duke buys—say, - up to twenty thousand or twenty-five thousand pounds. For advancing this - money, which will not be paid to me for months, I ask you to allow me a - half-year's interest. That,” finished Colonel Lowther, impressively, “is - banking. What?” - </p> - <p> - “At what rate?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, eight or ten per cent.” - </p> - <p> - “Impossible!” - </p> - <p> - “Then, Mr. Welch, Boon, or whatever your name is, I wish you a very good - morning!” - </p> - <p> - “But we'll allow you interest at the rate of six per cent, a year.” - </p> - <p> - “But I myself have to pay five for the use—ah!—that is—er—” - floundered the Englishman. Mr. Boon perceived instantly that the colonel - borrowed the money from Canadian bankers at five per cent, and got ten per - cent. It was not a bad scheme for high-class aristocratic graft! Even a - jeweler could philosophize about wilful self-delusion, the point of view, - custom, and so on. “Make it seven per cent. What?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon could not help admiring the persistency of the Englishman in - coating his graft-pills with the sugar of legitimacy. Doubtless the - colonel had really convinced himself this was not graft! - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” said Mr. Boon, with a smile. “I'll take three and a half per - cent, off for cash.” - </p> - <p> - “But we agreed on seven!” remonstrated the Englishman. - </p> - <p> - “Well, three and a half per cent, of the whole is the same as six months - at seven per cent.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” The colonel began to figure in his mind. His cervical contortions, - twitchings, and jerkings were painful to behold. Mr. Boon thought it was a - mild form of St. Vitus's dance. It would enable him to recognize the - colonel in a crowd of ten thousand. - </p> - <p> - “Quite so! Yes—three and a half per cent, of the total bill. It will - be at least twenty thousand pounds—that's one hundred thousand - dollars. Not half bad! What?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean your commission will be one hundred thousand dollars? I'm - delighted to hear it!” Mr. Boon was so pleased that he jested. He would - play up the royal patronage to the limit. - </p> - <p> - “Oh no! I meant the total amount, you know,” corrected the colonel, - earnestly. He saw that Boon was smiling, and gradually it dawned on him - that the jeweler was an American humorist. “Oh! Ah! Yes! Very funny! Quite - so! I wish it were! How many millions would the bill have to be for the - cash discount to be twenty thousand pounds? What? Right-O! Well, now bring - the pearls and the other things to the motor. I shall show them to his - Royal Highness at once. I can let you know in a half-hour which he will - keep.” And he rose. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!—er—Colonel, you know we don't like to—ah!—there's - over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, worth four hundred - thousand dollars in any other place in New York; and if anything happened—” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing will happen,” said the colonel, with assurance. - </p> - <p> - “And then, it will take a long time to prepare the memorandum of—” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you need a memorandum?” inquired the colonel, coldly. He looked as - if he began to suspect that Mr. Boon distrusted a member of the suite of - his Royal Highness, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T., - K.P., P.C., G.M.B., G.3. S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., Duke of - Connaught and Stratheam, Earl of Sussex, Prince of Coburg and Gotha, - Governor-General of Canada, and potential customer of the world-renowned - firm of Welch, Boon & Shaw. - </p> - <p> - Reading the emotions on the colonel's face and not desiring to offend, but - at the same time determined not to deliver two hundred thousand dollars' - worth of goods to a stranger, who might be the duke's secretary, but might - not be a reliable man financially, for all that, Mr. Boon groped for an - excuse. But Colonel Lowther pursued, frigidly: - </p> - <p> - “Why should you need a memorandum if you yourself will bring the jewels? - Did you think I was a bally clerk to sell your jewels for you? You do the - talking—and don't change the prices!” - </p> - <p> - So profoundly relieved as not to resent the last insult, Mr. Boon smiled - pleasantly and said, “I must take a man to carry them.” - </p> - <p> - “Take a regiment if you wish; but there's room for only three in the - motor,” said the Englishman, his neck twitching and twisting and jerking - quite violently. Anger seemed to aggravate his nervous malady. Wherefore - Mr. Boon hastily gathered up the packages, put them into a jeweler's - strong valise, and followed the colonel, accompanied by Terry Donnelly, - the store's private policeman, who carried the precious satchel in one - hand, and in the other—in his overcoat pocket—an automatic - pistol of the latest model. - </p> - <p> - One of the clerks must have told of the affair, for there was an eager - crowd on the sidewalk. They had heard that the Duke of Connaught's - secretary was in the store, buying diamonds. By the time it had passed - seven mouths it was the duke himself. Mr. Boon heard: “There he comes!” - and, “Is the princess with him?” and, “Which is the duke?” And he had - pleasant visions of free reading-notices and renewed popularity among the - ultra-fashionable. One of the traffic squad was trying to make the crowd - move on—in vain. - </p> - <p> - The colonel good-naturedly forced his way through the mob to the motor, - followed by the jeweler and the store policeman, who saw on the door of - the limousine the letters “W. R.” And both of them concluded that this - stood for the well-known initials of the duke's host. - </p> - <p> - A short woman, with red hair and a self-assertive bust, stared boldly at - the colonel and said, “He don't look like his pictures.” - </p> - <p> - “Say, are you the duke?” asked a messenger-boy. - </p> - <p> - However, the colonel merely said “Home!” and entered the motor, followed - by Mr. Boon and T. Donnelly. The store footman closed the door as if it - were made of priceless cut-glass. The traffic policeman touched his cap - and the motor went up the Avenue. - </p> - <p> - The colonel picked up a newspaper from the seat and turned to Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “See!” he said, “our pictures. Your reporters are—ah!—very - enterprising and clever. But the photographers are worse!” He laughed and - went on: “The pictures don't look like me, d'ye think?” - </p> - <p> - “I recognize the coat and the fur cap,” laughed Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, do you?” said the colonel, seriously. He looked at it and said: “But - it might be my other fur cap, you know. What?” He looked challengingly at - the jeweler. - </p> - <p> - “It might be,” admitted Mr. Boon, diplomatically confessing his error. - </p> - <p> - “Quite so!” said the owner of the fur cap, triumphantly. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon, finding himself nearer the house of the duke's host, began to - feel more confident of putting through the epoch-making deal. It is not - often that a New York jeweler sells pearls to an uncle of the King of - England, to be used by the king's most beautiful cousin! He would have the - princess's photograph in his window. It should show the famous necklace! - </p> - <p> - The motor took its place last in the long string of automobiles and - carriages that were creeping toward the door of the house which his Royal - Highness was honoring. - </p> - <p> - “Democracy meekly leaving its card at the house of royalty,” laughed the - colonel, pointing to the twoscore vehicles ahead of theirs. - </p> - <p> - “Americans paying their respects to an Englishman who is honored even in - his own country,” said Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, now, I say, Boon, that's uncommonly neat, you know. What? But perhaps - we'd better get out and walk; otherwise it may be a half-hour before—” - </p> - <p> - A footman in livery came up to their motor, touched his hat with a respect - that entitled him to a bank president's wages, and said to the colonel: - </p> - <p> - “I beg pardon, sir, but 'is Royal 'ighness 'as gone to Mr. Walton's, sir, - at number 899 Fifth Avenue. I was hinstructed to tell you to go there, - sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Tell the chauffeur where to go,” said the colonel, briefly. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir—very good, sir.” The man touched his hat and told the - chauffeur. - </p> - <p> - Their motor pulled out of the line and turned to the west. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Walton was at Eton with the duke,” explained the colonel to Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “J. G. Walton?” asked Mr. Boon. - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “I didn't know he was educated in England,” said Mr. Boon in a tone that - implied he knew Mr. Walton well. - </p> - <p> - “Didn't you?” said the colonel, more sharply than the occasion warranted. - </p> - <p> - “But then, we never discussed the subject,” apologized the jeweler. - </p> - <p> - “Do you know the house?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. I've been in it several times. I understood Mr. Walton was in - Florida and had rented his residence for the winter.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know a bally thing about his private affairs,” said the colonel, - coldly; “but I do know the duke intended to visit him, and I've been told - to go there.” - </p> - <p> - It occurred to the store detective that if the Englishman was rude to Mr. - Boon it was altogether likely the duke treated his private secretary as a - servant. It gave the detective pleasure to imagine this, for whenever the - colonel had looked at Mr. Donnelly it was with the casual indifference - with which men look at chairs or cobblestones. This made T. Donnelly feel - that he was not alive, and he disliked the aristocratic undertaker. - </p> - <p> - The motor turned into Fifth Avenue, sped northward, and halted before a - house. Mr. Boon recognized Mr. Walton's residence. - </p> - <p> - The colonel alighted quickly and said “Come with me!” in the tone - foreigners use to menials, and didn't even turn his head to see if he was - followed, but walked up to the door and rang the bell. - </p> - <p> - A man in livery opened the door. - </p> - <p> - “I am Colonel Lowther!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. His Royal Highness said you were to wait in the drawing-room - unless there was somebody with you; in which case you were to be taken to - him, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Come on!” said the colonel to Mr. Boon and the private policeman. The - footman preceded them to a door at the back of the foyer hall, opened it, - drew back heavy portières, and announced, solemnly: - </p> - <p> - “Colonel Lowther!” - </p> - <p> - The colonel entered. So did Mr. Boon and Donnelly. A man stood gazing out - of a window. His back was toward them. For the first time Mr. Boon—so - he said later—felt that something was wrong. Yet he made no effort - to protect himself. - </p> - <p> - “Your Highness, here are the pearls.” - </p> - <p> - The duke turned round. He had a kindly face, had white hair and mustaches. - </p> - <p> - “Let me have them!” said his Royal Highness, in the husky whisper of a man - suffering from acute laryngitis or partial paralysis of the vocal cords. - </p> - <p> - “I know that voice!” shouted Donnelly, and the jeweler knew he might fear - the worst; but, before they could put their hands in their pockets for - their revolvers, strong fingers took strangle-holds on their throats, a - spray of ammonia had been squirted into their nostrils and eyes, and they - were helpless. In a jiffy their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs, - their feet were fastened with leg-irons, their mouths pried open with a - bowie-knife blade that made them cease struggling. Pear-gags were inserted - into their mouths. Donnelly squirmed and carried on like a frightened - child—but at the same time kept unfrightened eyes on the duke. Not - so Boon, who was as pale as ivory. - </p> - <p> - The duke turned his back on his captives and put on a black cloth mask, - but the watchful Donnelly noticed that he put into his pocket what looked - like false mustaches. He also donned a pair of black gloves, but not - before the policeman had seen a long, white scar, beginning at the - knuckles and disappearing up the wrist into the cuff. Donnelly recalled - having heard or read a description of a professional crook that tallied - with what he had seen. It would make the work of capture easier. - </p> - <p> - The masked duke picked up the precious valise and said, “Take them to the - others.” - </p> - <p> - The four men who had nearly strangled the jeweler and the policeman were - dressed in overalls and jumpers, had on black masks, and wore gloves. They - carried the helpless victims into what seemed to be the servants' - dining-room. - </p> - <p> - Propped up in high-backed chairs, Mr. Jesse L. Boon, of Welch, Boon & - Shaw, saw Mr. Wilfred Gaylord, president of Goffony's, Mr. Percival - Pierce, of Johnson & Pierce, Mr. J. Sumner Storrs, of J. Storrs' Sons, - and five of their clerks. Beside Mr. Pierce was an empty chair. Mr. Boon - was placed on it. The detective was dumped on one near Goffony's clerk. - </p> - <p> - “Tie 'em in couples,” whispered the duke. Each man was tied to the back of - his chair—and the chairs themselves were tied back to back. - </p> - <p> - “That,” explained the colonel, “will prevent you from hurting yourselves - by toppling over in regrettable efforts to reach the door. We wish no harm - to befall you. What?” - </p> - <p> - The masked men in overalls left the room like perfectly trained servants. - </p> - <p> - “You are a damned fool!” whispered the duke, angrily. - </p> - <p> - “Why?” amiably asked the Englishman. - </p> - <p> - “The only people that don't talk are those that can't.” - </p> - <p> - “I know—but murder will out! Never knew it to fail. We have—ah!—you - might say—ah!—borrowed a few trinkets from these gentlemen. - They may get them back, possibly; but you can't ever bring back the breath - of life if you decapitate them. What?” - </p> - <p> - “I tell you I will not leave them here to blab!” hissed the duke; and Boon - could not help thinking of the anger of a rattlesnake with laryngitis. “A - slight nick in the jugular and they'll bleed away painlessly. Just before - the end they will begin to dream. By———, I'll do it! - Right now!” - </p> - <p> - The duke pulled out a barber's razor, opened it, and approached Boon. - </p> - <p> - Something about his manner told the jeweler that this creature was about - to cut their throats as much for the pleasure of it as because of the - supposed safety. It was confirmed when the masked fiend wheezed, - malignantly: - </p> - <p> - “It's sterilized!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Boon was suddenly conscious of an extreme cold, as if he had been - thrown naked into an ice-cave. On Pierce's face, grown gray, the sweat - stood in a microscopic dew. Gaylord's florid face was livid and tense; J. - Sumner Storrs had closed his eyes and seemed asleep, but the breath - whistled unpleasantly through his nostrils. - </p> - <p> - “Stop!” said the colonel so sharply that the duke turned like a flash—to - look into the barrel of a blue-steel automatic. - </p> - <p> - “Drop the razor, old chap! I can't let you kill the beggars in cold blood. - Upon my soul, I can't, you know!” His head was jerking and twisting at a - furious rate, but the revolver was as steady as a rock. - </p> - <p> - “It's our only chance. It won't hurt them. They won't feel it any more - than a feather—it's so sharp,” whispered the black-masked devil. - </p> - <p> - “Drop it, I say!” said the colonel, peremptorily. They heard a gritting of - teeth from behind the mask as the duke closed the razor and dropped it on - the floor. Still covering his accomplice, the colonel put his foot on the - weapon. “Thanks, old chap!” he said, pleasantly. At that very moment he - could have capitalized the gratitude of the ten prisoners at many - thousands. - </p> - <p> - “Fool!” came in a husky whisper. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, now! I say!” - </p> - <p> - “What's the difference between twenty years in the pen and twenty seconds - in the electric chair? I myself prefer the chair. But I'd rather cut their - throats and keep out of danger. I tell you, it's tempting Providence to - leave these men—” - </p> - <p> - “Is it as much as twenty years, old fellow?” queried the colonel, - obviously perturbed. - </p> - <p> - The duke nodded. - </p> - <p> - “I say, gentlemen, I don't want to stay twenty years indoors, you know. - Really, it's not a pleasant thought. What? If I give you your lives you - must not take away my liberty. So I will go out now and leave you here - with my friend, unless you promise not to tell the police anything that - will serve as a clue and yourselves do nothing to harm us. If you will act - like gentlemen I'll undertake to prevent my friend here from severing your - respective jugulars. Nod for 'Yes' and shake your heads for 'No.' Promise - not to talk?” - </p> - <p> - Ten heads nodded vehemently. - </p> - <p> - “Come, old chap; you must take their words. Gentlemen, you will be - released this evening without fail. We must have time to leave New York. - Avoid the reporters as you would the plague. It would not be wise to - publish the facts! Think of it—the heads of the great firms! In - parting from you, gentlemen, I wish to thank you in behalf of the Plunder - Recovery Syndicate, to the success of whose operations you have in this - instance so generously contributed. Gratitude surely is not incompatible - with business methods. Gentleman, again I say, Thank you kindly, and— - why not?—<i>au revoir!</i>” - </p> - <p> - And that was the last the captives saw of the man who, on behalf of the - Plunder Recovery Syndicate, had reduced the holdings of pearls and - trinkets of New York's most famous jewelers by a trifle over one million - dollars' worth. - </p> - <p> - It was nearly closing-time—midnight—that night when two men - entered P. T. Ayres's corner drugstore. One of them wore a fur overcoat - and a silk hat. The other was dressed in black, had a mourning-band about - his hat, and wore black gloves. He carried a bag on which the sleepy lady - cashier saw the “L” and the cabin tags of a transatlantic line. The man in - black said to her: - </p> - <p> - “May this gentleman telephone for me, miss? My throat is in pretty bad - shape, and I don't want to use it.” - </p> - <p> - It was in bad shape, indeed. She could hardly hear him. - </p> - <p> - “But, I say, dear chap—” remonstrated the fur-coated man, whose - collar was so tight that he wiggled his head violently as if in search of - comfort. - </p> - <p> - “This is as good a place as any,” whispered the man in black, impatiently. - “Call 'em up! I say, miss, have you got any slippery elm or some kind of - troches good for laryngitis?” - </p> - <p> - She remembered afterward that when she said she would call the proprietor - he kept her from it by engaging her in conversation, which likewise - prevented her from trying to hear what his companion was saying. - </p> - <p> - The fur-coated man had called up Spring 3100, which is police - headquarters. - </p> - <p> - “Are you there? I say, are you there? Yes, I know this is not London. You - know Mr. Pierce and Mr. Storrs and Mr. Boon and Mr. Gaylord? Well, tell - your men they are in a residence on Fifth Avenue, in the servants' - dining-room. It's Colonel Walton's house. Right-O! That's not your - business. Go to the devil!” He came out of the booth with an angry face. - “Confound their impudence! Where is my friend?” - </p> - <p> - “He's gone,” said the cashier. “Here—come back and pay for that - call; five cents!” - </p> - <p> - The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of the - whereabouts of the missing jewelers—for whom the star men had been - searching six hours diligently and secretly—and then tried, through - the telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which the - “tip” had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason Ayres's - drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his ignorance had - disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. The detectives - said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and their construction. - </p> - <p> - The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the - jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because it - was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As a matter - of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the miscreants - shortly—for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth Avenue? - </p> - <p> - The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their - lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and the - fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the back of - his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. The - Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated with the - <i>Ruritania</i> by wireless, and asked the purser if among the passengers - were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years of age, with - paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute laryngitis, - and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a nervous - affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. Within - twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: “St. Vitus here, under - name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis.” - </p> - <p> - So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted - with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of - Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's - clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J. - Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request - than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas W. - Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of - introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The New - York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they were on - the right trail. - </p> - <p> - Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the American - Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering Willie, who - had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris police reported - that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the scar on his hand - vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew normal when - questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story of having - been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask in a whisper - for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office on February - 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer bade him good-by - on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his hand and told him - always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the description of - Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police found that the - whisperer's trail led a second time to the <i>Herald</i> office. The - clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very well indeed. - Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the police they had - rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. J. C. Atkinson, an - Englishman who had given as references a firm of international bankers on - whom his letter of credit for five thousand pounds was drawn. The bankers - knew nothing about him personally or socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the - entire five thousand pounds. He had occupied the house two months, paid - his rent promptly, and had given a satisfactory deposit against possible - damage happening to any of the furniture. - </p> - <p> - The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues that - merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the paralyzed - vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling himself W. W. - Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. Longworth, - alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman was not known - to any member of the New York police force, but fortunately he had a - nervous affliction which would betray him without recourse to the third - degree. - </p> - <p> - Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from - New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, and - Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, typewritten - on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton: - </p> - <p> - <i>Having disposed of the pearls of the Princess Patricia at a price only - eight per cent, below that at which you offered them to H. R. H. the Duke - of Connaught, we beg to suggest that it is a waste of money for you to - encourage the detectives and downright dishonesty for the detectives to - encourage you. You have caused to be arrested unfortunate men suffering - from chorea in Liverpool, Bremen, Genoa, Buenos Ayres, and Panama, as well - as Mr. W. W. Lowry in Paris and W. W. Longman in the City of Mexico. For - the last eleven months Whispering Willie has been in the Missouri State - Penitentiary, where he is Number 317. Our Colonel Lowther has not St. - Vitus's dance, is not an Englishman, and has not left New York! The Duke - of Connaught, otherwise W. W. Lovell, of the Acme Vibrator Company, has a - fine, strong barytone voice, has no scar on the back of his right hand, is - too young to have gray hair, and his nose is not what it was when he was - known as Mr. Lovell. We needed time to move about unwatched in New York, - hence the elaborate false clues. We always plan our deals carefully and we - are uniformly successful. We may inform you, in selfdefense, that we - operate only on the rich enemies of society. Pearls and diamonds have - ruined as many women as drink has ruined men or Wall Street has destroyed - souls! We regard them as plunder to be recovered. You may be interested to - know that we propose to induce one of our most famous high financiers to - contribute a couple of millions to our surplus this month. At the proper - time we shall supply the name and the particulars, in order that you may - compare notes with the other patrons of</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Yours truly,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>The Plunderers.</i> - </p> - <p> - The jewelers were inclined to regard the letter as a jest in very bad - taste perpetrated by one of their number. But all denied it, and the - communication was turned over to the police. The detective sergeant who - was in charge of the case also thought the letter was a joke—until - Mr. Boon told him he didn't see anything funny in the loss of a million - dollars' worth of gems and a score of false arrests. He wondered, like the - rest, whether there really was a syndicate, and presently found himself - waiting for the news of the second exploit. “He fooled <i>me</i>” Boon - confided to Donnelly. But what he really meant was that the man who - impersonated the private secretary of the Duke of Connaught could fool - anybody. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - II-THE PANIC OF THE LION - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> MAN walked into - the office of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, members of the - New York Stock Exchange. All he could see was a ground-glass partition, - with little windows only a trifle larger than peepholes, over which he - read, “deliveries,” “comparisons,” “telegrams,” and “cashier.” If you had - business to transact you knew at which window to knock. If you had not you - should not disturb the unseen clerks by asking questions that took - valuable time to answer. It was a typical, non-communicative, - non-confiding Wall Street office. - </p> - <p> - The man approached the “cashier” window because it was open. He was tall - and well built, with unmyopic eyes that looked through - tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses. The brim of his high hat, the cut of his - coat, the hang of his trousers, the hue of his necktie and the gray, - waxed, needle-pointed mustaches proclaimed him unmistakably Parisian. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see Mr. Richards,” he said, in a nasal voice, so like the twang - of a stage Yankee that the cashier frowned and twisted his neck to see if - some down-easter were not hiding behind the Frenchman. - </p> - <p> - “You what?” asked the cashier, and looked watchful. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see,” repeated the stranger, with a formal precision meant, to - be rebuking, “Mr. George B. Richards, senior member, I believe, of this - firm.” - </p> - <p> - The cashier, with a frown that belied the courtesy of his words, said: - </p> - <p> - “Would you be kind enough to tell me the nature of your business, sir?” - </p> - <p> - Gourley, the cashier, insanely hated book agents, and his one pleasure in - life consisted of violently ejecting them from the office. When a man - clearly established his innocence Gourley never forgave him for cheating - him out of the kicking. - </p> - <p> - The stranger said, very slowly: - </p> - <p> - “The nature of my business with Mr. Richards is private, personal, and - urgent!” - </p> - <p> - The stranger might, be a customer, and customers make brokers rich and - give wages to cashiers. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Richards is very busy just now, sir, with an important conference. It - would be a favor if you could let me have your name.” - </p> - <p> - “He doesn't know me and he has never heard my name.” - </p> - <p> - “Would any one else do?” - </p> - <p> - The stranger shook his head. Then: - </p> - <p> - “Say to Mr. Richards that a gentleman from Paris wishes to give to him—personally—ten - letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret.” The man's - gaze was fixed frowningly on Gourley. - </p> - <p> - “Ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret!” - repeated Gourley, dazedly. “Here, Otto. Hold the fort. I'll go myself.” - </p> - <p> - The cashier's place was promptly occupied by a moon-faced Teuton. - Presently Gourley, whose misanthropy had in this instance merely made an - office-boy of him, returned to the window and said, in the insolent tones - of a puglistic <i>agent provocateur</i>: - </p> - <p> - “He says to send in the letters of introduction.” - </p> - <p> - “My friend,” said the stranger, so impressively that the cashier was made - uneasy, “are you sure Mr. Richards said that?” - </p> - <p> - “Well—ah—he said,” stammered Gourley, “to ask you—er—would - you please send in the letters. He will read them, and as soon as possible - he will—ah—see you.” - </p> - <p> - “H'm!” muttered the stranger, skeptically. Then, as a man rids himself of - angry thoughts, he shook his head and, without another word, went out. - </p> - <p> - “Ha! I knew it all along,” said Gourley, triumphantly, to his assistant, - Otto. “It beats the Dutch what schemes these damned book agents get up to - see people during business hours. But I called his bluff that time!” - </p> - <p> - Less than ten minutes later the French-looking man with the down-east - voice opened the door, tapped at the cashier's window, and told Gourley, - sternly: - </p> - <p> - “Here are the ten letters and the one card. They are very important! I'll - be obliged, sir, if you will yourself give them into Mr. Richards's own - hands. The life secret I, of course, will impart to him myself. Make - haste, please. I have only five business days and three hours left.” - </p> - <p> - Gourley laid the letters on Mr. Richards's desk and said, in the accusing - tone old employees use when they are in the wrong: “Here are the letters - of introduction from the book agent I spoke to you about. He acts damned - impudent to me, but I didn't want to make any mistake.” - </p> - <p> - Richards, a man of fifty, fastidiously dressed, but relieved from even the - implication of foppishness by a look in his eyes at once shrewd and - humorous, said, with a smile, “Well, he certainly has enough letters to be - anything, even a rich man.” - </p> - <p> - “Funny letters of introduction,” said the cashier—“all sealed and—” - His jaw dropped. That made him cease talking. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Richards had taken from the first envelope not a letter, but a - ten-thousand-dollar gold certificate! - </p> - <p> - The cashier closed his mouth with a click. “What the—!” he muttered. - </p> - <p> - “Next!” said George B. Richards, cheerfully. He opened envelope number two - and pulled out another ten-thousand-dollar bill. One after another he - opened the letters until he had laid in a neat pile on his desk ten - ten-thousand-dollar notes. - </p> - <p> - “The letters of introduction are from the Treasury Department,” said - Richards, laughing. “Now let us see whom the card is from.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't care whom the card is from. I know the man is crazy,” said - Gourley, in the defiant tone of one who expects not logic, but - contradiction. “It is as plain as the nose on your face.” - </p> - <p> - “Maybe they are counterfeit,” teased Richards; he knew they were not. - </p> - <p> - The cashier snatched one from the desk, looked at the vignette of Jackson, - and examined the back. “It's good,” he said, gloomily. - </p> - <p> - Richards opened the eleventh envelope and took out a card. - </p> - <p> - “From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet,” he told Gourley, and read - aloud: - </p> - <p> - <i>Dear George,—The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France, - a friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some - highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you. - Deal with him as you do with</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Yours,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Amos F. Kidder.</i> - </p> - <p> - “Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've signed - the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. Those - fellows,” said the cashier, indignantly, “will do anything to get your - money.” - </p> - <p> - “You forget I've got his,” suggested Richards. - </p> - <p> - “That's a new one on me, I admit,” said the cashier; “but I'll bet a - ten-spot—” - </p> - <p> - “I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if Kidder - should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him.” - </p> - <p> - The waxed-mustached man, preceded by Otto, the moon-faced clerk, entered - the private office of Mr. George B. Richards, who rose and smiled - pleasantly even as his keen eyes quickly inventoried Mr. Robison. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Richards?” twanged the stranger. That Yankee voice issuing from - between those unmistakably French mustaches made Richards start; and yet - the vague atmosphere of disquietude and suspicion that the ten letters of - introduction had created seemed to be dispelled by the man's Yankee twang. - It was so genuinely down-east that it humanized Mr. Robison and made his - eccentricity less eccentric. Also, the eyes gleamed not with the fire of - insanity, but with a great earnestness. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. And this is Mr. Robison?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir!” Mr. Robison bowed very low, like a man who has lived abroad - many years. - </p> - <p> - “Won't you be seated, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, sir.” There was another bow of gratitude, and Mr. Robison sat - down by Richards's flat-topped desk. - </p> - <p> - “What can we do for you, Mr. Robison?” asked Richards, amiably polite. His - course of action would be determined by the stranger's own words. - </p> - <p> - “You can help me if you will.” Mr. Robison spoke very earnestly, after the - manner of strong, self-reliant men when they ask for favors. - </p> - <p> - “We shall be glad to if you will tell me how.” - </p> - <p> - “By being patient. That's how.” - </p> - <p> - Richards laughed uncertainly. Mr. Robison held up a hand as if to check - unseemly merriment and said, very seriously: - </p> - <p> - “I have lived alone too long to be politic or diplomatic or evasive. I - wish to ask you a question.” - </p> - <p> - “Ask ahead,” said Richards, with an encouraging recklessness. - </p> - <p> - “Tell me, Mr. Richards—what is the most difficult thing in the - world?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison was looking intently at the broker's face, as if he - particularly desired to detect any change in expression. This intentness - disconcerted Richards, who had at first intended to answer jocularly. He - now said, distinctly apologetic: - </p> - <p> - “There are so many very difficult things!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, there are—a great many indeed. But of all things, which is by - far the most difficult?” His eyes held Richards's. - </p> - <p> - “I shall have to think a little before I can answer that question.” - </p> - <p> - “Take all the time you wish!” and Mr. Robison leaned back in his chair, - his attitude somehow suggesting a Gibraltar-like ability to withstand a - three years' siege. - </p> - <p> - It made Richards do much thinking very quickly: Here was a man who was not - crazy; who had lying on the desk a hundred thousand dollars in cash to - which he had not even casually referred; who probably intended to do - business that would prove a source of profit to the firm of Richards & - Tuttle. He might be a crank or a crook, but against either contingency the - firm could and would protect itself. It was just as well to humor this man - until he proved himself unworthy of humoring. The problem of the moment, - therefore, became how to raise the siege politely. - </p> - <p> - “I suppose,” began Richards, trying to look philosophical, “that telling - the truth always and every-, where is about as difficult a thing as—” - </p> - <p> - “It isn't a question,” interrupted Robison, with a polite regret, “of as - difficult a thing as any, but of the most difficult of all!” - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid I'll have to ask you to tell me what you consider the most - difficult thing in the world.” - </p> - <p> - Brokers have to earn their money in more complicated ways than by shouting - “Sold!” or “Take it!” on the floor of the Stock Exchange. They have to - listen to potential customers. - </p> - <p> - “The most difficult thing in the world, Mr. George B. Richards, is for a - man to give money—in cash—to a woman who is not his wife or - his mistress or a blood-relation or a pauper!” - </p> - <p> - “That <i>is</i> difficult!” acquiesced the broker. - </p> - <p> - “It is what I have to do. That is why I am here.” - </p> - <p> - “You mean you wish us to give this money—” - </p> - <p> - “No—no! How can you, pray, give money to a lady any better than I?” - </p> - <p> - “I wondered,” said Richards, patiently. He was beginning to fear that - Robison might be one of those mysterious people out of whom no money is to - be made. - </p> - <p> - “Would you mind hearing my story?” Mr. Robison looked at Richards - pleadingly. - </p> - <p> - “Not at all,” politely lied the broker. - </p> - <p> - “There is a lady in New York—to be explicit, an old sweetheart—” - Mr. Robison paused, bit his lip, looked away, bit his lip again and - cleared his throat loudly. He did all these things so untheatrically that - they thrilled the keen-eyed Wall Street man. Presently Mr. Robison went on - in that Yankee nasal voice of his that somehow sounded like the extreme - antithesis of sentiment: “The only woman I ever loved! I have never - married! She did—unfortunately; and now, this girl, this woman, - accustomed to every comfort and every refinement, has to earn her own - living! She has five children and she is earning her living!” He rose and - walked up and down the office like a caged wild animal. Then he sat down - again and said, determinedly, “Of course I simply have to do something for - her!” - </p> - <p> - “I appreciate your position,” said Richards, tenderly. He was a very good - stock-broker. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. You cannot imagine what she was to me! I came to America to - find her. I have found her. I wish to give her money or securities that - will insure a comfortable income, and I have to do it circuitously. I'd - give half a million to anybody who killed her damned husband! Yes, I - would!” He looked at Richards with a wild hope in his eyes. He calmed - himself with an obvious effort and proceeded: “Knowing her as I do, and - because of—of certain circumstances of our early affair, I know she - will never accept any help directly from me. Last night I was calling on - her. Other friends of hers were present, among them a man who called - himself a lawyer. His name is W. Bailey Jackson. Know him?” - </p> - <p> - “No, I don't. I think I've heard of him, though.” Richards lied from sheer - force of professional habit. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I led the conversation round to Wall Street and incidentally said I - didn't know which was easier for a man, to be a fool or to make money in - the stock-market. I, myself, I hastened to add, had always found folly - extremely easy—but successful stock speculation infinitely easier. - That, I may remark to you in passing, sir, is gospel truth.” - </p> - <p> - “You are right,” agreed Richards, heartily. It did not behoove a - stock-broker to point out the difficulty of making money in Wall Street. - Moreover, Mr. Robison showed so quiet a confidence that Richards had - lightning flashes of memory, and recollected every story he had ever heard - about queer characters who had taken millions out of the Street. - </p> - <p> - “This Mr. W. Bailey Jackson jeered and sneered, however, until I said I - would bet him fifty dollars to fifty cents that I could double a sum of - money in the Street in one week, in a reputable broker's office, operating - on the New York Stock Exchange in a reputable and active stock—no - bucket-shop, no mining-stock, and no pool manipulation. But I made this - point: The trick was so easy that it was not interesting. I didn't wish to - do it to make money, but if Mrs.—if my friend would accept the - profits, I would prove that I knew what I was talking about; and, besides, - would keep the children in candy for a month. And, of course, everybody - laughed and urged her to consent—especially the Jackson person. In - the end she gave in, doubtless thinking I'd win a few dollars—if I - won at all. Also my offer was accepted in the presence and by the advice - of men and women who could stop Mrs. Grundy's mouth.” - </p> - <p> - “Very clever!” said Richards, with the enthusiasm of a man who sees - commissions coming his way. - </p> - <p> - “It was love that made me so ingenious,” explained. Mr. Robison, very - simply. “I've got her written acceptance in my pocket as well as that - damned W. Bailey Jackson's bet, duly witnessed by the two gossipiest women - there. And in this envelope you will find instructions for your guidance - in case of my sudden death. So I now wish to double the money.” - </p> - <p> - He looked inquiringly at Richards, who thereupon felt the pangs of - disappointment. Neither crank nor crook, decided the broker, but simply <i>Suckerius - Americanus; genus</i> D. F. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison evidently was going to ask Richards & Tuttle to take the - one hundred thousand dollars and double it for him, which meant that Mr. - Richards would have to inform Mr. Robison that the firm was not in the - miracle business; and that would make Mr. Robison go away mad. Total—no - commissions! - </p> - <p> - “Well,” Richards said, just a trifle coldly, “did you come to us to ask us - to double your money for you?” - </p> - <p> - “No, indeed,” answered Robison; “I came here to do it.” - </p> - <p> - “When?” - </p> - <p> - “In one week—or, rather, in five days and two hours.” - </p> - <p> - “How are you going to do it?” The broker's curiosity was not feigned. - </p> - <p> - “I propose to study the Menagerie.” - </p> - <p> - Richards said nothing, but looked “Lunatic!” - </p> - <p> - “That way inevitably suggests the combinations to you.” Mr. Robison nodded - to himself. - </p> - <p> - Richards, to be on the safe side, did likewise and muttered, absently, - “That's so!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you care to come with me?” asked Mr. Robison, with a politeness that - betrayed effort. “Thank you, no. I am very busy, and—” - </p> - <p> - “And you didn't cut me short!” said Robison, his voice ringing with - remorse. “I'll come in tomorrow morning. Good afternoon—and please - forgive my theft of your time, Mr. Richards.” - </p> - <p> - “One moment. Do you wish this money—” - </p> - <p> - “I'll get the receipt to-morrow. I am going to see Kidder now. I didn't - mean to take up so much of your time.” And before the banker could stop - him Mr. James B. Robison was out of the inner office and out of the outer - office and out of the building and out of the financial district. - </p> - <p> - Shortly afterward Amos F. Kidder, financial editor of the <i>Evening - Planet</i>, west into Richards's office. He was thirty-five years old, a - trifle under six feet, had light-brown hair and the eyes of a man who is a - cynic by force of experience and an optimist by reason of a perfect liver—the - kind of man who is fooled by strangers never and by intimate friends - always. If what he had seen of Wall Street gave him a low opinion of men's - motives he had the defect of steadfast loyalty. Having imagination and a - profound respect for statistics, he wrote what might be called skilful - articles on finance. - </p> - <p> - “Your friend Robison was here to-day. What do you know about him?” asked - Richards. He would not take a stranger's account, but he did not relish - losing an account he already had. - </p> - <p> - Kidder took a letter from his pocket, gave it to the stock-broker, and - said: - </p> - <p> - “Smiley gave him a letter to me and in addition sent me that one by mail.” - </p> - <p> - Richards read: - </p> - <p> - The New York Planet, 5 Rue de Provence. - </p> - <p> - Paris, February 18, 1912. - </p> - <p> - <i>Dear Kidder,—I've given a letter of introduction to a Mr. James - B. Robison, who comes originally from some manufacturing town in - Massachusetts, like Lynn or Lowell—I've forgotten which. He is well - liked by the colony here and, I am told, has been kind to poor art - students and other self-deluded compatriots. He is queer; is suspected of - being rich—which he must be because he never borrows, lives well, - and says moneymaking is too easy to merit discussion when men can discuss - the eternal feminine or the revival of cosmetics. His trip to New York is - prompted, he tells me, by the receipt of a letter from an old flame of his - whom he warned against marrying her present husband. She would not listen - to Robison, accused him in choice Bostonian of being a short sport, and - now after long years she writes him, asking for forgiveness, being at last - convinced that her husband is all that Robison said—and then some. - He is off to try to find her; she is somewhere in New York. Put him in - touch with some private detective who won't rob him too ruthlessly.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>I don't think he'll want to borrow money, as I know he is taking a - letter of credit on Towne, Ripley & Co. for fifty thousand pounds; and - they told me at his bankers'—Madison & Co.—that he owns - slathers of gilt-edged bonds and that they cash the coupons for him. They - also tell me he carries more cash about him than is prudent. You might - suggest to him that the New York banks are safe enough. You'll find him a - character—odd but charitable. Knowing your fondness for fiction in - real life I commend Mr. Robison to you. Regards to the boys. Why don't you - make a million and come over to spend it in the company of Yours as ever,</i> - </p> - <p> - Lurton P. Smiley. - </p> - <p> - Richards handed the letter back. “He came here with ten - ten-thousand-dollar gold certificates.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; he got 'em from Towne, Ripley & Co. I went with him. They had - instructions to pay any amount he might call for, and they did. He asked - for large bills.” - </p> - <p> - “He got 'em!” said Richards, greatly relieved at seeing no necessity why - he should refuse Robison's account. - </p> - <p> - “What's he going to do?” asked Kidder. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know. He told me he had found his old sweetheart and that he is - going to give her all he makes in Wall Street. He expects to double the - one hundred thousand dollars in a week.” - </p> - <p> - “For Heaven's sake, George, find out his secret! Half a million will do - for me,” laughed Kidder. - </p> - <p> - “He gave me an envelope,” said Richards, taking it from his desk. On it - was written: - </p> - <h3> - PROPERTY OF JAMES B. ROBISON - </h3> - <p> - To be Opened by Richards & Tuttle In Case of Sudden Death - </p> - <p> - “What do you think?” asked Richards. - </p> - <p> - “You really mean do I advise you to open it, don't you?” asked Kidder.. - </p> - <p> - “Not exactly; but—” - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said the newspaper man, “it does not say it is <i>not</i> to - be opened in case of <i>living</i>. That is sufficient excuse—that - and your curiosity.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't like to open it,” said Richards, doubtfully. - </p> - <p> - “Don't!” - </p> - <p> - “Still, I'd like to know what's inside.” - </p> - <p> - “Then open it.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't think I have a right to.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't, then!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, shut up! I won't open it! I don't know whether to take the account. - You don't know anything about this man—” - </p> - <p> - “You broker fellows make me tired—posing as careful business men. - All Robison has to do is to go to any of your branch offices or anybody's - branch office, say his name is W. Jones and that he keeps a cigar-store in - Hackensack or Flatbush, and your branch manager will never let him get - away. And afore-mentioned manager will swear, if you should be so mean as - to ask who W. Jones is, that he and W. J. went to school together—known - him for years!” - </p> - <p> - “After all,” said Richards, a trifle defiantly, “there is no reason why I - shouldn't do business for Robison that you know of?” - </p> - <p> - “Not that I know of—but if he buncoes you out of a big wad don't - blame me.” - </p> - <p> - “He is welcome to anything he can make out of us,” smiled Richards, - grimly, and Kidder laughed so heartily that the broker looked pleased with - himself and his witticism. He rang for the cashier, gave him the one - hundred thousand dollars, and had the amount credited to James B. Robison, - address unknown. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter leaving the - office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. James B. Robison went to the Subway - station at Wall Street, rode up-town as far as Forty-second Street, walked - to Sixth Avenue, took a surface car, jumped off at Forty-eighth, walked to - Forty-ninth, waited there for the next car, and, being certain he was not - shadowed, rode on to Fifty-sixth Street. He got off, walked north on the - avenue and, half-way up the block, paused at the entrance of the - employment agency of “<i>Jno. Sniffens, Established 1858</i>.” On the big - slate by the door he read that there was wanted a coachman—careful - driver; elderly man preferred. - </p> - <p> - He walked up-stairs one flight and accosted the agent. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Sniffens.” - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” answered Sniffens, son of the original Jno., - very obsequiously. - </p> - <p> - “Are they here?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “How many?” - </p> - <p> - “Seven.” - </p> - <p> - “I've seen fifty-six so far—haven't I?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir,” contradicted Sniffens with the air of a man who will tell the - truth even if death should resuit. “Fifty-five. You forget you saw the - Swede twice.” - </p> - <p> - “That is true, Sniffens. You are an honest man! Here!” And he gave ten - dollars to the agent. “Send in the men.” - </p> - <p> - He sat down in the inner office and Sniffens went out, presently to return - with an elderly man. “This is Wilkinson—worked twenty-nine years—” - </p> - <p> - “Sorry. Won't do. Here, my man! Take this two-dollar bill for your - trouble. Next!” - </p> - <p> - Much the same thing happened with the next four applicants. The fifth man, - however, made Robison listen patiently while Sniffens finished his - elaborately biographical introduction. The man's name was Thomas Gray; age - fifty-eight; worked twelve years for General James Morris and fourteen for - Stuyvesant R. Morris. Very careful. Excellent references. Morris family - went abroad to live. Gray had not done anything for five years, but was - willing and anxious to work. - </p> - <p> - Robison, who had been studying Gray keenly, said sharply, and not at all - nasally: - </p> - <p> - “Height and weight?” - </p> - <p> - “Five foot eleven and a half inches; one hundred and seventy pounds, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Deaf?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “No?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir; but I don't hear as well as I did.” - </p> - <p> - “Can you hear this?” And Robison whispered, “Constantinople!” - </p> - <p> - “Beg pardon, sir!” Gray looked at Mr. Robison's face intently, but Robison - shook his head and said: - </p> - <p> - “No fair looking! That isn't hearing, but lipreading. Close your eyes and - listen!” And he whispered, “Bab-el-Mandeb!” No one could have heard him - three feet away and Gray was across the room. Robison raised his voice and - said, “Did you hear that?” - </p> - <p> - There showed in Gray's blue eyes a pathetic struggle between telling the - truth and getting the job. “I—I only heard a faint murmur, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Try again. Listen!” Mr. Robison moved his lips soundlessly and asked, - “What did I say, Gray?” The old man drew in a deep breath. It was not so - much the money, for the Morris family gave him a pension; but he wished to - feel that he was not yet useless, that he was still worth his keep. - However, he shook his head and said, determinedly: - </p> - <p> - “I heard nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “Open your eyes! You get the job, Gray,” said Mr. Robison. “Come here!” - </p> - <p> - As Gray approached his new employer Sniffens left the room. - </p> - <p> - “You are not to tell any one for whom you are working, or where, or why, - or for how long, or for what wages. There will be no night work. Are you - very careful?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “You'll have to take some children to school every day—poor children - to a public school in the morning. You are not to ask their names. Do what - you are told, no matter how queer it seems to you, so long as you are not - asked to break the law of the land or the rules of the road.” - </p> - <p> - “Very good, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall send people to ask you questions, and I warn you that I'm going - to put you to various tests. I want a man who is honest enough to trust - with valuables, wise enough to mind his own business, and faithful enough - to do what his employer tells him.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Until you prove you are the man I want you will be paid by the day—five - dollars. You will feed yourself and sleep home. I supply the livery and a - second man. If after one month's trial you are found satisfactory you will - get your wages by the month. It's big wages, but I want an honest man!” He - looked at Gray sternly. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. I'm careful and honest, sir. I think you will find that to be - true, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I trust so. The stable is on Thirty-first Street, near Avenue B. Here is - the number.” He gave a card to Gray. “Be there at eight sharp. You will - drive a coupé; quiet horse; New York City.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. I'll be there, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Here's five dollars for you. You don't have to pay any fee to Sniffens. - I've paid him.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, sir. Good day, sir.” - </p> - <p> - At seven-thirty the next morning Gray was at the stable. It was not a very - good-looking place. He rang the bell, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. No - one answered. He rang a second and a third time, and still there was no - answer. He listened, his ear close to the door. He heard the muffled sound - of a horse pounding in a well-littered stall. - </p> - <p> - At eight o'clock—Gray heard a clock within chime the hour—the - door opened. Gray entered. A man was hitching up a dark bay horse to a - coupé. Mr. Robison was sitting in a sumptuous green-plush armchair in the - carriage-room. Behind him, on a mahogany table, was a small valise, - opened. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Gray,” said Robison. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” said Gray, respectfully. - </p> - <p> - Robison took a clean white-linen handkerchief from his pocket and said: - </p> - <p> - “See that brick over there?” He pointed to a common red brick on a little - shelf near the street door. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, wrap it up in this handkerchief—here on this table. No—don't - dust it. Just as it is!” He watched Gray's face keenly. The old man's - countenance remained English and impassive. - </p> - <p> - “Put it in the valise.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “In yonder box you'll find some tenpenny nails. Fetch three and wrap them - up in the sheet of paper you'll find in the valise. Then lay them on top - of the brick.” - </p> - <p> - Gray did as he was bid. If he thought his employer was crazy he did not - look it. - </p> - <p> - Robison then took from his pocket a sealed envelope, threw it into the - valise, and closed the valise. - </p> - <p> - “You will find your livery in the dressing-room—door to your left. - Put it on. Then drive so as to be before 197 West Thirty-eighth Street at - exactly nine minutes after nine. Compare your watch with that clock. Wait - there—Thirty-eighth Street—until a footman in dark-green - livery comes out alone. If he asks you, 'James, did Ben win?' you will say - to him, 'The answer is inside. Take it!' You will then return to this - stable, fasten the horse to that chain, put on your street clothes, go - home, and return to-morrow at eight sharp. But—” He paused. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Pay attention, Gray! If, instead of the servant alone, the servant comes - out of, 197 West Thirty-eighth Street accompanied by a gentleman who gets - in, you will drive him to my office.” - </p> - <p> - “Where, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “This is my office—here. You will drive back here quickly and - disregard everything your passenger may say or whatever orders he may give - you. You understand? These are your orders that I now give you. They are - not to be changed under any circumstances, no matter what happens. Have - you understood?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. I'll follow orders, Mr. Maynard.” - </p> - <p> - “See that you do.” And Mr. Robison walked out of the stable. - </p> - <p> - At nine-nine sharp Gray stood in front of 197 West Thirty-eighth Street. - At nine-fifteen a footman in dark-green livery came out of the house. He - was followed by Mr. Robison himself. The man opened the door of the - carriage and Gray's employer got in. - </p> - <p> - “Will you go to the office, sir?” asked the footman. Gray heard him. - </p> - <p> - “No! Metropolitan Museum!” answered their master, distinctly. - </p> - <p> - “Metropolitan Museum!” said the footman to the coachman. - </p> - <p> - Gray was torn by doubt, anger, and fear. Should he drive to the - Metropolitan or back to the stable? - </p> - <p> - He decided to go back to the stable. If he were discharged he would not - regret losing so unsatisfactory a job. If, on the other hand, driving back - should prove to be the right thing he would greatly strengthen his - position. - </p> - <p> - He arrived at the stable, fastened the horse to the chain, and went to - change his clothes. He heard Mr. Robison tap on the glass of the door and - saw him beckon to him and then heard him shout, “Open the door!” But Gray - went to the dressing-room and changed his clothes. As soon as he was done - the second man came in, showed him two envelopes, and said: - </p> - <p> - “You win! You get the ten dollars! I get the five-spot. That's how he - pays. You obeyed orders. You are the first man that's succeeded in holding - the job over one day. The Lord only knows what test Mr. Maynard will - prepare for you to-morrow! It may be the children's lunch stunt or the - runaway lunatic. Run out! Mr. Maynard won't like you to be here when he - comes in. You can go out into the street by that door without going - through the carriage-room.” - </p> - <p> - Gray put the ten dollars in his pocket and walked out. “Rum go, that!” he - muttered. It was indeed. He nodded his head with a sad sort of triumph to - show that though he had not solved the mystery he had at all events - grasped the situation and was, moreover, ten dollars to the good. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was after the - opening of the stock-market and most of the early orders had been - executed. The rush had given place to the calm efficiency of a - well-organized broker's office. Mr. Robison walked into the Customers' - Room, approached Gilbert Witherspoon, a valued customer, touched his - hat-brim with two fingers in the French military fashion, and said: - </p> - <p> - “Please, where's Mr. Richards?” His nasal twang and his Parisian - appearance produced the usual impression of striking incongruity upon all - men within hearing distance. Everybody frankly listened. - </p> - <p> - “That's his private office,” answered Witherspoon, non-committally, - pointing his finger at a door. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you very much!” said Robison and bowed. Then he knocked, heard a - peremptory “Come in!” and disappeared within. - </p> - <p> - Witherspoon, who cultivated a reputation as a wit—there is a buffoon - in every stock-broker's office—shrugged his shoulders Frenchily, - and, in a nasal voice obviously in imitation of Robison, said: - </p> - <p> - “Another world-beater!” - </p> - <p> - “You never can tell,” retorted Dan McCormack, oracularly. He was fat, - always played “mysteries” in the market—traded in those stocks the - movements in which were unaccounted for—and he did not like - Witherspoon. - </p> - <p> - Inside Mr. Robison had said “<i>Bon jour!”</i> and bowed so very low that - Mr. Richards immediately thought of the language of a fashionable bill of - fare. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Wie geht's?</i>” retorted Richards, jocularly. Then, nicely serious, - “How are you this morning?” - </p> - <p> - “Don't I look it?” said Mr. Robison. “I am, of course, perplexed.” - </p> - <p> - “What's the trouble?” - </p> - <p> - “The usual trouble when I try to beat the stock-market—<i>embarras - de richesses</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “It is an embarrassment that most people would welcome.” - </p> - <p> - “Tut! The more elaborate the menu is in a good restaurant the greater your - indecision as to which particular dish you will order! Well, I went - through the Menagerie!” There was a catarrhal despair in his voice. - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” - </p> - <p> - “And I am undecided between four.” - </p> - <p> - Robison looked anxiously at the broker, and Richards felt such an - annoyance as a man might feel if compelled at the point of a pistol to - listen to the reading of one hundred pages of the city directory. But he - smiled tolerantly, for he had the professional amiability indispensable to - men whose business consists of making money and of consoling clients for - losing money. - </p> - <p> - “Four what?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Four sure ways.” - </p> - <p> - “Which four?” asked Richards. He managed to convey both that he was dying - to listen and that the rest of the world did not exist for him. - </p> - <p> - “The Ant, the Spider, the Beaver, and the Lion. Out of the nineteen - combinations in the Menagerie I've narrowed my choice to these four. You - know conditions better than I and probably have seen the Cribbage Board. - Have you a choice?” He looked at Richards so eagerly, and withal so - shrewdly and sanely, that in self-defense the broker said: - </p> - <p> - “I can't say that I have. Of course I am bullish—” - </p> - <p> - “Of course. But the question is: Which—in a week?” - </p> - <p> - Richards had no idea what was meant by this man with the sane eyes who - said crazy things through his nose—a man who had one hundred - thousand dollars to his credit with the firm. Perplexed to the verge of - exasperation, Richards was stock-broker enough—when in doubt, bluff!—to - say, with a frown, “Yes, that's the question: Which—in a week?” He - shook his head as though he were trying to pick out the best for his - beloved Robison. - </p> - <p> - “I never was so puzzled in my life, and I want you to know that I've made - money even in Rumanian bonds!” - </p> - <p> - “I'm afraid I can't help you much.” - </p> - <p> - “What does the I. S. Board say?” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Robison, exactly what do you mean by the I. S. Board?” - </p> - <p> - “What? You don't know the International Syndicate Cribbage Board! Then how - in Hades do you pick your combinations?” - </p> - <p> - “We buy and sell stocks on our judgment of basic conditions or for special - reasons.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, yes—like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess. - Well, <i>I</i> don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full - in a week. Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with - him. And yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest - corner he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess - we'll dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger - group.” - </p> - <p> - Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But - Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, “I - think you are right.” - </p> - <p> - Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: “The situation in the - Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the Dam - in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the Rothschilds - worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too many people who - have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all this, but,” he - finished, with profound regret, “it <i>is</i> such a cinch!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But—” Richards shook his head in sympathy. He felt that he - ought to humor this man; moreover, business was quiet, and this man was - saying incomprehensible things that would be repeated by Richards, with - sensational success, at luncheons and dinners for weeks. - </p> - <p> - “Of course, the Spider is the oldest stand-by. Personally I never liked - it. In the Governor Flower boom and, indeed, up to the Northern Pacific - panic, its popularity was due to John W. Gates. But do you know, Mr. - Richards, I have always believed that in the first two Steel and Wire - coups and in the Louisville & Nashville affair, Gates hit upon it by - accident. Else,” pursued Mr. Robison, controversially, “why was he pinched - so badly in 1901 and again in 1907? He hit upon it, after he got out of - Federal Steel, by accident, I tell you! He was a man of genius and - courage, but it was all instinct with him. He was no student, sir—no - student!” - </p> - <p> - “I've always said,” observed Mr. George B. Richards, “that Gates was not a - student!” He glared, thereby successfully defying contradiction. - </p> - <p> - “It leaves the Lion!” muttered Robison. “Should I try it? And which Peg?” - </p> - <p> - “I'd try it!” counseled Richards, who was not only intelligent, but had a - sense of humor. - </p> - <p> - “Would you, really?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I certainly would!” And the broker looked as if he certainly meant - it. - </p> - <p> - “It's the Dutch favorite,” said Robison, musingly. “And they are a very - clever people. You know Van Vollenhoven in his book says that once a year, - for thirteen consecutive years, the great Cornelius Roelofs, of Amsterdam, - made a million gulden in London by the Lion—the most hopeful - pessimist in the history of stock speculation! It comes easy to the - phlegmatic Hollanders, but Americans are too nervous to take kindly to it. - I once begged the late Addison Cammack to join me in a Lion deal, but he - didn't. He was not very well at the time. Anyhow, he was too American.” - </p> - <p> - “Did you know him?” - </p> - <p> - “Like a book! Dangerous man to follow! Cynicism sounds impressive, but is - wind. You don't win in the stock-market with catch phrases, but with - combinations.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you use charts?” - </p> - <p> - “A stock speculator is not a navigator, but all commission-houses should - have a chart. With some customers, after you have exhausted every other - invitation, you can use the chart to get them trading. But not for us, Mr. - George B. Richards. I think you will soon realize that I am in this affair - not to lose money, but to make it. I shall, therefore, either buy Dock - Island, sell Middle Pacific, buy National Smelting, or sell Consolidated - Steel. I'll have a pad of special order-slips made so you will not mistake - my orders for those of any one else. You will execute for me no order that - is not written and signed by me on such a slip. I'll keep up my margin. - We'll operate on a ten-per-cent, basis; and I hereby authorize you to sell - me out when my margin is down to six points. That gives you ample safety. - It is really unnecessary, as I never lose; but I always protect the - broker. The sudden death by heart disease of Baron Lespinasse in 1883 sent - into bankruptcy the great firms of La Croissade et Cie. and Mayer, Dreyfus - et Cie., of Paris, Ver-brugghe Frères, of Brussels, and about a dozen - smaller houses. Mine, to be sure, is a trifling operation, designed to - supply a modest income to an old flame. But I may—who knows?—decide - to take a few millions back with me. And your firm, Mr. Richards, will be - my principal brokers.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison said this so impressively, so much as though he had made the - firm of Richards & Tuttle rich beyond the dreams of avarice, that - George B. found it easy to look grateful as he said, “Thank you, Mr. - Robison.” It would be worth while watching this mysterious man, to see, - first, if he made money; and if he did, how! - </p> - <p> - “I'll write it here and now. If my margins are down to six points at any - time close me out, for I shall have been mistaken, which is a sign I've - gone crazy; or I shall be dead, in which case protect yourself!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison wrote out the instructions, signed them, and gave them to Mr. - Richards. He must have noticed a look of uncertainty or dissatisfaction on - the broker's face, for he said: - </p> - <p> - “I have no desire to pose before you as an unfailing winner, though I - assure you I seldom lose. It is not brains, but carefulness. If you know - nothing about the International Syndicate's information collecting - machinery, why, just take my word for it that there are people in this - world who don't work on the hit-or-miss plan. We don't eliminate all - possibilities of failure; we merely reduce them to a negligible minimum. - We cannot prevent all accidents, but we can and do foresee some of them. - This sounds crazy to you, I know—no, don't deny it!—but all I - can say is that your natural suspicions don't affect your kindness and - courtesy, and I am more grateful than I can say. Of course, my own - operations here will be conducted with your approval, in strict accordance - with the rules of the New York Stock Exchange.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I am sure I haven't doubted your sanity,” said the broker, who had - been much reassured by Mr. Robison's look of frankness and earnestness as - he spoke. “I have merely suspected the depths of my own ignorance.” - </p> - <p> - “Your retort is both kind and clever. I thank you. I shall have to borrow - one of your clerks or office-boys between nine-forty and ten a. m., to - whom I may give my orders to bring to this office, and also ask you to - recommend to me some young man who is intelligent but honest, wide awake - but deaf to the ticker.” - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon?” - </p> - <p> - “I shall need a young man who can watch certain developments and at the - crucial moment will hasten to me without stopping on the way to take - advantage in the stock-market of what he has learned while working for - me.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall let you have one of my own clerks. He'll do as he is told.” - </p> - <p> - “That is not always to be taken as praise—but I thank you. There - will be some telegrams come for me. Will you kindly see that they are - held? Good morning!” And he left the room. - </p> - <p> - An hour later cablegrams and telegrams by the dozen began to come in for - Robison, care Richards & Tuttle. But Robison did not return to the - office until after the close of the stock-market. - </p> - <p> - “Any messages?” he asked Richards. - </p> - <p> - “Not over a hundred!” answered the broker, smilingly. He felt less - suspicious after the telegrams began to arrive; they were tools he - understood. - </p> - <p> - “I used the Triple Three,” explained Robison, opening telegram after - telegram; the cables he seemed to leave for the last. The telegrams were, - as Richards later ascertained, from San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Los - Angeles, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and other points west of the Rockies. - Each contained but one word, but always the word ended in “less,” such, - for example, as Headless, Toothless, Tailless, Nerveless. All were signed - in the same way, to wit: Three-Three-Three. - </p> - <p> - “No Beaver! I'm just as glad,” Robison mused aloud and took up the - cablegrams. They were from London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and - Amsterdam. They were in code, but he seemed to have the key by heart. The - very last one made him thoughtful. - </p> - <p> - He handed the cablegram absently to Richards and said, “The Lion after all—and - artificial at that!” He seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious of his - whereabouts, as Richards read: - </p> - <p> - Robison, care Richtut: - </p> - <p> - Mogulgar wind Lloyd Vast Nigger Shaw twice home urban sweet Edward. - </p> - <p> - “Code, hey?” - </p> - <p> - “Lion! Oh! Code, did you say? No. Code is too risky. Plain reading! Of - course I have more practice than you. Give it to one of your office-boys - to decipher. If he succeeds give him fifty dollars and charge it to my - account. But what I can't tell is the politics of it. Is it collusion, - philanthropy, or fear? Is it wise? After all, the unusual is not - necessarily dangerous. I shall double my money within four days and you - will make the commissions in a perfectly simple, legitimate way; and you - will think I am a pretty sane lunatic; and you will respect me for having - such sources of information; and if I can induce Mrs. Le—my friend - to take it, I'll make a million for her in a month, and you will get the - benefits accruing from having the market named after you—a Richards - & Tuttle market, the papers will call it. Thank you very much for your - kindness. I'll be down to-morrow before the opening. Good day, sir!” - </p> - <p> - And Mr. Robison left the office with a calm, confident look in his face. - Richards gazed after him, a look of perplexity on his own face. Presently - he shook his head. It meant that he gave up efforts to solve the puzzle, - but that he would wait until commissions began. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>rom Richards & - Tuttle's office Robison went to the nearest Western Union office and gave - a letter to the manager. - </p> - <p> - “Send this at once! City editor, <i>Evening World</i>, Park Row. No - answer. How much?” - </p> - <p> - The manager told him. Robison paid him and then went to the - Postal-Telegraph office and sent a message to the city editor, <i>Evening - Journal</i>. Inside of each envelope was a letter. Both read alike, as - follows: - </p> - <p> - <i>Dear Sir,—Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good - turn. In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big - piece of news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things - looked pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his - name. He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot - ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore - eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking - cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving Bank. - Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being good to me. - Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and promoter, is - going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be held for one - hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to him, because he - will be sure to pay.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it - and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, but it - will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance relaxes, - as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy yan! Don't print - anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of Garrettson, his home, - art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, and corporations controlled by - him, and so on. Keep this letter for reference, and just before you throw - it into the waste-basket remember this: It costs you nothing; it commits - you to nothing, involves no expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no - fool joke. Remember my writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I - shall send you if I possibly can, so that you alone publish the news.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Grateful Friend.</i> - </p> - <p> - The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but - each made a mental note—in case! Also they did not “tip off” - anybody. They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson, - because if they acted on every freak missive they received half the city - would not sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great - Garrettson. - </p> - <p> - At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied by - an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed “From J. B. R., for - Richards & Tuttle,” went to the Broad Street entrance of the New York - Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or so it - seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: “There he is!” - </p> - <p> - The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing but - hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so disappointed - that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, “Who, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “Nobody!” answered Mr. Robison, shortly. “Go back to the office and tell - Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me—the clerk with the - ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here.” - </p> - <p> - The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers. - </p> - <p> - “Here is Mr. Manley,” the office-boy told Mr. Robison. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office.” - </p> - <p> - The office-boy put the five-dollar bill in his pocket, said “Thank you” in - a voice celestial, and hurried away before the crazy Frenchman with the - Cape Cod voice discovered the size of the tip. To Manley, the clerk, Mr. - Robison said: - </p> - <p> - “Look across the street—W. H. Garrettson & Co. You can see Mr. - Garrettson by the window. See him?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, just you stay here and watch him; and if you see him do anything - unusual or if anything happens in Garrettson's office that you think - strange, run to our office and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. Don't - be afraid to say so if you think something unusual is going on, because I - tell you now that Mr. Garrettson never does anything unusual.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Now what would you call unusual?” - </p> - <p> - “What would you?” - </p> - <p> - “If a bareheaded man came out of the office, stood at the head of the - steps and threw an egg into the middle of the street, I'd call it - unusual.” - </p> - <p> - “So would I.” - </p> - <p> - “Especially if I went up to the smashed egg and found the insides were of - ink. It might be red ink or black.” - </p> - <p> - “That would be queer!” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly. You watch. Go to lunch at twelve-thirty and be back at one. - Remember! Watch closely, and if anything unusual happens look carefully - and then come and tell me. Here's ten dollars for you.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “It's only a beginning,” smiled Mr. Robison, promisingly. - </p> - <p> - Manley, the clerk, put the money in his pocket and began to think he might - be able to buy the motorboat next spring if this business kept up. - </p> - <p> - Between what Sweeney, the office-boy, suspected aloud and what Manley, the - clerk, confirmed the office force of Richards & Tuttle discussed Mr. - Robison with the zest of the deciding baseball game. - </p> - <p> - Richards had confided to his intimates some of his experiences, and Amos - Kidder, the <i>Evening Planet</i> man, was as interested in the mystery as - if he had not been the man who first let loose the flood of surmise by - introducing Robison to the brokers. - </p> - <p> - Nothing happened on Tuesday more exciting than keeping tally on the - telegrams and cables received by Mr. Robison, which amounted to - thirty-seven in all. The object of so much conjecture—and hero of - the office-boy's improvised dime novel—spent the day in an arm-chair - looking at the blackboard, making elaborate calculations that convinced - other customers he must be a “chart fiend.” At three o'clock sharp he went - home. - </p> - <p> - He stopped long enough to send by messenger-boy a letter to the city - editor of the <i>Evening World</i> and another to the city editor of the - <i>Evening Journal.</i> They bore the same message and said: - </p> - <p> - <i>Refer to my letter of yesterday. To-night W. H. Garrettson goes to the - opera to see “The Jewels of the Madonna.” He will leave the Metropolitan - in his automobile. In it will be his wife, his daughter, and his friend, - Harry Willett. And he will not arrive at his house—Lexington Avenue - and Thirty-eighth Street. Somewhere between the Opera House and his - residence he will vanish! It will be the most mysterious kidnapping on - record. Follow the Garrettson motor and have your reporters watch - carefully.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Grateful Friend.</i> - </p> - <p> - Whatever the city editors may have intended to do in the matter is of no - consequence, because at seven o'clock messages were received as follows: - </p> - <p> - <i>Kidnapping of W. H. G. postponed. Will keep you posted.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Grateful Friend.</i> - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t nine-forty-five - on Wednesday morning Mr. James B. Robison entered the office of Richards - & Tuttle, sought the senior partner, and said: - </p> - <p> - “I shall both buy and sell Con. Steel—or possibly sell first and buy - later. The order clerk knows about my printed slips. The orders will go to - you first. If at any time you are worried about margin, remember to tell - me at once, because, as you know, I have not yet used half of my letter of - credit; and, besides, the cables are working. I'd like to see Amos - Kidder.” - </p> - <p> - “He's in his office.” - </p> - <p> - “Would you mind having some one telephone to him? Thank you.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison promptly left the office, followed by his faithful attendant - Sweeney, the office-boy. They took their stand just north of the Broad - Street entrance of the Stock Exchange. - </p> - <p> - It was not long before Amos Kidder, of the <i>Evening Planet</i>, who had - received the message, found Mr. Robison in the act of gazing unblinkingly - toward the Subtreasury. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Mr. Robison.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison started as if he had been rudely awakened out of a profound - reverie. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! Kidder! How d'ye do? Ah, yes! Ah—I'd like you to dine with me - and a few friends—interesting people. You will—don't be - offended!—you will learn why all newspaper articles on the - stock-market arouse mirth among the people who pull the wires. What do you - say?” - </p> - <p> - “I say,” replied Kidder, with a good-natured smile, “just this: When and - where?” His smile ceased. Mr. Robison had turned his back on his friend. - Kidder heard a nasal mumble and made out: - </p> - <p> - “Here in eight minutes.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “I shall learn if the Lion ate the man or if it's a case of another day.” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Robison, I don't understand—” - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon. I was thinking of the old man who was seen in a front - seat at the circus every day. They asked him what he found so interesting, - and he said that some day the lion would eat the man and he wanted to be a - spectator. Well, one day he was sick. That day the lion ate the - lion-tamer. Well, I am here waiting to see Garrettson come out of the - cage.” - </p> - <p> - “Garrettson?” - </p> - <p> - “The great W. H. Garrettson! I am planning a campaign in Con. Steel. - Garrettson's health is important. I must consider the state of his liver - as carefully as the condition of the iron trade, because it is not only a - question of the dividend rate, but of the price per share—not alone - an investment, but a speculation. You can't lose all your mills and - furnaces in one minute and you can't destroy all your customers overnight; - but Garrettson can die in a second!” - </p> - <p> - “Of course that contingency has been provided for. His firm would - undoubtedly be on the job.” - </p> - <p> - “So would the undertaker. As a matter of fact everything to-day depends - upon the character of Garrettson's life. Have you ever stopped to think of - how much depends upon the character of his death?” - </p> - <p> - “All deaths are alike. You talk like a novelist unaware of the resources - of a firm like Garrettson's.” - </p> - <p> - “And you talk like a plain ass or a bank president, my boy. Is there no - difference to the stock-market between the death of Garrettson by - pneumonia and his death by lynching at the hands of a thousand indignant - fellow-citizens? Stop and think.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, well, that will never happen.” - </p> - <p> - “I cannot swear that it will, but you cannot guarantee that it never will. - Stranger things have come to pass. By Jingo! it's three minutes to ten! - Would it not be curious if something had happened?” - </p> - <p> - “How do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “I have studied the great Garrettson and his habits, that I may, in my - operations in Con. Steel, know on what to bank and against what to guard. - He leaves his Lexington Avenue house every morning at nine and arrives at - his office not later than nine-fifty. He is like the clock. All his life - he has come down-town in his coupé, driven by a coachman who has been in - his employ thirty years. In this age of novelties that old-fashioned coupé - suggests a stability and solid respectability comparable to <i>Founded - 1732!</i> on a firm's letter-head. However, just as the wireless has - introduced a new element into maritime life, so has the automobile changed - the character of street traffic. Do you remember the case of James M. - Barrier, the famous sculptor, smashed in his taxicab on his way to his - studio? You remember the insurance advertisements, and how he carried a - two-hundred-and-seventeen-thou-sand-dollar accident policy? Well, it's ten - o'clock. In one minute, if Garrettson is not here, I shall sell short one - thousand shares of Con. Steel. For each delay of one minute, one thousand - shares.” - </p> - <p> - Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed. - </p> - <p> - “You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your - operation is of the kind that sounds wise.” - </p> - <p> - “How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A - fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five or - ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, boy, - rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall need - another boy besides you, for a few minutes only.” - </p> - <p> - Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand - shares of Con. Steel “at the market.” - </p> - <p> - “There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair,” - observed Kidder, pleasantly. “In assuming that disaster has overtaken - Garrettson—” - </p> - <p> - “I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What the - nature of it is I know not—nor whether it is capitalizable, sight - unseen. Here, boy!” Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison sent - the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of Steel. Watch - in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the north. Kidder also - looked up Nassau Street, expecting and—such, alas, is human nature!—hoping - to see Garrettson's familiar coupé. - </p> - <p> - “Here, boy!” And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up - until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares. - </p> - <p> - At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder: - </p> - <p> - “Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder.” - </p> - <p> - “He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping—” - </p> - <p> - “Well, that's a story! Any deviation from the normal is, even though it - may not be tragedy. The delay may mean—” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing whatever,” finished Kidder, a trifle exultingly. “There comes - Garrettson's carriage. I guess you'd better cover!” - </p> - <p> - And the <i>Planet</i> man laughed. - </p> - <p> - “Kidder, you'll never be rich! Of course I shall not cover until I know - the reason for the delay. Make haste! I ought to take a good look at his - face. I want to see how he looks and notice how he walks up the steps to - the office. One glimpse of Harriman getting off the train once put a cool - quarter of a million in my pocket.” - </p> - <p> - “Stocks went up when he died. People sold them thinking—” - </p> - <p> - “When you know a man is dying and you know that the rabble doesn't know - it, you don't always sell stocks short, Kidder,” anticipated Robison, with - a gentle smile. - </p> - <p> - “Hello!” said Kidder, and ran forward. - </p> - <p> - Robison followed. The coupé had stopped before the door of the banking - firm's offices. The herculean private policeman in gray had hastened to - open the door of the chief's carriage and had staggered back as if - horrified by what he had seen. - </p> - <p> - “Murdered!” thought the newspaper man in a flash. “What a story!” - </p> - <p> - The policeman turned an alarmed face toward the coachman and asked: - </p> - <p> - “Where's Mr. Garrettson?” - </p> - <p> - “What!” Lyman, the coachman, who had been in Garrettson's employ - thirty-odd years, turned livid. He stared blankly at the big man in the - gray uniform. - </p> - <p> - “He isn't here!” said Allcock, the policeman. Kidder and Robison heard - him. - </p> - <p> - The coachman looked into the coupé. - </p> - <p> - “Good God!” he muttered. - </p> - <p> - “Are you sure he was inside?” asked Allcock. “Sure? Of course! There's the - newspapers. Look at the cigar-ashes on the floor.” - </p> - <p> - “Did you see him get in?” persisted the policeman. “Of course I saw him! I - heard him call to the footman, who was going back to the house without - leaving the newspapers.” - </p> - <p> - “And you didn't stop anywhere?” - </p> - <p> - “No. I was delayed a little at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, and again—” - </p> - <p> - “Are you sure he didn't jump off?” - </p> - <p> - “What would he be jumping off for?” queried the old coachman, irritably. - “And wouldn't I have heard the door slam? I can't account for it! My God! - Where's Mr. Garrettson? Where is he? Where is he?” He repeated himself - like one distraught. - </p> - <p> - “Could he have jumped out without your knowing it?” queried Kidder. - </p> - <p> - “Shut up, Jim. That's a reporter!” the policeman warned the coachman. - “Wait here and I'll tell Mr. Jenkins.” - </p> - <p> - The private policeman rushed into the bank, and rushed out, followed by - William P. Jenkins, junior partner of W. H. Garrettson & Company. - </p> - <p> - “What is all this about?” Mr. Jenkins, who had been speaking in a sharp - voice to the coachman, caught sight of Kidder. Nothing concerning Mr. - Garrettson's whereabouts could be discussed by or before newspaper men. - </p> - <p> - “Come with me, James,” Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old - coachman. - </p> - <p> - “Get on the job!” whispered Robison to Kidder. “Don't be bluffed. You've - got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a lifetime!” - </p> - <p> - Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's - eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great - financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but all - efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see - perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that - Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall Street - and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was, moreover, - fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary say: “Mrs. - Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about nine-twenty in the - carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the footman helped him into - the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I said, 'Nothing that I - know of.'” - </p> - <p> - Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and hastened - back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the coachman—a - man above suspicion—was carried on by the other partners. - </p> - <p> - Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the - patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin: - </p> - <p> - <i>W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near - Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James - Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family from - boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. He was - smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily newspapers. - These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the coupé when it - reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, where the offices - of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are unable to say - where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. Garrettson is - equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as usual. The butler - saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes this remarkable is that - Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and not once in forty years has he - failed to reach his office before ten o'clock. His disappearance from the - coupé is not thought to be a joke; but, on the other hand, there is no - reason to apprehend a tragedy. “It is mysterious—that's all,” - remarked a prominent Wall Street man; “and mysteries are not always - profitable in the stock-market!”</i> - </p> - <p> - “How long,” inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth, - “will it be before the <i>Evening Planet</i>, with your account of the - non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” said Kidder, looking a trifle important, “if it had been any one - else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in - verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!” - </p> - <p> - “As quickly as that?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, maybe seven minutes—but that,” said Kidder, impressively, - “would be slow work for the <i>Evening Planet!</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Amazing!” murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. “And did you make - it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of—” - </p> - <p> - “I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad - daylight in the city of New York—taken out of his own cab and - carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if - unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!” - </p> - <p> - “No, it can't,” agreed Robison. “Nevertheless, it has been done.” - </p> - <p> - “How could—” - </p> - <p> - “Kidder, the taxicab has introduced a new and easily utilizable - possibility into criminal affairs, against which the police cannot yet - protect the public. I can see one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen - different ways in which Mr. Garrettson could have been abducted from his - own carriage, put into a taxi, and carried away. Suppose there are six - taxis. Three are in front to prevent the coachman from passing them. The - coachman is also compelled to regulate his speed according as they desire. - Then put one taxi on each side and one behind. These taxis not only escort - the cab; they pocket it and keep out help. At one of the many halts the - cab door is opened and Garrettson induced to enter one of the side taxis - while the coachman is occupied taking care of his horses because one of - the taxis in front threatens to back, which will crush the prancing - beasts. Do you suppose the coachman, especially if he is elderly and - somewhat deaf, as all old people are, could hear a cry for help with six - taxis making all the noise they can, muffler cutouts going, or backfiring, - or—” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think that is—” - </p> - <p> - “I think nothing! I cited it as one of fourteen—indeed, twenty—possible - ways,” said Robison, quietly. - </p> - <p> - “It's funny—I mean it is a curious coincidence that on the one day - you had sold Steel short—” - </p> - <p> - “My young friend,” interrupted Robison, gravely, “I sold after Garrettson - was late! Wisdom is always accused of unfairness. A man whose mind enables - him to win steadily at cards is invariably suspected of marking them. I - had planned to buy Con. Steel provided Garrettson's health, state of mind, - and trade conditions satisfied me! Instead I sold a little because of his - delay. Why, man, we did that in London once—Cecil Rhodes and I—when - Barney Barnato, at the height of the Kaffir craze, suddenly decided—” - </p> - <p> - “Wait till I get a piece of paper,” said Amos Kidder. He saw a big story. - But Robison said: - </p> - <p> - “I'll tell you all you wish to know—if you promise not to use names—in - Richards's office later, when Garrettson's disappearance is officially - admitted. You should hang round Garrettson's office. Don't lose sight of - it for one minute! Your office will keep in touch—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; they are sending three men down to work under me.” - </p> - <p> - “Keep me posted, will you? I am going to Richards's office and watch the - market.” - </p> - <p> - Kidder nodded and hurried to the Wills Building. Robison went to the - office of his brokers, stopping previously at a telephone pay-station to - telephone to the city editors of the <i>Evening World</i> and the <i>Evening - Journal</i>. This was his message: - </p> - <p> - <i>The Evening Planet is getting out an extra about the disappearance of - W. H. Garrettson. Send your men to Garrettson's office and also his - residence. Hurry!</i> - </p> - <p> - The <i>Evening Planet</i> story was on the street before Robison returned - to Richards & Tuttle's office, and five minutes later <i>World</i> and - <i>Journal</i> extras were selling in the financial district. Curiously - enough, both papers used the same scare-head, and that fact had a great - deal to do with the acceptance of the story by many people. The heading - was: - </p> - <h3> - HELD FOR RANSOM!! - </h3> - <p> - And each stated it had information that W. H. Garrettson had been - kidnapped and was held for one hundred million dollars ransom. The Wall - Street news agencies sent out the news on the tickers. One of them subtly - finished: - </p> - <p> - <i>Those who know Mr. Garrettson state that the two things the greatest - financier of our times cannot do are: first, take advice; and second, be - coerced. A man who has compelled a President of the United States to come - to him for advice, and who has flatly told a reigning monarch, No! is not - going to do as he is told by any band of crooks! The worst is, therefore, - to be feared!</i> - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or one brief dazed - moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly the ticker stopped, as it - did in the old days whenever a member's demise was announced. The ticker's - silence, with its suggestion of death, did in truth strangle bull hopes. - Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost stopped when the ticker did. Then the - storm burst, increasing in violence as corroboration came from newspaper - extras, from the Wall Street news agencies and the news tickers, from - brokers and bankers who had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson - & Company and had rushed out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal - moment the great house of W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the - capital crime—in high finance—of indecision. - </p> - <p> - The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir—: the selling-power - is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice—a - beginning!—and it will itself complete the havoc. - </p> - <p> - Inside support—that is, buying by Garrettson's firm—would have - been the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the - brief instant that saw absolutely no “support” forthcoming the flood of - selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big - margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and - reputations. - </p> - <p> - The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume of - selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the hillside. - From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to sixty-five by - fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time—to sixty; to - fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital stock, - of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen million - dollars—one million a minute! A psychological statistician would - have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of the moneyed - world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial invulnerability; - it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result of his partners' - inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the firm's existence. The - partners would have understood death and could have provided against it, - stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even might have capitalized their - senior partner's demise had it come from typhoid, tuberculosis, or - taxicab. But the disappearance of the great Garrettson, the fatal - incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing and the hoping, paralyzed - the faculties of the junior partners of Wall Street's mighty firm. And the - costliness of their indecision was raised into the millions by the fact - that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, the junior partners, agreed that - Garrettson, though absent, was well, and were about to take steps to check - the gamblers' panic, the telephone summoned Jenkins. - </p> - <p> - “Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to - Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B—D! Say nothing - to the family! Hurry!” And the speaker rang off. - </p> - <p> - His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still unrelieved - uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest and—Wall - Street said—the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and repeated the - message. - </p> - <p> - “Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?” asked Johnson. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know—yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,' - and I didn't suspect—yes; I think it was.” After a second's pause, - “I know it was Pierson!” - </p> - <p> - “Then, for Heaven's sake—” began Lane. - </p> - <p> - “Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious - wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!” said Johnson. - </p> - <p> - “Meantime we are losing precious time—” Johnson had already gone to - the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he - said, the receiver at his ear: - </p> - <p> - “We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if—” The - emphasis on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that - there was no need to say it. “You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and - we hoping and expecting and uncertain if—Hello! Dr. Pierson's - office? This is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the - doctor there? Out? Where did he go? Speak out—I am Mr. Garrettson's - partner. Hotel Cressline, Suite D? Thank you.” Johnson turned and said: - “Dr. Pierson was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to - attend Mr. Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask—” - </p> - <p> - “And meantime,” said Jenkins, excitedly, “he might be dying or dead; and - we—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive - use. Hurry!” - </p> - <p> - Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone - once more. - </p> - <p> - “Give me the Hotel Cressline!” And presently, “Hello! Cressline? This is - W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes—Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's - partner. Is Mr. Gar—... Yes—yes—I want to talk to - him.... Why not? Is it our Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You - will tell me!—or, by Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!” - </p> - <p> - “What did they say, Walter?” asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law of - Garrettson. - </p> - <p> - “He said I could go to hell!” growled Johnson, his face brick-red from - anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great - Garrettson. “He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled - lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not to - be interrupted under any circumstances—no cards sent up, no - telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!” - </p> - <p> - The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was something - like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though each expected - the other to say he did not expect a terrible final chapter. In the veiled - woman each feared what was worse than mere death—scandal! Of course, - much would be suppressed, as had been done in the case of Winthrop Kyle or - of Burton Willett, to whom death had come suddenly and under dubious - circumstances. - </p> - <p> - “William is not that kind!” said Lane, loyally. “He has never—” - </p> - <p> - “I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!” repeated - Walter Johnson, vehemently. - </p> - <p> - “Neither do I,” agreed Lane. “But—” He looked furtively at Walter - Johnson. - </p> - <p> - Johnson nodded, and said, “Yes, that's the devil of it!” He lost himself - in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved - Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced - his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have - posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson. - </p> - <p> - That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving off a - panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied themselves - to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and such was the - discipline of the office that no word was brought to the palefaced - partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or of the - newspaper extras. - </p> - <p> - It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or force - of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic message of - the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in stocks had taken - on the proportions of a panic. - </p> - <p> - “Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!” - </p> - <p> - “No!” incredulously shouted Lane. - </p> - <p> - “It'll never do!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, but—” - </p> - <p> - Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to do - things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began to give - out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson brokers—they - kept some of these for the effect of obvious “Garrettson buying.” It was - all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter what had happened, - the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! Silence, yes; untruth, - never! And yet silence might be taken as corroboration of the awful - stories. He could not say that the great Garrettson was alive and could - not say he was dead. He must not mention Hotel Cressline. A trying - situation! To the news-agency men, who would put out the news on the - Street, from whom also the daily papers would get it, he said, very calmly - and impressively: - </p> - <p> - “I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The iron - trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest business in - its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we consider the - stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent speculative movements. - They are designed to frighten timid holders. I advise every man who owns - Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it. - </p> - <p> - “But about Mr. Gar—” - </p> - <p> - “Not another word!” he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece - of will-power. - </p> - <p> - The newspaper men translated it: “Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!” And - in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the message. - What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was dead or not—the - kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!—and if so what would be - done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. Wherefore the traders - sold more of the same stock—short—and the bona-fide holders - could develop no conviction strong enough as to the wisdom of holding on, - so long as the price continued to go down. - </p> - <p> - Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in a - fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send up - any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent, - succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after repeated - knocking brought no response from within. - </p> - <p> - They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they found - on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil. - </p> - <p> - Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length - Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson: - </p> - <p> - “I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and—” - </p> - <p> - “I never telephoned you!” interrupted Dr. Pierson. - </p> - <p> - “Why, you said—” - </p> - <p> - “I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the hotel—or - so the voice said—to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken suddenly - ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him.” - </p> - <p> - “Damn!” said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the office, - hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the fake - messages and Dr. Pierson's story. - </p> - <p> - “That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, and—” - </p> - <p> - “It's a bear raid then!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry down!” - </p> - <p> - Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully - following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the higher - Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and the - office-boys. - </p> - <p> - In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in a - voice which one might say sweated respect: - </p> - <p> - “What do you think now, Mr. Robison?” - </p> - <p> - The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the - quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These - customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened - to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of Steel, - and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger had scented - a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street. - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” said Mr. Robison, absently. - </p> - <p> - “What do you think now?” - </p> - <p> - “What do I think now?” repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir,” said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an office-boy - about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at the broker. Then, - with a little start, he said so distinctly that every listening customer - heard very plainly: - </p> - <p> - “I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know.” - </p> - <p> - “It looks to me,” persisted Richards, fishing for information, “that they - can't keep on going down forever.” - </p> - <p> - “No—not forever,” assented Mr. Robison, calmly. - </p> - <p> - “Maybe the bottom is not far off.” - </p> - <p> - “Maybe not.” - </p> - <p> - “If a man bought now he might do well.” - </p> - <p> - “Then buy 'em.” - </p> - <p> - “Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to go - long.” - </p> - <p> - “In that case,” said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, “don't - buy 'em.” - </p> - <p> - Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to say - “Thank you!” in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed customers - drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, but any - experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more important - to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken Profit is the - jeremiad of the ticker-fiend. - </p> - <p> - Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show “resiliency,” as - financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. Robison's - side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of money-making - news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, whose paper - profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand dollars. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Robison!” he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is accustomed - to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The other customers, - who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to cover, looked at the - boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his whispered words. - </p> - <p> - “Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing,” said Mr. Robison - through his nose, with a pleasant smile. - </p> - <p> - The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness - which would give them the tip they all expected. - </p> - <p> - “The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed.” - </p> - <p> - The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, “Stung again!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait a minute my lad. Here!” and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar - bill and a small envelope. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy. He put the five dollars in his - pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the - customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, “Mr. Richards.” - </p> - <p> - He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private - office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on - which was written: - </p> - <p> - <i>Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>J. B. Robison.</i> - </p> - <p> - Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the - price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the empty - place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite customers - moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen just the - same. - </p> - <p> - “Your order is executed, Mr. Robison.” Mr. Richards whispered it out of a - corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking - meditatively at the quotation-board. - </p> - <p> - “Got the whole twenty?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Good!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think—” began the broker in a voice that would make flint - turn to putty. - </p> - <p> - “I do!” cut in Robison. “I do, indeed! There is no telling what has - happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts.” He had - unconsciously raised his voice. - </p> - <p> - A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen - customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces drew - nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other - listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably: - </p> - <p> - “By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. - Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be - because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in the - stock-market—failure, for instance.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but that's out of the question.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the - best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very - efficiently policed city thoroughfare.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but a failure—” - </p> - <p> - “When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't - believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you think—” - </p> - <p> - “No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions so - characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I ascribed - the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull cards, as - you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. Now it isn't - likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. Garrettson. There - would be no sense in murdering him—not even by a stock speculator; - but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson specialties has by - now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I should say prices ought - to be touching bottom; and what ought to be generally is, in the - stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or another, very soon now. If - the news is good the price of Steel will rebound smartly. If it is bad - we'll at least know what to look to, and with the elimination of the - mystery there should be a cessation of the selling. There will follow a - rush to cover and then—There you are! I believe it's begun already. - Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! Get 'em back!” - </p> - <p> - The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover and - gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in figures on - the quotation-board. - </p> - <p> - Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before the - newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H. - Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly - now. Somebody must pay—-and it wouldn't be the firm. - </p> - <p> - Amos Kidder rushed into the office. “He's found!” he yelled, excitedly, - addressing Mr. Robison. - </p> - <p> - “Where was he?” asked Mr. Robison, very calmly. - </p> - <p> - “At home—damn 'im!” - </p> - <p> - “Why that, my boy?” - </p> - <p> - “He won't talk—says he was in his library all the time.” - </p> - <p> - “We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?” said Robison, with a smile. - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it were - the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove that he - wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth—” - </p> - <p> - “The whole truth?” echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile. - </p> - <p> - “Don't you know it?” Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously. - </p> - <p> - “Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about anything. - Take dinner with me to-morrow night—will you?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” There was a smoldering defiance—it wasn't suspicion exactly—in - the newspaper man's voice and eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel.” - </p> - <p> - “Now that Garrettson is—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, now—at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a - week?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “I told you I would.” - </p> - <p> - “An accident is not a fair test of—” - </p> - <p> - “An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such - thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact - seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I - must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen.” - </p> - <p> - As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been figured - out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was informed by Mr. - George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of $268,537.71 with - the firm. - </p> - <p> - “I've won my bet!” murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker. - </p> - <p> - “You have indeed, Mr. Robison.” Richards spoke deferentially. - </p> - <p> - “H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to—Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to - sign this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs.” - </p> - <p> - This was the document: - </p> - <p> - <i>To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened - an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, - members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the sum of - $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net profit of - $168,537.71.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks - and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order from - Mr. James B. Robison.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>For Richards & Tuttle:</i> <i>George B. Richards.</i> - </p> - <p> - When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison said, - amiably: - </p> - <p> - “If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the pleasure - it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers more than - double their money in one week.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account.” - </p> - <p> - “And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new, - clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I told - you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have given me a - certificate of sanity a week ago. What?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent—” - </p> - <p> - “All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and - intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent.” Mr. - Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered - enough to blush. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand—” The broker - paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a profitable - customer. He did not wish commissions to stop. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn - to speak, said: - </p> - <p> - “It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't - understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind - healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in life. - Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life - interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so - little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death - you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of the - first chapter of a big, black book—Mystery!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” murmured the dazed broker. - </p> - <p> - Robison continued, cheerfully: “My dear Mr. Richards, by all means don't - understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand - dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but - interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James - Burnett Robison.” With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude - and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose - speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five thousand - dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers. - </p> - <p> - A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, which - he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a check for - his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and lachrymosely - hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close the account, Mr. - Robison answered, very impressively: - </p> - <p> - “My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a - glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the - marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I - personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through - Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the - state tax. Good day, sir!” And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just - afterward and wondered, without shaking hands. - </p> - <h3> - VIII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>mos Kidder dined - with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel, the Regina. - </p> - <p> - “Americans,” explained the host, “always flock to the newest hotel on the - theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest thing is - necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary plumbing; it is an - art! I am here not because of the journalistic, Sunday-special character - of the filtered air and automatic temperature adjusters of this hotel, but - because I discovered it had the best chef of all New York here. The food,” - he finished, with an air of overpraising, “is almost as good as in my own - house. Have you any favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?” - </p> - <p> - “No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order,” replied the - newspaper man. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, Kidder—thank you!” said Mr. Robison, with an air of such - profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. “I was hoping you would - leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!” - And he beckoned to the <i>maître d'hôtel</i>, who immediately hastened to - the table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. “You - may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine,” said Robison, simply. - </p> - <p> - “Dewey at Manila!” thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His Wall - Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him to all - sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never eaten so - unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and the - heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man who - said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things in a - remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the coffee: - </p> - <p> - “I'd like to ask you two questions—just two.” - </p> - <p> - “That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to - ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'” - </p> - <p> - “O king, live forever!” said Kidder, saluting. “Thanks. Shoot ahead.” - </p> - <p> - “Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the - chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?” Kidder was - looking at Robison with a steady gaze. - </p> - <p> - “There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have - invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my boy!” - And Robison nodded. - </p> - <p> - “Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious,” said Kidder, with an - accusing tone of voice he could not quite control. - </p> - <p> - “So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious.” - </p> - <p> - “And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International - Cribbage Board—” - </p> - <p> - “But not exactly criminal, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “No; but—” - </p> - <p> - “Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose you - call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the - inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the mind - of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than on the - possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to tell you - that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I sha'n't! But - that I go about my business scientifically you yourself have seen. At - least you are witness that I have won.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but—” - </p> - <p> - “What's the second question?” - </p> - <p> - “There isn't a second if you won't answer the first,” said Kidder, with - the forced amiability of the foiled. - </p> - <p> - “I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose we - imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now let us - wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here is an - incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of a panic—short-lived - though it was—that caused mental anguish to his friends, relatives, - and associates; and yet that great genius of finance, Wall Street's - demigod, says nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “He says he was in his library.” - </p> - <p> - “We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What - compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to lie?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know.” - </p> - <p> - “You ought to; there is only one thing.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?” - </p> - <p> - “No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he - protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something - else. It's fear!” - </p> - <p> - “Of the alleged kidnappers?” - </p> - <p> - “No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear—” He paused. - </p> - <p> - “What?” eagerly asked the newspaper man. - </p> - <p> - “Ridicule!” - </p> - <p> - Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. Robison. He - discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his philosophical - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “It's too much for me,” finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the - frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on. - </p> - <p> - Robison smiled forgivingly, and said: - </p> - <p> - “You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual things - in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known principles to - well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most unusually. Now what - do you gather from the Garrettson episode?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be a - most unusual succession of coincidences.” - </p> - <p> - “Your voice,” said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, “exudes - suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an - instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It - puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids' - millennium—or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and—” - </p> - <p> - “And newspaper men—what?” Kidder prompted, pleasantly. “Don't mind - me. I enjoy it.” - </p> - <p> - “Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a - letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave - me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is - an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are an - irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours about - me?” - </p> - <p> - “I did not have it. I have it now, however.” - </p> - <p> - “If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and - my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left - his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive at - his office. We have the evidence of his coachman—a man above - suspicion—of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for - you heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home. - We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming - circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to - allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares—led, - I am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed - up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson - there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or - suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of the - obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity I found - out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling himself W. - H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It wasn't - Garrettson, though.” - </p> - <p> - “How do you know?” - </p> - <p> - “It was clearly a ruse—having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip - that would—” - </p> - <p> - “Very ingenious; but—” - </p> - <p> - “At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners, - and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to say the - least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but Garrettson, - Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his highly - inconvenient disappearance.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes; but—” - </p> - <p> - “Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form a - syndicate of intelligent men!” He made a motion with his hand as if waving - away the necessity of further elucidation. - </p> - <p> - “Friend Robison,” said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's manner, - “you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than his - silences. <i>Continuez, s'il vous plaît.</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate - accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their - object.” - </p> - <p> - “A band of robbers?” - </p> - <p> - “No; an aggregation of philosophers.” - </p> - <p> - “None the less crooks.” - </p> - <p> - “No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class of wealth - which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the plunderers, - themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the syndicate a - confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that would make - success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street contribute to the - fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's life was a bull factor, - and his death a bear card. But they had old-fashioned, unphilosophical - scruples against murder. Moreover, the sensational disappearance of - Garrettson would serve even better than his death. Problem: How to kidnap - Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make Garrettson kidnap himself? - Simplicity itself!” - </p> - <p> - “It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you - with admiration. And so—” - </p> - <p> - “The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con. Steel - and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H. - Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand shares, - studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for millions! - They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The rest is - obvious, even to you—isn't it?” Mr. Robison gazed benignantly at his - guest. - </p> - <p> - “No; it isn't obvious to me—or to any one else,” retorted Kidder, - sharply. - </p> - <p> - “You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you ask - me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an - obvious way?” - </p> - <p> - “Insult ahead.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter of - collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house—an - impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic - attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture. He - tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr. Garrettson. - The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The stranger says to - the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning. Tell Mr. Garrettson he - will see me at once or not at all. Give him this paper and show him this - sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives Mr. Garrettson the paper, which - is apparently the first page of the <i>Knickerbocker History of New York</i>. - The memorandum informs Mr. Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the - MSS. of this history, Cooper's “Spy,” Poe's “Goldbug,” three love-letters - of George Washington to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed - letters of Thomas Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence - whose autograph is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the - stranger!” - </p> - <p> - “The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving's <i>Knickerbocker - History</i> is a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to - make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken into - the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of which the - stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation, particularly - since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger has prepared - himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a lunatic, for he - wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and five - fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue and - haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic are - quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting outside as - usual. - </p> - <p> - “As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is the - usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man running - from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with a horsewhip; - also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This attracts the - coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street from the - Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the coachman has - turned his head away from his master's house on the left to the - horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé slam—a - rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and prepares - to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always the office. - While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has come out of - the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done every day for - thirty years. - </p> - <p> - “Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to - the house—a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery, - a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns - round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him - say, 'Beg pardon—here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand - papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. H. - Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives away, - sure that his master is within. His customary route has been studied and - it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage arrive at the - office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because he was in the - library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has in readiness an - exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, and even of the - coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do come out, - Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is driven away—but - not to his office! And there you are.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you really think that is what happened?” - </p> - <p> - “It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.” - </p> - <p> - “It is very fine—only it cannot happen.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.” - </p> - <p> - “If you knew the history of our old New York families you would recall the - episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English and stiff-necked, - one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, thinking he carried - his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed in the carriage by the - footman before the old lady had gotten in—and usually the old lady - got in first and the lap-robe followed.” - </p> - <p> - “But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the - cigar-ashes were there on the floor!” - </p> - <p> - “The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of making - Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled newspapers - clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered seeing Garrettson - get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of memory.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, well—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here, let - me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist, better - known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted compatriots like - you, has to say about this. I copied it: - </p> - <p> - “<i>Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and - under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of us - realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in - connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals of any - actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a - memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought, - accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past life. - When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has - suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'</i>” - </p> - <p> - <i>“The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a - misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience, but - one by which we are led to make a false judgment—and this because - the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably - fully justified.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>“A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in - regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation in - fact.”</i> - </p> - <p> - “But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he wouldn't - notice a different coachman?” Kidder looked incredulous in advance of the - answer. - </p> - <p> - “He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he - wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing unusual, - nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops introspective - misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of course the coachman - drove to some place or other and left the great financier a prisoner in - the cab.” - </p> - <p> - “How?” - </p> - <p> - “By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside, so - that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a matter - of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you know.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that, since - there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate continued to - be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it impossible for - Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the private stable whither - he was taken, carriage and all, except by going through a lot of cobwebs - and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged from the coal-chute a - photographer could take pictures of him—no hero of a thrilling - escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump, full of dirt and - soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed! A quickly - developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two would, of course, - make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of the most gigantic of his - promotions—the Intercontinental Railway Consolidation. Indeed, - Garrettson can use the break in prices and the recovery of the market to - increase his prestige by pointing out how important not only his life is, - but, indeed, his physical presence.” - </p> - <p> - “But the syndicate—” - </p> - <p> - “It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson - stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well, - my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of - Bohême. Come on!” - </p> - <p> - Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making - dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked a - great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally - knew. - </p> - <p> - One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson in - the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and his - face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself of cobwebs - and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why Garrettson had - not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful forenoon—and - why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for his - misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter: - </p> - <p> - <i>Sir,—We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall - Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain - morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the house. - We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon by what - you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was formed to - reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still operating - successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read it by taking - the first two letters of each word—except only the first word, which - is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to tell you this - because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended it should be, - and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You might compare - notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you for your - benevolence, we remain,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Respectfully,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>The Plunder Recovery Syndicate.</i> - </p> - <p> - Kidder showed this letter to Richards. “Let us see,” said Richards, - “whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the - office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator.” - </p> - <p> - He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked! - </p> - <p> - “Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street,” said - Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover the - obvious. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it - really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram. - Possibly Robison himself faked it.” - </p> - <p> - “Why don't you find out?” suggested the broker. “I will,” said Kidder, and - he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable companies had - any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison in the brokers' - office. - </p> - <p> - “They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality,” said - Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes,” acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; “but what astonishes me is the - syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next.” - </p> - <p> - “I wonder,” echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the market - was going up or down. - </p> - <p> - Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he - knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch, - Boon & Shaw “had lost a few pieces”—but not for publication. - Such things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss. - Kidder knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might - again cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself - Robison. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - III—AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE bell of the - telephone on the desk of the alert city editor of the New York <i>Planet</i> - rang twice. The alert city editor did not instantly answer it. He was - reading a love-letter not meant for his eyes. It had been sent in with his - mail by mistake. The bell rang again. - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” he said, angrily. “Who? Oh, hello, Bill!” There was a pause. Then: - “Shall we? Why, friend, he's already started. Thanks awfully! Sure thing!” - </p> - <p> - He swung round and cast a roaming glance about the big room. It was - Sunday, the sacred day when nothing happened. - </p> - <p> - “Parkhurst!” he called. - </p> - <p> - Parkhurst, one of the <i>Planet's</i> star men, sauntered over to the - desk. He had planned to do other things with his time this nice Sunday - afternoon. Monday-morning stories are not apt to be exciting. Therefore he - limped pathetically in anticipation of the excuse he proposed to make to - get off. He was Williams's chum. - </p> - <p> - “Jimmy,” said the city editor, with his habitual air of giving assignments - as though they were decorations awarded for distinguished services, “I - just had Bill Stewart, of the Hotel Brabant, on the telephone. He says - there is a man there who has seven million dollars in gold-dust in the - engine-room of the hotel. Klondike mine-owner. Does not believe in banks, - I guess. Takes mighty big stocking to hold the cash—” - </p> - <p> - “Do you want <i>me</i> to write the story?” interrupted Parkhurst, coldly. - It was his way of showing his city editor his place. - </p> - <p> - “Coal-Oil Johnny up to date! Don't fall for any press agent—” - </p> - <p> - Parkhurst forgot the excuse he was going to make. His limp vanished. The - story promised well. He hastened to the Brabant and saw the room clerk, - Stewart, who had tipped off the city editor. - </p> - <p> - “Yes; he is in,” said Stewart. “But if you think it is another case of - Coal-Oil Johnny you've got another guess coming. Not that he is a - tightwad; he is liberal enough with his nuggets, the bell-hops say. But he - is no fool. And yet—think of it!—he takes into Seattle with - him from Nome eight or ten millions of gold-dust! There he hires a special - train to bring him and his gold-dust to New York. He arrives at the Grand - Central in the early morning. They hustle round and find seven trucks to - carry the boxes of gold-dust for him. He follows in a taxicab. He comes - straight to this hotel—” - </p> - <p> - Stewart here swelled up his chest. It made the reporter say, amiably: - </p> - <p> - “It was considered a good hotel once; but news travels slowly in the - frozen North.” - </p> - <p> - “He comes up here, registers, and then expects me to let him take the - whole fifteen tons of gold up to his room. What do you know about that? - Well, then he wanted to hire a whole floor so as to distribute the weight. - But you know it is a highly concentrated weight. No floor would stand it. - Gold is the heaviest thing there is.” - </p> - <p> - “It is,” agreed Parkhurst, hastily. “It is, dear friend. That's why I - never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and—” - </p> - <p> - “Let me tell you,” cut in Stewart, full of his story. “So, being Sunday - and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs - in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, worth, - he says, about eight million—” - </p> - <p> - “Lead me to it before you hand in your bill,” entreated the reporter. - </p> - <p> - “There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the job - of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights, - Jimmy,” said Stewart. “I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I think - he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always writing - about—don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the polite - hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of eighteen - seventy-four?” - </p> - <p> - “What's the full name?” asked the reporter. “There it is!” and Stewart - pointed to the autograph in the hotel register. - </p> - <p> - “Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G.” - </p> - <p> - There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two personal - servants. - </p> - <p> - “Looks like a school-boy's writing.” - </p> - <p> - “He is about forty,” said the clerk. - </p> - <p> - “Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was - about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at - home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore—” - </p> - <p> - “Here he comes,” interjected Stewart. “I'll introduce you.” - </p> - <p> - J. Willoughby Parkhurst, the reporter, was startled by the change in - Stewart's face. It had taken on the ingratiating soul-sweetness of one who - enjoys your story with all his faculties—the complete surrender of - self, soul, and hopes of heaven. The clerk exuded gratitude from every - pore. - </p> - <p> - “Gosh!” exclaimed J. Willoughby Parkhurst in amazement, and turned quickly - to see who it was that had made Stewart's greed-stricken face turn itself - into a moving-picture film of all the delights. - </p> - <p> - A man was approaching—a man of about the reporter's height, - square-shouldered, smooth-shaved, strong-chinned, with an outdoor - complexion, and the clear, clean, steady eyes of a man without a liver. - There was a metallic glint to the gray-blue of the iris that made the eyes - a trifle hard. The lips were not only compressed, but you guessed that the - compression was habitual. Even a private detective could have told that - this man had made up his mind to do one thing, and therefore he would do - it. There was no doubt of it. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Mr. Jerningham!” The name issued like a stream of saccharin out of - the eddying smiles on Stewart's face. - </p> - <p> - “The expectation of twenty millions of gold, at least, on that face!” - thought Parkhurst, more impressed by the smile than by the cause thereof. - </p> - <p> - “Here is that nugget I promised you.” And Mr. Jerningham dropped - four-and-three-quarter pounds troy of gold into the clerk's coy hand. “It - is the largest I ever found in six years' mining on the Klondike.” - </p> - <p> - The reporter later told the city editor—he did not print this—that - Stewart, as he got the nugget, showed plainly on his face his - disappointment that Jerningham had not come from the South-African - diamond-fields. A carbon crystal weighing four pounds and three-quarters—that - would have been worth a real smile! But the clerk said, gratefully: “It's - very good of you. Thank you ever so much! I'd like to introduce to you my - friend, Mr. Park-hurst.” - </p> - <p> - “Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. Parker, did you say?” - </p> - <p> - The Klondiker spoke coldly. It made the reporter say, subtly antagonistic: - </p> - <p> - “Parkhurst!” - </p> - <p> - “Any relation to—” - </p> - <p> - “Haven't a relation in the world.” - </p> - <p> - “Shake again, friend,” said Jerningham, warmly. “I am in the same boat - myself!” - </p> - <p> - They shook hands again. - </p> - <p> - “Do you want to be very nice?” asked Jerningham, almost eagerly, of the - reporter. - </p> - <p> - “It is my invariable custom to be that,” Parkhurst assured him, gravely. - </p> - <p> - “Dine with me to-night.” Jerningham looked expectant. - </p> - <p> - “I have an engagement with my friend the bishop,” said the reporter, who - hated clergymen for obvious reasons. “But—let me see!” Parkhurst - closed his eyes the better to see how he could break his engagement. “I'll - send regrets to the bishop and dine with you with pleasure.” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Parkhurst is on the <i>Planet</i>” put in Stewart. It was the way he - said it! - </p> - <p> - “Ah, yes,” said Jemingham, vaguely. - </p> - <p> - “In fact, Mr. Jemingham,” said Parkhurst, “I was sent to interview you.” - </p> - <p> - “Huh?” ejaculated the Klondiker, blankly. It was plain he was virgin soil. - </p> - <p> - “All to myself!” thought J. Willoughby, with a mental smack of the lips. - Then he began, in that congratulatory tone of voice with which practised - interviewers corkscrew admissions out of their victims: “We heard about - your trip from Seattle, and about your—er—baggage. Would you - mind telling me a little more about it? We could”—with a honeyed - grin at Stewart—“sit down in a nice little corner of the café and - have a nice little chat.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't mind—if you don't,” said Jemingham, with one of those - diffidently eager smiles of people who are doing you a favor and do not - know it. - </p> - <p> - The reporter led the way to the café, selected a small table in the - farthest corner, beckoned to a waiter, pointed to a chair, and nodded - toward the Alaskan Monte Cristo. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you!” said Jemingham, with real gratitude, and sat down. Then he - looked at his watch, saw that it was only four o'clock, and said to the - waiter, “A cup of tea, please.” - </p> - <p> - “Huh?” It was all J. Willoughby could rise to. A miner and tea? What about - the free champagne for the hundreds? A tea-drinker would not scatter - walnut-sized diamonds along the Great White Way. - </p> - <p> - “I got used to it. My pal was English. We found it preferable to whisky in - the Klondike.” Mr. Jerningham made no effort to disguise the apologetic - tone. - </p> - <p> - “I'll have the same,” cleverly said J. Willoughby. Then, to clinch it, “Of - course you know that in the exclusive clubs to-day men drink more tea than - liquor!” - </p> - <p> - “It's the proper thing—eh?” said Jerningham, with a sort of - head-waiter deference that made the reporter stare in surprise. “I am glad - you told me that.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes. It is no longer good form to get load—er—intoxicated. - It's one of the few good things we've got from England—tea-drinking,” - the reporter said. “And, Mr. Jerningham, to get back to our subject, just - how did you happen to go to the Klondike?” - </p> - <p> - “It began in New York,” said Jerningham, and drew his lips together. It - was clearly not a pleasant memory. - </p> - <p> - “It did?” You could tell that J. Willoughby was grateful. “Well, well! And—” - He frowned as though a date had escaped him. He really suggested time to - the miner, for Jerningham volunteered: “When I was twelve years old.” - </p> - <p> - “That's about twenty years ago,” ventured the reporter in the affirmative - tone of voice that inevitably elicits contradiction and the exact figures - from the victim. - </p> - <p> - “Thirty-two years ago, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, well! And—How did you say it began?” The reporter put his - hand to his ear to show that his hardness of hearing had prevented him - from getting Jerningham's previous answer to the same question. - </p> - <p> - “My father!” Mr. Jemingham nodded twice, to show that those two words told - the whole story. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, yes! And then?” The reporter looked as if instant death Would follow - the non-receipt of information; and Jerningham, as though against a - lifelong determination to be silent, spoke—and frowned as he spoke: - </p> - <p> - “My father! He was a coachman in the employ of old David Soulett, who was - the son of Walter and the father of Richard and David the third, and of - Madge, who married the Duke of Peterborough. Old David Soulett—the - second, he was—was my father's employer. My father was English. He - came to New York when he was eighteen. He went straight into the Souletts' - stable, became head coachman, and lived with the family for fifty years. - They pensioned him off. I grew up with the boys—called one another - by our first names. Do you get that?—by our first names!” - </p> - <p> - Jemingham compressed his lips tightly and nodded. His eyes filled with - reminiscence—sweet, yet sad. - </p> - <p> - “You did, eh?” said the reporter. - </p> - <p> - If J. Willoughby had been addicted to slang he would have used the same - wondering tone of voice and would have exclaimed, “What do you know about - that!” - </p> - <p> - “And that is why I went to the Klondike!” - </p> - <p> - There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking - in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be - said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination that - Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving - grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful - reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was - bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, “Did they send you away?” - </p> - <p> - “They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It - was enough.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, of course!” The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. “But I - don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say.” - </p> - <p> - “They were!” explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. “They were - Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had everything I - did not have. So I went to the Klondike.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” - </p> - <p> - “Is it not clear?” - </p> - <p> - “No!” said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain - negative. - </p> - <p> - “They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were - good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But if - they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not been the - son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they wouldn't have - been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. Policemen at the - corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove by and seemed - really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You felt the cops would - never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the station-house—always to - the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point to it—the Soulett - mansion—with an air of pride, as though they owned it! Clerks in - shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts walked in, and - later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, they said; and he - said, said he—and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?” - </p> - <p> - “Why?” repeated the reporter, hypnotically. - </p> - <p> - “Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to - digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's - proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two - people, including the very best there were in literature, art, science, - theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, thirty-eight - pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among grave-diggers, - laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his great-grandchildren! - Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. The only thing that - didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. Genius for real estate - they call his madness to-day. But it was an obsession. He bought a farm in - what is now the swell shopping district; and another where the Hotel - Regina is; and another beginning where the Vandeventer houses are. The old - lunatic's mad purchases are now worth one hundred and fifty million - dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, with fake portraits showing an - intellectual-looking country squire. Grave-digger—that's what! But - the money really began with him and the near-gentleman with Walter, who - knew the best families because his father buried them one after another. - By the time the real-estate market got to going in earnest David was born—of - course a gentleman! What did it? Unearned money!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But what's digging graves got to do with your going to the - Klondike?” - </p> - <p> - “Everything. It gave me the secret of it—the unearned part. Don't - you see?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir, I loved the company of the Soulett boys and I enjoyed the - society of their equals. So I naturally desired to become their equal. To - become a gentleman I had to become rich. But the money must not be earned; - so I couldn't make it in trade—which, moreover, was too slow. The - careers of butcher, plumber, and liquor-dealer, that might have made me - rich quickly, were closed to me by the social disqualifications they - carry. And the careers of Jim Sands and Bill Train in Wall Street were too - malodorous; besides which, you can't make very much money on the Stock - Exchange without treading on influential social toes. Hence the Klondike. - Do you see now?” - </p> - <p> - “I'm beginning to.” - </p> - <p> - “Well?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean,” said the reporter, to get it straight, “that you went to - the Klondike to make money so as to climb—I mean, so as to go into - society?” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly so! Yes, sir! And I tell you, Mr. Parker—” - </p> - <p> - “Park-<i>hurst!</i>” said J. Willoughby, with a frown of injured vanity. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Parkhurst, a man has to have some strong motive to enable him to - conquer success. In all my wanderings for twenty-five years, prospecting - in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, the Southwest, Nevada, California, - Oregon, and Washington, and finally all over Alaska, I had but one object - in mind, one purpose. It sustained me. It gave me courage when others - despaired; it kept me marching onward when others fell by the wayside and - died or became sheep-ranchers. I had no thought for amusement, none for - pleasure, none for love. I simply kept up my search. It was the search for - happiness that the old knights used to go out on. It was a search, Mr. - Parker-hurst, for the yellow admission ticket to the Four Hundred!” - </p> - <p> - “Have you found it?” J. Willoughby could not help it. - </p> - <p> - “Let me tell you,” pursued Jerningham, ignoring the question. “I used to - read the society columns of the New York papers whenever I felt myself - growing discouraged; and that always revived me. Up in the Klondike I had - saved fifteen hundred dollars and I paid one thousand dollars in gold-dust - for a six-months-old copy of a society paper which had an account of Mrs. - Masters's ball. To me, 'among those present' meant more than a list of - gilt-edge bonds. I've got it yet.” - </p> - <p> - He paused to take from his pocket-book a tattered clipping and showed it - to the newspaper man with a mixture of pride and tenderness and solicitude - lest it be harmed, as a father shows the only extant photograph of the - most wonderful baby in captivity. - </p> - <p> - “I thought my name would fit in very nicely between the Janeways and the - Jesups. It was a good investment, that one thousand dollars, for I felt I - had to get a gait on, and that very same day I went on that prospecting - trip to the Endicott Mountains which changed my luck for me. Everything - came my way then—I mean, in mining. I am getting six hundred - thousand dollars a year out of my claims; and that is because I believe - fifty thousand dollars a month enough for a bachelor. More would be—er—sort - of ostentatious. Don't you think so?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, indeed,” agreed J. Willoughby Parkhurst, with a shudder. - </p> - <p> - “When I marry I'll make it one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a - month.” - </p> - <p> - “I agree with you,” said Parkhurst—“because, really, two cannot live - as cheaply as one.” He thrilled when he thought how he would play up that - promised income in his story. - </p> - <p> - “That's what I say,” Jerningham said, gratefully. “Of course there's the - seven millions and a half of gold-dust I have brought with me. It's - downstairs.” His grim mouth became more determinedly grim than ever. This - man was the kind that gets what he wants, with or without money. He will - not climb, thought Parkhurst; he will vault into society. He asked - Jerningham: - </p> - <p> - “Have you really got that much down-stairs? I mean,” he hastily corrected - himself, “have you no fear of the danger of going about with that much - loose change?” - </p> - <p> - “No. It's guarded by men who are getting big pay for being honest. You can - buy honesty—if you treat it as a luxury and pay for it as such. Each - box weighs one hundred and fifty pounds, for convenience in handling. - Would you like to see the stuff?” He could not hide a boyish eagerness—not - at all offensive—to impress his new friend. J. Willoughby Parkhurst - forgave him in advance, and to prove it said, heartily: - </p> - <p> - “Very much indeed!” - </p> - <p> - “Very well. Please come with me.” And he led the way to the engine-room. - They went down two flights. At the door of the engine-room they met the - engineer, who bowed with an obsequiousness that indicated sincere - gratitude and renewed hope—as of a man who has received a handsome - gratuity and is expecting another. - </p> - <p> - In the middle of the concrete floor, of the engine-room, piled up in an - amazingly small mound of boxes, was the gold. - </p> - <p> - “Each box has about fifty thousand dollars in dust,” explained Jerningham, - with what one might have called a matter-of-fact pride. “Would you like to - open one?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't want to put you to any trouble—not for worlds; but I do - want to see the inside of one like anything.” - </p> - <p> - “No trouble. I say, Mr. Wilkinson,” to the hotel engineer, who had - followed them, a deferential smile fastened to his face, “could you get me - a hammer and chisel and a screw-driver?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly, Mr. Jerningham,” said the engineer, with obvious pride at - being part of an extraordinary adventure. He reappeared presently with the - tools and a burly assistant. They pried off the steel hoop and cracked off - the sealing-wax from over the heads of the screws that held the lid in - place. They then unscrewed the cover—and there before their - wide-gaping eyes was a boxful of yellow Yukon gold. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham smilingly looked at J. Willoughby Parkhurst and waved his hand - toward the treasure—a gesture that said Help yourself!—only it - said it humorously. And so the reporter smiled indulgently and plunged his - hand in it. - </p> - <p> - “How heavy!” he exclaimed, involuntarily. He had meant to be witty, as - penniless people always are in the presence of great wealth to show that - they are not impressed. - </p> - <p> - “It will be light enough to blow away here,” said Jerningham so seriously - that nobody smiled—indeed, everybody hoped for a blast in the - direction of his own pocket. Put Jerningham merely said: “Thank you. Will - you screw it on again?” And the engineer did. Jerningham did not stay to - see the rescrewing finished. He took Parkhurst's arm and walked out. The - reporter told him: - </p> - <p> - “I can't help thinking it was imprudent. The detectives now know they can - open the boxes and—” - </p> - <p> - “It isn't likely that all eight will be dishonest at the same minute. - That's why I got eight instead of four. But, even if they all wanted to, - how much could they get away with? With the contents of one of the boxes, - fifty thousand dollars? Well, that isn't much. I can't afford to let that - gold be a bother to me. I brought it along so that it could be my servant—not - for me to be its slave.” - </p> - <p> - “I've heard others make that selfsame remark,” said J. Willoughby, - cheerfully, “but they never struck off the aureate shackles!” - </p> - <p> - “My friend, it's not in striking off shackles; that is always difficult. - The secret is in not letting them become shackles!” said Jerningham, - grimly. “A man does not confidently expect during twenty-five years to - strike it rich some day without very carefully thinking of what he is - going to do with the gold after he gets it.” - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p> - The story, as James Willoughby Parkhurst wrote it, and even as the <i>Planet</i> - printed it, was a masterpiece. It was far more interesting than a fake. - The truth often may be stranger than fiction, but it is seldom so - exciting. With the generous desire to repay Jerningham's hospitality with - kindness, to say nothing of an eye for the picturesque, the reporter made - his victim an Admirable Crichton. Parkhurst's Jerningham was very - distinguished-looking, which every woman knows is better for a man than - being handsome. He not only was “probably the richest man in the world,” - but a fine linguist—indeed, a philologist. You saw Jerningham - digging in his gravel-bank by day—-spadeful after spadeful of clear - gold-dust—and at nights reading Aristophanes in the original by the - flickering and malodorous light of seal-fat lamps. - </p> - <p> - On the same day that Jerningham learned that his own wealth was - practically inexhaustible, and decided to limit his income in order that - gold might not be demonetized, he—the philologist in him—discovered - also amazing analogies between certain Eskimo and Aleutian words and their - equivalents in Tibetan. This and a monograph on “Totemism in the Light of - Its Undoubted Babylonian Origin,” he would read in London before the Royal - Society. Of Jerningham's ancestry the article said that the erudite - Croesus was “of the Long Island Jerninghams.” - </p> - <p> - At three separate and distinct places in the article, each time - differently worded, but the intention and purpose thereof being the same, - the writer said that for generosity, lavish extravagance, capacity for - spending, and deep-rooted belief that there was no difference between gold - coins and stage money, the learned Klondiker was a combination of Monte - Cristo, Boni de Castellane, Coal-Oil Johnny, and Alcibiades—only - more so. But his feverish efforts were all in vain—he only grew - richer! If he decided to give a million to a newsboy who was polite, that - same moment he would be sure to get a cablegram from one of his - superintendents that the vein had widened to three miles and the assays - jumped to three hundred thousand dollars a ton. - </p> - <p> - Parkhurst finished by saying that Jerningham had no use for women. In - divers countries world-famous sirens had sung to him—in vain. He was - the kind that registered zero, even though plunged to the chin in Vesuvian - lava. So the dear things might as well save time, breath, and muscular - exertion; he would have none of them, no matter what their age, color of - hair, temperament, accomplishments, or even faces might be. He was - arrow-proof and Cupid had given up trying. Still, there must be One—somewhere! - </p> - <p> - When J. Willoughby Parkhurst went to the Hotel Brabant on Monday morning - in the hope of a second-day story, he was not sure how Jerningham would - take his masterpiece. He was going so early in the hope of shunting off - the head-line artists of the afternoon papers, for all that he had begged - Stewart to fix it so that nobody got to Jerningham before the <i>Planet</i> - man turned up. - </p> - <p> - As he entered the lobby he saw in a corner lounge five reporters from the - yellows, three photographers from same, a professor from the Afternoon - Three-Center, and a “psychological portraitist,” feminine and fat, but - dressed with unusual care and even piquancy, from a magazine. He saw - Jemingham's finish—not! - </p> - <p> - The competitors were too busy talking to see J. Willoughby Parkhurst, - author of the day's sensation, walk up to the desk and greet Stewart - affectionately. They did not see J. W. P. turn sharply, approach a - well-built, square-shouldered man, with an outdoor complexion, who had - just emerged from the elevator, and shake hands warmly. - </p> - <p> - After one and a half seconds of dialogue, consisting of “Good morning!” - and “Good morning!” J. Willoughby cleverly realized that Mr. Alfred - Jemingham could not possibly have read the article. On general principles - he took the Klondiker to one end of the corridor, out of sight of the - other reporters. - </p> - <p> - “I am very anxious to make arrangements to store my gold in some bank's - vaults. I don't know any bank—that is, I have no account in any; and - I wondered if I needed to be introduced.” - </p> - <p> - Jemingham looked anxiously at Parkhurst. - </p> - <p> - “Of course!” said J. Willoughby, and immediately looked alarmed. “Of - course! They are very particular—very! The good ones, you know. A - man's bank is like a man's club—it can give him a social standing or - it can prove he hasn't any.” He looked at his Klondike friend with a frown - of anxiety. - </p> - <p> - “I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what - you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company.” - </p> - <p> - “Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he - will make the trust company take it—unless he thinks there is - another still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and - we'll tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us—what?” - </p> - <p> - J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive - property of the <i>Planet</i>. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called - up the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take - pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great - vaults, escorted by the <i>Planet's</i> special commissioner in one of the - armored automobiles which the <i>Planet</i> supplied to its bright young - men. - </p> - <p> - Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the <i>Planet's</i> financial editor; - and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller Trust - Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all arrangements, - including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy O'Loughlin, who did - all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson & Company, Wolff, Herzog - & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms. Photographers were - duly stationed at the various points by which the aureate procession would - pass. - </p> - <p> - Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the - ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be “tipped off” by - hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to the - Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the <i>Planet's</i> - automobile and followed the trucks. - </p> - <p> - In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder, and - Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was - carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the - heap. - </p> - <p> - “I'd like to have these cashed,” he said, with that delightful humor of - all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody - always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was - not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark at - home that night. - </p> - <p> - Word of what was happening went about, and soon the great little narrow - street was blocked by people who wished to see six or eight millions go - into a place where there were one hundred and fifty. But there was this - difference—the one hundred and fifty already there would stay there; - but a handful or two of the six or eight might be distributed among those - present by the latest Coal-Oil Johnny from the Klondike. The hope of a - stray nugget or two kept two thousand busy people about the doors of the - VanTwiller Trust Company nearly two hours. - </p> - <p> - As for Jerningham, the trust company was to send the twenty boxes of - gold-dust to the Assay Office and credit Mr. Jerninghan's account with the - proceeds of the sale thereof. Two days later Mr. Alfred Jerningham had to - his credit in the VanTwiller Trust Company $1,115,675.28; and in the - vaults boxes containing, as per his most conservative estimates, gold-dust - valued at six millions and a half. And everybody knew it—the Planet - saw to that. Great potentialities in that golden fame of Jerningham's—what? - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he <i>Planet's</i> - official version of the Jerningham affair, and the flood of sensational - literature turned loose on the community by the other papers, made the - Klondiker's name as familiar to New-Yorkers as a certain breakfast-food - advertisement. - </p> - <p> - His daily mail was enormous, especially after the newspapers said that he - was looking for a house in which to entertain. “The richest bachelor in - the world,” he was called, and the real-estate agents acted accordingly. - So did no end of unattached females of dubious age, but of not at all - dubious intentions. Also it became known that he needed a social secretary - to guide him in two things—the two things being whom to invite and - how to spend six hundred thousand dollars a year in entertaining those who - were invited by the social adviser. - </p> - <p> - The applications came by the dozen—in the strictest confidence. If - somebody had said this aloud in the hearing of society, society would have - laughed scornfully. A gentleman was always a gentleman, and could never, - never be secretary to a parvenu! But, for all that, there were scores of - well-born men who appeared willing enough—don't you know?—to - help spend the six hundred thousand a year. Or else some historic names - were forged by dastards. The <i>Planet's</i> society editor, who would - never allow herself to be called editress, proved invaluable as a living - Who's Who, and demonstrated her worth to her paper by making connections - that would further her work; for she was much sought by people who wished - introductions to Mr. Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - They would trade with her—items for letters. - </p> - <p> - It helped all concerned that not only Parkhurst, but the rest of the - kind-hearted space-grabbers, informed the world that the possessor of the - income of six hundred thousand a year was a fount of erudition, and withal - a man of the world, with exquisite manners—invulnerable to the - optical artillery of the fairest sirens on earth. And always the six - hundred thousand dollars a year to spend, so that the beastly stuff would - not accumulate and choke up the passages of the palace he proposed to - build! That was how Francis Wolfe came to be introduced to Mr. Jerningham - by J. Willoughby Parkhurst, and how the position was delicately offered to - him, and how F. Wolfe delicately accepted. - </p> - <p> - A fine-looking, well-built young fellow, this Frank—dark-eyed, - black-haired, with a wonderfully clean pink but virile complexion that - made him physically very attractive. In those Broadway restaurants that - have become institutions Francis Wolfe was himself an institution. His - debts were discussed as freely as the cost of gasoline. And yet the chorus - contingent and their lady friends, consisting of the most beautiful women - in all the world, not only preferred, but publicly and on the slightest - provocation proclaimed their preference for, Frank Wolfe penniless to - almost any one else—short of millions. But if Frank Wolfe was the - chorus-girls' pet, Mr. Francis Wolfe was the only brother of Mrs. John - Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham, and favorite nephew of old Mrs. Stimson. - And everybody knew what that meant! - </p> - <p> - J. Willoughby Parkhurst left them alone, even if he was a reporter. - </p> - <p> - “If you do not mind talking business,” said Jerningham, with a deprecatory - smile. - </p> - <p> - “Not at all,” eagerly said young Wolfe, who was consumed by curiosity to - listen to the golden statistics. “In fact,” he added, with a burst of - boyish candor, “I'd be glad to have you.” - </p> - <p> - “You are a nice boy!” said Jemingham, so gratefully and non-familiarly - that Frank could not find fault with him. - </p> - <p> - “I need a friend,” continued Jerningham. “I know friendship cannot be - bought. It grows—but there must be a seed. It may be that after you - know me better you will give me your friendship. That is for the future. I - also need a man! A man whom I can trust! A man, young Mr. Francis Wolfe,” - he said, with a sternness that impressed young Mr. Francis Wolfe, “who - will not laugh at me!” - </p> - <p> - Frank was not an intellectual giant, but neither was he an utter ass. He - said, very seriously, “Go on!” - </p> - <p> - “I am willing to pay such a man twenty-five thousand a year—” He - paused and almost frowned. - </p> - <p> - “Go on!” again said young Mr. Wolfe, looking the Klondiker straight in the - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Twenty-five thousand dollars—to begin with!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” said young Mr. Wolfe, quite calmly. - </p> - <p> - “The duties of such a man—and keep in mind I mean a man when I say a - man!—entail nothing whatever of a menial or dishonorable character; - nothing to which a gentleman could possibly object. But it would - necessitate a certain spirit of good-will toward me. I am not only - willing, but even anxious, to pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and - all traveling expenses, to a clean-minded young man who, for all his - wild-oat sowing, is a gentleman and will learn to like me enough not to - laugh at me when I intrust him with the secret desire of my heart.” - </p> - <p> - Before Frank's thoughts could crystallize into the definite suspicion that - Jerningham wanted to be helped to climb socially, Jemingham went on so - coldly that again young Wolfe was impressed: - </p> - <p> - “You will admit, Mr. Wolfe, that a man who has prospected all over North - America from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle, and who has, - unfortunately, been compelled”—he rose, went to his bureau, brought - out two revolvers of a rather old-fashioned kind—“compelled against - his will to draw first”—he showed the young man about a dozen - notches in the handle of one of them—“one who fears no man and no - government and no blackmailer; who owns the richest placer mines in the - world—is not apt to be an emotional ass!” There was a pause. But - Jemingham continued before young Wolfe could speak: “Neither is he a - damned fool—what?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Francis Wolfe felt he had to say something, so he said, “I shouldn't - think so.” - </p> - <p> - He felt that Jemingham was not a man to trifle with—a tough customer - in a rough-and-tumble fight; a man who had taken life in preserving his - own; altogether a man, a character, who would make an admirable topic of - conversation with both men and women—therefore a man to be - interested in. - </p> - <p> - “Do you know Mr. Ashton Welles?” asked Jer-ningham, almost sharply. - </p> - <p> - “Not intimately.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know Mrs. Ashton Welles?” - </p> - <p> - “Same answer.” - </p> - <p> - “Ever dine at their house?” - </p> - <p> - Frank thought a moment. He had dined at so many people's houses. “No,” he - answered, finally. “Could you?” - </p> - <p> - “How do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “Are your relations with Welles such, or could they be cultivated so, as - to make him invite you—not me—you!—to dine at his - house?” - </p> - <p> - “Look here, Mr. Jerningham,” and young Mr. Wolfe's face flushed, “a fellow - doesn't do some things for money; and this is one—” - </p> - <p> - “I know it! Not for money. For friendship, yes! That's why—you - understand now, don't you?” He looked so earnestly at young Wolfe that - Frank absolved him of wrong-doing. - </p> - <p> - “No, I don't!” said the young man. - </p> - <p> - “Did you ever know Randolph Deering, who used to be president of the - VanTwiller Trust Company?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean Mrs. Welles's father?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't recall speaking to him more than to say 'How do you do?' I don't - remember when or how I met him.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know Mrs. Deering, Mrs. Welles's mother?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you know anybody who does?” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose I do.” - </p> - <p> - “Anybody who would give you a letter of introduction?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know. If my aunt or my sisters know her it would be easy. But, of - course, I should have to know first why I should want to meet her.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course. Did you ever hear anything about Mrs. Welles's sister, Naida - Deering?” - </p> - <p> - “Didn't know she had a sister.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, of course, you never saw her.” - </p> - <p> - Francis Wolfe thought a long time. His mind did not work very quickly at - any time. At length he said: “I don't think there could have been a - sister, for I never heard of her having any; indeed, I distinctly remember - hearing that she was an only child. Maybe she was a cousin or—er—something - of the sort.” - </p> - <p> - “No; Naida was a sister; a good deal older and—But we are drifting - away from business. Will you accept my proposition to be my—er—adviser - in certain matters on which I think you are qualified to give advice, and - accept twenty-five thousand dollars a year?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mind if I speak frankly?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly not. Speak ahead.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you offering me this—er—salary when, of course, I know I - am not worth a da—a cent in business; I mean, isn't it really in - exchange for what I may be able to do for you in a—a social way? You - know what I mean.” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir!” said Jerningham, decisively. “Not for an instant! I do not, - dear Mr. Wolfe, give an infinitesimal damn for what is called society.” - </p> - <p> - “But I thought Jimmy Parkhurst told me—” - </p> - <p> - “I cannot help what Jimmy Parkhurst told you; but I tell you that I like - interesting people, and I don't care who or what they are socially. I hate - bores—whether they are hod-carriers or dukes. If I can meet people - who will instruct me when I want to learn, or amuse me when I want to - laugh, I'm satisfied. And I can always meet that kind without anybody's - help. You know how it is.” Then he spoke perhaps thirty words in a foreign - language that Frank thought must be Hungarian. “You remember your Latin, - of course. That's from Petronius.” - </p> - <p> - “I thought so!” said Frank Wolfe, the pet of the chorus-girls, laughing to - himself. Remember his Latin! He? Haw! - </p> - <p> - “It is from his 'Cena Trimalchionis.' The <i>arbiter elegantiarum</i> knew - what social climbers might be expected to do, though I neither boast of my - money nor do I eat with my knife. The Latin of the 'Cena' is difficult—too - slangy, full of the <i>sermo plebeius</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is,” agreed Frank, so gravely that it was all he could do to keep - from laughing at himself. This Klondiker was not only a gun-fighter and - richer than Croesus, but also a highbrow! Could you beat it? - </p> - <p> - “Will you accept my offer? Will you try to be my friend?” - </p> - <p> - “Suppose I find I can't?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll be sorry. The money is nothing. The inability to make a friend will - be my real loss.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, we might try six months.” He looked inquiringly at Jerningham. “I - don't exactly know what you wish me to do.” - </p> - <p> - “Become my friend! You yourself said some things cannot be done for money - by a gentleman; but there is nothing—so long as it is not - dishonorable—that a gentleman may not do for a friend. Shall I - explain a little more?” He looked anxiously at young Mr. Wolfe. - </p> - <p> - “Yes—do,” said Frank. It occurred to him that this singular man was - in reality proceeding with a curious delicacy. - </p> - <p> - “Just as soon as you feel you know me I will ask you to help me. Mrs. - Deering is now abroad. Mrs. Welles may be of help to us. Mr. Wolfe, now - that I am not so poor as I was, I want to find Naida Deering, the only - woman I ever loved—and, God help me, the only woman I still love!” - </p> - <p> - Jerningham rose hastily and walked up and down the room, his face - persistently turned away from Wolfe. He walked to a window and stared at - the sky a long time. Finally he turned to the young man, who was watching - him, and said, with profound conviction: - </p> - <p> - “<i>Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur!</i>” - </p> - <p> - Young Mr. Wolfe at first felt like saying, “Yes, indeed!” which would, as - a matter of fact, have been a very pat retort. But he weakened and said, - “What is that quotation from?” - </p> - <p> - “Publilius Syrus. Mr. Wolfe, I must find her. And of course I can't employ - a private detective. You understand?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. That is true,” said Frank. - </p> - <p> - “In her youth something happened.” Young Mr. Wolfe sat up straight. Here - at last was something really vital! Jerningham proceeded: “She was a - high-strung girl—pure as gold. Her very innocence made her - indiscreet. There was no scandal—no, indeed! But she disappeared. - And now, when I have more than enough money for the two of us, I wish to - find her. If I don't—of what possible good are my millions? Tell me - that!” - </p> - <p> - Jerningham glared so angrily at young Mr. Wolfe that young Mr. Wolfe felt - a slight spasm of concern. The Klondiker had a metallic gray eye that at - times menaced like cold steel. - </p> - <p> - “Excuse me!” said Jerningham, contritely. “My dear boy, do you know what - it is to go chasing over the landscape for years and years in the hope of - striking it some day so as to be able to go back to your native city and - marry the one woman in all the world—particularly when she was one - whom her parents, not understanding her nature, practically disowned? In - all my prospecting what I wanted was to find Naida's mine—gold by - the ton—so I could buy back her place in society!” - </p> - <p> - There was such determination in Jerningham's voice and look that young - Wolfe felt a thrill of admiration and, with it, a distinct masculine - liking. - </p> - <p> - “That's a great story!” he said. “I never heard of your—er—Miss - Naida. She never married, I suppose?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know! I don't know! She promised to wait for me. The Deerings - used to live in Jersey; and living in Jersey when I was a kid wasn't what - it is to-day. They were not prominent in society. Of course the Deerings - kept it quiet. I think Mrs. Welles may know where her sister is—the - sister who is never mentioned by her own flesh and blood! Mrs. Deering, of - course, does; but she is abroad somewhere. I must find Naida, I tell you—and—” - Jerningham was silent, but Wolfe saw that he was breathing quickly, as - though he had been running. Frank never read anything except the afternoon - papers, love-letters, and the more romantic of the best-sellers. He now - very laboriously constructed a romance of Jemingham's life that became so - thrilling it took away his own breath. It made him feel very kindly toward - the new Jerningham—everybody feels kindly toward his own creations; - and so he said, in a burst of enthusiasm: - </p> - <p> - “By George! I'll help you!” - </p> - <p> - And thus was begun the pact between the two men. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the very, next - morning Mr. Jerningham, instead of going to Wall Street as was his custom, - went instead to Mrs. Charlton Morris's Agency for Trained Nurses. - </p> - <p> - An empress—no less—sat at a desk. She was not, however, one of - those empresses who change the destiny of nations by their beauty. She had - merely an arrogance more than royal. - </p> - <p> - “I should like to see Mrs. Charlton Morris,” said Jerningham, briskly. - </p> - <p> - “I am Mrs. Morris,” she said. - </p> - <p> - You at once perceived that she was even more than imperial. She was a - woman of forty, dark, slender, with shell-rimmed, round lenses that gave - her that look between a Chinese philosopher and an ancient owl, which - those tortoise-shell goggles always do. You also obtained the impression - that a completely successful operation had removed Mrs. Morris's sense of - humor. - </p> - <p> - “I should like, if you please—” began Jerningham; but Mrs. Morris - interrupted with an effect as of thrusting an icicle into the interior - mechanism of a clock. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon, but we must know with whom we are dealing. What is the - name, please?” - </p> - <p> - “I prefer not to give you mine yet.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh no, sir; I must know.” - </p> - <p> - “Suppose I had given you a false one, how would you have been the wiser?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but also you must give me the name of your doctor.” - </p> - <p> - “He sent me here.” - </p> - <p> - “And who is he, sir?” - </p> - <p> - From her voice and her look you gathered that she was in charge of a - hospital and was obtaining indispensable clinical data. - </p> - <p> - “Madam,” said Jemingham, very coldly indeed, “you talk like the census - man. Would you also like to know my age, sex, and color?” - </p> - <p> - “We never,” retorted Mrs. Morris, imperturbably, “do business with - strangers.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you want me to get a letter from the President of the United States? I - know him pretty well. Or from my bankers? They are known even in - Brooklyn.” - </p> - <p> - “We are here to supply trained nurses to people whose physicians we know.” - </p> - <p> - A trained nurse must have unfailing good humor—it is part of her - professional requirements. But a purveyor of trained nurses may permit - herself much dignity, as though her mission in life consisted, of fitting - nurses to cases—the best nurse for the worst case. - </p> - <p> - “My doctor,” said Jerningham, “is Dr. Jewett.” It was the name of a very - great surgeon. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, yes. Surgical case! Yes! I have Miss Sennett and Miss Audrey. Dr. - Jewett knows them very well.” - </p> - <p> - “Kindly wait a second! I must see them myself. And it is not a surgical - case. It is no case at all—yet. Show me the girls!” - </p> - <p> - “Sir, this is not an intelligence-office; but—” - </p> - <p> - “I know there is no intelligence in this office. This is merely the - anteroom of a hospital and you are the superintendent. By rights you ought - to be on the faculty. I am perfectly willing to pay for any loss of time - or trouble to which you and the young ladies may be put.” - </p> - <p> - “Must she be young?” asked Mrs. Morris. - </p> - <p> - Her voice was at least thirty degrees below zero, for all that there was - no devilishness about Mr. Jerningham. He said: - </p> - <p> - “Yes; and good-looking—not a girl in her teens, but a young woman. I - should say, without meaning to be personal, about your age, Mrs. Morris.” - </p> - <p> - It was plain that Mrs. Morris had almost superhuman control over her - facial muscles—she did not beam on him! - </p> - <p> - “I understand,” she said, in a quite human voice. This man was, after all, - neither rude nor blind. “A woman—” - </p> - <p> - “About thirty—or a little less,” said Jerningham. He looked at Mrs. - Morris's face and nodded confirmatively. - </p> - <p> - “Exactly,” said Mrs. Morris, genially. First impressions are so apt to be - unfair! - </p> - <p> - “I'll be more than satisfied with one of your age and good loo—and—er—appearance - “—here the Morris smile irrepressibly made its début—“and also - tactful. It is an unusual case. It will necessitate going to Europe.” - </p> - <p> - “With the patient?” - </p> - <p> - “For the patient,” said Jerningham, and waited. - </p> - <p> - “If you will tell me a little bit more about the case—” said Mrs. - Morris, encouragingly. She had just taken a good look at the pearl in the - scarf of this delightful judge of ages—at the lowest estimation, - five thousand dollars! - </p> - <p> - “My—I—We have reason to believe that a—friend is ill in - London. Kidneys. We wish her to take care of herself. She is a woman of - fifty-odd. We want a nurse, refined, well-bred, good-looking, and - competent—like yourself; so that she could be a companion and at - home among wealthy people. You know what I mean.” He paused. - </p> - <p> - “Perfectly, sir!” said Mrs. Morris, veraciously. Did she not know Mrs. - Morris? - </p> - <p> - “It would be nice to find such a nurse—and, if possible, also one to - whom the fact that she is going to visit England, and possibly other - countries, may be a sort of compensation for her sudden departure from New - York. Of course she will be paid all her traveling and living expenses—first-class - all through—and her regular honorarium. I believe it is thirty-five - dollars a week. As I am leaving New York myself soon, I'll pay in advance, - and will leave instructions with my bankers to honor any of your drafts, - Mrs. Morris. It will be a good opportunity for the young lady to know - London—and you know how attractive it is—and Paris!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Mrs. Morris, suddenly looking like Baedeker. - </p> - <p> - “The young lady—I am sorry you could not go in her place! Yes, I am!—will - live at the same hotel with the patient and become acquainted with her—and - advise her to see a physician regularly—a specialist in kidney - diseases. We think her only daughter ought to be with her. But you can't - say anything to either of them, because if the mother doesn't think she is - ill the daughter cannot know it, either. We only suspect it is Bright's. - You can't afford to wait until you have to go to bed with Bright's—can - you?” - </p> - <p> - “No, indeed!” gravely agreed Mrs. Morris, specialist. - </p> - <p> - “So now you know what sort of a girl I wish—one who will be there if - the trouble should take a sudden turn for the worse; one who will induce - the old lady to consult a physician. Do I have to give a preliminary fee?” - </p> - <p> - “Not at all. Call this afternoon at four and I'll try to have one of my - best nurses here. She is—well, quite young; in fact”—with what - might be called a desiccated archness—“she is a little younger than - I and quite pretty. I call her handsome!” - </p> - <p> - Some women are so sure of their own position that they do not fear - competition. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you! I'll be here at four, sharp.” And Mr. Jemingham went away - without having given his name to Mrs. Morris. - </p> - <p> - At four o'clock Mr. Jemingham called at Mrs. Charlton Morris's agency and - had an interview with Miss Kathryn Keogh. Mrs. Morris gave them the use of - her own little private office; Jemingham very impressively waited for Miss - Keogh to sit down and then did so himself. - </p> - <p> - He threw at Miss Keogh one of those inventorying looks that women find so - difficult to appear unconscious of, probably because they know their own - weak points. - </p> - <p> - Miss Keogh was beautiful—and when an Irish girl is beautiful she is - beautiful in so many ways! She had the wonderful complexion of her race - and a mouth carved out of heaven's prize strawberry. Her eyes were an - incredibly deep blue when they were not an incredibly deep pansy-purple, - and they were abysses of velvet. In the darkness, without seeing them—just - by remembering them—you loved those eyes. In the light, when you - could see them, you simply worshiped! Her throat was one of those - paradoxical affairs, soft and hard, which made you think at one and the - same time of marble and rose-leaves—Solomon's tower of ivory, - crowned by the glory of golden-brown hair, so fine that you thought of - clouds of it! - </p> - <p> - If you looked at her eyes you suspected, and if you looked at her throat - you were certain that you, a respectable married man, had in you the - makings of a criminal—the crime being bigamy. Also you would have - sworn to her only too cheerfully that she was the only girl you had ever - loved. With one look, remember! - </p> - <p> - Jemingham looked at her with a cold, impersonally appreciative eye, as he - might have scrutinized a clock that was both beautiful and costly. - </p> - <p> - Miss Keogh understood it perfectly. It piqued her, accustomed as she was - to instant adoration. Yet it was not entirely displeasing. This man knew - as a connoisseur knows—with his head. That he had not permitted the - silly heart to disturb the critical faculties was less flattering, of - course. It deferred the inevitable triumph and thus would make it sweeter. - </p> - <p> - “Has Mrs. Morris told you what I should like you to do?” Jemingham's voice - was coldly emotionless, and his gray eyes showed frosty lights. - </p> - <p> - “She has told me what you doubtless told her. But I must confess I am not - very clear in my own mind,” answered Miss Keogh. - </p> - <p> - Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to give - her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard the voice - you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your own lips! - </p> - <p> - Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she were - anybody—a woman of forty, for example, “Will you listen to me - carefully?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes!” - </p> - <p> - “I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five - dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel - expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will - depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp—but we are not - throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But - forget all about it.” - </p> - <p> - “I have—in advance,” said the marvel, calmly. - </p> - <p> - Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet - not at all defiantly as a lesser person would. - </p> - <p> - “If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's Hotel—an - old-fashioned but very select hotel—where you will find a nice room - reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a guinea a day—for - the room and table board. You will thus have five dollars a day for cabs - and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. Margaret Deering, an elderly - American widow, who looks healthy enough. We fear she is not so strong as - she looks, and don't want her to be alone. But she will not take hints. I - wish you to make friends with her, so that if she should become ill enough - to need attention you may see that she gets proper care and induce her to - cable to her only daughter.” He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh - inquiringly, as if to convince himself that Miss Keogh had understood. - </p> - <p> - “What,” said Miss Keogh, calmly, “is the rest of it?” Her eyes were very - dark. They always seemed to deepen in color when she frowned. She always - frowned when she concentrated—all women do, notwithstanding their - dread of wrinkles. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham stared at her. Then he said, “The lady is not insane.” - </p> - <p> - “Nervous?” - </p> - <p> - “Not yet!” - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” Miss Keogh nodded her head. Her color had risen somewhat. - </p> - <p> - “Is there anything in what I have said so far that makes you unwilling to - take this case?” asked Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing—so far,” she said, looking steadily into his cold, gray - eyes. She was, of course, Irish. - </p> - <p> - “Very well. You can save her family much worriment by suggesting to Mrs. - Deering that she ought to have a trained nurse in constant attendance.” - </p> - <p> - “By the name of Keogh?” interjected the most wonderful. - </p> - <p> - “No. You are supposed to be a young lady with an income of your own. You - might explain that you took up trained nursing to help your only brother, - a physician.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well. And—” - </p> - <p> - “After you meet Mrs. Deering you might make judicious remarks about her - health.” - </p> - <p> - “For example—” - </p> - <p> - “Well, at breakfast you say: 'You didn't sleep well last night, did you?' - If she says no, you can immediately suggest a physician. If she says she - did, you say: 'Well, there is something wrong with you! Did you ever have - your kidneys examined?' A simple remark in the proper tone of voice - sometimes does it—like, 'Whatever in the world is the matter with - you, dear Mrs. Deering?' You understand?” - </p> - <p> - “If you mean that I must suggest to her that she is ailing—” - </p> - <p> - “Precisely. The idea is not to frighten her to death, my dear young woman - with the beautiful but suspicious eyes, but simply to induce her to send - for her only daughter, so that afterward the two will not be separated. - And the old lady, I may say for the benefit of your still suspicious eyes, - is not very rich, though the daughter is. So your imagination need not - invent any devilish plot. I think you can accomplish your work in six - weeks. For every day under the six weeks you will receive five pounds. - That's twenty-five dollars a day. That is intended, Miss Keogh, to make - you hurry. But you must be tactful.” - </p> - <p> - “Make it a fixed sum. You look like a clever man.” - </p> - <p> - She looked at him challengingly. He stared back, and gradually a look of - admiration came into his eyes. He said, with a smile of appreciation: - </p> - <p> - “You win! You are certainly the most wonderful girl in the world! I'll - make it one thousand dollars, win, lose, or draw. But the quicker the - cablegram—” - </p> - <p> - “—grams,” she corrected—“plural. For greater effect at this - end!” - </p> - <p> - “—grams!” he echoed. “And now you must come with me to the bank to - get your letter of credit and some English money. I'll pay in advance.” - </p> - <p> - He rose. Miss Keogh motioned to him to sit down again. He did so, and - looked at her alertly. It might have disconcerted some girls—but not - the only absolutely perfect one. Not at all! - </p> - <p> - “There remains something,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “What?” he queried, sharply. - </p> - <p> - “You forgot it!” she told him, with one of those utterly maddening smiles - of forgiveness with which beautiful women rivet the fetters and make one - grateful. - </p> - <p> - “What? What?” he asked, impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “Why?” she answered. “That is what! Why?” - </p> - <p> - Her beautiful head nodded twice with a birdlike gracefulness. Her eyes - were very blight—and very dark! Her cheeks were flushed. Her ripe - lips, slightly parted, were overpoweringly tempting. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham stood up again and stared fixedly at her as though he would - read miles and miles beyond her wonderful eyes—into the very depths - of her soul! He approached her and held out both his hands. After a - scarcely perceptible hesitation she placed hers in his. He shook them with - profound gravity; then bowed and raised her right to his lips—and - kissed it twice. Still holding her hands in his, he said to her, - earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “My dear child, you are the most wonderful woman in all the world. You are - simply the last word in utter perfection. I am a millionaire, but not a - crook. I am forty, but still strong. I have never been in love with a - woman; but I now know I could be. If you ever wish to marry for the ease - and comfort that great wealth gives, or if you ever feel like using your - wonderful gifts to make a man who has both money and brains become an - important personage in the world—just say the word. There is nothing—nothing, - do you hear?—that we could not do together, you and I. My name is—” - He paused and looked at her as if to make sure again. - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” she said, in her most heavenly voice. She released her hands, but - her eyes never left his. “Jerningham.” - </p> - <p> - “The Klondike millionaire who—” - </p> - <p> - “The same!” - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” said Miss Keogh, calmly, but her flowerlike cheeks were azalea-pink, - and her eyes were full of light. She had read the <i>Planet's</i> - articles. She did not remember how many million dollars Jerningham was - supposed to have; but she did remember how the fairest of the fair had - tried—and failed! - </p> - <p> - “Remember—any time, with or without notice. My offer is open until - you accept it or definitely refuse it. Perhaps I never could make you love - me; but I know I could love you if I let myself go.” - </p> - <p> - “You have not answered me,” said Miss Keogh. “Ask again,” he smiled. - </p> - <p> - “Why?” There was no smile in her eyes. - </p> - <p> - It made him serious. He answered: - </p> - <p> - “For friendship.” - </p> - <p> - “To a woman?” - </p> - <p> - “To a man.” - </p> - <p> - “Again I ask, Why?” - </p> - <p> - There was a pause. Then he said: - </p> - <p> - “Mrs. Ashton Welles is the only daughter of Mrs. Deering.” - </p> - <p> - “And—” - </p> - <p> - “She is twenty-two.” - </p> - <p> - “And—” - </p> - <p> - “Her husband is fifty-two. That's all!” - </p> - <p> - “Is it?” - </p> - <p> - “So far as I am concerned, it is—really!” - </p> - <p> - “Is Mr. Ashton Welles your friend?” - </p> - <p> - “No. But he is no enemy, either.” - </p> - <p> - “No? But you have a friend, a Mr. Wolfe—a Mr. Francis Wolfe?” She - knew it from a newspaper item. - </p> - <p> - But Mr. Jerningham jumped up from his seat. “Marry me, dear girl! Marry - me, I beg of you! You are the only woman in the world! You are the most - beautiful ever created and, beyond all question, the cleverest. You are a - genius! Why isn't all mankind on its knees worshiping? Will you marry me? - Wait! Don't speak. I know what your answer will be.” - </p> - <p> - “You do?” She smiled inscrutably. - </p> - <p> - Imagine the Sphinx—if the Sphinx were Irish and very beautiful—with - those eyes and those lips! Guess? You couldn't guess where your soul was—or - whose! - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I do,” answered Jerningham, confidently. “I will write it on a piece - of paper and prove it. But first tell me this: Will you take Mrs. - Deering's case?” - </p> - <p> - She looked at him, and said, “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well.” He wrote something on one of his cards, doubled it so she - could not see what he had written, and gave it to her, saying, “Now answer - me: Will you marry me?” - </p> - <p> - She looked at him a long time. He met her gaze squarely. Presently she - said, very seriously: - </p> - <p> - “Not yet!” - </p> - <p> - “Look in the card,” he said, also very seriously. - </p> - <p> - She did. It said: <i>Not yet!</i> - </p> - <p> - A vague alarm came into her purple-blue eyes. She was on the point of - speaking, but he held up his hand, and said, earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “Please don't say it. We'll meet in London. You will enjoy the Continent - later on. Now let us go and get your letter of credit, and see whether you - like the stateroom that I ordered reserved.” They did. - </p> - <p> - On the next day Jerningham's limousine took Miss Keogh and her - hand-luggage to the steamer.-Jerningham was there to see her off. She had - invited a dozen of her friends to do the same, and they were there—all - of them women and most of them frankly envious, for her stateroom was full - of beautiful flowers and baskets of wonderful fruit—quite as if she - already were a millionaire! - </p> - <p> - As she said good-by to Jerningham there was in her eyes a look of - intelligent, almost cold-blooded, gratitude which seemed to embrace Mr. - Jerningham's kindness, his thoughtfulness, and his bank account. - </p> - <p> - “I wish you a very pleasant voyage!” he said. “Think over my offer. When - you get to London will you mail these letters for me? Remember, you are to - cable if you need anything, money or advice—or a husband. And cable - at once if Mrs. Deering cables. Good-by! <i>Bon voyage!</i>” - </p> - <p> - When Miss Keogh came to open the package of letters she found in it - thirty-three, stamped with British stamps, on stationery of Thornton's - Hotel'! They were addressed in a woman's handwriting to various business - houses, some of which she recognized as manufacturers of medical goods and - agents of mineral waters of the kind used by people who suffer from kidney - diseases. It made her think that if—between the deluge of medical - prospectuses and Miss Keogh's efforts—Mrs. Deering did not cable for - her only daughter it would be a wonder! Jerningham was neglecting nothing - to succeed. - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>rank Wolfe's first - task in his new and now famous job consisted of helping Jerningham buy two - automobiles. Then, when the weather permitted, they toured Westchester - County and Long Island. - </p> - <p> - Usually they took along some of Frank's men friends. It was pleasant work—-at - the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham did not again refer to his love-affair, and Frank could not - very well allude to it; but it was perfectly plain to the young man that - within a very short time their friendship would be sufficiently strong to - justify Mr. Jerningham in asking Frank to help actively in the search of - the vanished Naida Deering. - </p> - <p> - One day Mr. Jerningham waited in vain for young Mr. Wolfe. They had - planned to go to Mount Kisco to look at a farm that was offered for sale, - Mr. Jerningham having developed the usual millionaire's desire to own an - estate. At one o'clock the telephone-bell rang. Jerningham answered in - person. He heard a feminine voice say that Mr. Wolfe regretted that a - severe indisposition had prevented him from going as usual to Mr. - Jerningham's rooms, but he hoped to be sufficiently recovered to have that - pleasure on the next day. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham merely said, “Say I hope it is nothing serious—and ask - him, please, whether there is anything I can do.” - </p> - <p> - Silence. Then: “He says, 'No—thanks!' It is nothing very serious.” - </p> - <p> - “Tell him not to come down until he has entirely recovered and to take - good care of himself. Good-by!” - </p> - <p> - If Mr. Jerningham heard the tinkling music of an irrepressible giggle at - the other end of the wire he did not show it. His face was serious as he - found an address in the telephone-directory. He called up the Brown - Lecture Bureau and made an appointment to see Captain Brown, the manager, - at 3 p.m. At that hour, to the minute, he was ushered into the private - offices of the world-famous manager of the lecture bureau. - </p> - <p> - “Captain Brown?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?” - </p> - <p> - “I should like to know what lecturers you have available at the moment,” - said Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - The Klondiker did not look like the chairman of a church entertainment - committee or like a village philanthropist. So Captain Brown asked: - </p> - <p> - “Where is the—er—Is it a club?” - </p> - <p> - “No. It is myself. Here in New York.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, we provide speakers and lecturers, not exactly entertainers, to—” - </p> - <p> - “I know all that. I wish to know whom you could send me to entertain me. - Let me see! Is Commander Finsen, the explorer, here now?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “And his terms?” - </p> - <p> - “It depends upon where it is.” - </p> - <p> - Evidently Jerningham did not think Captain Brown realized what was wanted, - for he said, earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “Captain Brown, get this clearly fixed in your mind, if you please: I am - anxious to hear some of your lecturers by myself alone, in my own - apartments. I wish men who have done things—men who are, above all - things, brave and resourceful. I don't want decadent poets, but explorers, - gentlemen adventurers, humanists, or scientists, who have a knack of - imparting their knowledge in such a way as to interest men who are neither - old nor scientific. I am perfectly willing to pay your usual rate. What's - the odds if one of your clients spends an evening with me or whether he - spends it in Norwalk, Connecticut, or Boundbrook, New Jersey? Do you get - me?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, perfectly. I might suggest—” - </p> - <p> - Here the genial manager ceased speaking to smile, grateful that so unusual - a man as Jerningham should condescend to listen. It was a habit—this - thankful smiling—that came from having dealt with geniuses for - thirty years. Then Captain Brown permitted himself to suggest a dozen or - more men who had very interesting stories to tell. Jerningham asked him to - make a memorandum of the men and their specialties, and agreed to call on - Captain Brown when he needed entertainment. After Captain Brown had given - him the names and prices, Jerningham gave his own name and address. - </p> - <p> - Captain Brown looked grieved. He read the newspapers. He might have asked - double the fees from the Alaskan Monte Cristo! - </p> - <p> - On the next day, when Mr. Francis Wolfe showed up with never a trace of - anything but good health on his pleasing face, Jerningham invited him to - spend the next evening in the apartments and hear Finsen tell how he had - discovered the tribe of Antarctic giants, the shortest of whom was seven - feet three inches; and how he had captured alive, thirty-three white - bears. He asked Frank to invite five friends who might be interested, - first, in dining with Jerningham and Commander Finsen, and then in hearing - Finsen spin his yarn. - </p> - <p> - Frank gladly undertook to find the audience. - </p> - <p> - So they had a very nice little dinner, with just enough to drink and no - killjoys in activity. And later, in Jerningham's little sitting-room at - the hotel, they heard the great Dane, who was a prosaic viking with iron - muscles and pale-blue eyes that made you uncomfortable for reasons - unknown, tell them all about his remarkable voyage of discovery and his - hunts—no end of things that he could tell them, but could not tell a - mixed audience: perfectly amazing details, of which Frank and his friends - talked for weeks. - </p> - <p> - Then there was a little midnight supper, at which they all told stories - that left no unpleasant aftereffects. - </p> - <p> - One day after luncheon Jerningham, who had been in a particularly jovial - mood, suddenly became very serious. He aimed at Frank one of those - searching looks that seemed to go to the young man's soul. Then he said: - </p> - <p> - “My boy, I'd like to say something to you.” - </p> - <p> - “Say it.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall probably hurt your feelings, so you must be prepared to keep your - temper well in hand.” - </p> - <p> - “You ought to know me better than that by now, Jerningham,” retorted - Frank. He had grown not only to like, but even to admire, this strange - miner. - </p> - <p> - “Wolfe,” said Jerningham, slowly, “you are one of those unfortunate chaps - who are cruelly handicapped by perennial youth. It is doubtless a pleasing - thing to feel at fifty as you did at twenty. Nevertheless, it is bad - business. It is all very nice to shun responsibility, but it makes you - careless; and you can't expect to saddle consequences on your guardian - after you are twenty-one. A boy of forty can't be trusted to take care of - his own property.” - </p> - <p> - “I can take care of mine,” laughed Frank, “without any trouble.” His - property was about minus thirty thousand. - </p> - <p> - “Your property now—yes. But suppose you had a million or two left - you—or even more? Do you know what would happen to those millions, - and do you know what would happen to you?” - </p> - <p> - “I know—but I won't tell.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you let me tell you?” asked Jerningham, so earnestly that Frank - almost stopped smiling. - </p> - <p> - “I'll hear you to the bitter end.” - </p> - <p> - “The millions would go from your pocket into the pockets of—well, - you know whose pockets! And your life would go into the Big Beyond by the - W. W. route.” - </p> - <p> - “I bite. What's W. W.?” - </p> - <p> - “Wine and woman. You would last perhaps five years. You would die a - dipsomaniac at thirty or thereabout. The chief folly of fighting booze - when you are rich is that it renders wealth utterly futile.” - </p> - <p> - “How?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you can get just as drunk on ten dollars a day as you can on one - thousand dollars—with this difference, that in the one case you - would have to get drunk on whisky by yourself and in the other you might - get drunk on vintage champagne in the company of paid parasites. The - morning after is the same in both cases: you don't remember any more of - the ten-dollar jag than of the thousand-dollar orgy! When a drunkard sets - out to squander a million all he really does is to carry a sign on his - back with letters a mile high—the sign reading, 'I am a d———d - fool!”' - </p> - <p> - Frank took it good-naturedly because he liked Jemingham and because he was - not a millionaire. It really would be asinine to be a millionaire and try - to drink all there was; so he said, amiably: - </p> - <p> - “Having downed the Demon Rum, then what?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll put it up to you this way: I have no family and I may never marry. I - certainly won't if I don't find my first and only sweetheart. Suppose I - felt like leaving you some of my money? You are a nice boy, but you also - have been a D. F., and you must admit that no man likes to see his friend - trying to beat all D. F. records. Don't get mad and don't look indignant! - I want to make a proposition to you: I'll agree to deposit to your account - in a trust company one hundred dollars a day for every day you don't touch - a drop! I don't want to reform you. I merely want to train you—in - case! There will be some times when you will forfeit that. It will amount - to paying one hundred dollars for a Martini. It will become a luxury.” - </p> - <p> - “Too expensive for me!” said Frank, seriously. “And, my boy, it is more - than being on the water-wagon—it's being able to stay on! Booze is - so foolish! I want to give you some business matters—for you to - handle for me.” - </p> - <p> - “You know what I know about business—” - </p> - <p> - “Can't you do as you are told? Don't you know enough to look clever and - say, 'Sign here!' in a frozen voice?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes. But—” - </p> - <p> - “I know you will miss your evenings at first. But I'll tell you what to - do. I am no killjoy. Well, you spend as many evenings as you wish with me. - Invite as many friends as you please—sex no bar. Will you?” - </p> - <p> - “Jemingham, you are a nice chap. I'll do it. But you must not think of - that one hundred dollars—” - </p> - <p> - “Tut-tut! Can't you understand that I want to do it—that I love to - see your bank account grow? Run along now. I want to read Lucretius.” - </p> - <p> - From that day Francis Wolfe became Jemingham's inseparable companion. - Every night they went to the theater together or else they spent the - evening in Jemingham's rooms, listening to celebrities. Their evenings - soon became famous. Indeed, people began to talk about Frank Wolfe's - reform. Even his fairest and frailest friends, knowing that Frank - forfeited one hundred dollars a day by falling off the water-wagon, kept - him firmly on the seat—and borrowed the hundred. In due time the - miracle reached the ears of Frank's sisters and of his aunt, Mrs. Stimson. - They had a talk with Frank. They were first amazed, then delighted, when - they saw Frank and when they heard about Jerningham's intention of making - him his heir. - </p> - <p> - Thus it came about that, out of gratitude for the man who was making a man - of their brother, Mrs. - </p> - <p> - John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham accepted Mr. Jerningham's invitation - and attended one of the lectures at the Klondiker's apartments. The little - supper that followed was a great success. Mr. Jemingham talked little, but - extremely well—as when he said to Mrs. Jack in a low voice that he - loved Frank Wolfe and some day everybody would be sure of it! - </p> - <p> - “I am merely training him. But don't think I am asking the impossible. I - wish him to know enough to hold on to what I'll leave him.” - </p> - <p> - Of course after that Mr. Jerningham was not only in society, but even in a - fair way of becoming a fad. Gerald Lanier, the short-story writer, said - that Jerningham was society's gold cure and had climbed into the inner - circles on a ladder made of tightly corked wine-bottles; in fact, he wrote - what his nonliterary friends called a skit—and Frank's friends a - knock—entitled: “How to Capitalize Intemperance.” But that did not - hinder Jerningham from receiving invitations from families with thirsty - younger sons. - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>ne morning - Jemingham, who had seemed preoccupied, said to Frank: - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if I can ask you—” He paused and looked doubtfully at - Frank. - </p> - <p> - “What?” - </p> - <p> - “A favor.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course. Why, you can even touch me if you want to.” - </p> - <p> - “I wonder if your—if Mrs. Burt would invite Mrs. Ashton Welles to - dinner?” - </p> - <p> - “I guess so. I'll ask her.” - </p> - <p> - “That way you could meet Mrs. Welles, and—” - </p> - <p> - “You mean,” said Frank, trying to look like Sherlock Holmes, “I could ask - her about your—about her sister?” - </p> - <p> - Jerningham jumped to his feet in consternation. - </p> - <p> - “Great Scott, no! No!” he shouted. - </p> - <p> - “Why, I thought—” - </p> - <p> - “You can't ask her that until you know her so well that you can take a - friend's liberty. Promise me you won't ask her until I myself tell you - that you may! Promise!” - </p> - <p> - There was in his eyes a look of such intensity that young Wolfe was - startled. - </p> - <p> - “Of course I'll promise.” - </p> - <p> - “You must make friends with her first. She must learn to like you—” - </p> - <p> - Francis Wolfe smiled a trifle fatuously. It was merely boyish. A little - more, however, would have made the smile ungentlemanly. Jerningham - continued, very earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “Listen, lad. She will have to do more than merely like you—she will - have to trust you. And the only way to make a young and pretty woman trust - a <i>young</i> and not unattractive man is by having that man never, - never, never fail in respect of her. He may be in love with her, or he may - only pretend to be in love with her; but he must act as if he regarded her - with such awe that he dare not make direct love to her. Do you get it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But—” - </p> - <p> - “There is no but. She must first like you, which is not difficult; and - then she must trust you as a true friend, which is, to say the least, a - slower matter. Be a brother to her. Do you think you like me well enough - to do this for me now?” - </p> - <p> - Jerningham looked at young Wolfe steadily—a man's look. - </p> - <p> - Frank said: “I'll do it gladly. And my sisters—” - </p> - <p> - “They must never know about—about Naida!” interrupted Jerningham, - hastily. - </p> - <p> - “Of course not. But they will do anything for me—and for you, too!” - </p> - <p> - That is the true story of how it came about that Mrs. Ashton Welles was - taken up by the Jack Burts; and how she met Francis Wolfe; and how Mrs. - Stimson invited Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Welles to one of her old-fashioned and - tiresome but famous and very formal dinners; and how Frank again took in - Mrs. Welles. Thereafter they met often. At some of these dinners they met - Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - The Klondiker paid his court to Mr. Welles. Indeed, he seemed to have for - the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company an admiration that closely - resembled the worship of a matinée girl for an actress like Maude Adams. - It was an innocent sort of worship, but, nevertheless, not displeasing. In - men it sometimes makes the worshiped feel paternally toward the worshiper. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham developed a habit of going every day to the trust company; and - he made it a point always to see Ashton Welles, if only to shake hands. - One morning he told Mr. Welles he desired advice about an investment. - Jerningham, it must be remembered, had on deposit with the trust company - over a million dollars, and there were six or seven millions in gold-dust - in the company's vault. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Welles, I—I,” said the Klondiker, so earnestly that he - stammered—“I should like to buy some VanTwiller Trust Company stock, - to have and to hold as long as you are president.” - </p> - <p> - There was in Jemingham's eyes a look of that admiration that best - expresses itself in absolute confidence in the infallibility of a very - great man. Welles was a very cold man; but flattery has rays that will - thaw icebergs. - </p> - <p> - Welles nearly blushed and smiled one of his politely deprecating smiles—as - if he were apologizing for smiling—and said: - </p> - <p> - “Why, Mr. Jemingham, I'll confess to you that I myself think well of that - stock. I guess we'll keep on paying dividends.” - </p> - <p> - Jemingham smiled delightedly—the king had jested! Then he said: - </p> - <p> - “I'll buy as much as I can, but I don't want to put up the price on - myself. Who can give me pointers on how to pick up the stock quietly? Do - you think I should see Mr. Barrows or Mr. Stewardson?” - </p> - <p> - He looked so anxiously at Mr. Welles that Mr. Welles said, kindly: - </p> - <p> - “Oh, see Stewardson. I'll speak to him, if you wish.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Welles,” said Jer-ningham, so gratefully that - Welles felt like a philanthropist as he rang the bell to summon the second - vice-president. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Stewardson, Mr. Jemingham, wants to buy some of our stock. I want you - to help him in any way possible.” - </p> - <p> - “Delighted, I'm sure!” said the vice-president, very cordially. He was - paid to be cordial to customers. - </p> - <p> - “If I had my way I'd be the largest individual stockholder,” said - Jerningham, looking at Welles almost adoringly. - </p> - <p> - “I hope you will,” said Welles, pleasantly. “Mr. Stewardson will help - you.” - </p> - <p> - Jerningham and Welles shook hands. Then Jerningham and Stewardson left to - go to the vice-president's private office. - </p> - <h3> - VII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he remarkable Miss - Keogh was one of those remarkable people who are really remarkable. Within - three weeks came a cablegram from her to Mr. Jerningham to the effect that - a letter had been sent by Mrs. Deering to her daughter—the first. - Mrs. Deering had begun to doubt her own health. Then came cablegrams from - her to Mrs. Welles; and in a few days, before Ashton Welles could think of - a valid excuse for not letting his wife go to England, Mrs. Welles told - him to engage passage for her on the <i>Ruritania</i>. - </p> - <p> - It was very unfortunate that he could not accompany her; but the annual - meeting was only three weeks away, and the minority, never strong enough - to do real damage, always was devilish enough to be very disagreeable to - the clique in control. Ashton Welles, after the extremely stupid fashion - of all strong men, had always kept the absolute control of the company's - affairs in his own hands. It was the one thing he refused to share with - his subordinates. He was a czar in his office. He was, in reality, the - trust company—or he so believed and so he made others believe. His - vice-presidents were merely highly paid office-boys, according to the - gossip of the Street, which was not so far out of the way in this - particular instance. - </p> - <p> - Ten minutes after Mrs. Ashton Welles engaged Suite D on the <i>Ruritania</i>, - due to sail on the following day, Jerningham said to Mr. Francis Wolfe: - </p> - <p> - “My boy, I should like you to go to London on business for me—and - for yourself. You've got to represent me in a deal with the Arctic Venture - Corporation. You will have my power of attorney and you will sign the deed - for one of my properties, as soon as they have deposited two hundred and - fifty thousand pounds to my credit in Parr's Bank. And also you will call - on the prettiest girl in the world—the prettiest, do you hear?—who - unfortunately is also the brightest and cleverest. Her name—” He - paused and looked at Francis Wolfe meditatively, almost hesitatingly. - </p> - <p> - “Go on!” implored Francis Wolfe. - </p> - <p> - “Her name is Kathryn Keogh and she is stopping at Thornton's Hotel. She - will help you find Naida. Miss Keogh is a friend of Mrs. Deering.” - </p> - <p> - “She is Irish—eh?” asked Frank. - </p> - <p> - “Mrs. Deering?” - </p> - <p> - “No; the peach—the—Miss Keogh?” - </p> - <p> - “She is of the Waterford Keoghs, famous for their eyes and their - complexions. But business first. You are not to fall in love with Miss - Keogh until after my two hundred and fifty thousand pounds are safe in - bank. I'd go myself, but I have a still bigger deal on here in New York. - I've taken the liberty to engage a stateroom on the <i>Ruritania</i>, - sailing tomorrow, and a letter of credit has been ordered for five - thousand dollars. Have I taken too much for granted?” - </p> - <p> - “No; but you know perfectly well that I don't know a thing about business, - and I'd be afraid—” - </p> - <p> - “My solicitors in London will call on you when they are ready for you. I - shall give you a memorandum for your own conduct; you will find there - instructions in detail—just as though you were a ten year-old boy; - but that is really for your own protection, and I don't mean to imply that - your mind is ten years old—” - </p> - <p> - “No feelings hurt,” said Frank, who in reality was much relieved to learn - that the chances of his making a mistake had been intelligently minimized. - </p> - <p> - “I'm glad you take it that way. Now we'll go down-town to Towne, Ripley - & Co. and give them your signature for the letter of credit; from - there we'll go to the British Consulate and have my own signature on my - power of attorney certified to by the consul, and then you can skip - up-town and say good-by to your friends.” - </p> - <p> - Frank left Jerningham at the consulate and went home to pack up and - arrange for his more pressing adieus. Jerningham went into a public - telephone-booth and called up the offices of <i>Society Folk</i>. When - they answered he asked to speak with the editor. - </p> - <p> - “Well?” presently came in a sharp voice. - </p> - <p> - “This is Mr.—er—a friend.” - </p> - <p> - “Anonymous! All right. What do you want?” - </p> - <p> - “To give you a piece of news.” - </p> - <p> - “We verify everything and take your word for absolutely nothing. I tell - you this to save your telling me a lie.” - </p> - <p> - “That's all right. You'll find it true enough. I—” - </p> - <p> - “One minute. Where is that pencil? All right! Now the name of the woman?” - </p> - <p> - “How do you know I want to—” - </p> - <p> - “All you fellows always do. What's her name?” - </p> - <p> - “Mrs. Ashton Welles.” - </p> - <p> - “The wife of the president of the VanTwiller—” - </p> - <p> - “Correct!” said Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - “Now the name of the man?” - </p> - <p> - “Francis Wolfe,” answered Jerningham, unhesitatingly. - </p> - <p> - “The chorus-girls' pet?” asked the voice. - </p> - <p> - “The same!” - </p> - <p> - “Has it happened yet? Or do you merely fear it? Or is it a case of - hoping?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know what you are driving at.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you don't read <i>Society Folk</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I don't—regularly. All I know is that Frank has been very - assiduous in his attentions lately. He's shaken the Great White Way and - hasn't been in a lobster-palace in two months. He and Mrs. Ashton Welles - are sailing on the <i>Ruritania</i> tomorrow.” - </p> - <p> - “Under what name?” - </p> - <p> - “Their own.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, kind friend. Thank you!” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you say that?” - </p> - <p> - “Because we can now use names. Does Mr. Welles also go?” - </p> - <p> - “Of course not!” - </p> - <p> - “Excuse me for asking such a silly question. What other crime has he - committed besides being old?—I mean Mr. Welles.” - </p> - <p> - “Stupidity is worse than criminal.” - </p> - <p> - “Aye, aye, sir!” - </p> - <p> - “When does your paper come out?” - </p> - <p> - “Day after to-morrow. Much obliged. You are a friend in need. Don't ring - off yet. Listen! You are also a dirty, low-lived, sneaking, cowardly dog, - and a general, all-round, unrelieved, monumental—” It was the one - way the editor had of showing that he was better than his anonymous - contributor. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham, of course, went on board the <i>Ruritania</i> to see Frank - off. Ashton Welles was also there to say good-by to his young and - beautiful wife. It was their first separation, and Welles did not like it. - He seemed to feel her absence in advance; it was really that, as the hour - drew near, he realized more vividly how lonely she would leave him! They - have a saying in Spain that a man may grow accustomed to bearing sorrow, - but that nobody can get used to that happiness which comes merely to - disappear immediately after. A cigar manufacturer from Havana had once - quoted this to Ashton Welles, and Ashton Welles was impressed less by the - saying than by the fact that the Spaniard was so serious about it. But now - he remembered it. - </p> - <p> - He was very uncomfortable and this discomfort made his mental machinery - act queerly; it seemed to tint his thoughts with strange, unusual hues - that made them almost morbid. He would have felt contempt for his own - weakness had he not been so full of half-angry regret at being left alone - in New York—this man who never had possessed an intimate friend; who - not even as a boy had a chum! - </p> - <p> - Of course it was only a coincidence that young Mr. Francis Wolfe was to be - young Mrs. Ashton Welles's fellow-passenger; and it was also a coincidence - that Mr. Wolfe's stateroom was just across the passageway from Mrs. - Welles's suite. Indeed, neither of the young people had picked out the - cabins—but there they were. And there, in Ashton Welles's mind, was - another unformulated unpleasantness. - </p> - <p> - Frank's sisters were so proud Frank was going to put through an important - business deal that they showed it. But if they were glad that Mrs. Welles - was also going they did not show it. They recalled Frank's desire to meet - the pretty young matron whose husband was thirty years older, and they - were rather ostentatiously polite to her. Ashton Welles, in his disturbed - state of mind, somehow felt that the attitude of Mrs. John Burt and Mrs. - Sydney Walsingham was one of blame-fixing; but he could not definitely - understand why there should be any blame to fix! He dismissed his - semi-suspicions with the thought that women had petty minds. His wife was - very pretty and Wolfe's sisters were not as young as they used to be. And - youth is a terrible thing—to lose! It is hard to forgive youth for - being, after one is past—well, say, past a certain age. And to prove - that he himself had nothing to fear—absolutely nothing—he even - smiled and said to young Mr. Wolfe: - </p> - <p> - “I feel certain, of course, that if Mrs. Welles should need anything—” - </p> - <p> - It was the season of the year when east-bound liners carried few - passengers. The young people were bound to be thrown together a great - deal. - </p> - <p> - “Of course, Mr. Welles. Only too delighted, I'm sure!” said Frank, very - eagerly. - </p> - <p> - He was a fine-looking chap, with that wonderfully clean, healthy pink - complexion which suggests a clean and healthy mind. His eyes were full of - that eager, boyish light that makes the possessors thereof so nice to pet, - small-child wise. - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles received an impression of Frank Wolfe's face that was - photographic in its details. - </p> - <p> - The floating hotel moved off slowly. Ashton Welles, on the pier, watched - the fluttering handkerchief of his wife out of sight. He had the - remembrance of her beautiful young face framed in Siberian sable to cheer - him. She certainly looked heavenly. She had cried at leaving him. She had - waved away at him vehemently, and there was the unpleasant suggestion that - always attends such leave-takings—that the parting was forever. A - frail thing—human life! A little speck of vitality on the boundless - waste of grim, gray waters! And she seemed so sorry to go away from him! - And she waved and waved, as if she, also, feared she might never see him - again! And Francis Wolfe stood beside her, very close to her, and waved - also—to Jemingham, who stood beside Ashton Welles. - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles accepted Jerningham's invitation and rode to his office in - the Klondiker's sumptuous motor in the Klondiker's company. Ashton Welles - looked at the flower-holder. Instead of the white azaleas he saw two white - handkerchiefs waved by two young people. - </p> - <p> - “You are very friendly with young Wolfe?” said Ashton Welles, carelessly - inquisitive—merely to make talk, you know. All rich old men who - marry young women have ostrich habits. They put an end to danger by - closing their eyes to the obvious. That is why they always discover - nothing. - </p> - <p> - “Rather—yes. I think he is a fine chap—one of those clean-cut - Americans of the present generation that European women find so perfectly - fascinating.” - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles instantly frowned—and instantly ceased to frown. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he said, and grimaced, thinking it looked like a smile. “What - business is taking him to London? I thought he was a young man of—er—elegant - leisure.” - </p> - <p> - “He was that until very recently; but he has turned over a new leaf. He - has forsworn his old and, I suppose, rather disreputable companions. I - find him rather serious.” - </p> - <p> - “What has changed him?” Ashton Welles was foolish enough to be brave - enough to ask. When a question can have two answers—one of them - disagreeable—it is folly to ask it. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know,” answered Jerningham, as if puzzled. “He has acted a little - queerly and secretive-like; but it is, I admit, a queerness that other - young men would do well to imitate, for it has made him cease drinking, - and cease—er—you know. I rather suspect it is his sister, Mrs. - Burt. He is very fond of her. A man will do things for a good woman that - he won't for his best man friend, or for his own sake. You saw him. There - is no viciousness or dissipation in that face. Damned handsome chap, I - call him!” - </p> - <p> - “H'm!” winced the glacial Ashton Welles. He could not help it. - </p> - <p> - There came upon him a strange mood, almost of numbness, that made him - silent against his will. He answered by nods—the nods of a man who - does not hear—to Jerningham's chatter. He gathered in some way that - the Alaskan Monte Cristo was talking of buying VanTwiller Trust Company - stock, and that he would ask Stewardson how much he could borrow on the - stock. - </p> - <p> - “Yes—do!” said Ashton Welles as the motor stopped in front of the - imposing entrance of the trust company's marble building. - </p> - <p> - They stepped out; Welles excused himself almost brusquely and went into - his own private office to think all the thoughts that a millionaire of - fifty-two thinks when he thinks that he married at fifty a girl thirty - years his junior, with cheeks like flower petals and eyes like skies, who - is going to spend the best part of a week on a steamer in the company of a - man who is much worse than handsome—young! - </p> - <p> - Mr. Jerningham, who did not seem to have noticed the near rudeness of Mr. - Ashton Welles, promptly sought the second vice-president and asked how - much the company would lend on its own stock. - </p> - <p> - “It is against the law for us to lend money on our own stock,” said the - vice-president, who did not add that this provision had prevented many an - inside clique from eating its pie and having it too. - </p> - <p> - “Will the banks loan money on V.T. stock?” asked Jerningham. He had - already bought three thousand shares at an average of four hundred dollars - a share. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I guess so.” - </p> - <p> - “On a time loan?” - </p> - <p> - “No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say.” - </p> - <p> - “That is not much,” objected Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - “No, it isn't. But—May I ask you a question?” - </p> - <p> - “Two if you wish,” said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles. - </p> - <p> - “Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold you - have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your boxes?” - </p> - <p> - This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash the - trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's - iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them. - </p> - <p> - “Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson,” said Jerningham, with that - curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not - really understand—“let me tell you this: The time is coming—and - coming within a few months!—when good, hard gold is going to command - a premium just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in - 1896. I am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take - advantage of—” - </p> - <p> - “But present conditions are utterly different—” - </p> - <p> - “They are always different—and yet the panics come! You thought that - after 1896 there would never again be any need for clearing-house - certificates; and yet, in 1907—” - </p> - <p> - “They were unnecessary—” began Stewardson, hotly. - </p> - <p> - He had been left out of all conferences among the powers at that trying - time, and naturally disapproved their actions. - </p> - <p> - “But they happened, just the same! I know myself. If I cash in now I'll - buy something with the money. I don't want to buy now. No, sir! If I - should happen to need a million or two I prefer to borrow it for a few - weeks until my next shipment comes in. There will be two millions coming - in about the middle of next month. I've sent word to get out as big an - output as possible. See? You bet your boots Wall Street is not going to - get either my cash or my mines, as they did Colonel Cannon's. You know he - was The Mexican copper king' one day and That jackass from Chihuahua' the - next! See?” - </p> - <p> - The vice-president looked at him and said “I see!” in a very flattering - tone of voice; but in his inmost mind he was thinking that such a thing - was precisely what doubtless would happen to Mr. Alfred Jemingham, late of - Nome. It is always the extremely suspicious, too-smart-for-you-by-heck! - farmer who buys the biggest gold brick. - </p> - <p> - “They'll find out I'll never let them change my name into That - blankety-blank-blank from Alaska!'” And Jemingham put on that look of - devilish astuteness that buyers of stocks always put on when they buy at - top prices. - </p> - <p> - He left the vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company and called on - the vice-presidents of several other trust companies and banks, and found - out that he could borrow, more than three hundred dollars a share on his - V.T. stock. And he did—then and there. He impressed the genial - philanthropists on whom he called as being a child of Nature—a great - big boy playing at being a financier. There was in consequence much - smacking of financial lips. It was morsels like this naïve and honest - Alaskan miner with the millions that helped to reconcile men to living the - Wall Street life. - </p> - <h3> - VIII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the day after - the <i>Ruritania</i> sailed Ashton Welles, whose first wifeless evening at - home had not been pleasant, found on his desk a marked copy of <i>Society - Folk</i>. These were the four marked paragraphs: - </p> - <p> - The man who first said there was no fool like an old fool had in mind that - form of folly which consists of the purchase of a beautiful girl by a man - who endeavors to span a difference of thirty years in age by means of a - bridge of solid gold. It is unnatural, unwholesome, and even immoral. The - sordid romances of high life that begin in a Fifth Avenue jewelry-shop are - apt to end in a Reno divorce-mill. Why shouldn't they? - </p> - <p> - A girl who marries once for money is always ready to marry again for more - money—or for more love—for she always wants more than the - desiccated ass who first bought her can give her. - </p> - <p> - A girl of twenty who is famous for her good looks is always a beautiful - young woman, no matter what else she may be. But a man close to sixty, - whether he is the head of a big trust company or a poet, is nothing but an - old man. Speaking of remarkable coincidences, is it not odd that both Fool - and Financier should begin with an F? And Frailty, too, whose other name - is Woman? - </p> - <p> - If there are some things that gold cannot do it is perfectly wonderful how - many things love can do! It bridges all chasms with kisses, and solves all - riddles—with glances. It even defies the high cost of living and - makes men think themselves demigods. It has been known to make champagne - drunkards swear off long before they are bankrupt. It even now depopulates - the lobster-palaces. It turns dining-room navigators into fearless - vikings, braving the wild Atlantic and its midwinter gales in order to be - by their lady-loves. It may even reform Tammany leaders—for we know - it can transform young asses into handsome Lancelots. - </p> - <p> - Among the passengers on the <i>Ruritania</i>, sailing for Liverpool at - this unfashionable season of the year, were Mrs. Ashton Welles, who has - the gorgeous Suite D all to herself, and young Mr. Francis Wolfe, who is - content with the more modest stateroom across the way. Frank's friends are - always singing his praises these days. He never looks at a chorus-girl - save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger - than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty - shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelorus-girl - save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger - than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty - shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelor who ever - sidestepped matrimony. - </p> - <p> - It takes more than money to keep the Wolfe from the door—eh? What? - </p> - <p> - The Ashton Welles who finished reading the beastly paragraphs of <i>Society - Folk</i> was not the same Ashton Welles who began them. He was no longer - an efficient financier, but a man benumbed, whose brain had turned to - plaster of Paris. His mind at once lost all elasticity, all power to - functionate. And, since he could not think, he could not act. That - wonderful world, which financially successful people create for themselves - with so much pride, tumbled about his ears. Out of the chaos made by a few - printed words, only one thing was certain—he suffered! - </p> - <p> - Men are always wounded in a vital spot when they are wounded by jealousy, - and Ashton Welles was particularly vulnerable because he lived in only two - places—his office and his home. He did not have other houses of - refuge to which his soul could retreat—like music or literature or - art—in case of need. He had been so busy winning success that he had - not had time for anything else. He had worked for the aggrandizement of - the personal fortune of Ashton Welles. When circumstances and that - reputation for luck, shrewdness, and caution, which is in itself a golden - sagacity, finally placed him, still a young man, at the head of the - VanTwiller Trust Company, David Soulett, one of the directors, remarked: - “Welles has married the company; but we don't yet know whether he is to be - the company's husband or whether the company is to be his wife!” And a - fellow-director, who had been in profitable deals with Welles, retorted, - “Well, I call it an ideal match!” - </p> - <p> - Welles brought to the company what it needed and the presidency brought to - Welles many opportunities—none of which he neglected. He saw the - deposits increase tenfold—and his own fortune twentyfold. What might - not have been politic in an individual playing a lone hand was altogether - admirable in the head of a financial institution—his - cold-bloodedness, for example, and the dehumanized attitude toward life - habitually assumed by the principal cog-wheel in that intricate - aggregation of cog-wheels known as a modern trust company. Being an - excellent money-lender, he was an uninteresting human being. You lose much - when you win money—for gold is hard and cold, and the enjoyment of - life calls for softness and warmth. It is the appalling revenge capital - takes on its self-called masters. - </p> - <p> - As he approached his fiftieth year Welles began to find that his isolation - might be splendid, but that it was also damnably uncomfortable. Did you - know that in certain millionaire households, where everything always runs - very smoothly, the master gets to long for a burnt steak or the spilling - of soup by the very competent servant? Welles, accustomed to the - wonderfully comfortable life of a very rich bachelor in New York, desired - a home where everything need not be so comfortable. And as his fortune - became a matter of several millions it began—as swollen fortunes - always do, also in revenge!—to take on the aspect of a monument, - something to admire during the monument-builder's lifetime and to endure - impressively afterward! With the desire of permanence came the dream of - all capitalists that makes them dynasts of gold—an heir to extend - the boundaries of the family fortune! It was inevitable that Ashton Welles - should grow to believe that, though the trust company's deposits were in - other people's names, they really belonged to Ashton Welles, because they - were merely the marble blocks of the Welles monument. The name of Welles - must never cease to be identified with the work of Ashton the First! - </p> - <p> - Wherefore the need of an heir became almost an obsession with him, and - with it came a quite human dissatisfaction with hotels and clubs, and - trained nurses in times of illness. When a capitalist realizes clearly - that, apart from his money-lending capacity, he has absolutely no power to - bring tears to human eyes, he grows jealous of his own money. He wishes to - be feared, though penniless, just as he would be loved, though a pauper. - All these desires combined to force Ashton Welles into a decision. He had - kept up a desultory sort of friendship with Mrs. Deering, the widow of his - predecessor in the presidency of the trust company, and Anne Deering was - the girl he knew best of all—though he really did not know her at - all. - </p> - <p> - The Deerings had not been fortunate in their investments; in fact, the - Deering holdings of Van-Twiller stock had been benevolently assimilated at - one-fifth of their value by Ashton Welles himself during one of those - panics that make reckless persons cease being reckless ever after. It was - not very difficult for Anne Deering to be made to feel that she could save - her mother's life and assure ease and comfort for herself forever by - marrying Mr. Ashton Welles, who at fifty was one of those men whom old - friends invariably classify as well-preserved. To be just, he was really - distinguished-looking and had a sort of uniform urbanity that made him at - least unobjectionable. - </p> - <p> - He was also very rich. She married him. She learned to like him. He grew - to love her! - </p> - <p> - She was a doll—beautiful and utterly useless; but it was this very - uselessness that made Ashton Welles worship her. This financier, who in - his office was not only a skilful bargain-driver, but preached and - practised the religion of efficiency, in his home plunged into an orgy of - utterly juvenile lovemaking. He reveled in his wooing, which he had to do - after his marriage. He did not merely desire to have a wife—he must - have a wife of an extreme femininity; she must be one of those womanly - women who exist only in the imaginations of men of a tyrannical cast of - mind. His life having been for years exclusively a money-making life, he - became very selfish. And he continued to find his greatest pleasure in - pleasing himself—only that he now best pleased himself by being a - boy sweetheart; by achieving his puppy love at fifty and deeming it - marvelously rejuvenating and therefore altogether admirable. - </p> - <p> - Very well! Now imagine that man, living for two years amid those pitifully - evanescent illusions so cherished by middle-aged men of money who marry - very young women of looks—imagine that man suddenly informed that he - is no longer to be anything but an old man! And not only old, but - deserted! Imagine that selfsame man brought face to face with the - invincible Opponent of all old men—youth! - </p> - <p> - To Ashton Welles, sitting in his office, surrounded by glittering - millions, there came the deadly chill of age—doubly cold from being - surrounded by gold. In the twinkling of an eye all young men suddenly - became redoubtable warriors, love-conquerors, irresistible as a force of - nature—and as heartless! He was beaten by the universal victor—Time! - </p> - <p> - He stared fixedly at a photograph of his wife in an elaborately chased - silver frame, but he did not see her. He saw ruins, as of a conflagration—the - smoking débris of a destroyed home; and heaps of ashes—ashes - everywhere! And in the rising puffs of smoke he saw faces of men—of - young men—of very handsome young men! - </p> - <p> - Stewardson, the vice-president, walked in—the door was open, as - usual. He saw his chief's face and was shocked into a quite human feeling - of consternation. - </p> - <p> - “Great heavens, Mr. Welles, what is the matter?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing!” said Ashton Welles. He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse to - hide his face from the sight of his fellow-men. He thought his forehead - must show in black letters—<i>Fool!</i> and—and—and ten - thousand terrible legends that changed with each beat of his heart, and - told what he had been and what had happened; and—yes—what was - bound to happen! - </p> - <p> - “Nothing! Nothing!” he repeated, fiercely. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing, I tell you!” He was certain all the world knew his disgrace. - </p> - <p> - “Shall I call a doctor?” - </p> - <p> - “No! No!” he snarled. Call in the entire world and gloat at his - discomfiture? He glanced at the vice-president. The impolitic alarm on - Steward-son's face exasperated him. “What do you want? Damn it, what do - you want?” It was almost a shriek. - </p> - <p> - “I wanted to consult with you about that Consolidated Cushion Tire bond - issue—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes! Well?” - </p> - <p> - “Have you decided whether to—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes! I mean—no! I mean—Wait! Ask Witter. I dictated a - memorandum to him, I think. Yes, I did!” - </p> - <p> - He was making desperate efforts to speak calmly; but he stopped, because - Stewardson, a dastard of thirty-two, suddenly grew to resemble young Mr. - Francis Wolfe! Stewardson saw the gleam in Ashton Welles's eyes and felt - that the president must have hated him all his life! - </p> - <p> - “I'll get it from Witter,” he said, and hastily left the room. - </p> - <p> - Welles stared wide-eyed at the open door for perhaps a full minute; always - he saw ruins—smoke and ashes—ashes everywhere! And then he - started up and squared his shoulders. He rang for an office-boy and said - to him, “Tell Mr. Witter I've gone for the day”—Witter was his - private secretary—and left the office. - </p> - <p> - He could not bear even to think of going home, for he now had no home! - Therefore he went to Central Park and walked aimlessly about until his - unaccustomed muscles compelled him to sit down. There he sat, thinking! - After three hours he had grown sufficiently calm to believe himself when - he called himself a fool for being jealous. Having convinced himself of - his folly, he clutched eagerly at every opportunity to close his own ears - to the whisperings of his own doubts. At length he went to his house, - dressed as usual, and went to the Cosmopolitan Club to dine. - </p> - <h3> - IX - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> few minutes after - Ashton Welles left his office, stabbed to the soul by the poisoned - paragraphs of <i>Society Folk</i> Jemingham sought Stewardson and told him - he had decided to send some more gold-dust to the Assay Office. His own - attendant, a young man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who properly answered - to the name of Sheehan, accompanied him. Stewardson, whose nerves had not - recovered from the shock of Mr. Welles's behavior, decided that he, also, - would go to the vaults. - </p> - <p> - “I want ten boxes sent to the Assay Office,” said Jemingham. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly, sir,” said the superintendent of the vaults, very - obsequiously. To show how eager he was to please, he asked, “Any - particular boxes, Mr. Jemingham?” - </p> - <p> - Immediately a half-formulated suspicion fleeted across the mind of the - second vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. How did they know - what those boxes contained? How did they know that all of them were full - of Yukon gold? How did they know anything about this man or about his - treasure—his alleged treasure? - </p> - <p> - Almost immediately afterward, however, he reproached himself. Why, the man - had deposited over a million—the proceeds of twenty of the boxes! - </p> - <p> - “Oh, take any ten,” said Jerningham—“the first ten. They are the - easiest to take out.” - </p> - <p> - “The last ten!” said Stewardson, hastily, obeying an impulse that came - upon him like a flash of lightning. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham turned and asked: “Why the last ten? They are away back, and—” - </p> - <p> - “I have my reasons,” smiled Stewardson—the smile of a man who knows - something funny about you, but does not wish to tell it—not quite - yet. It is the most exasperating smile known. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham looked at him a moment. Then he said, coldly: “Why not pick - them out haphazard—one here and another there, as if you were - sampling a mine and wanted to make sure they hadn't salted it on you?” He - turned to the men and said, “Pick out ten at random, no two from the same - place; and be sure they are not full of stable litter!” - </p> - <p> - Stewardson flushed, and whispered apologetically to the superintendent, - “The more the boys work, the more grateful he will be.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he is very generous, anyhow,” said Sullivan, the superintendent, - watching his helper and Sheehan pick out the ten boxes at random. - </p> - <p> - Stewardson accompanied Jerningham up-stairs and then excused himself long - enough to say to a confidential clerk: “Follow Mr. Jerningham and his ten - boxes of gold-dust, and find out what he does, how much he gets, and every - detail of interest. Don't let him see you.” - </p> - <p> - The clerk found out and later reported to the vice-president that the ten - boxes all contained Alaskan gold-dust, and that their value was $531,687, - the boxes averaging a little better than fifty thousand dollars each. - Stewardson then had the remaining boxes counted. There were one hundred - and twenty-one left. They were worth over six million dollars. Jerningham - ought to have the gold-dust coined and then deposit the proceeds in the - trust company. The company would allow him two and a half per cent.—or - maybe three per cent.—on the six millions. That would be one hundred - and eighty thousand dollars a year. The company could then loan the entire - six millions, not having to bother with keeping a reserve like the - national banks, and, the way the money-market was, the money could be - loaned at five per cent. That would be three hundred thousand dollars a - year. - </p> - <p> - Men properly must end in dust; but dust, when gold, should end in eagles. - He would speak to Jerningham about it—one hundred and eighty - thousand dollars a year that Jerningham was not making—which was - silly! And one hundred and twenty thousand a year the company was not - making—which was a tragedy! - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles sent word to the office on the following morning that he - would not be down until late, if at all. He did not send word that he had - decided to consult his lawyer about the <i>Society Folk</i> article. He - had received eight marked copies, addressed to him at his house in - different handwritings, and he did not know that on his desk at the office - there were a dozen more. Friends always tell you about anonymous attacks - anonymously. They wait for them. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham seemed disappointed when he learned, at ten-thirty, that Mr. - Welles might not come to the office at all. Stewardson came upon him - looking disgruntled. That did not deter the vice-president from broaching - the subject nearest his heart. “I'd like to ask you one question, Mr. - Jerningham. Of course I know you must have a reason—a very good - reason, too—” - </p> - <p> - “If the reason is good I'll confess,” said Jerningham, pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'd like to know what your reason is for not sending all your gold - to the Assay Office?” - </p> - <p> - “My reason is that I want to make a lot of money later by not sending the - gold to the Assay Office now. Remember my very words!” - </p> - <p> - “But how are you going to do it?” Stewardson could not help asking, - because he was so puzzled that his sense of humor was paralyzed. - </p> - <p> - “By having the gold—that's how.” - </p> - <p> - “That's all right! But why don't you change it into coin? That way you can - have it at a moment's notice.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear chap, do you know how many hours it will take the Assay Office, - after I take my dust in there, to give me a check for the proceeds? I get - ninety per cent, of the value at once. If I cash this gold now I'll spend - it. I know it! I never could resist the temptation to spend—it is my - one weakness. And if I spent it what would I have to show for the - hardships of thirty years?” - </p> - <p> - “But why don't you deposit it with us? We'll allow you two and a half per - cent. Or if you make it a time deposit we can do better than that by you. - You know you can always get gold for it if you ask us for it.” - </p> - <p> - “I can, can I?” laughed Jerningham, with a sort of good-natured mockery. - “How about 1907 and your old clearing-house certificates—eh? What?” - Stewardson was nettled. So he permitted himself the supreme, - all-conquering argument of business: “But you are losing one hundred and - eighty thousand dollars a year by leaving your gold uncoined and - undeposited.” - </p> - <p> - “I won't lose a year's interest, because it isn't going to take a year for - the big panic to come.” Stewardson laughed—a kindly laugh. “For - pity's sake, don't wait for that! Panics have a habit of not coming if - expected. Just now everybody is bluer than indigo. You'd think the United - States was on its last legs. Invest at once, and don't wait for the - bargains at the funeral that may never come.” - </p> - <p> - “How sound is this institution?” Jerningham looked Stewardson full in the - face. - </p> - <p> - The vice-president answered, smilingly, “Oh, I guess we'll weather the - storm.” - </p> - <p> - “Then I'll buy more stock. Mr. Welles advised me to buy all I could get - hold of. A wonderful man—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Stewardson, solemnly. “Wonderful! Great - judgment!” pursued Jeming-ham, with a sort of boyish enthusiasm that made - Stewardson think his superior had designs on the Klondike gold in the - vaults. “He is so clear-cut—and never, never loses his head! To tell - you the truth,” and Jerningham lowered his voice, “I used to think he was - an icicle—the sort of man nothing can disturb; but, for all his - calmness and imperturbability, he has a great warm heart and a great big - brain!” - </p> - <p> - Stewardson had never before heard anybody accuse the president of the - VanTwiller Trust Company of having any heart at all. Why had Welles taken - the pains to pose before the Klondike miner as a philanthropist? And why - had the imperturbable Ashton Welles been so perturbed the day before? - </p> - <p> - “Ablest man in this country!” said Stewardson, his mind wrapped in the - folds of his unformulated mysteries and his own half-asked questions. - </p> - <p> - “So I'll get a little more of the stock,” said Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - “Go ahead! You can't go wrong,” Stewardson assured him; “in fact, you - ought to send some of your gold to the Assay Office and—” - </p> - <p> - “What will you lend me on my gold—on the six millions I've got - down-stairs?” asked Jerningham, with a frown. He looked intently at the - vice-president with his cold, gray eyes, and Stewardson somehow fancied he - saw a challenge in them; but he was an old bird at the game. He laughed - and said, jovially: - </p> - <p> - “Not a penny!” - </p> - <p> - “I know it. It shows you how incompetent all these financial institutions - are. You think you are doing your duty by being suspicious—what? - Well, you don't unless you are intelligently suspicious. Never mind; you - are only the vice-president. I'll buy the stock just the same.” And - Jerningham laughed, exaggeratedly forgiving, and went away. - </p> - <p> - Later in the day, when Stewardson thought he might sell his own holdings - of VanTwiller Trust stock to Jerningham and trust to luck to pick it up - again here and there at a lower figure, he called up a firm of brokers who - made a specialty of dealing in bank and trust-company stocks. He was - surprised to learn that V.T. stock was scarce and thirty points higher. - The vice-president called up specialists and heard the same story—the - floating supply had been quietly bought. - </p> - <p> - “By whom?” he asked Earhart. - </p> - <p> - “You know very well!” retorted the last broker, in an aggrieved tone of - voice. - </p> - <p> - “I do not!” Stewardson assured him. - </p> - <p> - “Well, it all goes into your office.” - </p> - <p> - “Mine?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes—yours! And it's paid by your checks. The name signed is Alfred - Jerningham. Are you going to cut a melon? Just whisper!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” and Stewardson laughed. “What a suspicious man you are, Dave!” - </p> - <p> - In the alarmingly inexplicable frame of mind in which Ashton Welles was - Stewardson did not feel like speaking to his superior about Jemingham's - investment. There was no reason why the Klondiker should not buy all the - VanTwiller Trust Company stock he could pay for; but a day or two - afterward the vice-president learned that Jerningham had secured control, - by purchase outright or by option, at prices ranging from three hundred - and ninety-five to five hundred dollars a share, of twenty-two thousand - shares. That was important for two reasons: In the first place it was more - than Jerningham could pay for even if he sold all his gold-dust; and, - secondly, such a block in unfriendly hands might work injury to the - controlling clique. He decided to see the president; but he was told that - Mr. Ashton Welles was engaged at that moment. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham was talking to him. They had exchanged greetings with much - cordiality. - </p> - <p> - “Have you heard from Mrs. Welles?” asked the Alaskan. - </p> - <p> - “She hasn't arrived yet—” - </p> - <p> - “I know it. But I received a wireless from young Wolfe—” - </p> - <p> - “What did he say?” asked Ashton Welles before he knew it. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham looked mildly surprised. He answered: - </p> - <p> - “It was a funny message. He asked me to go to his room and get his trunks, - and send all his belongings to London, as he had decided to stay there - indefinitely.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” It was all Welles could say. - </p> - <p> - “So I wired back, 'Are you crazy?'” - </p> - <p> - “Did he answer that?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” Jerningham paused. Then he laughed. - </p> - <p> - “What did he answer?” queried Welles. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he is crazy, all right. He answered, 'Yes—with joy! Please send - trunks to Thornton's Hotel—'” - </p> - <p> - “What?” Ashton Welles rose to his feet, his face livid. It was the London - hotel where Mrs. Deering lived, the hotel to which Mrs. Welles was going! - </p> - <p> - “What's the matter?” asked Jerningham, in amazement. - </p> - <p> - “N-nothing!” said Ashton Welles, huskily. He gulped twice. Then, having - spent thirty-five years in Wall Street making money, he explained, “I've - got a terrible toothache!” And he put his hand to his left cheek. - </p> - <p> - “I'm sorry!” said Jemingham so sympathetically that Welles, for all his - distress—and nothing is so inherently selfish as suffering—felt - a kindly feeling toward the man from Alaska. “Could I ask your advice - about a business matter?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly!” - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles tried to smile. It was ghastly, but Jemingham did not remark - it. He said, placidly: - </p> - <p> - “I've bought quite a little bunch of VanTwiller stock because you are its - president, Mr. Welles. On my honor, that is my only reason. I've paid good - prices, too; but you are worth it—to me!” And Jemingham beamed - adoringly on the efficient president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles said, “Thank you!” and even tried to feel grateful to this - queer character from the frozen North who was so naïve in his admiration—and - envied him for not having a young wife who had sailed on the same steamer - with an exceedingly attractive young man. - </p> - <p> - “I guess I'm all right in my purchase—what?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes!” said Welles. He was thinking of the <i>Ruritania</i>. It did not - even occur to him that this Monte Cristo might be worth while to pluck. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. I hope I didn't bother you. Good morning, Mr. Welles.” - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Mr. Jemingham. Er—come in any time you think I can be - of service to you.” - </p> - <p> - As Jemingham was leaving the president's office he almost bumped into the - vice-president. - </p> - <p> - “You've bought quite a lot of our stock,” said - </p> - <p> - Stewardson, full of his errand. His voice had an accusing ring. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. I was just speaking to Mr. Welles about it.” - </p> - <p> - “And what did he say?” - </p> - <p> - “Ask him!” teased Jerningham, with a smile, and went away. - </p> - <p> - Stewardson felt it his duty to do exactly as Jerningham had mockingly - suggested. It was an abnormal situation. That being the case, there was no - regular provision—no indicated chapter and verse—for meeting - it. The principal function of a chief in business is to supply answers to - puzzled subordinates. - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles was sitting back in his swivel chair. He was staring fixedly - at a hook on the picture-molding that had been left there after the - picture was taken away. He was thinking that if he employed private - detectives in London he would have to hire them by cable. There are - suspicions a man cannot help having and yet cannot set down in plain black - and white. He cannot hint when he writes, for written instructions must - always be explicit and categorical. That is why no love-letter of which - the real meaning is to be read “between the lines” is ever satisfactory to - the recipient. - </p> - <p> - Ashton Welles turned his head and, still frowning, asked Stewardson, - sharply: - </p> - <p> - “Well, what is it?” - </p> - <p> - “It's about Jerningham. You know he has been buying our stock. But I - thought you ought to know—” - </p> - <p> - He wished to tell the president what a big block the Alaskan had already - secured. But the president, from force of habit, perhaps, or possibly by - reason of the irritation of his nerves, assumed the usual financial - attitude of omniscience: - </p> - <p> - “I know all about it,” he said. “Anything else you wish to say to me?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir!” answered Stewardson, who felt rebuffed and now would not have - turned in an alarm of fire if he had seen the place beginning to burn. He - was, after all, human. - </p> - <p> - You cannot, in your lust for absolute power, make your subordinates into - sublimated office-boys or decorative figureheads without paying the price - some time. Stewardson was justified in assuming that Mr. Welles was - worried about business—it was perfectly obvious; and it was a - natural suspicion, also, that said deal must threaten destruction to the - company since Ashton Welles was so eager to have poor Jerningham buy so - much VanTwiller stock. Therefore Stewardson and his intimate friends, in - order to be on the safe side, very promptly sold out their own holdings—to - poor misguided Jerningham's brokers. - </p> - <p> - Of course other people who did not wish Welles well heard about it, and - the whisper ran about the Street, getting blacker and blacker as it ran, - until everybody knew something had happened—everybody except the - directors of the VanTwiller Trust Company. And when the transfer-books - closed for the annual meeting of the stockholders it was found that Mr. - Alfred Jerningham owned, by purchase or option, and had irrevocable - proxies on, a little more than twenty-eight thousand shares of the stock. - This, together with the twelve thousand shares owned jointly by Patrick T. - Behan and Oliver Judson, the street-railroad magnates, and the blocks - controlled by the Garvin brothers, Tammany contractors, and Mayer & - Shanberg, F. R. Chisolm, John Matson & Company, and others of the - Behan-Judson clique, which once tried to secure control of the company and - were foiled by Ashton Welles, made a combination that was bound to win at - the annual election. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham ceased going to the VanTwiller Trust Company because Ashton - Welles had sailed for London on the receipt of a cablegram that read: - </p> - <p> - <i>Leaving for Continent. Mother and I cannot return before three months. - Will write soon.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Anne</i>. - </p> - <p> - Instead of calling on his friend Stewardson, Jerningham preferred to spend - hours and hours conversing with Patrick T. Behan, “the most dangerous man - in Wall Street!”—and the slickest. But on the day before the - election Jerningham did call on Stewardson and offered to sell his - holdings of VanTwiller stock at six hundred dollars a share. - </p> - <p> - “Why, I thought you—” began the vice-president. - </p> - <p> - “I know you did. I wanted you to. But six hundred dollars is only - twenty-five dollars a share more than Behan, and Judson, and Garvin, and - the rest of those pirates have offered me. I've decided not to be a - stockholder of the trust company; so just get your friends together and - tell them if they want to retain the control they can give you a check for - me—six hundred dollars a share on twenty-eight thousand, one hundred - and twenty-three shares. Put it down—twenty-eight thousand, one - hundred and twenty-three shares. Good day!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait! I want to say—” - </p> - <p> - “Don't say it! Write it! I'm still at the Brabant,” said Jerningham, - coldly. “I advise you to get at Mr. Welles on the steamer by wireless. - Good day!” - </p> - <p> - “But, I—” shouted Stewardson. - </p> - <p> - Jerningham paid no attention to him and walked away. - </p> - <p> - Later in the day negotiations were resumed. In the end Jerningham accepted - a little less; but the deal yielded him a net profit of about two million - dollars. He insisted upon being paid in gold coin. This convinced - Stewardson and the other victims that Jerningham was out of his mind; but - there is no law that enables officers of a trust company to imprison a - gold maniac or to take away his gold, particularly when his lawyers stand - very high in the profession. - </p> - <p> - Five minutes after getting the gold coin in his possession—and - drawing every cent of it—Jerningham told Stewardson he would leave - the dust in the VanTwiller vaults. That reassured Stewardson, who - otherwise might have suspected Jerningham of various crimes. He then sent - two cablegrams to London. One was to - </p> - <p> - <i>Kathryn Keogh,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Thornton's Hotel, London.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Your services are no longer needed. Go ahead and have a nice time! - Thanks awfully!</i> <i>Jerningham</i>. - </p> - <p> - The other was to Francis Wolfe—same address. It read: - </p> - <p> - <i>You ought to marry Kathryn Keogh. Never mind anything else. I am - disappearing for good. God bless you both, my children! Letter follows.</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>Jerningham.</i> - </p> - <p> - Francis Wolfe showed his cablegram to Miss Keogh and Miss Keogh did not - show hers to Francis Wolfe. - </p> - <p> - A week later Frank asked Miss Keogh to read a letter he had received from - Jerningham, and to tell him what to do. - </p> - <p> - This was the letter. - </p> - <p> - Dear Boy,—We needed a million or two out of Ashton Welles, and the - only way we could see of getting it was by selling to him what he already - had—to wit, the control of the VanTwiller Trust Company. From - previous operations the syndicate I have the honor to represent had - accumulated enough cash to render this operation feasible; but Welles - watched the trades in VanTwiller stock so closely that we could not have - bought a thousand shares without blocking our own game. So we planned our - operations very carefully, as we always do. And because I like you I will - tell you how we went about it—that you may profit by our example. - </p> - <p> - First, I had to become instantly and sensationally known as the possessor - of vast wealth. The mere deposit of a million or two in a bank would not - do it. We must have the cash and a stupendous cash-making property—hence - the mines in the Klondike. Purely mythical mines, dear lad! We sent to - Alaska, bought $1,686,000 of gold-dust, put it in boxes, and put a lot of - lead in other boxes—now in the VanT. vaults!—thereby - increasing our less than two million into more than eight—and nobody - hurt thereby! Then the shipment to Seattle, so that every step could be - verified—and the special bullion train to New York; and the - eccentric miner—myself—with his gold—no myth about the - gold—what? in a New York hotel; and of course the reporters were - only too willing to help and to magnify our gold-dust. - </p> - <p> - The <i>Planet's</i> articles were our letters of introduction to the trust - company and to Wall Street. Could not have done better—could we? But - how to catch Welles off his guard? By breaking it down, of course. Best - way? By rousing jealousy. That's where you come in. Mrs. Welles must go to - England with you on the same steamer. How? By winning your friendship and - rousing your romantic interest in an unhappy love-affair—that would, - moreover, explain my interest in Mrs. Welles. Of course there never was - any Naida Deering for me to be interested in! - </p> - <p> - But you had to meet Welles's wife. How? By means of your sisters. How did - I make friends of them? By reforming you and making you my heir. - </p> - <p> - How did I make Mrs. Welles take the same steamer that you did? By having - her mother cable for her. How did I do that? Ask Miss Keogh. - </p> - <p> - I admit that much of what we were compelled to do was not gentlemanly; - but, after all, our only crime is the crime of having been business men—buying - something at four dollars and selling it at five or six dollars. - </p> - <p> - Take my advice, dear boy, and stay on the water-wagon! If you marry Miss - Keogh I think you can show this letter to A. Welles and ask him to give - you a nice position in the trust company. - </p> - <p> - I am sorry I cannot see you again; but believe me, dear boy, that we are - very grateful for your efficient assistance. We would send you a check—only - we need it in our business. Tell Jimmy Parkhurst to tell you and Amos F. - Kidder all about it. - </p> - <p> - Yours truly, - </p> - <p> - The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, Per Alfred Jerningham. - </p> - <p> - But it was a long time before Frank Wolfe returned to New York—without - Miss Keogh, who flatly refused to marry him. Jerningham had disappeared, - leaving absolutely no trail. Parkhurst introduced Frank Wolfe to Fiske, - but all that came of it was that Fiske added a few fresh notes to his - collection. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - IV—CHEAP AT A MILLION - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>OM MERRIWETHER, - only son and heir of E. H. Merriwether, finished the grape-fruit and took - up the last of that morning's mail. He had acquired the feminine habit of - reading letters at the table from his father, who had the wasteful - American vice of time-saving. - </p> - <p> - He read the card, frowned, glanced at his father, and seemed to be on the - point of speaking; but he changed his mind, laughed, and tore the card - into bits. - </p> - <p> - The day was Monday, and this was what the card said: - </p> - <p> - <i>If Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether will go to 777 Fifth Avenue any - forenoon this week and answer just one little question about his past life - he will hear something to his advantage.</i> - </p> - <p> - Idle men who live in New York are always busy. Tom had many things to - think about; but all of them were about the present or the future. His - past caused him neither uneasiness nor remorse. - </p> - <p> - On the following Monday young Mr. Merriwether received, among other - invitations, this: - </p> - <p> - <i>If Tom Merriwether will call at 777 Fifth Avenue any forenoon this week - and answer one question he will do that which is both kindly—and - wise!</i> - </p> - <p> - It was in the same handwriting, on the same kind of card, and in the same - kind of ink as the first. Now Tom had the Merriwether imagination. His - father exercised it in building railroads into waterless deserts whereon - he clearly saw a myriad men labor, love, and multiply, thereby insuring - freight and passengers to the same railroads. The son had to invent his - romances in New York. - </p> - <p> - Ordinarily the second invitation would have given him something to busy - himself with; but it happened that he was at that moment planning to do a - heartbreaking thing without breaking any heart. Billy Larremore, the - veteran whose devotion to polo was responsible for so many of the team's - victories in the past, was not aware that age had bade him cease playing. - It would break his loyal heart not to play in the forthcoming - international match. Tom Merriwether had been delegated to break the news. - </p> - <p> - Thinking about it made him forget all about the letter until the following - Monday, when he received the third invitation: - </p> - <p> - <i>Merriwether,—Come to 777 Fifth Avenue Tuesday morning at - ten-thirty without fail and answer the question.</i> - </p> - <p> - He crumpled the card and was about to throw it away when he changed his - mind. Perhaps it would be wise to give it to a detective agency. But what - could he say he feared? Then he decided it was probably a joke. Somebody - wished to put him in the ridiculous position of ringing the bell of 777, - showing the card—and being told to get out. It was to be regretted - that this would seem funny to some of his perennially juvenile intimates - at the Rivulet Club. - </p> - <p> - An hour later, as he walked down the Avenue, he looked curiously at 777. - It was one of those newcomer houses erected by speculative builders to - sell furnished to out-of-town would-be climbers or to local stock-market - bankers who, being Hebrews, were too sensible to wish to climb, but were - not sensible enough not to wish to live on Fifth Avenue. - </p> - <p> - Tom resolved to ask Raymond Silliman, who played at being in the - real-estate business, to find out who lived at 777. Meantime he did a - little shopping—wedding-presents—and went to luncheon at his - club. He had not quite finished his coffee when he was summoned to the - telephone. - </p> - <p> - “Hello! Mr. Merriwether?” said a woman's voice—clear, sweet, and - vibrant, but unknown. “This is Miss Hervey—the nurse—Dr. - Leighton's trained nurse. They asked me to tell you about your father. - Don't be alarmed!” - </p> - <p> - “Go on!” commanded young Merriwether, sharply. - </p> - <p> - “It is nothing serious—really! But if you could come home it - probably—Yes, doctor! I am coming!” And the conversation ceased - abruptly. - </p> - <p> - Tom instantly left the club. He took the solitary taxicab that stood in - front of the club. He afterward recalled the fact that there was only one - where usually there were half a dozen. - </p> - <p> - “Eight-sixty-nine Fifth Avenue. Go up Madison to Sixtieth and then turn - into the Avenue. Hurry!” - </p> - <p> - “Very good, sir,” said the chauffeur. - </p> - <p> - The taxicab dashed madly up Madison and up Fifth Avenue, and finally - stopped—not before the Merriwether home, but in front of Number 777. - Before he could ask the chauffeur what he meant by it both doors of the - cab opened at once and two men sandwiched between them Mr. Thomas Thorne - Merriwether. The one on the west, or Central Park, side threateningly held - in his hand a business-like javelin—not at all the kind that silly - people hang on the walls in their childish attempts at decorative - barbarity. The man who half entered the taxicab from the east, or - sidewalk, side held in his left hand a beer-schooner full of a colorless - liquid that smoked, and in his right something completely but loosely - covered by a white-linen handkerchief. - </p> - <p> - “Please listen, Mr. Merriwether!” said the man with the glass. “Do - nothing! Don't even move! Hear me first!” - </p> - <p> - “Is my father—” - </p> - <p> - “I am glad to say he is well and happy, and working in his office - down-town. The message that brought you here was a subterfuge. Your father - is as usual. We arranged it so you had to take this particular taxicab. - Don't stir, please!” - </p> - <p> - “What does all this mean?” asked Tom, impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “I am about to have the honor of telling you,” answered the man. - </p> - <p> - He had no hat and wore clerical garments. His clean-shaved face was pale—almost - sallow—and young Merriwether noticed that his forehead was very - high. His dark-brown eyes were full of the earnestness of all zealots, - which makes you dislike to enter into an argument—first, because of - the futility of arguing with a zealot; and, second, because said zealot - probably knows a million times more about the subject than you and can - outargue you without trouble. So Tom simply listened with an alertness - that would not overlook any chance to strike back. - </p> - <p> - “This glass contains fuming sulphuric acid. It will sear the face and - destroy the eyesight with much rapidity and completeness. Also”—here - he shook off the handkerchief from his right hand and showed a revolver—“this - is the very latest in automatics; marvelously efficient; dumdum bullets; - stop an elephant! I am about to solicit a great favor.” - </p> - <p> - Tom Merriwether looked into the earnest, pleading eyes. Then he glanced on - the other side, at the bull-necked husky with the business-like spear. - Then he turned to the clerical garb. - </p> - <p> - “I see I am in the hands of my friends!” said Tom, pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - “The doctor was right,” said the man with the glass, as if to himself. - </p> - <p> - “Come! Come!” said young Mr. Merriwether. “How much am I to give? You - know, I never carry much cash with me.” - </p> - <p> - “We, dear Mr. Merriwether,” said the pale-faced man in an amazingly - deferential voice, “propose to be the donors. If you will kindly permit us - we shall give you what is more costly than rubies.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” Tom's voice was perhaps less skeptical than sarcastic. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. Would you be kind enough to accept our invitation—the - fourth, dear Mr. Merriwether—to join us at 777 Fifth Avenue—right - here, sir—and answer one question? Please listen carefully to what I - am saying: You don't have to go. Moreover, if you should go you don't have - to answer any question. We would not, for worlds, compel you. But, for - your own sake, for the sake of your father's peace of mind and of the - Merriwether fortune, for the sake of your happiness in this world and in - the next; for all that all the Merriwethers hold most dear—come with - me and, if you are very wise, answer the question that will be asked you - by the wisest man in all the world.” - </p> - <p> - “He must be a regular Solomon—” began Tom, but the man held up the - glass and went on, very earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “Listen, please! If you decide to accept our invitation I shall spill this - acid in the street and I shall give you this revolver. I repeat, you do - not have to answer the question. You will not be harmed or molested. I - pledge you my word. Will you, in return, give me yours to follow me at - once into 777, and that you will not shoot unless you sincerely think you - are in danger?” - </p> - <p> - Tom Merriwether looked at the pale-faced man a moment. He was willing to - take his chances with that face. Also, he could not otherwise find the - solution of this puzzling affair. Therefore he said: “Yes. I give you my - word.” - </p> - <p> - Instantly the pale-faced man with the high forehead laid the revolver on - the seat beside young Mr. Merriwether and withdrew from the cab. Tom saw - him spill the fuming acid into the gutter. The burly javelin-man took - himself off. The temptation to use the butt of the revolver on the - clerical-garbed man with the earnest eyes came to Tom, but he saw in a - flash that if he should do such a thing he would be compelled in - self-defense to tell a story utterly unbelievable. - </p> - <p> - Moreover, the pale-faced man was a slender little chap of middle age and - no match for big Tom Merriwether. So, assuring himself that the revolver - was in truth loaded and that it worked, he put it in his pocket, kept his - grasp on it there, and got out of the taxicab. His one impelling motive - now was curiosity. Afraid? With the pistol and his muscles and his youth, - on Fifth Avenue, at two-thirty in the afternoon? - </p> - <p> - The pale-faced man, the empty glass in one hand, walked toward the door of - 777 without so much as turning his head. Tom followed. - </p> - <p> - The door was opened by a man in livery who took Mr. Merriwether's hat and - cane. Tom saw in the furnishings of the house—complete with that - curious unhuman completeness of a modern hotel—the kind of - furnishings that interior decorators usually sell to first-generation rich - on their arrival at Fifth Avenue residenceship. The furniture had every - qualification possessed by furniture in order not to suggest a home to - live in. Wherefore Tom, whose mind always worked quickly, reasoned to - himself: - </p> - <p> - “Rented for the occasion to the man who has made me come to him.” - </p> - <p> - Also Tom noticed four men-servants, all of them well built and all of them - owning faces that somehow were not servant faces. The revolver, which had - seemed amply sufficient outside, seemed less so within the house. - Supposing he killed one—or even two—the other two would down - him in an affray. He tightened his grip on the revolver and planned and - rehearsed a shooting affair in which four men in livery were disabled with - four shots. A great pity E. H. Merriwether was such a very rich man—a - great pity for his son Tom. - </p> - <p> - At a door, on the center panel of which was a monogram in black, red, and - gold the last of the footmen knocked gently. The door was thereupon opened - from within. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether, 7-7-77!” announced the intelligent-looking - footman, with a very pronounced English accent. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether entered. It was a <i>nouveau-riche</i> - library. The Circassian-walnut bookcases and center-table were - over-elaborately carved, and the hangings of rich red velvet were - over-elaborately embroidered. The bronzes on the over-elaborate mantel - looked as though they had been placed there by somebody who was coming - back in a minute to take them away again. - </p> - <p> - Altogether the apartment suggested a salesroom, and there was a note of - incongruity in a golden-oak filing-cabinet of the Grand Rapids school. - </p> - <p> - At one end of the room in an arm-chair, with his back to a terrible - stained-glass window, sat a man of about forty. He had a calm, remarkably - steady gaze, with a sort of leisureliness about it that made you think of - a drawling voice. Also, an assurance—a self-consciousness of - knowledge—that was compelling. His chin was firm and there was a - suggestion of power and of control over power that reminded Tom of a very - competent engineer in charge of a fifty-thousand-horse-power machine. - </p> - <p> - “Kindly be seated, sir,” said the man in a tone that subtly suggested - weariness. - </p> - <p> - Tom sat down and looked curiously at the man, who went on: - </p> - <p> - “Sir, I have a question to ask you. If you see fit to answer, be good - enough to answer it spontaneously and in good faith. Do not, I beg you, in - turn, ask me questions—such as, for example, why I wish to know what - I ask. If you decide not to answer you will leave this house unharmed, - accompanied by our profound regret that you should be so unintelligent at - your life's crisis.” The man looked at Tom with a meditative expression, - then nodded to himself almost sorrowfully. - </p> - <p> - Tom, though young, was a Merriwether. He said, politely, “Let me hear the - question, sir.” - </p> - <p> - He himself was thinking in questions: What can the question be? Who is - this man? What is the game? What will be the end of it all? - </p> - <p> - “One question, sir,” repeated the stranger. - </p> - <p> - “I am listening, sir,” Tom assured him, with a quiet, but quite - impressive, earnestness. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Where did you spend your vacation at the end of your Freshman year?”</i> - </p> - <p> - Tom was so surprised, and even disappointed, that he hesitated. Then he - answered: - </p> - <p> - “In Oleander Point, Long Island, in the cottage of Dr. Charles W. Bonner, - who was tutoring me. I had a couple of conditions and I stayed until the - third of September!” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you! Thank you! That is all—unless, Mr. Merriwether, you wish - to do me and yourself three very great favors. Three!” - </p> - <p> - He looked at Tom with a sort of intelligent curiosity, as of a chemist - conducting an experiment. - </p> - <p> - “Let's hear what they are,” said young Mr. Merriwether, calmly. - </p> - <p> - It was at times like these that he showed whose son he was—alert, - his imagination active, his nerves under control, and his courage steady - and at par. He had, moreover, made up his mind that he would do some - questioning later on. - </p> - <p> - “First favor: Concentrate your mind on how you used to spend your bright, - sunshiny days in Oleander Point and your beautiful moonlight nights. - Recall the pleasant people you were friendly with during those happy - weeks. Visualize that summer! Make an effort! Think!” - </p> - <p> - It was a command, and Tom Merriwether found himself thinking of that - summer. He closed his eyes. His grip on the revolver in his pocket - relaxed.... He saw his friends. Some of them he had not seen in years. - Others he saw almost daily. And somehow it seemed to him that all the - girls were pretty and kindly; and in particular—well, there were in - particular three. But the affairs had come to nothing. - </p> - <p> - He could not have told how long his reverie lasted—the mind - traverses long stretches of time, as of space, in seconds. - </p> - <p> - “Well?” said Tom at length. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” said the man, with the matter-of-fact gratitude a man feels - toward a servant for some attention. - </p> - <p> - He took from his pocket a small black-velvet bag, opened it, and spread on - the table before Tom Merriwether a dozen pearls, ranging in size from a - pea to a filbert. They were all of a beautiful orient. - </p> - <p> - “I beg you to select one of these. You need not use it. You may give it to - your valet if you wish, or throw it out of the window. Only accept it as a - souvenir of our meeting. That, Mr. Merriwether, would be favor number - two.” - </p> - <p> - He pointed toward the pearls. Tom picked one—pear-shaped, white, - beautiful—and put it in his waistcoat pocket. The man swept the rest - into one of the drawers of the long library table. - </p> - <p> - “I thank you very much,” said Tom. He was not sure the pearls were not - genuine. - </p> - <p> - “No; please don't,” said the man. There was a pause. Presently he asked, - “Do you know anything about pearls, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “I am no expert,” answered Tom. “Characteristic. You Merriwethers are - brave enough to be truthful, and wise enough to be cautious. Have you any - opinions?” - </p> - <p> - “I think they are beautiful,” said Tom. - </p> - <p> - “They are more than that. They represent, Mr. Merriwether, the hope of the - Kingdom of Heaven. The pearl is the symbol of purity, humility, and - innocence. Do you know the legend of the mild maid of God—Saint - Margaret of Antioch?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Margaret is from Margarites—Greek for pearl. And the reason why - faith—But I beg your pardon. Men who live alone talk too much when - they are no longer alone. I beg you to forgive me. Tell me, Mr. - Merriwether, did you ever hear of Apollonius of Tyana?” - </p> - <p> - “Not until this minute,” answered Tom. - </p> - <p> - He felt almost tempted to ask whether the poor man was dead, but refrained - because he was honest enough to admit to himself that the question would - savor of bravado. Tom was consumed by curiosity as to what would be the - end of it all. To think of it—on Fifth Avenue, New York, in broad - daylight—all this! - </p> - <p> - How money was to be made out of him he could not yet see. - </p> - <p> - “I will show his talisman to you—the Dispeller of Darkness!” The man - clapped his hands twice. At the summons a negro walked in. He was dressed - in plain black and wore a fez. The man spoke some guttural words and the - negro salaamed and left the room. Presently he returned with a silver tray - on which were seven gold or gilt candlesticks and candles, and seven gold - or gilt small trays or plates, on each of which was a pastil. - </p> - <p> - He arranged the seven candlesticks in some deliberate design, carefully - measuring the distance of each from the other, and of all from a point in - the center. He arranged the plates and pastils about the candlesticks. - Then he left the room, to return with a lighted taper, with which he lit - the seven candles and the seven pastils. Tiny spirals of fragrant smoke - rose languidly in the still air. - </p> - <p> - Again the negro left the room and returned with a small parcel wrapped in - a piece of raw silk which he gave to his master. He then went away for - good. - </p> - <p> - The man began to mutter something to himself and very carefully took off - the silk cover, revealing a wonderfully carved ivory box. He opened the - gold-hinged lid and took out a silver case. He opened that and from it - took a gold box elaborately though crudely chased. He opened the gold box - and within it, oh a little white-velvet pad, was a cross of dull gold - curiously engraved. He put the pad, with the cross on it, in the middle of - the seven lights. On the arms of the cross and at the intersection Tom saw - seven wonderful emeralds remarkable as to size, beautiful as to color. - </p> - <p> - “Look at it, Mr. Merriwether. It is priceless. The gems alone are worth a - king's ransom. If you consider it merely as a piece of ancient art there - is no telling what a man like Mr. W. H. Garrettson would not give for it. - And as a talisman, with its tried wonder-working powers, there is, of - course, not enough money in all the world to pay for it.” - </p> - <p> - Tom stretched his hand toward it. - </p> - <p> - “Please! Do not touch it, I beg,” said the man, in a voice in which the - alarm was so evident that Tom drew his hand back as though he had seen a - cobra on the table. “Not yet! Not yet!” said the man. “It is the most - wonderful object in existence. It is a cross that antedates Christ!” - </p> - <p> - “Really?” - </p> - <p> - “It is obviously of a much earlier period than the Messiah. Great scholars - have thought it a legend, but here it is before you. It belonged to - Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker. Philostratus, who wrote the life - of that great man, does not mention this talisman; he dared not! - Apollonius, who to this day is not known ever to have died, gave it to a - disciple, who gave it to a friend.” - </p> - <p> - Tom looked interested. - </p> - <p> - “We know who has owned it. It was worn by Arcadius in the fifth century. - The Goths took it and Alaric gave it to the daughter of his most trusted - captain, who commanded his citadel of Carcassonne. Clovis, a hundred years - later, secured it at the sack of Toulouse. We have records of its having - been praised by Eligius, the famous jeweler of Dagobert, in the seventh - century. It was included in the famous treasures of Charlemagne. It went - to Palestine during the first and third crusades—the first time - carried by a maid who loved a knight who did not love her. She went as his - squire, he not suspecting her sex until they were safely back in France, - when he married her. It is a wonderful talisman. The emeralds came from - Mount Zabara. They have the power to drive away the evil spirits and also - to preserve the chastity of the wearer. Moreover, they give the power to - foretell events. Apollonius did—time and again. This is historically - true. But alone he, of all the men who have owned it, never had a - love-affair; hence his clairvoyance. I have bored you. Forgive me!” - </p> - <p> - “Not at all. I was interested. It is all so—er—so—” - </p> - <p> - “Incredible—yes! There is no reason why you should believe it. It is - of no consequence whether you think me a lunatic or a charlatan.” - </p> - <p> - He said this with a cold indifference that made Tom look incuriously at - the man, whose obvious desire was to excite curiosity. Then the man said, - with an earnestness that in spite of himself impressed the heir of the - Merriwether railroads: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, classified in our books as 7-7-77, you are - the man I need for this job!” - </p> - <p> - “Indeed?” said Tom, politely. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, you are.” Tom bowed his head and looked resigned. He deliberately - intended to look that way. The man went on, “The reason I am so sure is - because I know both who and what you are.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you know me pretty well, then.” Tom could not help the mild sarcasm. - </p> - <p> - “I have known you, young man, for eighty-five years, perhaps longer.” The - man spoke calmly. - </p> - <p> - “Indeed!” said Tom. He was twenty-eight. - </p> - <p> - “Yes. On top of that cabinet is a book. After the name Thomas Thorne - Merriwether you will find 7-7-77. In the cabinet—seventh section, - seventh drawer, card Number 77—you will find clinical data, - physiological and psychological details, anecdotes, and so on, about you - and your father, E. H. Merriwether, and your mother, Josephine Thorne; - your grandfathers, Lyman Grant Merriwether and Thomas Conkling Thorne, and - of your grandmothers, Malvina Sykes Thorne and Lydia Weston Merriwether. - Indeed I know about your great-grandfathers and three of your - great-great-grandparents; but the data in their case are of little value - save as to Ephraim Merriwether, who in seventeen sixty-three killed in one - duel three army officers who laughed at his twisted nose, bitten and - disfigured for life by a wolf-cub he had tried to tame. Facts not - generally known, but, for all that, facts, young Mr. Thomas Thome - Merriwether, which enable me to say that I have known you these hundred - and fifty years—if there is anything in heredity, environment, and - education! And now, shall I tell you what favor number three is?” - </p> - <p> - “If you please,” said Tom. - </p> - <p> - For the first time he felt that the usual suspicions as to a merrymaking - game could not be justified in this particular instance. It was much too - elaborate for a practical joke. He did not know how the matter would end; - but he did not care. In New York, on Fifth Avenue, on Tuesday afternoon, - he was having what, indeed, was an experience! - </p> - <p> - “I beg that you will listen attentively. You will take the Dispeller of - Darkness with you. Do not open the gold box under any circumstances. - Tonight go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street so as to be there at eight - o'clock sharp. The door will not be locked. Don't ring. Walk in. Go up one - flight of stairs to the front room—there is only one. You will stand - in the middle of the room, with the talisman resting on the palm of your - hand—thus! Do nothing! Say nothing! Wait there! The talisman will be - taken from you by a person. Do not try to detain her—this person. - After the talisman is taken from you count a hundred—not too fast! - At the end of your count leave the room and come back here and tell me - whether you have carried out my instructions. Now, young sir, let me say - to you that you don't have to do what I am asking you to do. There is no - compulsion whatever. There is no crime in contemplation—no attempt - is to be made against your life, your fortune, or your morals. I pledge - you my word, sir!” - </p> - <p> - The man looked straight into Tom's eyes. Tom bowed gravely. This man must - be crazy—and yet he certainly was not. This interested Tom by - perplexing him as he had never been perplexed in his eight-and-twenty - years. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether, this will be the most important step of your life. Its - bearing on your happiness is vital—also on the success of your great - father's vast plans. I give you my personal word that this is so.” There - was a pause. Tom had nothing to say. The man went on: - </p> - <p> - “If you care to take reasonable precautions against attack do so. Thus, - keep the revolver you now have in your pocket—it is excellent. Try - it and make certain. You may write a detailed account of what has happened - and leave it with your valet; but mark on it that it is not to be opened - unless you fail to return by 10 p.m. Also you may, if you wish, station - ten private detectives across the way from 7 East Seventy-seventh Street, - and instruct them to go into the house at a single shout from you or at - the sound of a shot. Believe me, it is not your life that is in danger, - sir!” - </p> - <p> - “I believe you,” said Tom, reassuringly. - </p> - <p> - “Will you do me favor number three?” The man looked at Tom with a steady, - unblinking, earnest—one might even say honest—stare. - </p> - <p> - Tom considered. His mind worked not only quickly, but Merriwether-fashion. - He saw all the possibilities of danger, but he saw the unknown—and - the lust of adventure won. He looked the man in the eyes and said, - quietly: - </p> - <p> - “I will.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. There is the talisman. Each of the seven emeralds is flawless—the - only seven flawless emeralds of that size in existence. Two of them have - been in great kings' crowns, and the center stone was in the tiara of - seven popes; after which, the Great Green Prophecy having been fulfilled, - it came back to its place on the Cross. Apollonius raised people from the - dead, according to eyewitnesses. The pagans tried to confute the believers - in Christian miracles by bringing forward the miracles of the sage of - Tyana—and they did not know that Apollonius wrought marvels by the - Sign of the Son of Man—the Cross! This cross! I pray that you will - be careful with it. Show it to nobody. You have understood your - instructions?” - </p> - <p> - Tom repeated them. - </p> - <p> - “Precisely! I did not make a mistake, you see. In spite of your father's - millions you will be what your destiny wills. Young man, good luck to - you!” The man rose and walked toward the door. Tom Merriwether followed - him and was politely bowed out of the room. From there to the street - entrance the four athletic footmen, with the over-intelligent faces, took - him in tow, one at a time. And it was not until he was out on the Avenue, - headed north, walking toward his own house, that Thomas Thorne - Merriwether, clean-living miltimillionaire idler, shook himself, as if to - scatter the remnants of a dream, felt the butt of the revolver, hefted the - silk-wrapped parcel in which was the talisman, and said, aloud, so that a - couple of pedestrians turned and smiled sympathetically at the young man, - who must be in love, since he talked to himself: - </p> - <p> - “What in blazes is it all about?” - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>is perplexing - experience developed so insistent a curiosity in Tom that he grew - irritable even as he walked. That some sort of a game was being worked he - had no doubt; but the fact that he could see no object or motive increased - his wrath. He discarded all suggestion of violence, though he was bound to - admit now that anybody could be kidnapped in New York in broad daylight. - </p> - <p> - He decided to begin by verifying those allusions and references that he - remembered. He walked down the Avenue to the Public Library and there he - read what he could of Apollonius and of Eligius, the marvelous goldsmith - who afterward became Saint Eloi. The helpful and polite library assistant - at length suggested a visit to Dr. Lentz, the gem expert of Goffony & - Company, a man of vast erudition as well as a practical jeweler. Tom - promptly betook himself to the famous jewel-shop. - </p> - <p> - They knew the heir of the seventy-five Merri-wether millions, and - impressively ushered him into Dr. Lentz's office. Tom shook hands with the - fat little man, whose wonderfully shaped head had on it no hair worth - speaking of, and handed him the pearl he had picked out from the dozen the - man in 777 Fifth Avenue had placed before him. Dr. Lentz looked at it, - weighed it in his hand, and, without waiting to be asked any questions, - answered what nearly everybody always asked him: - </p> - <p> - “Persian Gulf. About fifteen grains—perhaps a little more. We sell - some like it for about thirty-five hundred dollars.” - </p> - <p> - “Thanks,” said Tom, and put the pearl in his pocket. - </p> - <p> - If it was a joke it was expensive. If not, the other pearls the man had - shown, nearly all of which were larger, must have been worth from fifty - thousand to a hundred thousand dollars. Such is the power of money that - this young man, destined to be one of the richest men in the world and, - moreover, one who did not particularly think about money, was nevertheless - impressed by the stranger's careless handling of the valuable pearls. He - concluded subconsciously that the talisman was even more valuable. He took - the package from his coat pocket and gave it to Dr. Lentz. - </p> - <p> - “Raw silk—Syrian,” murmured the gem expert, and undid the covering. - </p> - <p> - “Ha! Italo-Byzantine. The Raising of Tabitha. No! no!” He glared at young - Merriwether, who retreated a step. “Very rare! It's the Raising of - Jairus's Daughter. Same workmanship in similar specimen in the - Lipsanoteca, Museo Civico, Brescia. If so, not later than fourth century. - Very rare! H'm!” - </p> - <p> - “Is it?” said Tom. “I don't know much about ivories.” - </p> - <p> - “No? Read Molinier! Græven!” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. I will, Dr. Lentz.” - </p> - <p> - Dr. Lentz opened the little ivory box and pulled out the silver case. - </p> - <p> - “Ha! H'm! Not so rare! Asia Minor. Probably eighth century.” - </p> - <h3> - “B C?” - </h3> - <p> - “Certainly not. Key? H'm!” - </p> - <p> - “Haven't got it here,” evaded Tom. - </p> - <p> - The little savant turned to his secretary and said, “Bring drawer marked - forty-four, inner compartment, antique-gem safe.” - </p> - <p> - He was examining the little box, nodding his head, and muttering, “H'm! - H'm!” Tom felt the ground slipping away from under the feet of his - suspicions even while his perplexity waxed monumental. And with it came - the satisfaction of a man convincing himself that he is neither wasting - his time nor making himself ridiculous. - </p> - <p> - The clerk returned with a little drawer in which Tom saw about a hundred - and fifty keys. - </p> - <p> - “Replicas! Originals in museums of world!” explained Lentz. “H'm!” He - turned the keys over with, a selective forefinger. “It's that one or this - one.” And he picked out two. “Probably this! Damascus! Eighth century. - Byzantine influence still strong. See that? And that? And that? H'm!” He - inserted the little key and opened the casket. He saw the gold box within. - “Ha! H'm! Thracian! How did you get this? H'm!” He raised his head, looked - at Tom fiercely, and then said, coldly, “Mr. Merriwether, this has been - stolen from the British Museum!” - </p> - <p> - It beautifully complicated matters. Tom's heart beat faster with interest. - </p> - <p> - “Are you sure?” he asked, being a Merriwether. “Wait! H'm!” He lifted it - out and examined the back. “No! No! Thracian! Of the Bisaltæ! Time of - Lysimachus! But—Well! Aryan symbolism! Possibly taken to India by - one of Alexander's captains—perhaps Lysimachus himself! And—Oh! - Oh, early Christians! Oh, early damned fools! See that? Smoothed away to - put that—Oh, beasts! Heritics in art! Curious! Do you know the - incantation to use before opening?” - </p> - <p> - “It was in Greek, and—” - </p> - <p> - “Of course!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. He said this had belonged to Apollonius of Tyana.” - </p> - <p> - “How much does he ask?” - </p> - <p> - “It is not for sale.” - </p> - <p> - “Inside is a pentagram?” - </p> - <p> - “No; a cross, with seven emeralds as big as that, all flawless.”' - </p> - <p> - “There are only two such emeralds in the world without flaws and we have - one of them. The other is owned by the Archbishop of Bogota, Colombia.” - </p> - <p> - “He said these were flawless and that he has proofs. He says Eligius - studied this—” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether, you have on your hands either a very dangerous impostor - or else—H'm! He must be an impostor! How much does he want?” - </p> - <p> - “It is not for sale!” - </p> - <p> - “H'm! Worse and worse! If I can be of use let me know! They'll fool us - all! All! Good day!” And Dr. Lentz walked away, leaving Tom more puzzled - than ever, but now determined to go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street at - eight o'clock that night. - </p> - <p> - He went home and wrote an account of what had happened, placed it in an - envelope, sealed the envelope, and gave it to his valet. - </p> - <p> - “If you don't hear from me by ten o'clock tonight give this to my father; - but don't give it to him one minute before ten. And you stay in until you - hear from me.” - </p> - <p> - “Very good, sir.” - </p> - <p> - He then went to the club, ordered an early dinner for two, and invited his - friend Huntington Andrews to go with him. He did not go into details. - </p> - <p> - Shortly before eight he stationed Andrews across the way from 7 East - Seventy-seventh Street and told him: - </p> - <p> - “If I am not back here at eight-fifteen come in after me. If you don't - find me go to my house and wait until ten. My man has instructions. See my - father.” - </p> - <p> - Tom was Merriwether enough to have in readiness not only an extra revolver - to give to his friend, but also a heavy cane and an electric torch. Also - he drove Huntington to within a hair's-breadth of death by unsatisfied - curiosity. - </p> - <p> - At one minute before eight Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether went into the - house of mystery, realizing for the first time how often the mystic number - seven recurred. The Bible teemed with allusions to the seven stars, the - seven seals, the seven-branched candlestick, the seven mortal sins. The - Greeks had Seven Wise Men and Seven Sleepers, and the Pythagoreans saw - magic in all the heptamerides. And there were seven notes of music and - seven primary colors, and seven hills in the Eternal City. Also, it had - never before occurred to him that he was born on the seventh day of the - seventh month. And now it had its effect. - </p> - <p> - He tried the door. It opened when he turned the knob. The hall was dark, - but he could descry the staircase. He grasped his revolver firmly and - entered. - </p> - <p> - There was a smell of undusted floors and unaired walls. The darkness - thickened with each step as he climbed, compelling him to grope. And - because he groped there came to him that fear which always comes with - uncertainty. It permeated his soul and was intensified, without becoming - more concrete, by reason of the ghostly emptiness peculiar to all - unoccupied houses. The absence of furniture served merely to fill the - comers with shadows that bred uneasiness. People had been there; people no - longer were! The house was empty of humanity, but full of other beings—impalpable - suspects that made the flesh creep! It was like death—unseen, but - felt with the senses of the soul. - </p> - <p> - There was no place, decided Tom, so fit to murder people in as an empty - house. His adventure now took on an aspect of reckless folly. But though - he felt in this ghostly house what might be called the ghost of fear, he - also felt the impelling force of an intelligent curiosity. In this young - man's soul was a love of adventure, a gambler's philosophy, a reserve - force of cold intelligence and warm imagination such as is found in the - great explorers, the great chemists, and the great buccaneers of dollars. - </p> - <p> - That was why in the year of grace 1913 Tom Merriwether stood in the middle - of the second-story front room of a house situated in a very good street, - only three doors from Fifth Avenue, with his left hand outstretched, and - on the open palm of it a cross with a Greek name that meant Dispeller of - Darkness—in a darkness that could not be dispelled. His right hand - grasped the butt of an automatic.45 loaded with elephant-stopping bullets—but - of what avail was that against a knock in the head from behind? - </p> - <p> - Listening for soft footsteps, he seemed to hear them time and again—and - time and again not to hear them! People nowadays, he finally decided, do - not want to take other people's lives—only their money. Whereupon he - once more grew calm—and intensely curious! He had not one cent of - money on his person. He had left it at home intentionally. - </p> - <p> - Presently he thought he heard sounds—faint musical murmurings in the - air about him, low wailings of violins, scarcely more than Æolian - harpings, and pipings as of tiny flutes—almost indistinguishable. - Then a delicate swish-swish, as of silken garments. Also, there came to - him a subtle fragrance that turned first into an odorous sigh and then - into a summer breath of sweet peas; and he imagined—he must have - imagined—hearing, “I do love you!” ah, so softly! - </p> - <p> - He smelled now the odor of sweet peas, which stirred sleeping memories - without fully awakening them, as all flower odors do by what the - psychologists call association. He heard, “I do love you!”—and then - the Dispeller of Darkness was taken from his outstretched hand. - </p> - <p> - He stood there, his muscles tense, braced for a shock, ready for a life - struggle, perhaps half a minute before the sound of footsteps retreating - in the hall outside recalled to him his instructions. He vehemently - desired to follow and see who it was that had taken the Dispeller of - Darkness; but he had pledged his word not to. He hesitated. - </p> - <p> - The odor of sweet peas was flooding him as with waves. And he heard, “I do - love you!”—heard it again and again with the inner ear of his soul, - the listener of delights. He thrilled at the thought of being loved. It - made him incredibly happy. He felt unbelievably young! - </p> - <p> - Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not counted a hundred as he had - promised, though he must have spent more than a minute wool-gathering. He - counted a hundred as fast as he could and then hastened from the room. It - was plain that Tom Merriwether was already doing incredible things or, at - least, failing to do the obvious. Great is the power of suggestion on an - imaginative mind! - </p> - <p> - He flashed his electric torch. He was in a bare room with a dusty hardwood - floor, ivory-tinted wainscoting, and a Colonial mantel. The hall was - empty. - </p> - <p> - He walked down the stairs, his steps raising disquieting echoes and creepy - creakings. - </p> - <p> - Mindful of his waiting friend outside, he quickly walked out of the gloom - into which he had carried the Dispeller of Darkness of Apollonius of - Tyana, the cross of the seven emeralds. Huntington Andrews saw him coming - and crossed over to meet him. - </p> - <p> - “How did you make out, Tom?” - </p> - <p> - “I'm a damned fool, Huntington; and so are you! And so is everybody!” - </p> - <p> - “Right-O!” agreed Andrews, who was inveterately amiable and, moreover, - loved Tom. - </p> - <p> - “It's the most diabolical—” Tom paused. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is,” agreed Huntington Andrews, so obviously anxious to dispel - his friend's ill temper that Tom laughed and said, cheerfully: - </p> - <p> - “Come on, me brave bucko!” And together they walked to the corner and then - down the Avenue to 777. - </p> - <p> - “Huntington, you wait here; and if I am not back by nine-forty-five go to - my house. At ten o'clock have my valet deliver the letter I gave him for - my father. You can be of help to the governor if you will.” - </p> - <p> - And Huntington Andrews asked no questions—he was a friend. - </p> - <p> - Tom rang the bell of 777. The door opened. One of the four - over-intelligent-looking footmen stepped to one side respectfully. - </p> - <p> - “Is your—” began Tom. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, Mr. Merriwether,” answered the man, with a deference such as only - royalty elicits. - </p> - <p> - He then delivered Tom to footman number two, who in turn escorted him as - far as number three; then number four led him to the door of the master's - library. The footman knocked, opened the door and announced, with a - curious solemnity: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, 7-7-77.” - </p> - <p> - The strange man was there in his arm-chair, his back to the window. The - room was lit by candles. The man rose and said, respectfully: - </p> - <p> - “I thank you, Mr. Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't mention it,” said Tom, amiably. - </p> - <p> - The man bowed his head and looked at Tom meditatively. Tom was the first - to break the silence. - </p> - <p> - “May I ask what—” Tom began, but was checked by the other, who held - up his right hand with the gesture of a traffic policeman and said, - slowly: - </p> - <p> - “A message in the dark! You carried one to another soul, who waited for - it. And that other soul is taking one to you. Some day you will meet her. - You will marry her. There is no doubt whatever of that. None! Ask me no - questions, Mr. Merriwether. I ask nothing of you—no money, no time, - no services, no work, no favors—nothing! Your fate is not in my - hands. It never was! You will follow your destiny. It will take you by the - hand and lead you to her!” - </p> - <p> - “That is very nice of destiny.” - </p> - <p> - “My young friend, you are very rich, very powerful. You can do everything. - You fear nothing. This is the year nineteen hundred and thirteen. But I - tell you this: the woman who will be your wife, in this world and - throughout eternity has received your message. It was ordained from the - beginning. You have not seen her; you have not heard her; you have not - touched her. And yet you will know her when you see her and when you hear - her and when you feel her. Into the darkness you went. Out of the darkness - she will come. Nothing you can do can change it. Improve your hours by - thinking of her. Think of the love you have to give her! Think of it - constantly! Of your love! Yours! Of hers you cannot guess. The love you - will give will make her your mate! Your love! And so, Thomas Thome - Merriwether, think of the One Woman!” - </p> - <p> - “I think—” - </p> - <p> - “I know! Amusement, sneers, skepticism, anger—all are one to me. I - ask nothing, expect nothing, desire nothing, and fear nothing from you, - young sir. A queer experience this—eh? An unexplained and apparently - unconcluded little game? A plot foiled by your cleverness—what? A - joke? A piece of lunacy? Call it anything you wish. Again I thank you. - Good evening, Mr. Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - And Tom was politely ushered from the room by the strange man and from the - house by the four over-intelligent footmen. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>ext day Tom - Merriwether found himself unable to think of anything but the mystery of - the fateful Tuesday. He felt baffled. His curiosity had been repulsed at - every step. In their definite incomprehensibility all the incidents that - he so vividly recalled took on an irritating quality that made him a - morose and uncomfortable companion. Huntington Andrews noticed it at - luncheon; and so admirable was the quality of his amiability that after - the coffee he said: - </p> - <p> - “Tom, I've got important business to attend to to-day, and if you don't - mind I'll be off now. Of course if you think I can help you in any way all - you have to do is to tell me what it is.” - </p> - <p> - “Huntington, you are the best friend in the world. I've been thinking—” - </p> - <p> - Tom paused and stared into vacancy. He was trying to recall whether the - man at 777 Fifth Avenue had a criminal look about the eyes. Huntington - Andrews rose very quietly and walked away. He knew his friend wished to - think—alone. - </p> - <p> - Lost in his exasperating speculations, Tom finally ceased, thinking of the - man and began to think of the girl. Was the game to rouse his interest in - an unknown, later to be introduced to him? Was the scheme one that - involved an adventuress? Why all the claptrap? And why had his thoughts, - in spite of himself, dwelt so persistently on love and somebody to love? - Why had the springtime—since the night before—come to mean a - time for loving? Why had he begun to see, in flashes, tantalizing glimpses - of rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Why had he permitted his own mind to be - influenced by the strange man's remarks, so that Tom Merri-wether was - indeed thinking—if he would be honest with himself—of - marriage? Was his affinity on her way to him at this very moment, as the - man said? He began to hope she was. - </p> - <p> - He dined at home and was so preoccupied at the table that even his father - noticed it. - </p> - <p> - “What's up, Tom?” - </p> - <p> - “What? Oh! Nothing, dad! I was just thinking.” - </p> - <p> - “Terrible thing, my boy—thinking at meal-time,” said E. H. - Merriwether, with a self-conscious look of badinage. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is. I'll quit.” - </p> - <p> - “Is it anything about which you need advice—or help, my boy?” said - the great little railroad dynast, very carelessly. - </p> - <p> - His eyes never left his son's face; but when Tom raised his gaze to meet - his father's the elder Merriwether showed no interest. Tom knew his father - and felt the paternal love that insisted on concealing itself as though it - were a weakness. - </p> - <p> - “No, indeed. There is nothing the matter—really. I was thinking I'd - like to do a man's work. I guess you'd better let me go with you on your - next tour of inspection.” - </p> - <p> - The face of the czar of the Southwestern & Pacific lighted up. - </p> - <p> - “Will you?” he said, with an eagerness that made his voice almost tremble. - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - And that evening E. H. Merriwether delivered a long lecture on railroad - strategy and railroad financing to his son, which brought them very close - to each other. - </p> - <p> - On the next day, however, all thoughts of being his great father's - successor were subordinated to the feeling that, if Mr. Thomas Thome - Merriwether had to be the successor of a railroad man, he should himself - take steps to provide his own successors. Feeling that he was his father's - son made him think of paternity. And that made him think of the message he - had delivered in the dark and of the message the man had said would some - day come to Tom Merriwether. He drew a deep breath and thought he smelled - sweet peas. And that somehow made him think of the girl he should marry. - Try as he might, he could not quite see her face. He thought he kissed - her, and he inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas. Her complexion was - beautiful. No more! - </p> - <p> - On the afternoon of the third day Tom decided that he was wasting too much - time in thinking of the possible meaning of his queer experience, and also - that it was of little use trying not to think about it. Therefore he would - try to put an end to the perplexity. - </p> - <p> - He went to 777 Fifth Avenue and rang the bell. A footman opened the door - and stared at him icily. Tom perceived he was not one of the men whose - faces looked too intelligent for footmen. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see Mr.—er—your master.” - </p> - <p> - “Does he expect you, sir?” The tone was not as respectful as footmen in - Fifth Avenue houses used in speaking to the heir of the Merriwether - millions. “No; but he knows me.” - </p> - <p> - “Who knows you, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “Your master.” - </p> - <p> - “Could you tell me his name, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “No; but I can tell you mine.” - </p> - <p> - “He's not at home, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm Mr. Merriwether. Say I wish to speak to him a moment.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm sorry, sir. He's not in.” - </p> - <p> - The footman was so unimpressed by the name of Merriwether that Tom - experienced a new sensation, one which made him less sure of his own - powers. He took out a card and a bank-note and held them out toward the - man. - </p> - <p> - “I am anxious to see him.” - </p> - <p> - “Im sorry. I can't take it, sir,” said the footman, with such melancholy - sincerity that Tom smiled at the torture of the cockney soul. - </p> - <p> - Then he ceased to smile. The master of this mysterious house had compelled - even the footmen to obey him! - </p> - <p> - “But if you will call again in an hour, sir, I think perhaps, sir—” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. Take it anyhow.” - </p> - <p> - He again held out the bank-note. The man saw it was for twenty dollars, - and almost turned green. - </p> - <p> - “I—I d-daresent, sir!” he whimpered, and closed his eyes with the - expression of an anchoret resolved not to see the beautiful temptress. - </p> - <p> - Tom left him, walked across the Avenue to the Park, and sat down on a - bench. He settled down to think calmly over the mysterious affair, and - looked about him. - </p> - <p> - The grass in the turf places had taken on a definite green, as though it - were May. The trees were not yet in leaf, making the grass-greenness seem - a trifle premature, but Tom noticed that the buds on the trees and shrubs - were bursting; there were little feathery tips of tender red and pale - green—tiny wings about to flutter upward because the sun and the sky - beckoned to them to go where it was bright and warm. The sky was of a - spotless turquoise, as though the spring cleaning up there had been - thorough. The clouds were of silver freshly burnished for the occasion. - The air was alive, laden with subtle thrills; it throbbed invisibly, as - though the light were life, and life were love. He saw hundreds of - sparrows, and they all twittered; and all the twitterings were very, very - shrill, and yet very, very musical. And also they twittered in couples - that hopped and darted and aerially zigzagged—always together and - always twittering! - </p> - <p> - A policeman stopped and said something to a nurse-maid. The nurse-maid - said something to the policeman. He was young and she was pretty. Then the - policeman said nothing to the nurse-maid, and the nurse-maid said nothing - to the policeman. Then two faces turned red. Then one face nodded yes. - Then the other face walked away, swinging a club; and—by all that - was marvelous!—swinging the club in time to the tune the sparrows - were twittering—in couples—the same tune, as though the - club-swinger's soul were whistling it! - </p> - <p> - Tom smiled uncertainly—he wanted to give money, lots of it, to the - policeman and to the nursemaid; and he knew it was impossible—it was - too obviously the intelligent thing to do! So, instead, he drew a deep - breath. - </p> - <p> - Instantly there came to him not the odor of spring and of green things - growing, but of sweet peas and summer winds, and changing, evanescent - faces, pink-and-white as flowers, with flower-odor associations and eyes - full of glints and brightnesses that recalled dewdrops and sunlight and - stars. And these glittering points shifted in tune to the twittering of - birds and the swinging of Park policemen's clubs. - </p> - <p> - Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that - love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man. - </p> - <p> - He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to do - something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he walked - briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had begun to - walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to think. So - he shook himself free from the spell and walked back. - </p> - <p> - An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman opened - the door. - </p> - <p> - “Is he in?” asked Tom, impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir—he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir.” He - looked as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted. - </p> - <p> - “What did he say?” asked Tom. - </p> - <p> - “He said: 'How much did he offer to give you when you said I wasn't at - home?' Yes, sir. That's what he asked me.” - </p> - <p> - “And you said?” - </p> - <p> - “I said it was a yellowback, sir. That's all I could see. I said I - wouldn't take it, and he said I might just as well have taken it. Thank - you, sir! This way, sir.” - </p> - <p> - The footman led the way to the door in the rear, rapped, and in the - sonorous, triumphant voice that a twenty-dollar tip will give to any - menial he announced: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether!” - </p> - <p> - The same man was in the same chair in the same room, with his back to the - stained-glass window. Tom recalled all the incidents of his previous - visits—recalled every detail. Also the old question: What is the - game? Also the new question: Where is she? - </p> - <p> - The man rose and bowed. It was the bow of a social equal, Tom saw. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, Mr. Merriwether. Won't you be seated, sir?” And he motioned - him to a chair. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you.” - </p> - <p> - “How can I serve you?” - </p> - <p> - “Who is the woman?” said Tom, abruptly. “Your fate!” answered the man. - </p> - <p> - “Her name?” - </p> - <p> - “I cannot tell you.” - </p> - <p> - “Her address?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know it.” - </p> - <p> - “What is your game?” - </p> - <p> - “I have money enough for my whims and time enough to gratify my desire to - help you. Eugenics is my hobby. I recognize that I cannot fight against - the decree of destiny.” - </p> - <p> - “I am tired of all this humbug.” - </p> - <p> - “I ask nothing of you now. You can go or you can come. You can go to India - or to Patagonia—or even farther. You may send detectives and - lawyers, or even thugs, to me. You may cease your search for her—if - you can!” - </p> - <p> - “You have roused my curiosity—” - </p> - <p> - “That is a sign of intelligence.” - </p> - <p> - “I tell you now that I don't believe a word of what you say.” - </p> - <p> - “Free country, young man.” - </p> - <p> - “I've had enough of this nonsense—” - </p> - <p> - “Though I am always glad to see you, young sir, and would not wound your - feelings for worlds”—the man's voice was very polite, but also very - cold—“I might be forgiven for observing that I did not ask you to - call.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll give you a thousand dollars—” - </p> - <p> - The man stopped him with a deprecatory wave of the hand. - </p> - <p> - “One of the pearls I offered you, Mr. Merriwether, is valued at ten - thousand dollars. You did not select that one; but I'll exchange the one - you took for it—now if you wish.” - </p> - <p> - “That's all very well, but—” Tom paused, and the man cut in: - </p> - <p> - “Do you wish to see her from a safe distance? Or do you wish to talk to - her without seeing her? Or—” - </p> - <p> - “To see her and talk to her!” - </p> - <p> - “Wait!” - </p> - <p> - The man intently regarded the tip of Tom's left shoe for fully five - minutes. Then he raised his head and clapped his hands twice. The black - manservant with the fez appeared. - </p> - <p> - The man said something in Arabic—at least it sounded so to Tom. The - black answered. The man spoke again. The black replied: - </p> - <p> - The man said what sounded to Tom like, “<i>Ay adad</i>.” - </p> - <p> - The negro answered, “<i>Al-sabi! Al-sabi wal Saboun</i>.” - </p> - <p> - The man waved his hand dismissingly and the negro salaamed and left the - room. - </p> - <p> - After a moment the man turned to Tom and said, with obvious perplexity: “I - am not sure it is wise for me to meddle, but perhaps it is written that I - am to help you three times. Who knows?” - </p> - <p> - He stared into Tom's eyes as though he would read a word there—either - yes or no. But Tom said, a trifle impatiently: - </p> - <p> - “Well, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “Go to the opera to-night. Take seat H 77. No other seat will do.” - </p> - <p> - “H 77—to-night,” repeated Thomas Thorne Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “The opera is 'Madame Butterfly.'” - </p> - <p> - “Thanks,” said Tom, and started for the door. He halted when the man - spoke. - </p> - <p> - “It is the seat back of G 77. None other will do.” - </p> - <p> - “Good day, sir,” said Tom, and left the room. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he telephone - operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the plugs in the - switchboard and answered in advance: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether's office!” - </p> - <p> - From the other end of the wire came: - </p> - <p> - “This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. - Merriwether. Personal matter.” - </p> - <p> - “He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?” - </p> - <p> - “No. Say it is Mr. Waters—about Mr. Tom Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. E. - H. Merriwether—deluded people who thought they could get what they - wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never - succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented - the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her - business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private - secretary's line, saying: “Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to - Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll talk to him,” hastily said the private secretary. - </p> - <p> - “Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private secretary. - Has anything happened to Tom that—Oh! Yes—of course! At once, - Mr. Waters.” - </p> - <p> - McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire. - </p> - <p> - “Who?” said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. “Waters? Oh yes. - Go ahead!” - </p> - <p> - And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice: - </p> - <p> - “Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak - to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean - crazy or—er—alarming; but—don't you know?—unusual.... - Yes, sir! A little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about - the opera. Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs. - Of course it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No; - never! We don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan, - where he has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't - bring us into any—you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a - little worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about - being in love, and he—er—he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes, - Mr. Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It - was a very delicate matter and—Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether. - We'd all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by.” - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his admirers - called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive gambler's face - which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could be that he was - wounded in a vital spot. - </p> - <p> - His son Tom was all this great millionaire had! - </p> - <p> - His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste - paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was it - one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by - baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond the - reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend of Tom's; - but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private secretary. - </p> - <p> - “McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to - find out whether my son Tom has been up there—box-office—and - what he is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy - goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist on—er”—he - could not bring himself to say mental diseases—“on nervous troubles, - and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow morning. He - will have breakfast with us—say, at eight-thirty. I don't want Tom - to know.” - </p> - <p> - He avoided McWayne's eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir,” said McWayne. - </p> - <p> - “Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about Tom. - I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop everything - else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that Tom is acting - a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke—or a trick. I want to find - out—that's all.” - </p> - <p> - He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in - his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him - from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and - drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would be - a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could not - afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said in his - calm, emotionless voice: - </p> - <p> - “I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in.” - </p> - <p> - There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick - of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that at - will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart—this little chap - that people called ruthless. - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>om Merriwether - went to the box-office at the Metropolitan and said, pleasantly, as men do - when they ask for what they know will be given to them: - </p> - <p> - “I want the seat just back of G 77—orchestra—for to-night. I - suppose it will be H 77.” - </p> - <p> - The clerk, who knew the heir of the Merriwether millions, said, “I'll see - whether we have it, Mr. Merriwether.” He saw. Then he said, with sincere - regret: “I'm very sorry. It's gone.” - </p> - <p> - “I must have it,” said Tom, determinedly. - </p> - <p> - “I don't quite see how I can help you, Mr. Merri-wether. I can give you - another just as—” - </p> - <p> - “I don't want any other seat. Who bought it?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know. It may be a subscription seat, sold months ago.” - </p> - <p> - “It's the double seven on the seventh row that I am concerned about. I - want the seat just back of it.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll call up the ticket agencies. There's a bare chance they may have - it.” After a few minutes he said, “I'm very sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but I - can't get it. They haven't it.” - </p> - <p> - “I'm willing to pay any price for H 77. I'll give you a hundred dollars if - you—” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether, I couldn't do it if you offered me a thousand! If I - could do it at all I'd be only too glad to do it for you—for - nothing,” the clerk said, and blushed. - </p> - <p> - Everybody liked Tom. - </p> - <p> - The sincerity in the clerk's voice impressed young Mr. Merriwether, who - thanked him warmly and withdrew. The baffled feeling that he took away - with him from the ticket-window grew in intensity until he was ready to - fight. - </p> - <p> - It was a natural-enough impulse that led him back to 777 Fifth Avenue; but - he was not quite sure whether he was angry at the man for telling him to - do what was obviously impossible or at himself for determining to find - her! - </p> - <p> - He rang the bell of the house of mystery. The footman that answered was - one of the intelligent four; but his face was impassive, as though he had - never before seen Tom. - </p> - <p> - “Your master?” asked Tom, abruptly. - </p> - <p> - “Your card, please,” said the footman, impassively. - </p> - <p> - Tom gave it to him. The man disappeared, presently to return. - </p> - <p> - “This way, sir.” And at the door in the rear he paused and announced, “Mr. - Merriwether!” - </p> - <p> - The master of the house was in his usual place. He bowed his head gravely - and waited. - </p> - <p> - “I couldn't get the seat,” said Tom, with a frown. - </p> - <p> - “It is written, 'Vain are man's efforts!'” - </p> - <p> - “That's all very well, my friend. But the next time—” - </p> - <p> - “Fate deals with time—not with next time! There is no certainty of - any time but one. If you can do nothing I can do nothing. I still say, The - seat back of G 77 to-night.” - </p> - <p> - Tom Merriwether looked searchingly into the calm eyes before him. The - baffled feeling returned; also, a great curiosity. What would the end be? - At length he said, “Good day, sir.” He half hoped the man would volunteer - some helpful remark. - </p> - <p> - “Good day, sir,” said the man, with cold politeness. - </p> - <p> - Tom went back to the Opera House and asked for somebody in authority to - whom he might talk. They ushered him into Mr. Kirsch's presence. Mr. - Kirsch, amiable by birth, temperament, and training, listened to him with - much gravity; also, with a concern he tried to conceal, for it was too sad—a - bright, clean-living, intensely likable chap like Tom, only heir to the - Merriwether millions! - </p> - <p> - Fearing a scene, he told Tom that he would speak to the ticket-takers in - the lobby to be on the lookout for ticket H 77. Then he conferred with the - emissary McWayne had sent, who thereupon was able to send in a most - alarming report. - </p> - <p> - The private secretary softened it as much as he could, and even dared to - suggest to the chief that it might be a bet; but the little czar of the - Pacific & Southwestern, who had never flinched under any strain or - stress, grew visibly older as he heard that his son was offering thousands - for an opera-seat—for the seat back of the double seven, seventh - row. It could mean but one thing! - </p> - <p> - Tom was so fortunate as to be standing beside the ticket-collector at the - middle door of the main entrance when the owner of H 77 appeared. He was a - fat man with a pink and shiny face, a close-cropped mustache, and huge - pearl studs. The fat man was fortunately alone. - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” said Tom, “I should like to speak a moment with you.” - </p> - <p> - The man looked apprehensive. Then he said, “What is it about?” - </p> - <p> - “For very strong personal reasons I should like to exchange tickets with - you. I can give you G 126—every bit as good—on the other side - of the aisle.” - </p> - <p> - “Why should I change?” queried the shiny-faced man, suspiciously. - </p> - <p> - “To oblige a very nice young lady and myself. Of course, if you prefer to - be paid—” - </p> - <p> - “I don't need money.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I'll pay you a hundred dollars for your ticket,” said Tom, coldly. - </p> - <p> - The man shook his head from force of habit, in order that Tom might see he - was offering too little. Then he said, recklessly: - </p> - <p> - “It's yours, my friend. I have a pet charity. I'll give your money to it. - Where's the hundred?” - </p> - <p> - Tom took out a small roll of yellow bills, pulled off one, and handed it - to the man with the pet charity, who took it, looked at it, nodded, put it - in his pocket, gave the coupon to Tom, and then held out his right hand. - </p> - <p> - “Where is the ticket for G 120 that you'll give me in place of mine?” - </p> - <p> - Tom gave it to him and walked into the house, not knowing that McWayne's - emissary had listened and reported. He sat in H 77 and tried to laugh at - his own absurd behavior; but somewhere within him—away in, very deep—something - was thrillingly alert, tantalizingly expectant. - </p> - <p> - The seat before him was empty. It remained empty during the first act. It - angered Tom that the climax should be so long in coming. The three seats - in front of him remained vacant until just before the curtain went up on - the last act. Somebody came in just as the lights were lowered and - occupied seat G 77. - </p> - <p> - Tom sat up and braced himself. He leaned over, vaguely desiring to be near - her. Unconscious that he was under a strain he, nevertheless, drew a deep - breath. - </p> - <p> - Instantly there came to him the odor of sweet peas, and with it thoughts - of summer, of a beautiful girl, of a soul-mate, of a wife. Love filled his - being. He wished to love and be loved. He wished to be somebody's husband, - so that he might begin to live the life he was to live until the day of - his death! - </p> - <p> - He leaned back in his chair and again inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas—the - odor that must mean kisses in the open; the inarticulate love-making of - breezes and blossoms; the multitudinous whispers of midsummer nights heard - by love-hungry ears. And then the music! There came the breaking of a - heart about to cease beating and the sobbing crash of the brasses in the - finale. It was almost more than Tom could bear. - </p> - <p> - Then the curtain fell and light flooded the house. People streamed out. - Tom twisted and turned to see the face of the lady who made him think of - the sweet peas, which made him think of love and marriage and children—but - she was wrapped to the cheeks in a fur-edged opera-cloak and her head was - covered with a black-lace wrap. He could not see her face; and after - rivulets of people reached the main stream in the middle aisle he found - himself hopelessly separated from her. He tried to jostle his way through. - McWayne, his father's private secretary, suddenly happened to be there. - </p> - <p> - “Hello, Tom!” he said. “What's your rush?” - </p> - <p> - Tom saw that it was useless to pursue the phantom of sweet peas and dreams - of love unless he vaulted over the stalls. McWayne's presence made him - realize how his friends would be shocked by such actions. - </p> - <p> - “No hurry at all,” said Tom, who, after all, was a Merriwether. “Just - wanted to smoke and to see whether I knew that girl.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll bet she's a pippin!” said McWayne, with a friendly smile. It - irritated Tom. - </p> - <p> - “I don't know any of your friends,” said Tom, coldly; “lady friends and - pippins, fellows like you call them, I believe.” - </p> - <p> - That was what convinced McWayne that the worst was to be feared about poor - Tom, who was so considerate and amiable when normal. Poor Tom! McWayne - telephoned to the waiting E. H. Merriwether, whose only reply was to ask - the private secretary to arrange to have Dr. Frauenthal, the great - specialist, at breakfast in the Merriwether house the next morning, - without fail. - </p> - <p> - It was a common occurrence for Dr. Frauenthal to meet—under false - pretenses, as it were—persons whose sanity was suspected by fond - relatives who dared not openly acknowledge their suspicions. He was a man - whose eyes had been compared to psychic corkscrews, with which he brought - the patient's secret thoughts to the light of day. Some one said of him - that, by inducing a feeling of guilt and detection among the predatory - rich, he was able to exact colossal fees from them. He was the man who had - made Ordway Blake give up making six millions a year in Wall Street by - quitting the game. Mr. Blake was still alive. - </p> - <p> - Frauenthal was introduced to Tom as a gentleman whose advice “E. H.” - desired. The men conversed on various topics apparently haphazard; but in - reality Tom, without knowing it, was answering test questions. The answers - could not conclusively prove insanity, but they would certainly show - whether a more thorough examination was necessary. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether and Frauenthal left the house together. They entered the - waiting brougham. The great little railroad magnate gave the address of - the doctor's office to the footman, then turned to Frauenthal and said, - calmly: - </p> - <p> - “Well, what do you think of him?” - </p> - <p> - His voice was steady and cold; his face imperturbable; his eyes were fixed - with intelligent scrutiny on the specialist's, but his fingers tightly - clutched a rolled morning newspaper. - </p> - <p> - Frauenthal turned his clinical stare on E. H. Merriwether, as though the - financier were really the patient. He swept the little man's face—the - eyes, the mouth, and the poise—and then let his eyes linger on the - clenched fingers about the newspaper. - </p> - <p> - The iron-nerved, glacial-blooded, flint-hearted Merriwether could not - control himself after forty-five seconds of this. He flung the newspaper - on the floor violently. - </p> - <p> - “Go ahead!” he said, harshly. - </p> - <p> - The doctor did not smile outwardly; but you felt that within himself he - had found an answer to one of his own unspoken questions about the father - of the suspect. - </p> - <p> - “There are, Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” he began, in the measured tones and - overcareful enunciation of a lecturer at a clinic, “various forms of—let - us say—madness; and your son Tom, a fine young man of twenty-eight, - is quite unmistakably suffering from—” - </p> - <p> - He paused to give the fine young man's emotionless father an opportunity - to show human feelings. Frauenthal was always interested in the struggle - between the emotional and the physical in his millionaire patients. - </p> - <p> - “Go on!” said E. H. Merriwether, so very coldly as to irritate. - </p> - <p> - His eyes never left the alienist's own secret-draggers; but he was - drumming on his thigh with the tips of his uncontrollable fingers. - Ordinarily his desk would have screened from sight this betrayal of human - feeling. - </p> - <p> - “Your son, sir, is suffering, beyond any question, from the oldest madness - of all—love!” - </p> - <p> - “What?” - </p> - <p> - “Your son Tom is in love. That is what ails him.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you serious?” Mr. Merriwether was frowning fiercely now. - </p> - <p> - “You'll think so,” retorted Frauenthal, coldly, “when you get my bill.” - </p> - <p> - “My boy Tom in love?” repeated the czar, blankly. “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “With whom?” - </p> - <p> - “I don't know. I'm a neurologist—not a soothsayer.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, suppose he is in love—what of it?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing—to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Then what is serious about it?” - </p> - <p> - “I can't tell you, for its seriousness to you depends on your point of - view toward society at large. There are, of course, the obvious - disquieting circumstances.” - </p> - <p> - “For instance?” - </p> - <p> - “He is a fine chap—healthy, bright, honest. What is the reason he - has said nothing to you? Is he ashamed or afraid? If he is ashamed it is - very serious to both of you. If he is afraid—well, then the - seriousness depends on how intelligent a father you have been to him.” - </p> - <p> - “Don't talk like a damned fool! I've been a good father to him; of course—” - </p> - <p> - “Wait! Wait! First tell me why you do what you ask me not to do?” In the - specialist's eyes was a sort of professional curiosity. - </p> - <p> - “What do you mean?” said E. H. Merriwether, impatiently. It exasperated - him to be puzzled. - </p> - <p> - “Why do you talk like a damned fool?” said Frauenthal. - </p> - <p> - Nobody ever talked that way to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, overlord of the - greatest railroad empire in history. He flushed and was about to retort - angrily, but controlled himself in time. The brougham had reached - Frauenthal's office. Mr. Merriwether spoke too calmly—you could feel - the tense restraint: - </p> - <p> - “Dr. Frauenthal, I've heard a great deal of your wonderful ability.” - </p> - <p> - He paused. It came hard to him to be ingratiating. This difficulty is the - revenge which nature takes on people who acquire the habit of 'paying - money for everything in this world. Such men cannot talk except with a - check-book, and the check-book loses the power of speech before happiness—and - before death. - </p> - <p> - “What very difficult thing is it you wish me to do for you?” asked - Frauenthal, coldly. - </p> - <p> - “You are sure Tom is not—” He hesitated. - </p> - <p> - “Crazy?” prompted the specialist. - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; I'm sure he is not. Therefore he is saner than you who are a - money-maker.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether let this remark pass. He was anxious to save Tom. This man - was uncannily sharp. He said, “And can't you do something, so that Tom - will not—” - </p> - <p> - “I am not God!” interrupted Frauenthal. - </p> - <p> - “Then, what can I do? What do you suggest might be done?” - </p> - <p> - “As a neurologist?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, as a man of the world—as one who knows human nature? You see, - this—this—er—sort of thing is not in my line. What shall - I do?” It was a terrible thing for the great Merriwether to confess - inefficiency in anything. - </p> - <p> - “Pray!” - </p> - <p> - The little magnate flushed. “Dr. Frauenthal,” he began, with chilling - dignity, “I asked—” - </p> - <p> - “And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to whatever - other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a prima donna nor - a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really worse than you - deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There are check-book - gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd pray to Him if I - were you. Good day, sir!” - </p> - <p> - The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without another - look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house. - </p> - <p> - “Where to, sir?” asked the footman. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his anxiety - over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread question—Why - had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be either crazy or in - love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? What was she? Why was - she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: “Hell!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir—very good, sir,” said the footman, from force of habit. - Then he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed - deeply and said, tremulously, “B-beg p-pardon, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “Nearest Subway station!” said E. H. Merriwether. . - </p> - <p> - He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important - business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best in - his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was an - autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands that - were obeyed. He had much thinking to do—Tom was concerned, his son - Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's - future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether! - </p> - <p> - Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of a - clear sky—this love-affair was a million times worse! It was - mysterious—and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is - worse than nitroglycerine—infinitely more dangerous. - </p> - <p> - What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the - dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could not - Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good girl - who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding her own - business—to wit, a few little male Merriwethers? - </p> - <p> - It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether had - loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his pleasure. - But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far greater importance than the - worker. The work was the work of the Merriwethers—not of one - Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but of all the Merriwethers, - living and to be. - </p> - <p> - Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be - himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad - expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a successor—flesh - and blood the same; the fortune the same. - </p> - <p> - And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H. - Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness - Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only - Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom. - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter his father - and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel that he had finished - his breakfast—that is to say, he attempted to read the newspapers. - But the printed letters failed to combine themselves into intelligible - forms, and even when he read a word here and there his mind did not record - it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose. - </p> - <p> - Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to - reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in - that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to him - in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open air, - and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies to soar - unchecked. - </p> - <p> - Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he did - not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his mind - that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with - precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime—also - young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and burros—and - even bankers! - </p> - <p> - Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave up - trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning papers. - His nervous system coined a proverb for him: “When in doubt, walk out!” So - he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue. - </p> - <p> - He found himself in Central Park—the remedy which the very rich do - not and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as - he walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite - cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about - them systematically. - </p> - <p> - The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth Avenue—on - Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the jewelry-shops where the - wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. Everybody was getting - married! What business had people to make people think of wives—yes, - wives—plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all desirable and - worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to be rolled into - one—Tom's? - </p> - <p> - It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one he - desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the amorous - crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the springtime—a - nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion from a distant - relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the heart of the sun—and - lo! the wife-to-be! - </p> - <p> - And so the wedding-presents—a silver service, to be used by two - sitting on opposite sides of a table, looking into each other's eyes; a - glittering string, to be admired on a wonderful throat—were heavy - enough to keep Tom's soul from soaring. And because his feet were on the - pavement he soon found himself—of course!—before 777 Fifth - Avenue. - </p> - <p> - Why should he not go to that house? And why should he not ring the bell? - Why not? He was just in the mood to meet her! - </p> - <p> - His intentions were above suspicion, though marriage is a serious thing; - but, really, now was the time for the adventure to appear—even if - the adventure turned out to be merely the adventuress. - </p> - <p> - Therefore, with the inexorable logic of the most illogical state of mind - known, he rang the bell and waited with an eagerness—half hope, half - curiosity—most unusual among people who, like Tom, early acquire the - habit of asking, check-book in hand, for whatever they wish. - </p> - <p> - The footman who answered was one of the men with the over-intelligent - faces. - </p> - <p> - “I am Mr. Merriwether. I wish to see your master.” - </p> - <p> - Tom's voice rang a trifle more commandingly than the occasion appeared to - call for. There was a physiological reason for it. The man hesitated so - that Tom wondered; but presently all expression vanished from the - non-menial face and the footman said: - </p> - <p> - “This way, if you please, sir.” - </p> - <p> - He preceded Tom to the door of his master's library. He rapped twice - smartly and waited in an attitude of listening. Tom also listened - intently; he could not have told why he did it—though it was, of - course, inevitable. - </p> - <p> - Not a sound was heard. The over-intelligent footman's lips moved for all - the world as though he were counting, and presently he opened the door and - announced: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether—7-7-7 7.” - </p> - <p> - Tom entered. The master of this strange house was seated at the - over-elaborate library table, writing. He looked up, but before Tom could - speak the man said, coldly: - </p> - <p> - “I cannot do anything for you, sir.” - </p> - <p> - It was so much like a refusal to give alms to a beggar that Tom flushed - angrily. He managed to check a sharp retort on the very brink and, - instead, began in a mildly ironical tone: - </p> - <p> - “Of course you know what I—” - </p> - <p> - “Of course!” interrupted the man, rudely; and he began impatiently to drum - on the edge of the table with his penholder. “Do you imagine for a minute - that you are the only mateless male in New York looking for his destined - bride? And do you really think that the fruitlessness—until now—of - your search is a world-tragedy? Because your name happens to be Thomas—which - is a descriptive title when applied to marriageable felines of your own - sex—do you fancy I am concerned with your affairs? Young man, you - are the only son and heir of a very rich man; but there are some things - that money cannot buy. Love is one of them.” - </p> - <p> - He frowned at Tom, but something in the young millionaire's face made him - relent. He went on, more kindly, more encouragingly: - </p> - <p> - “My boy, she is seeking you, even as you are seeking her. She is very - beautiful! You will meet her at the appointed hour—have no doubt of - it. After your perfectly stupid failure at the opera—Wait!” He held - up a hand as Tom was about to speak in self-defense. “The very futility of - your manoeuvers shows that youth, brains, money, persistence, and desire - are all powerless to hurry fate. As you, who have never seen her, love - her, she loves you, though she has never seen you. She will know you as - you will know her; but she is gone!” - </p> - <p> - “Where?” Tom spoke before he knew it. - </p> - <p> - “Be patient! After you meet her you will live with her until death parts - you.” - </p> - <p> - He said this, without theatrical emphasis, in a most matter-of-fact way. - Tom's suspicions, always present in this house of mystification rather - than of mystery, were not made livelier by the man's words; but neither - were they allayed by the tone of his voice. He hesitated, and then, - adventure whispering, he said: - </p> - <p> - “To be perfectly frank, I am interested in this—” - </p> - <p> - “Young man, I told you before that I ask nothing of you—no favor, no - money, no service; not even your interest. When I asked you to do a - certain thing you did it. I am not particularly grateful. You could not - have refused! Possibly you can explain to your own satisfaction your own - inexplicable acquiescence; you doubtless have evolved a dozen most - ingenious theories to account for your doings and mine. The shortest and - easiest explanation is the true one—fate. After you marry you will - compare notes with her—and yet you will not understand why I - concerned myself with your lives. You will perplex yourselves so - unnecessarily; all because of your unwillingness to say, fate! Men hate - fate as a hypothesis. It is not flattering to admit that we are but - puppets—the strongest of us no stronger than an autumn leaf in the - wind. And because you do not see fate you do not believe in it. And, for - fear of being considered an ass by a lot of asses, who also do not believe - in fate, you will never tell any one your romantic story. And yet, of the - scores you call friends, there are only seven men who are happily married. - And those seven I helped, as I have helped you and as I shall help those I - am ordered to help. Even now the Dispeller of Darkness is out, making one - heart send a message in the dark to another heart waiting for it!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean to say you cannot or will not arrange for my meeting the - mysterious person you tell me I am going to marry?” - </p> - <p> - “I mean to say that your coming to this house with such a hope merely - means a waste of your time, young sir, and of mine. You will meet your - love, but you cannot find her. No man finds happiness by means of a - systematic or diligent search. It comes or it does not come—as God - wills.” - </p> - <p> - The man rose. Tom also rose and said: - </p> - <p> - “But at least tell me where this—this alleged fate of mine is.” - </p> - <p> - The man shook his head with a smile that was in the nature of a mild - sneer. - </p> - <p> - “Doubting Thomas! He won't admit it, but he can't deny it! Ah, so wise! So - clever in his suspicions! So intelligently skeptical! Ah yes!” - </p> - <p> - Still nodding in ironical admiration, he approached the filing-cabinet. - </p> - <p> - “Let me see—you are 7-7-77.” He pulled out drawer seven in section - seven and took out an envelope from which he drew a lot of papers. He read - a typewritten sheet. He replaced the papers, closed the drawer, turned, - and stared doubtfully at Tom, muttering half to himself: “I don't know! I - don't know!” - </p> - <p> - “What?” asked Tom. - </p> - <p> - “Do you really want her? Do you feel that you must meet her soon or die?” - </p> - <p> - Tom knew he would not die if he did not meet her soon, but as for wanting - her, he certainly did. Every cell in his body was on the alert, waiting - for her, hoping to see her; and adventure, through a megaphone, was - vociferating in the middle of his soul: “Come! Come!” Therefore Tom looked - the man straight in the eyes and answered: - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I do!” - </p> - <p> - The man hesitated. Then he said: - </p> - <p> - “Listen! It is for the last time. Do you hear? For the last time! Do you - agree?” - </p> - <p> - He looked sternly at Tom, who thereupon answered, impatiently: - </p> - <p> - “Yes! Yes!” - </p> - <p> - “Boston! Hotel Lorraine! Secure Room 77, seventh floor. On Thursday at - exactly 7 p.m. be in the southeast corner of the library or reading-room, - which is on the left of the hall as you go to the main dining-room. Green - arm-chair. Hold your hat between your knees—bottom side upward. - Close your eyes. A letter will be dropped into the hat. Then do as you - please. Personally I don't think it will help or hinder. But you are - young; and perhaps if you wish hard enough it may happen according to your - desire. Good day!” - </p> - <p> - The man turned his back squarely on Tom, leaving to the heir of the - Merriwether millions no alternative but to go out dissatisfied, excited, - skeptical, hopeful, and determined to go to Boston—danger or no - danger, swindle or no swindle. - </p> - <p> - The mysterious man, too mysterious to be anything but a charlatan, who - said he did not wish Tom's money and, for that reason, probably did—this - man promised Tom he should meet a girl—a beautiful girl, the girl he - would marry. If there was to be no compulsion about it; if they, the man - and his accomplices, counted on her charms to capture Tom's heart and hand—why, - the sooner she began the attack, the better. Also, it was one of those - things that only an ass would talk about, since the telling would put an - end to all doubts as to the teller's asininity. - </p> - <p> - Therefore, without saying a word to anybody, Tom went to Boston, not - knowing that McWayne's detectives had orders to follow Tom wherever he - went and to report in detail what he was seen to do and what he was heard - to say and to whom. - </p> - <p> - Tom arrived in Boston, went to the Hotel Lorraine, registered, and asked - the polite room clerk for Room 77 on the seventh floor. The clerk smiled - pleasantly, as he always did whenever a guest-to-be asked for rooms that - did not end in thirteen, disappeared to look at the index, and returned. - </p> - <p> - “I'm sorry, sir, but that room is taken. I can give you—” - </p> - <p> - “Taken!” said Tom, in such a disappointed tone that the clerk deigned to - explain sympathetically: “Engaged by telegraph.” - </p> - <p> - “Who engaged it?” - </p> - <p> - Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with - raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of - once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with a - cold determination in his voice: “I made a mistake. I thought we had a - vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere. - I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left.” - </p> - <p> - He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He - evidently considered the incident closed. - </p> - <p> - Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His business - in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son of his - father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the clerk: - </p> - <p> - “I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no consequence. - I am Mr. Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - “I told you it was engaged.” - </p> - <p> - “And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?” - </p> - <p> - “Don't you?” said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness - with a sneer. - </p> - <p> - This made Tom calm. He said, quietly: - </p> - <p> - “Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of - this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should have - forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, Wilkinson - & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket National - Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good heavens! - there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the last - twenty years!” The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether had a - familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more politely: - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want—and three others - with it—have been engaged.” - </p> - <p> - “By whom?” - </p> - <p> - “You are asking me to break one of our rules.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, can you tell me whether it has been engaged since yesterday?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, longer than that!” He disappeared, consulted a book, and came back - with the triumphant expression human beings put on when they do not wish - to say “I told you so,” aloud, “Engaged and paid for since the eighth, Mr. - Merriwether. That's nine days ago. So, you see, we can't do what you ask - us to. Sorry!” - </p> - <p> - Wherever he went, Tom thought he was confronted by crude attempts at - mystery. To send him to this particular room, 77 on the seventh floor, was - merely the same as an effort to impress children by using the magical - number seven. - </p> - <p> - Who had engaged the room? Was it an accomplice or some stranger guiltless - of participation in the rather juvenile joke? - </p> - <p> - Still, Tom was in Boston to do a particular thing; and, though much of the - spring restlessness had gone from his veins, there remained the desire to - see the affair through to the end, whether the end should be a smile or a - mild oath. Therefore, after a pause, Tom said to the clerk: - </p> - <p> - “Can you give me the room exactly opposite 77 on the seventh floor?” - </p> - <p> - The clerk hesitated, then said: - </p> - <p> - “Just a minute, please.” - </p> - <p> - He consulted one of the bookkeepers, from whom he must have learned whose - son Tom was. And, though Boston is not New York, money is money, even in - Massachusetts; and the heir to fifty or a hundred million dollars is - something, whether or not he is somebody. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly,” said the clerk, and handed the key to a young man called, in - New York, a bell-boy. The young man now preceded Tom to the seventh floor - and ushered the New-Yorker into Room 78. - </p> - <p> - Tom gave the studious youth a dollar and never noticed that the boy - regarded the bill with a mixture of suspicion and alarm, put it gingerly - into his pocket, and left the room, closing the door. Tom opened the door. - The boy thought it had opened itself and returned to close it. Tom waved - him away. The boy hastily retreated. He did not, however, throw away the - dollar. He had discovered it was not “phony.” - </p> - <p> - The bell-boy found the room clerk engaged in conversation with two men. - He, divining that the talk concerned the generous lunatic, flung at the - room clerk that look of exaggerated perplexity which will cause any normal - human being inevitably to ask: “What is it?” - </p> - <p> - The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men; - whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and - muttered, “He is in his room!” - </p> - <p> - “What's that, boy?” - </p> - <p> - “I said,” retorted the studious youth, glacially, “he was in his room—78. - He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close it, but he - opened it again—after he gave me the dollar.” - </p> - <p> - The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively. - </p> - <p> - “Your man!” he said. “Of course we don't want any fuss—” - </p> - <p> - “We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow - isn't violent, you know.” - </p> - <p> - The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing: - </p> - <p> - “Only son, too—isn't he?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard.” The detective, induced - thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed inside - information. - </p> - <p> - “Too bad!” murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom. - “Too damned bad!” he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million and - himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, sternly, - “No trouble, you understand!” - </p> - <p> - One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the lobby - just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's permission, - went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor telephone operator. - From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on Room 78. - </p> - <p> - Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit - still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. The - thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him that - perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely on rousing - the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise awaited the man - who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied by some one who - had nothing to do with her—and therefore nothing to do with him. - Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. Perhaps a - million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously the unwise - thing to do to go into Room 77. - </p> - <p> - All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with him. - The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more - difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across the - hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked again. A - hotel maid approached him. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?” - </p> - <p> - “What party?” - </p> - <p> - “In Room 77.” - </p> - <p> - “No. I am in 78.” - </p> - <p> - “I am very sorry—but it is against the rules of the house, sir.” - </p> - <p> - Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own room, - conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much concerned - over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to either of his - Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever Mr. McWayne's - star sleuths. - </p> - <p> - Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had - come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it was - not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So long as - no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no mystery is - laughable—at least, not while in the act of mystifying. - </p> - <p> - So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or - not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked - man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two men - from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the - liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity. - </p> - <p> - All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock; - but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most human - beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not “act right” to the - watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused of being mad, - will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five minutes. People who - never think and never imagine are never taken for lunatics. That nowadays - is about the only compensation for being an ass. - </p> - <p> - At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the - green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an - elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at - exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid of - the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming the - office. - </p> - <p> - His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for insanity, - and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his inventiveness. He - merely drew his chair very close to the startled old lady and opened a - magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the exasperating - undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to yours at the - opera. - </p> - <p> - Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, and - at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched fist - bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, looked - at it, exclaimed, “Gracious!”—and blew his nose loudly and - determinedly. - </p> - <p> - Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose, - looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the room. - In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked hats and - coats near the entrance of the main dining-room. - </p> - <p> - “I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! He - simply drove me out.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case.” - </p> - <p> - “Goodness! What a narrow—“. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he is quite harmless, madam.” - </p> - <p> - “It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows—” - </p> - <p> - “You are right!” agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to - encourage generosity. - </p> - <p> - The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down in - the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The mahogany - clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom felt a pang - of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened—except that he again - had made an ass of himself! - </p> - <p> - A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at Tom, - saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last person - in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the - room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way to - attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was not a - good place in which to do any robbing or murdering. - </p> - <p> - Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into - his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils—the odor he - had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, and - therefore with love. - </p> - <p> - This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him—that - made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife—that made - him thrill obediently at the call of adventure—made him feel that - the mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within his - hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what it - said, rushed from the room into the corridor. - </p> - <p> - He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was - among them or whether the man who had entered the library—who - probably was the man that put out the light—was among the crowd. But - the sleuths and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt - could remain? In their minds there was none. - </p> - <p> - Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He - was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it - were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a - woman's hand: - </p> - <p> - <i>For T. M.</i> - </p> - <p> - He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, on - which he read, in the same handwriting: - </p> - <p> - <i>Too late!</i> - </p> - <p> - He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk. - </p> - <p> - “I must—” he began, but stopped. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a man - saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother. - </p> - <p> - “About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom. - </p> - <p> - “We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “What? Has she—Is it vacant?” - </p> - <p> - “Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see - whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll—” - </p> - <p> - “I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.” - </p> - <p> - He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous - occupants. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly. Front!” - </p> - <p> - Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He thought - he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but the odor, - which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented him from - thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. There was no - sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the mist of dreams - and longings. - </p> - <p> - He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often - had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors to - look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife—the mother of - his children—the woman whose mere existence will influence his life - more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a different - man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different point of - view. - </p> - <p> - Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of view - would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she be the - girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the mysterious - person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with whom he might - fall in love—adventuress or not? His love of love had not yet - changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a definite - love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that this - affair was being stage-managed for his benefit. - </p> - <p> - He would forgive everything so long as in the end something happened—something - in which there was a girl, whether or not she was the girl. What most - irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery so far. The spice of - danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of adventure; the call of the - unusual; the attraction of the unknown and therefore of the interesting—were - no longer quite enough. The glimpse of a face—of a living face—and - a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and lips to kiss—these things he - now desired. - </p> - <p> - His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew - keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the - mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue. - </p> - <p> - He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New - York. - </p> - <h3> - VII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ome men are so - picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and so intelligent - that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. E. H. Merriwether was - one. He employed the ablest experts for his corporations and they got more - than their share of publicity; but for himself—nothing. Possibly he - realized that ungratified curiosity is a valuable asset; and, of course, - he knew that in a democracy the less a man raises his head above the level - of the mass the better it will be for his comfort. - </p> - <p> - He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because - that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was - not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned with - despoiling the public—which, in turn, clearly proved he was not - dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers the - more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. Everything - he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about him were so hard - to get that the brightest minds in the profession manufactured a few. They - had to be very good anecdotes—and they were. - </p> - <p> - To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known to be - mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, and, besides, - devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from reporters, because - they had learned to save themselves time by the simple expedient of - writing their interviews with him in their own offices, after this - fashion: - </p> - <p> - <i>Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor - denial could be obtained at his office.</i> - </p> - <p> - The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never too - busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers. - </p> - <p> - On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the - Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A - stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the - general and unwelcome public. - </p> - <p> - At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a - man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a - letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: “Well?”—but - kept on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by - making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire - magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” said the young man, pleasantly and - unimpressed. - </p> - <p> - The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked, - wearily: - </p> - <p> - “Got an appointment?” - </p> - <p> - “No; but—” - </p> - <p> - The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped - insolence, said, still without looking up: - </p> - <p> - “What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see - any one to-day. Good day!” - </p> - <p> - There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an exaggerated - and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the stranger without - the gate said: - </p> - <p> - “When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me.” - </p> - <p> - The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance - about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young man, - of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight, - well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and general - air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as good an - account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of wits. - </p> - <p> - The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of - hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police - nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good - standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made - possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington. - </p> - <p> - “My good James,” said the new-school reporter, with a mocking - superciliousness, “I would see your boss. Be expeditious.” - </p> - <p> - The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed dangerously; - but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his temper under - control. For all that, his voice shook as he said: - </p> - <p> - “If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger - from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I—I'm sorry!” Here Doyle - gulped. Then he finished: “Good day!”—and resumed, his writing. - </p> - <p> - The reporter said, “Look at me!” so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed - back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man who - dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office. - </p> - <p> - “My Celtic friend,” pursued the reporter, in a voice of such cold-blooded - vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment and respect, - “for years the domestics of this office have been rude and impolite to my - profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry reporters might feel or - what they said about him; but to-day I am the one who does not care, and - E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally concerned. <i>I</i> don't give - a damn whether he sees me or not. And as for you, in order to avenge the - poor chaps to whom you have been intelligently rude, I, to whom you have - been unintelligently impolite, shall have you fired. I've got E. H. - Merriwether where I want him. If I can end your boss I can end your job—can't - I? Oh no, Alexander! I am not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound - to happen, for Waterloo comes to all great men who are not clever enough - to die at the right time. Now you go and get McWayne—and be quick - about it!” - </p> - <p> - Doyle at times saw things through the top of his head, which was red. He - said, a bit thickly: - </p> - <p> - “When you tell me in plain English, so I can understand—” - </p> - <p> - “You are not paid to understand; you are paid to use common sense and - discrimination. You go to McWayne and say to him a reporter is here and - wishes to speak to him about a sad Merriwether family matter.” - </p> - <p> - Doyle knew from the office gossip that something was supposed to be wrong - with Tom Merriwether; so, his heart overflowing with anger because chance - had put the one weapon in the hands of an insolent newspaper man, Doyle - went off to tell the boss's private secretary. Presently McWayne, walking - quickly, came from an inner office, and asked: “You wish to see me?” - </p> - <p> - “No!” answered the reporter, flatly. - </p> - <p> - “Then—” began McWayne. - </p> - <p> - “I don't wish to see you. I wish to see if you have the sense to - understand that I wish to do Mr. E. H. Merriwether the favor of letting - him talk to me. Do you want me to tell you what I want you to tell Mr. E. - H. Merriwether?” - </p> - <p> - The reporter looked as though he hoped McWayne would say no. Reporters did - not usually look that way; therefore McWayne was perturbed. He replied, - with a polite anxiety: - </p> - <p> - “If you please—” - </p> - <p> - “Tell Mr. Merriwether that I wish to see him about his son's marriage. - Tell him that if he does not wish to talk about it, he needn't. You might - add that there is absolutely no use in his trying to keep it out of the - newspapers. Make that plain to him, McWayne.” - </p> - <p> - McWayne did not dare deny the marriage. Tom was, alas! capable of even - worse things. He did the only thing possible while there was still a - chance to suppress the news; he said: - </p> - <p> - “And you represent which paper, please?” - </p> - <p> - Reporters do not always know why or how news is suppressed, nor the price; - but this reporter laughed good-naturedly, and replied: - </p> - <p> - “McWayne, the trouble with you Irish is that you are so infernally clever - that plain jackasses like myself are prepared for you. I represent myself - and I don't want to be paid to suppress. No blackmail here; no threats; - nothing except amiability and good-will. Have you begun to accumulate a - few suspicions that your taciturn boss is going to talk to me?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll see!” promised McWayne, non-committally; but he was so perturbed - that he could not help showing it. - </p> - <p> - Doyle, who had made a pretense of resuming his letter-writing, noticed it, - and felt uncomfortable. - </p> - <p> - “And—say, McWayne,” pursued the reporter, “could you let a fellow - have a photograph or two? You know we've got some, but we'd prefer to - publish those you think the family consider the best. Some people are - queer that way.” - </p> - <p> - McWayne shook his head and went away, convinced of the worst. He returned - and beckoned to the reporter, who thereupon said, sharply, to Doyle: - </p> - <p> - “Open the door—you! Quick!” And Doyle, who saw McWayne beckoning, - had to do it. - </p> - <p> - Four hundred and seventeen reporters were avenged! - </p> - <p> - Doyle was so angry that he was full of aches. He was tempted to throw up - his job. Then he hoped E. H. Merriwether, who was a very great man, would - order him to throw the insolent dog out of the office. Doyle would earn a - bonus. - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, - fearless fighter, iron-nerved stock gambler, but, alas! also a father, was - seated at his desk. He turned to the reporter the inscrutable poker-face - of his class: - </p> - <p> - “You wished to see me?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir,” said the reporter, and waited; two could play at that game. - The great financier was compelled to ask: - </p> - <p> - “About what?” - </p> - <p> - “About what McWayne told you.” The reporter spoke unemotionally. - </p> - <p> - “About some rumor concerning my son?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “No?” E. H. Merriwether looked surprised. - </p> - <p> - “No. I wished to know what statement you desire to make about your son's - engagement and marriage. If you do not care to say anything we shall not - publish any fake interview, no matter what opinion I personally may form - as to the real state of your feelings.” - </p> - <p> - “I take it you are from one of the yellow papers, young man?” E. H. - Merriwether spoke coldly; but, within, his heart-tragedy was being - enacted. - </p> - <p> - “You usually take what you wish if it isn't nailed down, I have heard; but - that, doubtless, is one of the slanders that automatically grow up about a - great man, sir,” said the reporter, without the shadow of a smile or - frown. - </p> - <p> - “If I am mistaken about the newspaper you represent—” Here Mr. - Merriwether paused, as if to allow the young man to introduce himself; but - the young man said: - </p> - <p> - “If I told you the name of the newspaper that honors itself by playing - fair with you, I suspect you would set in motion the machinery that you—er—men - of large affairs use to suppress news. You couldn't reach my city editor, - who is a poor man with a family of eight, or the reporter, who is - penniless; but you could reach the owner, who is a millionaire. This is my - first big story in New York and it will make me professionally. It means a - lot to me!” - </p> - <p> - “About how much does it mean to you, young man?” asked E. H. Merriwether, - with a particularly polite curiosity. - </p> - <p> - “Speaking in language that should be intelligible to you and using the - terms by which you measure' all things down here—” He paused, and - then said, bluntly, “You mean in cash, don't you?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that this story is worth to me—Let - me see!” And he began to count on his fingers, like a woman. This habit - inexpressibly angers men who find no trouble in remembering numbers of - dollars. “I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that it is worth about three - thousand two hundred and eighty-six—millions of dollars. If I am to - stop being a decent newspaper man to become a blackmailer and general - damned fool I'd want to make enough to endow all my pet charities and - carry out a series of rather expensive experiments in philanthropy.” - </p> - <p> - “But—” began the magnate. - </p> - <p> - “No, sir,” interrupted the reporter, “no money, please. Just assume that I - am a damned fool and, therefore, refuse to consider a bribe.” - </p> - <p> - “I have not bribed you,” suggested E. H. Merriwether, calmly. His eyes - never left the reporter's face. - </p> - <p> - “Then I misjudged you, and I apologize abjectly; but permit me to continue - to be an ass and blind to money. What about Thomas Thorne Merriwether, - only son and heir of the railroad king of the Southwest?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what about him?” The face of E. H. Merriwether showed only what you - might call a perfunctory curiosity. The reporter looked at him admiringly. - After a pause, he asked: - </p> - <p> - “Do you know her?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you?” - </p> - <p> - “Then you don't!” exclaimed the reporter, triumphantly. “This is better - than I had hoped.” - </p> - <p> - “Better?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly; it means a better introductory article. The first of the - series will be: 'To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged?' Think of it, sir,” - he said, with the enthusiasm of the true artist, “the heir of the - Merriwether millions! By the way, could you tell offhand how many millions - I might safely say?” - </p> - <p> - Whatever Mr. Merriwether may have thought, he merely said, with the cold - finality that often imposes on young reporters: - </p> - <p> - “Young man, if you begin your career by being vulgar your ruin will be of - your own doing.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir, vulgarity never ruined any career. All the great men of - history were at the beginning accused of hopeless vulgarity—by those - on whom they trod. I tell you it is not vulgarity that prompts me, but - mastery of the technic of my trade. Do you care to have me tell you about - my article?” - </p> - <p> - What Mr. E. H. Merriwether really wished to hear was that Tom was not in - love—that he was not on the verge of brutally assassinating all the - hopes and dreams of a fond father. What he said to the unspeakable - reporter was: - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I start with this basis—my knowledge of your son's - engagement.” - </p> - <p> - “Where did you get that knowledge?” - </p> - <p> - “One of the few things a reporter is incapable of doing is betraying a - confidence. To tell you the source of my information would be that. - Starting with that one fact, my problem is to make that one fact so - important as to enable me to write several thousand words. To justify this - I must make your son very important. He is not really very important, but - you are. I shall slightly over-accentuate here and there”—he waved - his hand in the air, and repeated, dreamily—“here and there! You - will be the Napoleon of railroads, the Von Moltke of the ticker, doer of - deeds and upbuilder, indisputably the greatest captain of industry that - America has yet produced!” - </p> - <p> - “Heavens!” burst from the lips of the imperturbable little magnate. - </p> - <p> - “You are a stunning study for a novelist. Yours is the great romance of - the American business man! Having made you romantic, I wave my magician's - wand and quadruple your millions. Yours, my dear sir—if you don't - happen to know it—is one of the great fortunes of the world! You've - got Croesus skinned to death and John D. whining over his lost - pre-eminence!” - </p> - <p> - “Now look here—” interjected E. H. Merriwether, sternly; but the - reporter retorted, earnestly: - </p> - <p> - “Hold your horses!” And the great millionaire did. The young man continued - in his enthusiastic way: “It is much to have the hundreds of Merriwether - millions, but it is infinitely more to have all the Merriwether millions - and such a father and youth. I thus make Tom, who is really of no - importance, of even greater importance than the great E. H. Merriwether. - Do I know my business?” And he bowed in the general direction of the elder - Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “I begin to suspect,” replied the elder Merriwether, “that you do.” - </p> - <p> - He was watching the reporter closely. He always had found it profitable to - let men talk on. A man who talks is apt to show you what he is; and that - furnishes to you the best available weapon. You also may learn when it is - better not to fight. - </p> - <p> - “When it comes to picturesque writing about people I do not know, I can - assure you, Mr. Merriwether,” the young man said, modestly, “that I - haven't an equal in the United States. In your case I shall not be - handicapped by either facts or knowledge, which are always fatal to the - creative faculty. I shall be free—absolutely free to write!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether permitted himself a frown in order to conceal his - uneasiness. This young man was talking like a humorist. The eyes were - intelligent and fearless. The combination was formidable. - </p> - <p> - “Your theory has doubtless many supporters among your colleagues.” - </p> - <p> - “There are,” admitted the reporter, cheerfully, “other bright young - creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a paragon—a - clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire.” - </p> - <p> - “Which he is!” interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly. - </p> - <p> - “Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that - even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention—with a cleverness I'd - call devilish if it wasn't my own—to the strange and, on the whole, - agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, a - hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great - engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are—do you - know what?—a poet!—a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel, - whose numbers are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand - purring wheels of your tireless cars.” - </p> - <p> - “My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr,” mildly objected the - railroad poet. - </p> - <p> - “They do in my story,” said the reporter, firmly. “And to prove it I'll - quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great writers - always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the creation - of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on the map of - America—in green!” - </p> - <p> - “That sounds good to me,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached - air of a critic of literature. - </p> - <p> - He did not know just how to win this young man's silence—perhaps by - letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the - inauguration of a molasses diet at once! - </p> - <p> - “Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This - young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world—handsome, rich, a - fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself - inviolate—pretty swell word that?—in-vi-o-late—all these - years, opens at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the - engagement. High society is more than interested—more than startled. - As thinks society, so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of - her. What society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To - whom is Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article? - I leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!” The young man looked inquiringly at - Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “I'd read it myself,” said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. “I couldn't - help it!” You could see that literature had triumphed over the - stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you! And what do you find at the end of the article? What? Why, a - nice psychological little paragraph to the effect that we propose to print - the name of the one woman who, of all the tens of thousands who have - tried, has won the heart of Thomas Thome Merriwether, whose father you - have the honor to be. We refrain, in order to have the parents of the - young people formally announce the engagement. By doing this we get the - full value of the to-be-continued-in-our-next suspense, for the first time - utilized in a news story; and we also increase our reputation for - gentlemanly conservatism, which prevents the refined reporter of the—of - my paper from intruding into a family affair.” - </p> - <p> - “Will your paper be damned fool enough to—” began E. H. Merriwether, - intentionally skeptical. - </p> - <p> - “It is not damned folly to extract all the juice contained in the scoop of - the century—it is technical skill of a very high order. Now what - happens? My esteemed contemporaries, morning and evening, chuck a fit and - bounce their society editors. They then rush for the telephone and - despatch their strongest photographers, sharpest sleuths, and entire - dictagraph corps to the scene. They can't find Tom—because, as you - know, he is in—he is out of town. And they can't find her—because - I haven't said who she is. There remains you!” - </p> - <p> - “That won't do them any good,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, decisively; but - he shuddered. - </p> - <p> - “Precisely! I banked on that. But, even if you did see them, what could - you tell them? Deny what is bound to be confirmed in the next issue of my - paper? You know better than to acquire a reputation for lying in the - newspapers. No, siree! Your game is to deny yourself to all inquirers and - say nothing. My esteemed contemporaries have now but one desire—to - wit: to print the name and publish the portrait of your son's fiancée. Of - course you see what happens then, don't you?” - </p> - <p> - The reporter looked at the iron-hearted E. H. Merriwether, with such pity - in his eyes that the great little czar of the Southwestern Railroad for - the first time in his life realized he was merely a man—a human - being; an ordinary, every-day father; one drop in the vast ocean; one of - the crowd temporarily aboveground and therefore exposed to the same - sorrows and troubles and sore vexations as all mankind. His millions, his - position in the world, his great work, his undoubted genius—could - not avail even to rid him of annoyance. Can you imagine John D. - Rockefeller living on Staten Island in June and unable to buy - mosquito-netting—price, five cents a yard? - </p> - <p> - “What will happen?” asked the great millionaire, who was also a father. - </p> - <p> - “My intelligent colleagues, of course, will look for the lady. Where there - is a strong demand the supply automatically offers itself for consumption. - And what will the seven hundred and fifty alert young men, with great - capacities for fictional art, who are temporarily assisting actress-ladies - and self-paying authoresses and unprinted poetesses and - fertilizer-manufacturers unmarried daughters, do? What will those - estimable young artists, miscalled press agents, do when they encounter - the demand for Tom's fiancée's photograph? What except 'Here she is!'—six - thousand words, thirty-two poses, and a facsimile of a love-letter or two, - to prove it! And then—chorus-ladies, poetesses, fair divorcées about - to honor the vaudeville—” The reporter stopped—he had seen the - look on E. H. Merri-wether's face. He felt sorry. “But it is true,” he - said, defensively. - </p> - <p> - “Yes!” Tom's poor rich father felt cold all over. - </p> - <p> - The reporter pursued, more quietly: “You know the ingenuity of my - colleagues, the great American respect for a millionaire's privacy, and - the national sense of humor. Will your son's love-affair be discussed? - Will it be discussed with the gentlemanly reticence and innate delicacy of - feeling of <i>my</i> story?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether never before realized that the law against homicide - was even more absurd than an Interstate Commerce Commission order; but he - had to bow to the inevitable. He was beginning to understand how Napoleon - felt on the deck of the <i>Bellerophon</i> when on the way to St. Helena., - Do you remember the picture? He nodded—not dejectedly, but also not - far from it. - </p> - <p> - “Well, in a day or two or three, according to conditions; we come out with - it. We print the lady's name and her portrait—possibly not the best - of all her photographs, but the only one I could—” - </p> - <p> - “Who is she?” burst from the lips of the reporter's victim. - </p> - <p> - Instantly the reporter's face became very serious. “I feared so, Mr. - Merriwether,” he said, very quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Look here, my boy!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether, with an earnestness that - had in it a threat. “I don't know what your game is and I don't care. I'll - admit right now that you are a very clever young man and probably not a - crook; but I tell you calmly, quietly, without any threats, that you are - not going to publish any damned-fool article about my family in any paper - in New York.” - </p> - <p> - The reporter rose and looked straight into the unblinking eyes of the - great financier. Then he said, slowly, and, the old fellow admitted, - distinctly impressively: - </p> - <p> - “And I tell you, twice as quietly and ten times as calmly, without any - fool threats, that all the daily newspapers in New York and Philadelphia, - Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and ten thousand other towns in the United - States, Canada, Mexico, the Canal Zone, and countries in the Postal Union, - are going to publish articles about your son Tom's engagement, and later - on about his marriage. Understand once for all, that there are some things - all your millions and all your will-power cannot do. This is one of them. - It is the penalty of being a public character—or, if you prefer, of - being an exceptionally great man. Do I understand that you have nothing to - say about your son's coming marriage?” - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether in less than five seconds thought of more than five - thousand possibilities, all in connection with his son's marriage. Then he - said, very slowly, fighting for time and a chance to escape: - </p> - <p> - “My son will marry whenever he and the young lady chiefly interested judge - fit to do so. He and I are in perfect accord, as always.” Mr. Merriwether - was looking into the too-fearless and too-intelligent gray-blue eyes of - the reporter. Then he did what he did not often do in his Wall Street - affrays—he capitulated. “Will you give me your word that you will - not use for publication what I am about to tell you?” - </p> - <p> - “No, sir, I won't!” emphatically replied the reporter. “You might tell me - something I already know and then you'd always think I had broken my word. - I will not pledge myself not to print the name of your - daughter-in-law-to-be; but anything that concerns you personally or your - attitude toward your son's finacée, or hints of a family quarrel—or - those things that offend a sensitive man—I promise not to print. You - have some rights; but I also owe certain things to myself and my paper. - I've been frank with you. You can be frank with me if you wish. I put it - up to you.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether, after a thoughtful pause, said: “Look here! I don't know - anything about my son's engagement. I cannot swear he is not engaged, but - I don't know that he is. It follows that I do not know the young lady. You - don't have to print that, do you?” - </p> - <p> - The reporter gazed on the financier meditatively. Presently, instead of - answering the question, he asked: - </p> - <p> - “Have you had no suspicion of any romance?” - </p> - <p> - “Well”—and it was plain that E. H. Merriwether was telling the - truth, having made up his mind to that policy as being the wisest—“well, - I have of late suspected that such a thing might be possible. It is, I - will confess to you, a terrible predicament, because a man naturally - cherishes certain hopes for his only son.” On Mr. Merriwether's face there - was a quite human look of suffering. - </p> - <p> - “Of course,” said the reporter, apologetically, as though offering an - excuse for a friend's misdeed—“of course a man in love is not always - wise.” - </p> - <p> - “No. And though I have no intention or desire to bribe you, and though I - would not presume to interfere with you in your professional activities or - influence you by pecuniary considerations, you will pardon me for - suggesting—” - </p> - <p> - The reporter did not let him go on. He rose and said, with real dignity: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether, suppose we drop the matter right here?” - </p> - <p> - “You mean?” - </p> - <p> - “I will not print any story yet—on one condition.” - </p> - <p> - “Name it. I think likely I can meet it.” - </p> - <p> - “Give me your promise that you will give me an interview the next time I - come to see you. It may be in a day or two or a week. I don't promise not - to print the story, you understand, but it will give you time to—well, - to see your son.” - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether held out his hand and said: “I will see you any time you - come. But let me say, as an older man, that if you should suffer any loss - by not printing—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh no—I shall not suffer. I propose to print my story. I am simply - deferring publication; but I thank you for the offer you were going to - make. It shows more consideration and, therefore, far greater common sense - than most men in your position habitually display before a reporter. I'll - do even more—I'll give you a friendly tip.” He stopped talking and - looked doubtfully at E. H. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” said Mr. Merriwether, with a remarkable mixture of gratitude, - dignity, and anxiety. “I am listening.” - </p> - <p> - “Find out why he goes to 777 Fifth Avenue. There are some things a really - intelligent father, poor or rich, should—” He caught himself. - </p> - <p> - “Please finish, my boy!” cried the great little man, almost entreatingly. - </p> - <p> - “There are just a few things”—the reporter was speaking very slowly - and his voice was lowered—“which an intelligent father does not - trust to others—not even to the most loyal confidential men—things - that should be done by the father himself. The number is 777 Fifth - Avenue!” - </p> - <p> - “I thank you, Mr.—” - </p> - <p> - “William Tully,” said the reporter. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Tully, I thank you. I think you are throwing away time and brains in - your present position, and if you should ever—” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, sir. Don't be afraid. I shall not bother you by—” - </p> - <p> - “But I mean it,” said E. H. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - The reporter smiled and said, “If you knew how often my fortune has been - made by men whose story I have not printed you'd be deaf, too.” - </p> - <p> - “Young man, I sometimes forget favors, but not the possession of brains. I - need them in my business.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, suppose you show your appreciation by telling the red-headed - person in the outer office that he is to take in my card to you when I - call again?” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly!” And the czar of the great Pacific & Southwestern system - nearly slew Doyle by accompanying the reporter to the outer door and - saying: - </p> - <p> - “Doyle, any time Mr. Tully comes to see me let me know instantly, no - matter what I may be doing or who is with me. Understand?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir!” gasped Doyle, looking terrifiedly at the sorcerer. - </p> - <p> - Tully! Irish! That was the reason, of course; but he was a wonder, all the - same. - </p> - <p> - “Good day, Mr. Tully. I thank you. And don't forget my offer.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether bowed as the door closed on Mr. William Tully and then, - walking like a man in a trance, returned to his private office. He rang - the push-button marked No. 1, and when McWayne appeared turned a haggard - face to his private secretary. - </p> - <p> - “McWayne, that reporter has a story of Tom's engagement, but he wouldn't - tell me who the girl is.” - </p> - <p> - “I don't believe it!” cried McWayne, with a not very intelligent intention - of comforting his chief. At times the male Irish mind works femininely. - </p> - <p> - “Neither do I—and yet I do. It confirms Dr. Frauenthal's diagnosis. - I guess he knows his business, after all. Well, the story will not be - published yet. He acted pretty decently.” - </p> - <p> - McWayne wondered how much it had cost the old man, but he said, “Didn't he - intimate—” - </p> - <p> - “That reporter knows his business,” cut in E. H. Merriwether. “He ought to - be a dramatist. Have you heard from your men?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir. Tom has gone to Boston. Two of them are with him. He suspects - nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “What else?” - </p> - <p> - “They will let me know by long distance if anything happens.” - </p> - <p> - “If anything! Great Scott! isn't it enough that—Let me hear what - they report—on the instant!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “And, McWayne—” He hesitated. - </p> - <p> - McWayne, his face full of sincere solicitude, prompted, gently: - </p> - <p> - “Yes, chief?” - </p> - <p> - It was the first time he had ever used that word. It made his speech so - friendly, so affectionately personal, that E. H. Merriwether said: - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, McWayne. I wish you would find out for me at once who lives in - 777 Fifth Avenue.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir,” said McWayne. “That's where—” He caught himself. . - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid so!” acquiesced the railroad czar, listlessly. - </p> - <h3> - VIII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ithin an hour - McWayne walked into the private office. His chief closed his jaws—a - weaker man would have clenched his fists—in anticipation. - </p> - <p> - “Breese & Silliman, the real-estate men, say they rented 777 Fifth - Avenue, furnished, to a Madam Calderon—an American woman, widow of a - Peruvian nitrate king. She came up here and asked Breese about a suitable - location. She has a daughter she wishes to marry in America. She talked - quite freely about her affairs. The house was for sale, but she leased if, - furnished, with privilege of purchase. Belongs to the Martin-Schwenk - Construction Company. The daughter is about thirty, dark, Spanish-looking, - and fleshy; rather—er—inclined to make googoo eyes, as Breese - says, in a kind of foreign way.” - </p> - <p> - “Go on,” commanded E. H. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “Mrs. Calderon said point-blank that she wished her daughter to marry a - nice young man of wealth and position, preferably a blond. I gather that - the agents were rather anxious to let the house and probably encouraged - her. She has paid quarterly in advance, and her banking references are O. - K.; but nothing about her personally is known to any one. That's all I - could get.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well. Thank you, McWayne.” - </p> - <p> - The private secretary stood beside the desk, hesitated, and presently - walked out. Shortly afterward, the great and ruthless E. H. Merriwether, - full of perplexity and regret—and some remorse over his neglect of - his only son for so many years—went uptown. He desired to know what - to expect, in order to be able to think intelligently, and, therefore, to - fight efficiently. How could he fight—not knowing what or whom to - fight? - </p> - <p> - He told the chauffeur to wait, and then rang the bell of 777. - </p> - <p> - One of the four footmen whose faces had impressed Tom as being distinctly - too intelligent for menials, opened the door. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see Madam Calderon.” - </p> - <p> - “I beg pardon, sir. Have you an appointment?” - </p> - <p> - “No. Say it is Mr. Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. who, sir?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether took out a card. The footman received it on a very - elaborate silver-gilt card-tray and, pointing to a particularly - uncomfortable, high-backed Circassian-walnut chair in the foyer, left the - great little multimillionaire under the watchful eye of footman Number - Two. This annoyed Mr. Merriwether. Nobody is altogether invulnerable. - </p> - <p> - The footman returned, with the card and the tray. - </p> - <p> - “Madam is not at home, sir; but her brother would be glad to see you, if - you wish, sir. He is madam's man of affairs.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well.” - </p> - <p> - “If you please, sir, this way.” And the footman led the way to the door of - the library, where Tom had been received so often. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Edward H. Merriwether!” The emphasis on the first name made the - little czar of the Southwestern roads think it was done in order to - differentiate him from Mr. Thomas Merriwether. Even great men are not - above thinking themselves clever. - </p> - <p> - He entered the room and took in its character at one glance, just as Tom - had done. He became cool, watchful, alert, and observing, as he always did - when he went into a fight. He looked at the man who was said to be the - brother of the woman who had leased the house—the woman who had a - daughter she wished to marry to a blond with money and position. - </p> - <p> - The man had a square chin and, even in repose, suggested power and - self-control. Mr. Merriwether met the remarkably steady, unblinking gaze - of two extremely sharp eyes, and recognized without any particular motion - that he confronted a man of strength and resource, who, moreover, had the - double strategical advantage of being in his own house and of not having - sought this interview. - </p> - <p> - “Be seated, sir,” said the man, in the calm voice of one who is accustomed - to obedience, even in trifles. - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether sat down. He noticed little things, as well as big. - He noted, for instance, that he had begun by doing exactly what this man - told him to do. The man intelligently waited for Mr. E. H. Merriwether to - speak. Mr. E. H. Merriwether did so. He said: - </p> - <p> - “I called to see Madam Calderon.” - </p> - <p> - “About?” The man spoke coldly. - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether raised his eyebrows. He did it in order not to - frown. There is no wisdom in needless antagonisms. His only son was - concerned. - </p> - <p> - “About my son,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Tommy?” - </p> - <p> - The great railroad magnate, accustomed to the deference even of the - self-appointed owners of the United States, flushed with anger. Had things - gone so far that such intimacy existed? - </p> - <p> - “I understand,” he said, trying to speak emotionlessly, “that my son - visits this house.” - </p> - <p> - “Of his own volition, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I did not think there was physical coercion; but, of course, as his - father—” He stopped in the middle of the sentence. - </p> - <p> - This never before had happened to this man, who always knew what to do and - what to say, and always did it and said it with the least expenditure of - time and words; but, as a matter of fact, what could he say, and how? - </p> - <p> - “That relationship,” the man said, calmly, “often interferes with the - exercise of what people formerly called common sense. Will you please do - me a very great favor, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “A favor?” Mr. Merriwether, skilful diplomatist though he could be at - times, now frowned in advance. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, Mr. Merriwether—indeed, two favors; or rather, three. First: - Will you please ask me no questions now? Second: Will you please return to - this house at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning? And third: Will you - promise not to speak to your son about your visit here until after you - have paid your second call, to-morrow?” - </p> - <p> - It flashed through Mr. Merriwether's mind that to grant the favors might - expedite Tom's appalling marriage. He said, decisively: - </p> - <p> - “I cannot promise any of the things you ask.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well,” said the man, composedly. “Then, I take it, there is nothing - more to be said.” - </p> - <p> - He rose politely, and as he did so pressed a button on the table. The - footman appeared and held the door open for Mr. Merriwether to pass out. - </p> - <p> - The autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, with unlimited credit - in the money-markets of the world, was not accustomed to being treated - like this: but, precisely because he felt hot anger rising in tidal waves - to his brow, he instantly became cool. - </p> - <p> - He remained sitting, and said, very politely: - </p> - <p> - “If you will allow me, sir, to tell you that my reasons—” - </p> - <p> - The man, who was still standing, held up a hand and broke in: - </p> - <p> - “And if you will allow me to tell you that I am neither a criminal nor a - jackass I shall then proceed to say that nobody in this house has any - intention of entering into any argument or controversy with you. I am - actuated much less by personal considerations of my own than by a desire - to avert from you eternal regrets and—er—unseemly displays of - temper.” - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether knew exactly what he would like to do to this man. What - he said—very mildly—was: - </p> - <p> - “You must admit, sir, that your requests might be interpreted—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I see!” And the man smiled very slightly. “Well, suppose you take Tom - to your office with you to-morrow morning, and keep him there while you - come here? Tell him to wait for you, because you wish to have luncheon - with him. I do not care to discuss my reasons—for example—for - not wishing you to speak to Tom about this visit. I do not wish to wound - your feelings; but I am not sure that you know Tom as well as a father - ought to know his only son. And there are times when a man must be more - than a father, when he must be a tactful man of the world, and a - psychologist.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether realized the force of this so clearly that he winced, but - said nothing, since he could not admit such a thing aloud. The man - proceeded coldly: - </p> - <p> - “If you are both an intelligent man and a loving father, you will promise - what I ask—not for my sake, for yours. There are many things, Mr. E. - H. Merriwether, that money does not cure, and that not even time can heal. - Ask me nothing now; come here at eleven to-morrow morning, and in the mean - time do not speak to Tom about himself—or your fears.” - </p> - <p> - “If you were only not so—er—well, so damned mysterious—” - And Mr. Merriwether forced himself to smile pleasantly. - </p> - <p> - “Ah—if!” exclaimed the man, nodding. “Do you promise?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes!” answered Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - He had made up his mind that Tom would not be abducted. As for worse - things, if Tom had not already committed matrimony, he could not very well - do it in his father's private office. It was wise to keep Tom virtually a - prisoner without his knowledge. And parental opposition has so often - served merely to add gasoline to the flame of love that one father would - not even whisper his objections. - </p> - <p> - He bowed and left the room, angry that nothing had been accomplished, - relieved that within twenty-four hours the matter would probably be - settled, and not quite so confident of the power of money as he had been - for many years. - </p> - <h3> - IX - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>om arrived at his - home early enough to have his bath at the usual hour. Though he had never - been asked to account for his movements, he nevertheless made it a point - to breakfast with his father. He would do so to-day. There was no occasion - to say he had been to Boston or that he had slept in a Pullman. - </p> - <p> - As a matter of fact, he had not slept well. The stateroom seemed full of - those elusive flower-fragrances that always made him think of her, - particularly sweet peas—a beautiful flower, and of such delicate - colors, he now remembered, who had not thought of them for years. He - really loved them, he now discovered. Their odor always tinged his. - thoughts with a vague spirit of romance; and this, in turn, in some subtle - way, rendered him more susceptible to the lure of adventure. It almost - made him feel like a boy. - </p> - <p> - For all the stimulating reaction of his cold plunge, Tom looked a trifle - tired about the eyes at breakfast. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether looked at his son with eyes that also looked tired; said, - “Good morning, Tom!” in his usual tone of voice, and hid behind his - newspaper. Instead of reading about the absurd demands of the railroad - workers all over the United States for higher wages, he was thinking that - he had never allowed anybody to do his work for him, because he had always - intended that Tom should succeed him. He had at one time fully intended to - train Tom for the succession, to have him learn railroading from brake-man - up. - </p> - <p> - Indeed, the boy after leaving college had seemed much taken with the idea - and listened with interest to his father's talks about his plans and - desires and hopes. But with the great boom, that wonderful era of amazing - reorganizations and stupendous consolidations, the great little man had - been swamped by the flood of gold that poured into Wall Street. - </p> - <p> - And gold, as usual, had been ruthless in its demands on the great little - man's time. For years he had averaged a net personal profit of a million a - month; but it was not that he wished to make more money. It was that his - time no longer belonged to himself; it was not his family's, but his - associates'—not his only son's, but his many syndicates'. And he had - devoted himself to the welfare of his syndicates and had written a - dazzling page in the annals of Wall Street. - </p> - <p> - But what about his son's present and the future of the Merriwether roads? - If Tom died, the Merri-wether dream would follow him, but that would be a - natural death at the hands of God. If Tom lived and refused to be a - Merriwether, the death of the Merriwether dreams would be by slow - strangulation. In short, hell! - </p> - <p> - His promise to the brother of the woman who had a daughter that might - prove to be the executioner of his dreams stared him in the face. The - situation called for tact and skill and superhuman self-control. He liked - to fight in the open; but this was not a battle for more millions; it - involved more than the deglutition of a rival railroad. - </p> - <p> - McWayne had reported that Tom had acted like a lunatic when he could not - secure the room in the Hotel Lorraine that had been engaged by Mrs. - Calderon and daughter. The only ray of light was that Tom had not talked - to the ladies. - </p> - <p> - “Tom,” asked Mr. Merriwether, casually, “have you anything on special for - this morning?” - </p> - <p> - Tom had in mind a visit to 777 Fifth Avenue, at which he promised himself - to end the affair; but he answered: - </p> - <p> - “N-no.” - </p> - <p> - “I mean,” said the father, speaking even more casually, because he noted - the hesitancy, “anything that could not be done just as well in the - afternoon.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh no, I have nothing special; in fact, nothing at all,” said Tom. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether saw in his reply merely Tom's way of not declaring his - intention to see the girl. - </p> - <p> - “Then I wish you would come down-town with me. I have some papers I want - you to look over, and we'll have luncheon together. What do you say?” - </p> - <p> - A prisoner accused of murder in the first degree does not listen to the - jury's verdict with more interest than E. H. Merriwether waited for Tom's - reply, for at this crisis he realized that he had not been in his son's - confidence in those other important little crises of boyhood that breed in - sons the habit of confiding in fathers. - </p> - <p> - “Sure thing!” said Tom', cheerfully. - </p> - <p> - Though thus relieved of some of his fears, there remained with E. H. - Merriwether the determination that Tom had not volunteered any - information. The little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern was so - intelligent that in general he was fundamentally just. He did not exactly - blame Tom for not confiding in him, but, also, he did not blame himself. - And this was because he had habituated himself to paying for his mistakes - in dollars. What could not be paid off in dollars was never a mistake, - though it might well be a misfortune. - </p> - <p> - They went down-town together. Mr. Merriwether took Tom into one of his - half-dozen private offices, made him sit down in one of those - over-comfortable arm-chairs that you paradoxically find in busy Wall - Street offices, and said to him very seriously: - </p> - <p> - “My son, here is the history of the Pacific & Southwestern system from - its very start. It goes back to the early stage-line days and is brought - up to to-day. I had it prepared in anticipation of an ill-advised - Congressional investigation. I have thus far succeeded in staving off the - investigation, not because I was afraid of it or because it might hurt me, - but because the market was in bad shape to stand the alarmist rumors and - canards and threats that always go with such affairs. Other people would - have quite unnecessarily lost money. As soon as the investigation cannot - be used as a bear club I'll let up opposing it. I'll even help it.” He - paused and gave to Tom a book bound in limp black morroco. “I want you to - read this book because it is written with complete frankness in order to - spike certain political guns. You will get in it the full story of what - has been done and what we hope still to be allowed to accomplish. When you - get through with it you'll know as much about the system as I do!” - </p> - <p> - The old man had spoken quietly and impressively. Tom was so pleased at - having something to occupy his mind and keep it from dwelling on the girl - he had never seen and the exasperating scoundrel at 777 Fifth Avenue that - his face lighted up with joy. - </p> - <p> - “You could not have given me anything to do that I'd like better, dad!” he - said, with such obviously sincere enthusiasm that Mr. Merriwether felt - profoundly grateful for this blessing. - </p> - <p> - Then came the inevitable reaction and with it the thought: “Have I gained - a successor only to lose him to some—” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head, clenched his jaws, and looked at his watch. It was not - yet time to go to fight for the possession of his son. He had much to do - before he left his office to go to 777 Fifth Avenue. - </p> - <p> - “Tom,” he said, “'you stay here until I return—will you?” - </p> - <p> - “You bet!” smiled Tom, looking at the thickness of the system's history. - </p> - <p> - “I have a meeting or two before luncheon, but I'll try not to let them - interfere.” - </p> - <p> - “Any time before three, boss,” said his son, cheerfully. - </p> - <p> - His heir and successor, but, above all and everything, his son! There was - no sacrifice he would not make for this boy to keep him from blighting his - own career—and his father's hopes, he added, with the selfishness of - real love. - </p> - <p> - Knowing that Tom was safely imprisoned and could not marry at least for a - few hours, he was able to concentrate his mind on his railroad's affairs. - He disposed of the more urgent matters. At ten-forty he sent for McWayne. - </p> - <p> - “I'm going to 777 Fifth Avenue.” - </p> - <p> - “Again?” inadvertently said the private secretary. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether looked at him. - </p> - <p> - McWayne went on to explain: “I've had a man watching it since we found Tom - called there, just before going to Boston.” - </p> - <p> - “Right! I expect to be back in time to lunch with Tom; but if I should be - delayed—” He paused. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir?” - </p> - <p> - “—delayed beyond one o'clock have luncheon brought from the Meridian - Club and tell Tom I wish him to stay until I return. This is important.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I think that is all.” - </p> - <p> - “If no word is received from you by—” McWayne paused. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether finished. “By two o'clock, come after me. But always - remember the newspapers!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “I'll telephone before two in case I expect to stay beyond that hour.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well, sir.” - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether put on his hat, familiar to the world through the - newspaper caricaturists—and walked toward the door. Then he did what - he never before had done—he repeated an order! He said to McWayne, - “Look after Tom!” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir.” - </p> - <p> - Then he went to 777 Fifth Avenue to learn whether Tom was to be his pride - and successor or his sorrow and dream-slayer. - </p> - <h3> - X - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>. H. Merriwether - drove to the house of mystery in his motor, told the chauffeur to wait, - and rang the bell. One of the over-intelligent-looking footmen opened the - door. - </p> - <p> - “I wish to see Mr.—whoever is master in this house.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, sir!” - </p> - <p> - The footman led the way. At the door of the library he knocked twice, - sharply, then, after a pause, once, and then twice again. He waited; and - presently, having evidently heard some answer not audible to the - financier, he opened the door and announced: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. E. H. Merriwether!” - </p> - <p> - Why had there been any necessity for signals? Why such cheap theatrical - claptrap? To make him think things? These questions in Mr. Merriwether's - mind showed that the mysterious master of the house knew the advantage of - suggesting the important sense of difference. - </p> - <p> - “Good morning, sir.” - </p> - <p> - “Good morning,” answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room. - </p> - <p> - No girl! - </p> - <p> - It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking very - deliberately, as one to whom time is no object: - </p> - <p> - “Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?” - </p> - <p> - “I am a very busy man,” began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of - railroad. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down, anyhow,” imperturbably suggested the man. - </p> - <p> - The autocrat sat down. He said, “But please understand that.” - </p> - <p> - “I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down to - business?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke almost dreamily—“do you know - why I asked you to call to-day at eleven?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Because when you were here yesterday it was after banking hours.” - </p> - <p> - “And?” The little czar was in a hurry to finish. - </p> - <p> - “You, Mr. Merriwether, are one of those fortunate mortals about whom the - newspapers do not lie.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, am I? I take it you haven't seen a newspaper in twelve years.” Mr. - Merriwether, after all, was an American. His sense of humor helped to make - him great. - </p> - <p> - “I've read every line that has ever been printed about you—I had to, - in order to study you exhaustively. I find that you are acknowledged by - both friends and foes to be an intelligent man.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes!” - </p> - <p> - “A very intelligent man,” continued the man. - </p> - <p> - “And therefore?” said the very intelligent man. - </p> - <p> - “And, therefore, I now ask you to give me one million dollars.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether never so much as batted an eyelid. He kept his eyes - fixed on the stranger's eyes. He repeated, a trifle impatiently: - </p> - <p> - “And?” - </p> - <p> - “A certified check will do.” - </p> - <p> - “Come to the point. I am a busy man,” said Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - The man looked at the little financier admiringly. Then he said, “You mean - you wish to know why you should give the million, or what you will get for - it?” - </p> - <p> - “Either! Both!” - </p> - <p> - “You should give it because it is I who ask it. You will get for it what - is very, very cheap at a million.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir, we'd do business quicker if you'd play show-down.” - </p> - <p> - Now that it was a matter of money, of paying, of trading, Tom's father - felt a great sense of relief. Still, there was Tom's unhappiness to - consider. Poor boy! - </p> - <p> - “I want you to give me a million so that in return I may give you a - daughter-in-law.” - </p> - <p> - “You mean you will not give me a daughter-in-law if I give you a million, - don't you?” - </p> - <p> - “I am in the habit of meaning what I say. The sooner you learn that, the - quicker we'll close the deal. I mean that for a million dollars I'll give - you a daughter-in-law.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether shook his head. It was plainly to be seen on his face that - every moment spent in this room was a sad waste of time. - </p> - <p> - “Isn't it worth a million to you?” asked the man, as if he knew it was. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether proceeded to look as though it were worth even less than a - Santo Domingo mining concession. Then he said, with finality: - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - The man rose. - </p> - <p> - “Then,” he spoke indifferently, “come back when it is. I'll ask you to - excuse me. I, also, am a busy man. Good day, sir.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether rose and bowed. He looked straight into the man's very - shrewd eyes, smiled very slightly—and sat down again. - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean,” he asked, very pleasantly, for his bluff had been called, - “Miss Calderon?” - </p> - <p> - The man sat down. - </p> - <p> - “Oh no!” he answered, unsmilingly. - </p> - <p> - “No? Then?” Mr. Merriwether was so surprised that he forgot not to show - it. - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry you are a busy man, because what I have to say can not be - hurried. First, you must chase from your mind all thoughts of Wall Street, - high finance, railroad systems—and fill it with love!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether looked alarmed. Would it all end with a Biblical text and - an exhortation to endow some sort of a Home? - </p> - <p> - “You can do this,” pursued the man, imperturbably, “by thinking of your - son Tom. He is your only son. You should love him. Once your mind is - attuned to thoughts of love, you will be able to understand me more - easily. Concentrate on love!” The man leaned back in his chair as though - he were certain the attuning process would consume an hour, this being, - alas! a Wall Street man; but Merriwether said, very promptly: - </p> - <p> - “I am ready for chapter two.” - </p> - <p> - “I doubt it. Love! The love of father for son, of son for mother, of son - for wife, of son for father!” - </p> - <p> - “I understand. My mind works quickly. Go on!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you by any chance happen to know that your son is in love?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Where is the girl?” - </p> - <p> - “It isn't the girl. It's just girl.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, hell! Quit vaudevilling!” - </p> - <p> - “There is no girl who is the girl. There never was. There doesn't have to - be any!” - </p> - <p> - Quite obviously this man was a lunatic—with the eyes of a - particularly sane person. If there was no girl Tom was in no danger of - marriage. A million for not marrying an undesirable person, yes, but a - million for a daughter-in-law, when Tom was not in love! - </p> - <p> - “Only,” thought Mr. Merriwether, “in case I have the selecting of her! And - if I pick her I don't have to pay.” - </p> - <p> - “And yet,” said the man, musingly, “Tom loves her!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether's perplexity was fast rising to the dignity of anger. - </p> - <p> - “If there had been a girl of Tom's own class,” the man went on, as if - talking to himself, “why shouldn't he have been seen in public with her?” - Mr. Merriwether was listening now with his soul. “And if this girl were of - the other class—that financial geniuses, alas! sometimes have to - accept for daughters-in-law—a nice, vivacious chorus-lady, or a - refined Reno graduate, or worse—she would have insisted on being - seen in public with Tom, to show her power and to raise the paternal - bid-price for a trip to Europe—alone!” - </p> - <p> - The man ceased to speak and began to nod his head slowly, his gaze on the - rug at his feet. Mr. Merriwether could stand it no longer. - </p> - <p> - “If there is no girl, what in blazes do I get for my million?” - </p> - <p> - “Your pick of eight.” - </p> - <p> - “Eight what?” - </p> - <p> - “Eight perfect daughters-in-law!” - </p> - <p> - A thought shot through Mr. Merriwether's mind: Was any form of insanity - contagious? He looked at the lunatic. The eyes were sane, cold, shrewd, - mind-reading eyes full of a sardonic humor. - </p> - <p> - “They are all,” added the man, as if he wished to dispel unworthy - suspicion, “in love.” - </p> - <p> - “With Tom?” - </p> - <p> - “With love—like Tom!” - </p> - <p> - “With love—like Tom!” helplessly repeated Mr. E. H. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “Your mind”—the man spoke very slowly and distinctly, as if he - wished to deprive Mr. Merriwether of every excuse for not understanding - him—“does not seem to be working this morning with its usual - efficiency!” - </p> - <p> - “No!” admitted Mr. Merriwether, sadly. “If you'd only use words of one - syllable I think I could follow you better.” - </p> - <p> - “It isn't that. It is that your mind was not attuned in the beginning to - the thought of love, and, therefore, could not follow my words. You compel - me to spend time in explaining the obvious. Listen! If you wish Tom to - become the heir to your name, to your railroad, to your work, and to all - the dreams you have dreamed about your work and about your son; if you - want him to be your successor, to continue your work, to perpetuate the - name and influence of Merriwether in his country—I say, if you wish - all this, he must do one thing, and you must see that he does it. And that - one thing, Mr. Merriwether, is for him to marry wisely. Do you get that?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, very simply. - </p> - <p> - “If he doesn't, it will be death to your hopes, a tragic break in the - Merriwether succession. No, don't shake your head. Admit it. Face it - frankly. I know it. I know that you also know it. Can you expect me to - believe that you want Tom to be the fool husband of a fool girl whose - influence on him—” - </p> - <p> - “Tom isn't that kind,” interrupted E. H. Merri-wether. - </p> - <p> - “All men are that kind. Does history record the case of a man, greater - even than E. H. Merriwether, who, when it came to women, was an utter ass? - Yes, of a thousand; in fact, the stronger the man, the weaker she makes - him—the better his brain, the worse his folly. And the cure? When an - intelligent man realizes that he is a hopeless ass over one woman he - realizes that his only escape is by the suicide route. No! It's much - cheaper for you to pay the million. Oblige me by thinking. Isn't it - cheaper to pay a million?” - </p> - <p> - He held up a silencing hand, as though he wished Mr. Merriwether to spend - a full hour thinking of the bargain he was getting. Mr. Merriwether - thought—quickly and accurately as was his wont. And he admitted to - himself that it was indeed cheap at a million. But there must be value - received. Promises, however plausible, are no more to be capitalized - blindly than threats. It depends on who promises, and why; and also on - what is promised. He thought of offering a smaller sum and of going - through the usual preliminaries of a trade, but decided to be frank. - </p> - <p> - “If you can deliver the goods, I'll pay the million.” And, after a pause, - he added, “Gladly!” - </p> - <p> - “I banked on that when I decided you ought to contribute a million to our - fund,” said the man, simply. “I studied you and your fortune and your - vulnerability, and I decided to attack <i>via</i> Tom. This was easier and - cheaper than a stock-market campaign.” - </p> - <p> - The man somehow looked as though he had said all that was necessary; but - Mr. Merriwether reminded him: - </p> - <p> - “You must prove your ability to deliver the goods.” - </p> - <p> - “I thought”—the man seemed mildly surprised—“we had.” - </p> - <p> - “Certainly not. The million hasn't stirred.” - </p> - <p> - “You are a brave man, Mr. Merriwether.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether laughed, and said: - </p> - <p> - “What should I fear? People don't murder a man like me and get away with - it—not when the motive is money. Political assassination, perhaps; - but not for a few dollars—especially when my heirs would spend - millions to see that justice did not miscarry.” He shook his head, - smilingly. - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir, when we decided to go into the gold-mining business—” - </p> - <p> - “Gold-mining business!” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly! We thought to save time and effort by getting our gold already - coined. Our general staff studied various methods—the ticker, for - instance, and legislative attacks on your roads; but we went back to Tom. - It is, of course, nearly as stupid to overestimate as to underestimate - one's opponent; so, while we provided against every contingency arising - from your undoubted possession of a resourceful and fearless mind, we also - thought—please take note—that you might display stupidity; and - we prepared for it. Such as, for instance, in case you point-blank said - No! We have also provided ways of preventing you and your uncaptured - millions from hurting us. Of course we could make the stock-market pay us - for the trouble of kidnapping you or of murdering you. Don't you see - clearly what you would do if you were in my place?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes—I see it clearly; but I don't believe you could do what I - could in your place?” - </p> - <p> - “Nobody is free from vanity, for everybody seems to be a natural - monopolist when it comes to brains. You are kidnapped at this very moment, - aren't you?” - </p> - <p> - “People know I am here—” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes! We expect to have you telephone McWayne presently not to expect - you to lunch, and that we have extended every facility to his detectives - for having this house under surveillance. We kidnapped the great - Garrettson and kept him out of reach of the great world of finance long - enough to enable us to cash in. Not only that, but he never told how we - did it. You remember when Steel broke to—” - </p> - <p> - “You didn't do that!” exclaimed E. H. Merri-wether. - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes, we did; and I'll tell you how.” And the man briefly outlined the - case for him. - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether listened with much interest. When the man made an end of - speaking, the financier shook his head skeptically, which made the man - ask: “You don't believe it?” - </p> - <p> - “No!” answered Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “Nevertheless, it is so. We also might have engineered in your case some - deal such as that by which we compelled Ashton Welles to disgorge some of - the money he had no business to have.” And he proceeded to enlighten the - financier. - </p> - <p> - “Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “Rather neat!” modestly acquiesced the man. “Suppose we had decided to - kidnap you? The first thing to do is to get you here. Well, you are here.” - </p> - <p> - “How will you make money by that?” asked the financier, smiling. - </p> - <p> - “We don't expect to. We have not planned to make money by kidnapping you. - Nevertheless, you must admit it can be made a very expensive matter for - you. But please let me kidnap you without interruption!” - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon!” said Mr. Merriwether, gravely. - </p> - <p> - It struck him that the possession of a sense of humor makes a crook ten - times more dangerous. It was what made the reporter, Tully, really - formidable. - </p> - <p> - “We assume that you foresaw the danger to yourself in coming alone to this - house. You'd employ private detectives to watch it at ten dollars a day a - man, exactly as you have had your son watched the moment we decided it was - time for you to begin the watching. McWayne, your efficient private - secretary, is ready to move to your rescue. I don't see what else you - could have done to protect yourself that we have not provided for.” - </p> - <p> - “The police!” mildly suggested Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “And the reporters!” mocked the man. “Pshaw! We know what we are doing. - Why, we have rehearsed your kidnapping and even your death. Our ablest - members have in turn impersonated you—put themselves in your place - and fought us. I will not bore you with more details, and I admit that the - human mind cannot foresee accidents; but we have studied how your mind - would work. Suppose you assume that you are kidnapped and beyond the - possibility of help from your friends. Shall I tell you what we have done - to make Tom marry one of our eight desirable candidates?” - </p> - <p> - “If you still wish that million.” - </p> - <p> - “Having decided to attack through Tom, we studied him and his ancestry on - both sides. We easily learned that he had never had a serious love-affair, - and that he was imaginative and adventurous, like yourself. There were - many young women who would have liked to become your daughter-in-law—too - many. That was Tom's trouble. But our problem was really made easier by - that. We simply had to turn his thoughts to love and to one girl. We - therefore did.” - </p> - <p> - “How?” - </p> - <p> - “We got him here. I piqued his curiosity and made the affair an - extraordinary one by saying all we wished him to do was to answer one - question. As we had rather expected, he would not come; but, of course, we - had foreseen that, and so we got him here in one of our own taxicabs.” - </p> - <p> - “How?” - </p> - <p> - “We telephoned him that the doctor said he should come instantly, and that - you were not really in danger. We don't believe in lies; but we took pains - that no other cab should be in front of the club when we telephoned him - from the corner drug-store. Attention to details, my dear sir, always - brings home the bacon. Having roused the spirit of adventure in a - remarkable way, I then asked him the great question. What do you think it - was?” - </p> - <p> - Tom's father shook his head. - </p> - <p> - “It was this: Where did you spend your summer at the end of your freshman - year? He told me. Then I gave him a box made to order for me by a French - expert, which would deceive other experts so long as we did not try to - sell it. Anybody can imitate the goldwork of any period. In all the - museums of the world you will find fakes. Attention to details! I was - prepared to have him show that box to local experts. I assumed he would do - so, being a Merriwether and, therefore, intelligently curious.” - </p> - <p> - “Box with what?” asked Mr. Merriwether, also intelligently curious. - </p> - <p> - “Wait! When your son told me where he spent his summer at the end of his - freshman year I knew he was then about nineteen—too young to think - of marriage, but old enough to think of love. He had for the first time in - his life been free from home influences and direct parental supervision. - He was bound to regard himself as a man of the world and think of innocent - flirtations as a manly art. Being in that frame of mind, and at the same - time being a nice, rich, good-looking chap, all the girls would naturally - make a dead set for him. Their numbers would keep him from having one - love-affair. All love-affairs at twenty are much the same. A boy always - begins by being in love with love. Indeed, I believe twenty-year love to - be exclusively a literary passion—that, is, boys get it from reading - about it. Of course I studied time, period, locality, and manifold - probabilities; and, therefore, I sent him on a mission that suggested love—love - for the one girl that Fate intended him to love and to marry. In order to - fix, accentuate, and accelerate his love-thinking I used the perfume of - sweet peas.” - </p> - <p> - “How does that work?” - </p> - <p> - “I picked out sweet peas because they are found everywhere. Their odor is - strong and characteristic. He must have inhaled that odor thousands of - times when he was flirting with pretty girls the summer he spent at - Oleander Point with Dr. Bonner.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but about suggesting—” - </p> - <p> - “I advise you to read up on the psychology of odor associations. You will - learn that there is a very close relation between the olfactory sense and - the desire to love. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that memory, - imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached - through the sense of smell than by almost any other channel; and, also, - that 'olfactory impressions tend to be associated with a sum-total of - feeling-tone.' This has been known for thousands of years. A very - interesting paper was written by Mackenzie, of Johns Hopkins. If you read - it you will know more than I can now take the time to tell you. The Orient - understands the value of perfumes in lovemaking, and I could tell you - amazing things; but I will refer you to Cabanis, Dadisett, Hobbes, - Jaworski, Jwanicki, Schiff, Wolff, and Zwaardemaker. If you wish, my - secretary will prepare an exhaustive bibliography of the subject for you.” - </p> - <p> - “No, thanks,” said Mr. Merriwether. “But I still don't understand—” - </p> - <p> - The man sighed. Then he said, “I'll tell you, of course.” He then told - Tom's father about the message in the dark that Tom had carried. - </p> - <p> - “But he couldn't believe it!” exclaimed Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “No; he couldn't—but he did. Of course I have taken you behind the - scenes—-that is, I have opened your eyes and turned your head in the - proper direction and held it firmly there and shouted, 'Look!' And of - course you see the machinery standing still and you can't imagine it in - motion. You are not as imaginative as I thought you were.” - </p> - <p> - “Huh!” said E. H. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then after a pause he said: - “I see the wheels revolving. Ingenious!” - </p> - <p> - “More than that, practical! My object in having Tom fall in love with - love, suggesting that there was one girl born to be his bride, accentuated - by my use of the sweet-peas odor as a <i>leit-motif</i>, was to have - something to offer you which would be cheap at a million. The next step - was to make Tom do foolish things—for effect on you. First, to make - you fear Tom was crazy. I had a girl who knew young Waters talk to him - about Tom's new and alarming queerness and suggest that he telephone to - Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Of course Waters wouldn't telephone—and of - course I did. And, of course, if you had disbelieved or suspected you - would have sent for young Mr. Waters and he would have denied the - telephone, but admitted the queer actions of Tom and the fact that people - were talking about them. That would have allayed any suspicion you might - have entertained. So I stage-managed the opera scene and the Boston trip - to make you fear the worst. In that frame of mind you could be induced to - come here voluntarily. I sent Tully to you. You had to come!” - </p> - <p> - “Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether, with a thoughtful absence of - enthusiasm. - </p> - <p> - “Therefore,” continued the man as if he had not heard the other's - interpolation, “your son, being full of the thought of love and, even - worse, of marrying the mate that Fate selected for him five million years - ago, is now ready to marry any girl that smells of sweet peas. We thought - that, instead of vulgarly extracting the million from you by torture or - threats, we would place you in our debt by perpetuating the Merriwether - dynasty. Hence the preparation of eight very nice girls—three of - them in your own set, three others children of people you know, and the - remaining two equally desirable but less historical, as it were.” - </p> - <p> - “Who are they?” If Mr. Merriwether was to pay a million he might as well - see the label. - </p> - <p> - “Cynthia, Agnes, and Isabel, daughters respectively of Gordon Hammersly, - William Murray, and Vanderpoel Woodford. Any objections?” - </p> - <p> - “No; but you can't—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I can. Also, Louise Emlen, daughter of Marbury Emlen, the lawyer—” - </p> - <p> - “He's a crook!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “He doubtless interfered with one of your deals; I see you respect him. - He's a crank, but she is a brick. And a Miss Lythgoe, daughter of - Professor Lythgoe, of Columbia, the most beautiful girl in New York. - Ramona Ogden; her father is Dr. Ogden, the lung specialist; her mother was - a Jewess. The remaining two are of humble birth. But all of them are - healthy and beautiful, plenty of honesty, brains, and, above all, - imagination. Any one of them will not only make Tom happy, but will make - him a worthy successor of a great man. And such grandchildren as they will - give you! I envy you!” The man spoke with such fervent sincerity that E. - H. Merriwether merely said: - </p> - <p> - “It is a risky business, even though the chances appear to be—” - </p> - <p> - “That's why we ask one million dollars—because we have eliminated - the risk. Very cheap. Are you ready?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said Mr. Merriwether, grimly. - </p> - <p> - “Then, will you kindly—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; I will kindly tell you that you are a damned fool! You've wasted my - time. I'm going to my office, and if I don't have you put in jail it will - be because I don't want the publicity. But don't push me too far or I'll - do it anyhow!” And Mr. E. H. Merriwether rose. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down!” said the man, with a pleasant smile. - </p> - <p> - “Go to hell!” snarled the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, and - looked at the man with the eyes that Sam Sharpe once said reminded him of - a mink's when it kills for the sheer love of killing. - </p> - <p> - For all reply the man clapped his hands sharply twice. Four men—the - over-intelligent-looking footmen—came from behind the heavy plush - portières. Also, the ascetic-looking man who had held the glass of acid in - the taxicab and had brought Tom into the house the first time. The - ascetic-looking man held a cornet to his lips, and his lungs were filled - with still unblown blasts. - </p> - <p> - “Three weeks ago, Mr. Merriwether,” explained the mysterious master of the - house, “this worthy artist began to practise on his beautiful instrument - at exactly this time every morning. This was in anticipation of the - morning when you should be here—the idea being to drown your cries. - The neighbors have complained and I have promised to play pianissimo; but - a few loud blasts, which will do the trick, will be forgiven. Attention to - details, Mr. Merriwether! Ready!” - </p> - <p> - The cometist inflated his lungs and held the comet to his lips in - readiness. The footmen seized Mr. Merriwether by the arms and legs, one - man to each limb. - </p> - <p> - “Doctor!” called the master. - </p> - <p> - A sixth man came from behind the portières. He had some tin cans in his - hand—plainly labeled ether—and also a cylinder of compressed - laughing-gas and an inhaler. - </p> - <p> - “Expert! Anesthetics!” said the man, curtly, to Mr. Merriwether. “We - propose to take you out of this house if we kidnap you. If we decide to - kill you we have arranged to do it right here at home. I think we'll - kidnap you. A week or two will make you amenable to reason. We realize, of - course, that every day you spend under our hospitable roof will make it a - little bit more difficult to get the million into our clutches. Would you - like to know how we propose to kidnap you and get away with it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” replied Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with a pleasant smile. - </p> - <p> - “Tell our Mr. E. H. Merriwether to come in,” said the man to the cometist, - who thereupon disappeared and presently returned, followed by a man made - up to resemble the great financier. - </p> - <p> - The task was rendered easy by the famous flat-brimmed hat, with the crown - like a truncated cone, so familiar to newspaper-readers through the - cartoonists' efforts. The resemblance was not striking enough to deceive - at close range, but it probably would work at a distance. - </p> - <p> - “Walk like him!” commanded the master. - </p> - <p> - The fake Mr. Merriwether walked up and down the room with the curious - swaggering, jockey-like jauntiness of the little railroad man. From time - to time he snapped his fingers impatiently in the same characteristic way - Mr. E. H. Merriwether almost always used when giving an order to - subordinates. - </p> - <p> - “That will do!” said the man, with a broad grin at the impersonator of the - little financial giant. The double left the room—still walking <i>à - la</i> E. H. M. - </p> - <p> - “I have had that man—an actor of about your build with a gift of - mimicry—coached for weeks to imitate you. We told him it was a joke - and guaranteed him an appearance before the most select audience in New - York at one of Mrs. Garrettson's world-famous functions. We pledged him to - a secrecy so natural, under the circumstances, as to rouse no suspicions. - A few minutes ago we sent a footman to tell your chauffeur to go away and - return at one. He wouldn't do it. The footman said the boss said so. Your - man retorted that he took orders from only the boss himself—especially - when countermanding previous orders. - </p> - <p> - “So our Mr. Merriwether went out to the front door, yelled 'One!' in your - voice, and snapped his finger at the intelligent chauffeur, who thereupon - beat it. But the sleuth remains. It makes us laugh! But, after all, since - we have provided for him, it would be a pity not to go through the entire - program. Does this bore you?” - </p> - <p> - “Must I tell the truth?” asked Mr. Merriwether, anxiously. - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “I can stand more.” In point of fact, Mr. Merriwether was sure the - situation was serious for him. That is why he joked about it. - </p> - <p> - “Over six months ago we opened an antique-shop on Fourth Avenue. We had - the usual truck. Also we have had this antique-dealer—who is your - humble servant—go from house to house on the Avenue offering to buy - or exchange those antiques of which people have grown tired. We even asked - you. We have offered such good prices and such excellent swaps that we - have taken antiques from some of the wealthiest houses on the Avenue. Also - we have made a practice of importing antiques from Europe, which we - auction off every two weeks. The money we get we deposit in various banks, - and then we buy bills on Paris. The banks now know us. Remember that—it - is important. Well, we also have an exact copy of your motor, even to the - initials in the door panels. Pretty soon we send for our Merriwether motor - and our E. H. Merriwether emerges from this house and gets into his car - and off he goes—and the watching sleuth with him.” - </p> - <p> - “But if there should be two, and one stay?” - </p> - <p> - “Then number two will see not long afterward an elaborately carved Gothic - chest taken from here into the antique-dealer's wagon—a wagon now - known to the traffic squad. We carry you away and lock you in a small - sound-proof room, to get to which people would have to move out of the way - a lot of heavy pieces of furniture. There is no question of our ability to - kidnap you and to keep you a prisoner. I tell you we have paid attention - to details persistently and intelligently. Meantime what does Sam Sharpe - do to the stock-market? And Northrup Ashe? How much will a month's absence - from your office cost you?” - </p> - <p> - “Not half as much as it will cost you when I get out.” - </p> - <p> - “And if you don't get out?” - </p> - <p> - For reply Mr. E. H. Merriwether grinned broadly. - </p> - <p> - “My dear Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke very seriously now—“we - had not really expected such unintelligent skepticism from you; but, as we - prepared for everything, we, of course, prepared for even crass stupidity - on your part. In demonstrating our power to do what I say some painful - moments will be your portion. This I regret more than I can say. Just now - our problem is to prove our complete physical control of you and also our - utter indifference to your feelings. I am going to do what will make you - hate me to the murder point. In deliberately making a violent enemy of a - man like you we pay ourselves the compliment of thinking ourselves - absolutely fearless. I propose to have you spanked—to whip you as if - you were a bad little boy. We shall at first use a shingle on you—undraped. - You may begin when ready, James.” - </p> - <p> - “Sir,” said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H. - Merriwether, “will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat, - preliminary to the removal of your trousers?” - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the - men's faces had taken on a grim look—as if they knew that after the - whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an - impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless - appreciated the gravity of the offense. - </p> - <p> - “We know,” said the master, solemnly, “that for every blister we raise you - will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish to be - spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “The alternative is the million—or death.” - </p> - <p> - “You can't kill me and get away with it.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes—even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it.” - He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small, - morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether a - lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. “Cultures!” explained the man—“typhoid; - bubonic plague; anthrax; <i>Bacillus mallei</i>—that's glanders—meningitis; - Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for instance—number thirteen—is - the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with an ordinary culture would take - days; but with this virus it will take hours. What a wonderful thing - science is! You know what tetanus is?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, “lockjaw.” - </p> - <p> - “Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't be - able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't help - you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last—and you - will not make yourself understood. The <i>risus sardonicus</i>, which is a - most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile - naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really ought - to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a warning to - those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. And, of course, - I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the mildest and - slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?” - </p> - <p> - “I'll do that much to please you,” said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still - believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did - not believe they would go that far. - </p> - <p> - “Would you like to know how we propose to dispose of the body?” - </p> - <p> - “I might as well see everything,” he answered, in a resigned tone of - voice. The man looked at him admiringly, and said: - </p> - <p> - “Come on!” - </p> - <p> - They led the great E. H. Merriwether to the cellar. There he saw that the - furnace coal had been taken out of its bin and put in the adjoining - compartment. The plank floor had been taken up, and what looked like a - short trench—or a grave—had been dug. Outside stood a pile of - crushed stone, some bags of cement, some bundles of steel rods, a section - of five-inch iron soilpipe with a mushroom-head trap at one end, and - concrete-workers' tools. - </p> - <p> - “After we make absolutely sure that you are dead we throw a lot of soft - mortar into the grave, deposit the corpse, and then pour in more cement—so - that you will be completely surrounded by it. It will make it very - difficult indeed to recognize you when they try to chip away the hard - cement—if they ever try! Then we fill the grave up to the top with - concrete, using plenty of steel rods—not to re-enforce the concrete - at all, but to make it very hard digging with a pick. - </p> - <p> - “We also stick the soilpipe into the—er—cavity in order to - account for the disturbed pavement. Intelligent searchers—your son - and his detectives—will assume it is plumbing—and seek no - further. We replace the plank flooring in the bin and fill it up with - coal, thereby further obliterating all traces of your grave. - </p> - <p> - “We have provided for that part, you see. Why, my dear Mr. Merriwether, - what we really do to you is confer immortality on you. We elevate you to - the rank of one of the mysteries. Charlie Ross and E. H. Merriwether! Just - assume that we'll do what I say. Very well! Now, visualize the search made - for you. Endow your people with superhuman ingenuity. Useless!” - </p> - <p> - The man waved a hand toward Mr. Merriwether; but Mr. Merriwether said: - </p> - <p> - “You assume that the search will be exclusively for me—but they will - also search for you!” - </p> - <p> - “My dear sir, that is unkind of you!” The man spoke reproachfully. “We - know that when we go into the plunder-recovery business we must guard - against the chief contributory cause of the vast majority of all business' - failures, according to the statistics of Dun and Bradstreet—to wit, - insufficient capital. Murderers are caught when their faces and habits and - families are known. Usually their lack of means forces them to betray - themselves. But nobody knows how the men who will kill E. H. Merriwether - look, simply because we have enough money to go anywhere. We will become - tourists—like thousands of others. Some of us will stay in New York; - others will go on round-the-world tours. See this?” - </p> - <p> - The man pulled from his pocket some packages of well-worn bills, with the - bank-wrappers round them, though a finger hid the bank name. Also the man - showed to Mr. Merriwether several books of travelers' checks of the - fifty-dollar denomination—the specimen signature also being covered - by the man's finger. - </p> - <p> - “Enough for all,” said the man. “Kindly oblige me by thinking of what you - would do in my place; and, in all frankness, acknowledge that nothing - would be easier than to get away. Ordinary crime is so largely accidental - that the average criminal is at the mercy of even the unintelligent - police. Professionals do the same thing over and over and acquire telltale - mannerisms. Also, they lack culture, and find the class attraction too - strong to resist—besides always being hard up and therefore - defenseless. Whenever you find a crook who is thrifty, you will find him - always out of jail—like any other business man of equal thrift. We - have gone about this case systematically. We wanted your million—but, - more, we wanted the sport of taking it from a man who had no moral right - to the particular million we desired. If you had been a really - conscienceless financier we'd have made it five millions; in fact, it is - because we are not sure that even this million is tainted that we ask you - to pay it to us for giving you a fine daughter-in-law. Shall we go - up-stairs?” - </p> - <p> - The master of the house led the way up-stairs and Mr. E. H. Merriwether, - escorted by the stalwart footmen with the intelligent faces, followed, his - own intelligent face impassive. That he was thinking meant only that he - was doing what he always did. - </p> - <p> - The man sat down in his chair, with his back to the stained-glass window. - He asked, pleasantly: - </p> - <p> - “What do you say now, Mr. Merriwether?” - </p> - <p> - “I say,” the little czar answered, with a frown of impatience, or anger, - or both, “that when you are tired of playing the damned fool I'd like to - return to my business.” - </p> - <p> - The man rose to his feet quickly, his face pale with anger. He took a step - toward the financier, his fists clenched—and then suddenly - controlled himself. - </p> - <p> - “You jackass!” he said. “You idiot! Have you no brains whatever? Must I - lash common sense into you? Take 'em off!” It was a command to the - footmen. - </p> - <p> - “Will you disrobe, sir?” very politely asked the oldest of them. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether, six inches shorter than the speaker, and a hundred pounds - lighter, drew back his fist, but the four men seized him and began to take - his clothes off. Mr. Merriwether, recognizing the uselessness of - resistance and the folly of having garments torn so far from home, helped - by unbuttoning here and there. Presently he stood <i>in puris naturctlibus</i>. - </p> - <p> - His face was pale and his jaw set tight. - </p> - <p> - “Tie him!” commanded the master. - </p> - <p> - They tied him to the library table, face down. - </p> - <p> - “Music!” cried the man; whereupon the cometist began to play the - Meditation from “Thaïs” softly, but obviously ready to play fortissimo at - a signal from the chief. - </p> - <p> - “I am going to lick you with a whip; and, for every lash I give you, you - will have to pay me one hundred thousand dollars in addition to the - original million. Theatrical, is it?” And his voice was hoarse with anger. - “Yes? Well, look at this melodramatic whip. Your tragedy will be my - comedy, you————jackass!” - </p> - <p> - He showed to Mr. E. H. Merriwether a quirt—a veritable miniature - blacksnake of plaited leather. - </p> - <p> - “You can stand twenty; that will make three million in all. I'll draw - blood after the fifth. I'll stop when you've got enough. Remember the - price!” - </p> - <p> - He snapped the whip viciously and walked round the table until he stood - behind Mr. Merriwether. He lifted his arm and then the great Merriwether, - autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, iron-nerved, fearless, - imaginative, and intelligent, yelled: “Wait!” - </p> - <p> - “The million?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes!” - </p> - <p> - “Help him!” said the man; and the intelligent-looking footmen respectfully - served as valets. - </p> - <p> - “I don't believe you would kill me—but I never liked spankings.” Mr. - Merriwether spoke jocularly—almost! - </p> - <p> - The man confronted Mr. Merriwether and said, very seriously: - </p> - <p> - “Mr. Merriwether, we should certainly have killed you if you had persisted - in your stubbornness to the end. We knew we had to convince you.” - </p> - <p> - The man looked inquiringly at the financier to see whether any doubt - remained; but Mr. Merriwether asked, quizzically: - </p> - <p> - “Honest, now, would you—” - </p> - <p> - “We would!” interrupted the man, looking straight into Mr. Merriwether's - eyes. And what Mr. Merriwether saw there made him ask: - </p> - <p> - “How will you have the million?” - </p> - <p> - “In cash. I'm glad you will make the payment. But really, sir, I wish to - impress on you that Tom is ripe to be taken for better—or for - worse.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether looked long and earnestly into the eyes of the - mysterious man who was despoiling him of a million dollars. It began to - seep into his understanding that if Tom could be married to a nice girl - the resulting peace of mind would indeed be cheap at a million. - </p> - <p> - “Now, if you please,” pursued the man, pleasantly, “telephone to McWayne - that you wish him to come here with certified checks on your different - banks, aggregating one million dollars, made payable to Michael P. - Mahaffy.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether started. The name was that of the world-famous political - Boss of New York City. Explanations as to the million might be - embarrassing to any political boss; but for a million dollars in cash any - political boss would be glad to explain—or even not to explain. - </p> - <p> - “From this house Mr. McWayne will go to the banks, accompanied by the - studious gentleman who had the honor of holding your left leg. You will - indorse each check by writing 'indorsement correct' and signing your name. - McWayne will go with our Mr. Michael P. Mahaffy and get the money in - fives, tens, and twenties, in handy wads—old bills preferred and so - requested from the paying tellers, who will intelligently understand that - Mr. Mahaffy is not signing his name in person, so he can swear in any - court of justice that he never saw the checks. Asking for old bills is to - make them impossible to trace. This will also allay the banks' suspicions. - The worst that can happen will be that a few tellers will wonder what Mr. - Merriwether has to do with city politics that he needs Mahaffy's aid.” - </p> - <p> - “I see!” said Mr. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: “Where - is the telephone?” - </p> - <p> - “There!” - </p> - <p> - In plain sight and hearing of the master of the house the master of the - Pacific & Southwestern called up his own office. He spoke to McWayne: - “Make out checks on all banks according to my balances in them, so that - the checks will aggregate one million dollars, payable to Michael P. - Mahaffy.... What? Yes?... Have the checks certified.... Of course, if - there isn't enough!... We shall want bills that have been used—fives, - tens, and twenties.... Yes, all cash. Come up to 777 Fifth Avenue. You - will go to the banks with a man—” - </p> - <p> - “With Mr. Mahaffy,” prompted the man. - </p> - <p> - “With Mr. Mahaffy,” repeated Mr. Merriwether. “And tell Tom to have - luncheon and wait for me,” again prompted the man. - </p> - <p> - “And tell Tom I can't go to luncheon with him, but to wait for me.” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether hung up the receiver and turned to the man, saying: - </p> - <p> - “The idea of using Mahaffy's name—” - </p> - <p> - “Rather good, isn't it?” smiled the man. “Of course you wondered how we - were going to cash the checks, didn't you? Well, that's the way. The bank - officials will be surprised to see the checks and they will watch McWayne - and my man to the last. They will thus be able to hear my man say loudly - to the chauffeur, 'Tammany Hall, Charlie!' Attention to details, my dear - sir!” - </p> - <p> - “I still am not quite convinced that—” - </p> - <p> - “My dear Mr. Merriwether, there are so many ways of safely getting money - from you Wall Street magnates that the only thing that really protects you - is the sad fact that the professional crooks are even more stupid than - you. Men like you are compelled to bet your entire fortune, your very - life, on averages. The average man is both stupid and honest; so you and - your like are fairly safe for fairly long periods of time. Of course if we - had been obliged to kill you we should have done so and buried you, and we - should have been wise enough to utilize your death in as many ways as - possible in the stock-market—and out of it. For instance, I should - have instantly telephoned to all the men in your class and told them we - had eliminated you—as an example—and to remember that in case - we ever had occasion to ask anything from them. We should also give them a - countersign, so that they would be able to recognize us when the proper - time came. I can kidnap or permanently suppress any millionaire in New - York, with neatness, despatch, and safety.” - </p> - <p> - “But killing a well-known man—” began Mr. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - “If Big Tim Sullivan could be killed and lie in the Morgue for days - unrecognized, what chance do relatively unknown people like you great - millionaires stand to be found, once dead? A dead capitalist, remember, is - no more impressive than a dead streetcar conductor. If I got you into this - house on the strength of Tom, as I got Tom to come in on the strength of - you, what millionaire would refuse, for example, to go, in answer to a - telephone message that his child had been run over and was now, let us - say, at 128 East Seventy-ninth Street? Or that his wife, acting more or - less as if she were intoxicated, was scattering money at the corner of - Seventh Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street? And suppose the millionaire is - bound and chloroformed, and taken to the top floor of a tenement hired by - a humpback with red beard and one leg shorter than the other—same - humpback not being really a humpback or red-bearded or a cripple, but a - fake, to furnish false clues in advance—and this humpback has - previously given fire-extinguishing hand-grenades to all the other - tenants, as advertisements! Then we have a charge of dynamite inserted in - the thoroughly prepared corpse of the millionaire—his face burned - off in advance—and he is also soaked in inflammable material and set - on fire. And the deed is done at 11 a.m.; so that all the children will be - in school and all the adults awake and able to get out. Find you? Bits of - flesh and sympathy for the poor humpback is all the police would find in - that tenement. Oh! sir, you were wise to pay—very wise indeed!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether looked at the man a long time. He could not deny that to - really desperate men such deeds offered no particular difficulty. The - average crook is not dangerous to a millionaire; but a man like this is - more than dangerous. He thought quickly and formed his conclusions - accurately. - </p> - <p> - “How are you going to make Tom marry one of the girls whose names you - mentioned?” he asked, in the tone of voice one uses toward physicians. - </p> - <p> - The man smiled slightly and said: “Oh, I am not going to do it. I don't - care whether he marries or not. You must do that. But I'll tell you how, - if you wish,—after McWayne gets here. Just think over the affair. It - will put you in a more intelligently receptive frame of mind.” And with a - pleasant smile the man took a little book bound in green leather and began - to read. - </p> - <p> - Mr. E. H. Merriwether, as was his wont when thinking, began at the - beginning and reviewed the entire affair quickly but carefully. He did - this again—it did not take him long—and then he began to - co-ordinate his ideas and study the case. Within ten minutes he had - forgotten his animosity. In fifteen he felt respect for this man. In - twenty he was thinking how helpless any one man is against his ten billion - trillion natural foes—microbes, seismic disturbances, floods, and - the chemical reaction of hostile brains. This man, whose very name was - unknown to him, had vanquished the victor—had looted the tent of the - victorious general! - </p> - <p> - This was incredible when spoken in a conversational tone of voice. Perhaps - this same remarkable man might tell how to make Tom choose a desirable - wife. It was worth while making the experiment. It was in the nature of a - gamble in which E. H. Merriwether stood to win a happiness worth all the - money in the world and stood to lose nothing! - </p> - <p> - A knock at the door roused him from his reverie. One of the footmen - arrived from the threshold. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. McWayne!” - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether's private secretary entered. E. H. Merriwether held out - his right hand. - </p> - <p> - Mr. McWayne took four slips of paper and gave them to his chief, who - quickly looked at them and passed them over to the master of the house. - The man looked at them, indorsed them, and handed a pen to Mr. - Merriwether. The czar of the Pacific & Southwestern wrote on each of - the checks: - </p> - <p> - Indorsement correct. - </p> - <p> - E. H. Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - He returned the checks to the man, who thereupon pushed a button a number - of times. - </p> - <p> - One of the footmen with the non-menial faces appeared dressed for the - street. He looked Irish. He wore a big solitaire scarf-pin. His hat - inclined to one side noticeably. He carried a square valise in each hand. - They looked as if they had seen service. On each was printed, “Treasurer - Tammany Hall.” - </p> - <p> - “Go with Mr. McWayne to the banks and cash the checks. Mr. McWayne will - identify you,” said the master of the house. - </p> - <p> - “Yis, sor!” said the footman. - </p> - <p> - The brogue was unnecessary, but E. H. Merri-wether smiled slightly. - McWayne and the footman in mufti left together. - </p> - <p> - “Think some more!” said the man to E. H. Merri-wether, and resumed his - reading of the little green-leather book. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether leaned back and thought some more. To him the - million-dollar loss was already ancient history. The only virtue that the - Wall Street life gives to a professional is the ability to take a loss of - money with more or less philosophy. That philosophy is also met on the - race-track, and among experts in faro as well as among real Christians. - </p> - <p> - McWayne and the man were gone an hour and eighteen minutes. Mr. - Merriwether had time to think of Tom and of himself and of the relation - that had existed between himself and his son, and of the relations that - would exist between them in the future—God willing. - </p> - <p> - “Mr. McWayne!” announced the servant. - </p> - <p> - The private secretary entered; also the Irishman with the two valises. - </p> - <p> - “Tell the others! At five o'clock!” said the master of the house, and the - footman left the room—with the valises! - </p> - <p> - “Mr. McWayne, will you kindly wait in the other room?” The man rose and - parted the portières for the secretary to pass through. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly,” said McWayne, frowning politely. “Now, Mr. Merriwether,” said - the man, “as I told you, Tom's mind and soul are prepared for love. The - romantic vein in him has been worked to the limit. He can be laughed out - of it very easily, for he is not entirely convinced; but it is too - valuable a frame of mind for a really intelligent father to destroy. The - young ladies, also, are ripe for the coming of the one man in all the - world. They will respond readily—and, I may add, respond with relief - if they see he is a man like your son, against whom nothing can be said. - It will clinch the affair. My advice is for you to call on the young - ladies I have mentioned and judge for yourself, and then you be your own - stage-manager!” - </p> - <p> - “Have you any choice yourself?” - </p> - <p> - “You know Woodford?” - </p> - <p> - “Very well.” - </p> - <p> - “And his daughter Isabel?” - </p> - <p> - “No.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, she has the complementary qualities. She will, as it were, complete - Tom. She is bright, healthy, very handsome, utterly unspoiled by the - knowledge of her good looks—that is, she is highly intelligent. Her - mind functionates quickly and is regulated and made to work safely by her - keen sense of humor. You will love her for herself, as well as for Tom's - sake and for Tom's children's sake. Arrange two things and you can do it. - One is prepare her to meet Tom. Tell her you don't know why you want her - to know him, but you do. Tell her you wanted this before you ever saw her. - And tell her you know she must think you must be going crazy—but - will she meet Tom in her father's home?—in some room with the lights - turned out? She will ask you why you ask such things. And you will rub - your hand across your eyes and say, dazed-like: T don't know! I don't - know! Will—will you do it?' And when you take Tom to her, take - advantage of the dark, and open this little bottle and touch Tom's lapel - with this. It is essence of sweet peas. He will associate Isabel with the - mysterious girl to whom he took a message in the dark, and by the same - token she will know he is the man who destiny decrees shall be her - husband. Then leave the rest to nature. They won't struggle. They couldn't - if they wished; but they won't wish to fight. My parting words to you are: - the man who was smart enough to get a million dollars out of you finds it - even easier to make a young man who wants to love fall in love in the - springtime with a handsome, healthy girl who wants to be loved. You and - McWayne will now use one of my prisoner-carrying motors. This way, sir!” - </p> - <p> - He led the way into the next room, picked up McWayne, and escorted the - financier and his private secretary to the curb. A neat little motor stood - there. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Merriwether climbed in. McWayne followed. And then the man said: - </p> - <p> - “You will find that the doors cannot be opened from the inside. The - chauffeur was told this queer feature was due to the fact that his master - expects to use this car for his two very active and very mischievous - children. He will drive you anywhere. You can arrest him if you wish; but - it will be useless. We have spent a good many thousands of dollars in - accessories that will be thrown away to-day.” And the man sighed. - </p> - <p> - “Who do you mean by we?” asked E. H. Merriwether, politely. - </p> - <p> - “The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, which, having completed its operations, - will now dissolve. Good day, sir.” - </p> - <p> - In the issue of the <i>World</i> of June 9th two advertisements appeared. - One, under “Marriages,” read: - </p> - <p> - Merriwether-Woodford.—On June 8th, at the Church of St. Lawrence, by - the Rev. Stephen Vincent Rood, Isabel Woodford to Thomas Thome - Merriwether. - </p> - <p> - The other, under “Personals,” read: - </p> - <p> - P. R. Syndicate,—It was cheap at a million! - </p> - <h3> - E. H. M. - </h3> - <p> - On June 10th the great railroad financier received a typewritten letter. - It read: - </p> - <p> - <i>In the course of our operations, having for an object the recovery of - plunder taken from unidentified individuals by malefactors of great - wealth, it has happened that we have grown fond of some of our - contributors. We thus are able most sincerely to extend to you our hearty - congratulations. It was indeed cheap at a million, and we shall remember - your good fortune if ever we need advice or additional funds. What we took - from you and from some of your fellow New-Yorkers we propose to return to - the public at large. Mr. Amos F. Kidder will tell you his suspicions, if - you ask him. In return you might tell him that we propose to capitalize - time. We shall make a present of fifty years to the world by transmuting - the recovered plunder into unspent time. Don't forget that we who were the - Plunder Recoverers are now,</i> - </p> - <p> - <i>The Time Givers.</i> - </p> - <h3> - THE END - </h3> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS *** - -***** This file should be named 51970-h.htm or 51970-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/7/51970/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- <head>
- <title>
- The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre
- </title>
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plunderers, by Edwin Lefevre
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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: The Plunderers
- A Novel
-
-Author: Edwin Lefevre
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51970]
-Last Updated: March 16, 2018
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLUNDERERS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE PLUNDERERS
- </h1>
- <h3>
- A Novel
- </h3>
- <h2>
- By Edwin Lefevre
- </h2>
- <h4>
- Harper & Brothers Publishers
- </h4>
- <h4>
- New York And London
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1915
- </h3>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0012.jpg" alt="0012 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0012.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0013.jpg" alt="0013 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0013.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE PLUNDERERS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I—THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II-THE PANIC OF THE LION </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III—AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV—CHEAP AT A MILLION </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE PLUNDERERS
- </h2>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- I—THE PEARLS OF THE PRINCESS PATRICIA
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>N the day before
- Christmas a man of middle age, middle height, and middle weight,
- smooth-shaven, dressed in black and wearing black gloves, walked into the
- business office of the New York <i>Herald</i>. He approached the first
- “Advertisements” window, looked at the clerk a moment, opened his mouth,
- and said several words-at least, so the clerk judged from the motion of
- the man's lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn't hear that, Cap,” said the clerk, Ralph Carroll.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stranger thereupon made another effort.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have to come again,” Carroll told him, kindly, at the same time
- leaning over the counter and presenting his left ear to the voiceless
- talker. He heard:
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much to print this ad under Male Help Wanted, in big type, so it will
- make about two inches?”
- </p>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p>
- He handed a slip to the clerk, which the clerk read, counting the words
- from sheer force of habit:
- </p>
- <p>
- Wanted-A Man With St. Vitus's Dance and an Introspective Turn of Mind.
- High Wages to Right Party. Apply Saturday Morning, Room 888, St. Iago
- Building.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Four-sixty-four,” said the clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Four dollars and sixty-four cents,” repeated Carroll.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man took out a wallet and tried to pull out a bank-note, but could not
- because of his gloved hands. He took off the right glove, fished out one
- five-dollar bill and gave it to the clerk, who handed him back thirty-six
- cents. As the man took the change the clerk distinctly noticed that he had
- a big ivory-colored scar which ran from the knuckles to the wrist and
- disappeared under the cuff. He remembered it by reason of the freak ad and
- the man's voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- The advertisement appeared in the <i>Herald</i> on the next day. Being
- Christmas, the one day of nonreading in America, few people saw it.
- Nevertheless, at nine on Saturday morning, ten men with spasmodically
- twitching necks or limbs waited for the advertiser to open the door of
- Room 888, on which they saw in gilt letters:
- </p>
- <h3>
- ACME VIBRATOR COMPANY
- </h3>
- <h3>
- W. W. LOVELL, MANAGER
- </h3>
- <p>
- The elevator man was heard to tell an inquirer, “Here's Lovell!” And
- presently the voiceless man, dressed as usual in black, with black gloves,
- stepped from the elevator, nodded to the waiting men in the hall, and
- opened the door of 888. At first they thought he was a mute, but realized
- later that he was merely saving his bronchial tubes, just as asking men to
- come Saturday forenoon—pay-day and pay-hours—would save effort
- by bringing only men without employment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lovell and the afflicted entered. The outer office had half a dozen
- chairs, and a table, on which were some medical magazines. Lovell
- scrutinized the ten applicants keenly, and finally beckoned to a tall,
- well-built chap with a blond mustache, whose unfortunate ailment was not
- so extreme as the others, to follow him into the inner office. The man did
- so. There were a desk, three chairs, a table, and a dozen polished-oak
- boxes that looked as though they might contain vibrators. Lovell closed
- the door, sat down at the desk, motioned to the blond man to approach, and
- whispered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's your name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lewis J. Wright.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Age?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thirty-six.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Working?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not steadily.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Profession?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cabinet-maker.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Family?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you object to traveling?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; like it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We pay sixty dollars a week, all traveling and living expenses. Will you
- go to London, England?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To do what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing!” again whispered the manager, very earnestly. He seemed anxious
- to convince Mr. Wright of his good intentions. “Nothing at all! Sixty a
- week and expenses!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't understand,” said Mr. Lewis J. Wright, with an uneasy smile. His
- excitement aggravated the malady and his neck jerked and twitched almost
- constantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want a man with St. Vitus's dance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's me,” said L. J. Wright, and proved it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And with an introspective turn of mind. Understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not quite,” confessed the cabinet-maker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A man who likes to think about himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I guess I can fill the bill all right,” asserted L. J. Wright,
- confidently. Sixty a week, all expenses, and a trip to London began to
- look very attractive.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you're engaged.” The manager nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know yet what I'm to do,” ventured Wright.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing, I tell you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'll do it, then!” And L. J. Wright smiled tentatively; but the
- manager of the Acme Vibrator Company looked at him seriously—almost
- reprovingly—and whispered so hoarsely that Wright felt like going
- after cough-lozenges for him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, Wright. You will go to London with a letter to Dr. Cephas W.
- Atterbury, 23, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, N. W. Every day you will sit
- down in a comfortable chair in the doctor's anteroom, where the patients
- wait, from nine to eleven a.m. and five to seven p.m. You will think of
- your St. Vitus's dance. For doing this you will get sixty dollars a week
- from us and your hotel bill will be paid by the doctor. You may not have
- to sail for a month, but your salary begins on Monday. Come here every
- Saturday and get twenty-five dollars on account. When you sail you will
- get all that's owing to you besides four weeks' salary in advance, and a
- round-trip ticket, first-class.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if I get stranded in London—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How can you, with three or four hundred dollars in your pocket, a
- return-trip ticket, and no need to spend except for clothes, which are
- very cheap there? Come next Saturday, but leave your name and address in
- case we need you. Can we depend on you?” He looked searchingly into the
- grayish-blue eyes of Lewis J. Wright, and seemed comforted when Lewis J.
- Wright answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. I'll go on a minute's notice.” He wrote his name and address on a
- slip, gave it to the manager, and went out. Lovell followed him to the
- outer office and, beckoning to the afflicted nine to draw near, whispered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've hired a man, but I shall need more soon. Write your names and
- addresses and leave them here. Don't come unless I send for you,” and he
- distributed printed blanks on which each applicant wrote out his name,
- address, and answers to the questions:
- </p>
- <p>
- 1—Do you object to traveling alone?
- </p>
- <p>
- 2—Do you object to sitting in comfortable chairs?
- </p>
- <p>
- 3—Do you object to people making remarks about you?
- </p>
- <p>
- 4—Do you object to minding your own business or earning your wages?
- </p>
- <p>
- One of the applicants spoke:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Lovell, I'd like to know—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lovell, however, cut him short with a hoarse but peremptory “Don't talk!
- Can't answer!” pointed to his throat, and disappeared in the inner office,
- the door of which he closed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whereupon the disappointed applicants, expressing their feelings in a
- series of heartrending jerks, twitches, tremors, and grimaces, trooped out
- into the hall. There they cross-examined Wright and arrived at the
- conclusion that they were to be used as living advertisements for the Acme
- Vibrator. Doctors were employed to boom it and the company supplied
- dummies or “property” patients.
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o the same clerk
- in the <i>Herald</i> office, a fortnight later, came the same man in
- black, and whispered something. The clerk recognized him, leaned over, and
- asked, pleasantly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it this time?” He had a good memory. He afterward remembered
- thinking that the hoarseness was chronic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much for one inch in Help Wanted, Male?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pica caps?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man nodded eagerly, half a dozen times.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two dollars and thirty-two cents.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The stranger, in trying to take the exact amount from his pocket, dropped
- a dime on the floor and had much difficulty in picking it up by reason of
- his black gloves. This naturally made the clerk remember about the scar,
- which the man evidently desired to conceal. Carroll, the clerk,
- alert-minded and imaginative—as are all American Celts—caught
- a glimpse of the scar between the end of the glove and the beginning of
- the cuff.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the next day, the unemployed males of New York read this in the <i>Herald</i>:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Wanted—A Brave Man. Wages One Hundred Dollars a Day. No Questions
- Answered. Apply Room 888, St. Iago Building.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- There are many brave men in New York. When W. W. Lovell stepped from the
- elevator at the eighth floor he had almost to force his way through a
- crowd of men of all kinds—brutes and dreamers; sturdy animals, and
- boys with romance in their eyes; fierce-visaged, roughly dressed men, and
- fashionably attired chaps, with high-bred, impassive faces; young men
- seeking adventure and old men seeking bread. Lovell was darting keen
- glances at the men. He let his gaze linger on a man neither short nor
- tall, of about forty, who suggested determination rather than reckless
- courage. He was shabby with the shabbiness of a man who not only has worn
- the clothes a long time, but has slept in them. Lovell approached him and
- whispered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come about <i>Herald</i> ad?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.” Others drew near and listened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you really brave?” He looked anxiously into the man's face. The man,
- at the question and at the grins of his fellow-applicants, turned a
- brick-red.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Try me!” he answered, defiantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Before all these men?” There was a challenge in the hoarse whisper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you want to,” answered the man, with quick anger. He clenched his
- fists and braced his body, as for a shock.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come in!” and W. W. Lovell opened the door of 888.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm braver than that guy!” interjected a youth, extremely
- broad-shouldered and thick-necked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Lovell looked at him coldly, steadily, inquisitively, as though he
- would read the man's soul. He stared fully a minute and a half before the
- thick-set youngster dropped his gaze, whereupon Mr. Lovell pushed in the
- man he had picked out, followed him, and slammed the door in the faces of
- the others. They tried the door-knob in vain. It was a spring lock.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Lovell sat down at his desk, motioned to the man to draw near, and
- said, sternly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No questions answered!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll ask none.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lovell gazed at him intently. He nodded to himself with satisfaction, and
- proceeded, in a painful whisper:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your name is W. W. Lowry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man hesitated. Lovell frowned and, leaning forward, said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “One hundred dollars a day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My name,” said the man, determinedly, “is now W. W. Lowry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know anything about travelers' checks used by the American Express
- Company?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ever used any yourself?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ever in Paris?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I was—er—years ago.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How many years?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ten; no—eleven!” The man's face twitched. Remembrance was evidently
- not pleasant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll pay you one thousand dollars for eight days' work in Paris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll take it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen carefully.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go ahead.” The man looked alert.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will get a first-class ticket from New York to Paris and return, and
- hotel coupons for ten days in the Hotel Beraud, in Paris. You will leave,
- in all probability, on February first, arrive on the eighth. On the ninth
- you will go to the American Express office and cash some of your checks.
- They will serve to identify you. Do it again on February tenth. At exactly
- eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh you will whisper to the mail
- clerk: 'It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven
- letters for W. W. Lowry.' If you do not receive eleven letters, don't take
- any, but return the next day at precisely the same hour, and say exactly
- the same words. What was it I said you should say to the correspondence
- clerk?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is eleven-eleven, to-day the eleventh. Give me the eleven letters for
- W. W. Lowry,” repeated the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Right! When you get the eleven letters you will bring them unopened to me—here.
- Now go to Mrs. Brady's boarding-house, 299 East Seventy-third Street; tell
- her you are Mr. Lowry. Your room and board are paid for. Make it a point
- to be at the house every day at eleven in the morning until after luncheon
- and at six p.m. You must not go out evenings under any circumstances. I'll
- allow you eleven dollars a week for tobacco and will bring you some
- clothes. Come back Wednesday at eleven-thirty. Here's this week's eleven
- dollars. That will be all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all right, my friend; but—” began the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lovell frowned and interrupted sharply:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No questions answered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wasn't going to ask; I was going to remark that you would have to show
- me that one thousand dollars for the week's work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Next Wednesday I'll take you to the American Express Company. I'll give
- you one thousand dollars and you will buy the checks yourself and sign
- them. I'll keep them until sailing-day and I'll give them to you on the
- steamer. Forging,” he went on with a sneer, “is signing another man's name
- with intent to defraud. You will sign your own name—your own
- signature—on travelers' checks that you yourself have paid for. See?
- A thousand dollars for asking for eleven letters and bringing them to me,
- unopened, is good graft, friend. If you make good I'll keep you busy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are on!” said W. W. Lowry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No drinking. Above all things, no talking! I may be crazy, my friend; but
- what would you be if you gave up a job worth a thousand dollars a week and
- all expenses paid? Remember our motto: No questions answered!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Damned good rule!” agreed W. W. Lowry, with conviction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look out for reporters and for men who say they are reporters!” warned W.
- W. Lovell. “When you go out, close the door quickly behind you and hang
- this sign on the door-knob. I don't want to see anybody.”
- </p>
- <p>
- W. W. Lowry obeyed. The sign said:
- </p>
- <h3>
- POSITION FILLED
- </h3>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> particularly
- beautiful limousine stopped before the door of Welch, Boon & Shaw, the
- renowned jewelers, on Fifth Avenue. There alighted from it, on this cold
- but bright January day, a tall, well-built man, erect, square-shouldered,
- head held high. He wore a fur-lined overcoat with a beautiful mink collar,
- and a mink cap. He was one of those blond-mustached, ruddy-complexioned,
- daily-cold-plunge British officers you sometimes see in Ottawa. He walked
- quickly into the shop and spoke to the first clerk he saw.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where's the proprietor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The proprietor of the shop!” He spoke with a pronounced English accent.
- His eyes were gray and cold. They looked a trifle close together, but that
- may have been from the frown—said frown impressing even a casual
- observer as a chronic affair. His appearance, even without the frown, was
- aristocratic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you wish,” said the clerk, politely, “to see Mr. Boon or Mr. Shaw?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see the man who owns this shop; the—ah—boss, I
- think you call it here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, Mr. Boon—” began the clerk, about to explain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't care if it's Mr. Loon or Mr. Coon. Be quick, please!” he said,
- peremptorily.
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk, now resenting the stranger's words, tone, manner, attitude,
- nationality, and ancestry, turned to a floor-walker person and called:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Smith, this—ahem—gentleman wishes to see one of the
- firm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Smith came forward, smiling suavely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You wish to see one of the firm, sir?” He bowed in advance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. That's the third time I've said what I wish. I have no time to lose
- and not much patience, either!” He twitched his neck and twisted his head
- as though his collar were too tight. It was a habit, and it became more
- pronounced with his annoyance. All the clerks noticed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Smith bit his lip and said, very politely: “Yes, sir. It happens that
- none of them is in at present. If you will tell me what you wish to see
- them about I may suggest—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The fur-coated man turned on his heel, his face dark red with annoyance,
- and started to leave the shop.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good-by, old Jerk-Neck!” muttered the offended clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon entered at that very moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here's Mr. Boon, our senior partner,” said Mr. Smith, with an irritation
- in his voice that he could not conceal, and that now gave Mr. Boon his
- cue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You wish to see me?” Mr. Boon asked it very coldly, ready to say no.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have an annoying set of clerks here,” said the fur-coated stranger.
- “I wished to see one of the firm and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You see him now,” interrupted Mr. Boon, letting the words drop out with
- an effect of broken icicles. “I am Mr. Boon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My good man, I came after some pearl necklaces and a few rings, and
- trinkets. Do make haste! I am Colonel Lowther.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed! Well, what if you are Colonel Lowther?”
- </p>
- <p>
- In Mr. Boon's eyes was a look that made all the clerks in the store busy
- themselves with their own affairs. Explosions scatter dangerous fragments
- that may injure lookers-on. The fur-coated Englishman stared at the
- sizzling jeweler in amazement.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Damme!” he sputtered. “Do you mean to say—Oh—I see! Yes! I am
- the secretary of the Duke of Connaught. The jewels are for his Royal
- Highness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The change was instantaneous and magical. They all understood now, and
- forgave. There wasn't a clerk in the store who did not stare with
- unchecked interest at the fur-coated member of the royal party, concerning
- which the newspapers were printing columns and columns.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man opened his coat, took a card from a Russia-leather case, which he
- gave to Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel the Honorable H. C. Lowther, K.C.B.,” it read, “Private Secretary
- to H. R. H. the Duke of Connaught.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Lowther,” said Mr. Boon, in a voice from which all the icicles
- had melted and turned into warm honey, “I regret exceedingly that you have
- had to wait. Had I known you were here, or if you had only mentioned who
- you were—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly so. Yes! And now I'll have a few words with you in private,
- Boon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel could not know that Mr. Boon was not a misterless Bond Street
- tradesman, but a millionaire expert in gems and human vanity. So Boon
- forgave the omission of “Mr.” and magnanimously said, “This way, Colonel
- Lowther, please!”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the office Mr. Boon opened a box of his good cigars—and they were
- very good, indeed—and held it toward the colonel, who took one with
- his gloved hands, lit it at the flame of the match which Mr. Boon himself
- held for him, and puffed away, with never a “Thank you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Again Mr. Boon was magnanimous.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Lowther wiggled his neck as if his collar were uncomfortably
- tight, and then shot his head forward with a motion that made the chin go
- up six inches—a nervous affliction that Mr. Boon politely ignored by
- looking exaggeratedly attentive.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His Royal Highness wishes to leave some remembrances to gentlemen he has
- met, you know—chairmen of committees and presidents of clubs, and
- others who have been very nice to him. At home he would have given them
- snuff-boxes or cigarette-cases, with his arms on them; but there won't be
- time to engrave them, so he will give scarf-pins.” He paused, puffed at
- his cigar, and cleared his neck of the constricting collar.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I understand,” Mr. Boon assured him, deferentially.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the duchess will give rings and—ah—lorgnette-chains—trinkets—ah—you
- know. Everybody in New York has been so kind to the party. 'Pon my honor,
- Boon, I really think Americans are keener for royalty than the British. I
- do! What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Blood,” observed Mr. Boon, with the impressive sententiousness of a man
- inventing a proverb, “is thicker than water!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eh? What? Oh! I see! Yes! Quite so!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Our people,” pursued the encouraged Mr. Boon, “have always thought a
- great deal of the English—er—British royal family.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, indeed! Now, Boon, I didn't think you showed great affection for
- George III! What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon blushed to think of Bunker Hill. His daughter was a D. A. R.,
- too! He hastened to change the subject.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mentioned,” he said, as though he were reading aloud from one of the
- sacred books, “some pearl necklaces. At least, I think you did.” He put on
- the tradesman's listening look in advance. It is the look that courtiers
- assume when they listen to his Majesty excitedly telling how once, on a
- hunting-trip, he almost dressed himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes! The pearls are for the Princess Patricia. A necklace to cost not
- over ten thousand. You see, the duke is not one of your Pittsburg
- millionaires. He's not what you'd call rich, in America!” He smiled,
- democratically, as a man always does when he is pleased with his own wit.
- Mr. Boon smiled uncertainly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can't, of course,” he said, regretfully, “do much with ten thousand
- dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not dollars—pounds! Perhaps we may go up to fifteen thousand; but
- his Highness would prefer to keep at about ten thousand pounds. That's
- fifty thousand dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sure we can please his Highness,” said Mr. Boon, with impressive
- confidence. There fleeted across his mind the vision of the tremendous
- value of the advertisement which the royal patronage would give him. The
- papers were full of the doings of the distinguished visitors. He himself
- on his way to the office had been guilty of the pardonable curiosity which
- the lower classes call rubber-necking; and he had even discussed—in
- common with 89,999,999 fellow-Americans—the personal pulchritude of
- the royal ladies. Usually democracy is enabled to apologize to itself for
- its undemocratic interest in feminine royalty by saying, “She isn't at all
- goodlooking.” That excuse, however, did not serve in this instance. The
- Princess Patricia was the most popular girl in New York—with the
- classes because she was the princess, and with the masses because she was
- so pretty! And to think of selling pearls to her!
- </p>
- <p>
- He closed his eyes and ecstatically read what the papers would print about
- the sale! He heard himself saying to Mrs. Carmpick, of Pittsburg: “This
- necklace is handsomer than the one we sold to Princess Patricia!” He heard
- the rattle in the throats of Johnson & Pierce, of J. Storrs' Sons, of
- the sixteen partners of Goffony's, dying from apoplexy superinduced by
- envy, or from starvation following the loss of all the swell customers!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, you realize, of course, Boon, that his Royal Highness's patronage is
- worth many thousands to your firm. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel's eyes, Mr. Boon thought, were cold and greedy, as befitted a
- common grafter. Mr. Boon resented this, having himself been caught
- red-handed getting something for nothing. If he had to pay a commission—“We
- appreciate the honor, of course, Colonel Lowther,” he said, deferentially—and
- non-committally.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so! You ought to, considering how the newspapers will mention your
- shop.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I may suggest, Colonel Lowther, that our firm's reputation—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know its reputation. That's why I am here”—the colonel's voice
- seemed colder than a Canadian cold spell—“but it is no better than
- your competitors'—Goffony, Johnson & Pierce, or J. Storrs' Sons.
- I figured that the duke's patronage should be worth thousands to Welch,
- Boon & Shaw; so you must make me a special price.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We have but one—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've heard all that, Boon,” the colonel interrupted, angrily. “If you are
- going to talk like a bally ass I'll waste no more time here. Bring in the
- pearls. I can't take over a half-hour to this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon's hard sense and knowledge of advertising values triumphed over
- his injured dignity. He excused himself, and presently returned with a
- tray full of pearl necklaces.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I say, Boon, on second thought, you must not reduce your prices. It's a
- bad principle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is,” agreed Boon, cordially.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Therefore, my good fellow, name me one price—the lowest possible
- after considering how much the duke's patronage is worth to your house.
- The very lowest! Put it in plain figures on new price-tags. The duke is
- accustomed to the prices across the pond, you know; so don't frighten him.
- Now that one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He picked up at once the most beautiful necklace—and also the most
- valuable, though by no means the most showy. Mr. Boon's respect jumped. He
- looked at the colonel, whose neck and head were twitching and twisting
- violently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This one—” he began. The colonel interrupted him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, Boon, think carefully—the very lowest price,” he said,
- sternly. “If you name a really reasonable figure I'll pledge you my word
- to recommend its purchase and not visit the other shops. Take your time!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus placed on the rack, Mr. Boon figured and cut and restored and reduced
- again until he was angry at the torturer and at the opportunity for a
- glorious advertisement. Finally he said, vindictively:
- </p>
- <p>
- “This I'll sell for sixty-five thousand dollars!” Immediately he regretted
- it. Perhaps he was overestimating the advertising value of the Princess
- Patricia's beautiful neck to exhibit his pearls on. The price was exactly
- thirty-five thousand dollars less than he had expected to get for it
- during the next steel boom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come now, I say,” remonstrated Colonel Lowther, impatiently. “That's
- thirteen thousand pounds. It's too much, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Lowther,” said Boon, pale but determined, “I am losing
- considerable money on this, which I am charging to advertising account and
- may never get back. If the price is not satisfactory, I'm sorry; and I can
- only suggest that you'd better go to the other firms you've mentioned.
- They are all,” he finished quietly, “very good firms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Lowther, who had not taken his keen eyes off the jeweler's face
- during the speech, appeared impressed by Mr. Boon's earnestness. His neck
- jerked spasmodically half a dozen times before he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I believe you. I'll take it. But first mark it—in pounds; thirteen
- thousand pounds.” And he looked on, eagle-eyed, while Mr. Boon himself
- wrote out a new price-tag. Evidently he would take no chances with
- sleight-of-hand substitutions. “Put it here,” he said, “beside me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It made Mr. Boon say, half angry, half amused: “We won't change it for an
- imitation string. We are really a reputable firm, Colonel Lowther.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! Ah! Really, I—ah!” stammered the colonel, “I wasn't thinking of
- such a thing!” He looked so absurdly guilty, however, that Mr. Boon
- forgave him. “I think you'd better show me others—ah!—cheaper,
- you know, in case the duke should not wish to go above ten thousand
- pounds. Say, that one—and this!—and this!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had selected the three next best; but Boon figured very closely and in
- all instances named a price below cost: fifty-seven thousand five hundred
- dollars, fifty thousand dollars, and forty-five thousand dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Put them here also with the first one,” said Colonel Lowther..
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't you wish us to put them in boxes?” asked Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah—ah!—I say, bring the boxes in and I'll put them in. We'll
- do it more quickly,” he finished, lamely.
- </p>
- <p>
- There flashed across Mr. Boon's mind the possibility of crookedness.
- Colonel Lowther did not trust them—perhaps because he hoped to avert
- suspicions by that same attitude of distrust! Mr. Boon determined to watch
- closely. He asked a clerk to bring some cases for the necklaces.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You fix them, Boon,” said Colonel Lowther, who was watching the jeweler's
- hands as children watch the hands of a prestidigitator.
- </p>
- <p>
- It actually eased Boon's mind to be taken for a crook. He arranged the
- necklaces, each in its own Russia-leather case, and then gratefully helped
- Colonel Lowther to select two dozen scarf-pins, amounting in value to
- eighteen thousand dollars, a score of rings worth in all a little over
- twenty-five thousand dollars, and a few lorgnette-chains and other
- trinkets. Once all these were duly price-tagged, packed, and placed beside
- the necklaces, Colonel Lowther, after a series of mild cervical
- convulsions, said, calmly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, Boon, you and I must settle a personal matter. You know, of course,
- the royal party never pays cash.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then,” said the impetuous Mr. Boon, “the deal is off!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Silly ass! The royal family of England always pays. You know very well
- that the jewels bought by King George for gifts for his coronation guests
- have not been paid for yet. It's all a matter of red tape. The money is as
- safe as the Bank of England! Any banker here would be glad to guarantee
- the account—only that would never do, of course. Now you know I
- can't take any commission. I've made you give me the lowest prices for the
- duke, haven't I? What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, you have; and therefore I can't—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I were a bally Russian I'd have made you name a price twice the usual
- figure and I'd have taken the difference as a commission. It's what you
- Americans call graft, I believe. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said Boon, coldly, disgusted with the venal aristocracy,
- “we'd never have done such a—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tut, tut! It's done everywhere; but not to me!” Colonel Lowther said, so
- sternly that Mr. Boon considered himself accused of unnamed crimes. He
- resented this, but, being unable to fix the exact accusation, contented
- himself with remarking, diplomatically:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course not! But at the same time—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes,” rudely broke in the colonel, with a silencing wave of his
- gloved hand. “Now I can myself pay you in cash for whatever the duke buys—say,
- up to twenty thousand or twenty-five thousand pounds. For advancing this
- money, which will not be paid to me for months, I ask you to allow me a
- half-year's interest. That,” finished Colonel Lowther, impressively, “is
- banking. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At what rate?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, eight or ten per cent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, Mr. Welch, Boon, or whatever your name is, I wish you a very good
- morning!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But we'll allow you interest at the rate of six per cent, a year.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I myself have to pay five for the use—ah!—that is—er—”
- floundered the Englishman. Mr. Boon perceived instantly that the colonel
- borrowed the money from Canadian bankers at five per cent, and got ten per
- cent. It was not a bad scheme for high-class aristocratic graft! Even a
- jeweler could philosophize about wilful self-delusion, the point of view,
- custom, and so on. “Make it seven per cent. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon could not help admiring the persistency of the Englishman in
- coating his graft-pills with the sugar of legitimacy. Doubtless the
- colonel had really convinced himself this was not graft!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” said Mr. Boon, with a smile. “I'll take three and a half per
- cent, off for cash.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But we agreed on seven!” remonstrated the Englishman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, three and a half per cent, of the whole is the same as six months
- at seven per cent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” The colonel began to figure in his mind. His cervical contortions,
- twitchings, and jerkings were painful to behold. Mr. Boon thought it was a
- mild form of St. Vitus's dance. It would enable him to recognize the
- colonel in a crowd of ten thousand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so! Yes—three and a half per cent, of the total bill. It will
- be at least twenty thousand pounds—that's one hundred thousand
- dollars. Not half bad! What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean your commission will be one hundred thousand dollars? I'm
- delighted to hear it!” Mr. Boon was so pleased that he jested. He would
- play up the royal patronage to the limit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh no! I meant the total amount, you know,” corrected the colonel,
- earnestly. He saw that Boon was smiling, and gradually it dawned on him
- that the jeweler was an American humorist. “Oh! Ah! Yes! Very funny! Quite
- so! I wish it were! How many millions would the bill have to be for the
- cash discount to be twenty thousand pounds? What? Right-O! Well, now bring
- the pearls and the other things to the motor. I shall show them to his
- Royal Highness at once. I can let you know in a half-hour which he will
- keep.” And he rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!—er—Colonel, you know we don't like to—ah!—there's
- over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, worth four hundred
- thousand dollars in any other place in New York; and if anything happened—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing will happen,” said the colonel, with assurance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And then, it will take a long time to prepare the memorandum of—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you need a memorandum?” inquired the colonel, coldly. He looked as
- if he began to suspect that Mr. Boon distrusted a member of the suite of
- his Royal Highness, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T.,
- K.P., P.C., G.M.B., G.3. S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., Duke of
- Connaught and Stratheam, Earl of Sussex, Prince of Coburg and Gotha,
- Governor-General of Canada, and potential customer of the world-renowned
- firm of Welch, Boon & Shaw.
- </p>
- <p>
- Reading the emotions on the colonel's face and not desiring to offend, but
- at the same time determined not to deliver two hundred thousand dollars'
- worth of goods to a stranger, who might be the duke's secretary, but might
- not be a reliable man financially, for all that, Mr. Boon groped for an
- excuse. But Colonel Lowther pursued, frigidly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why should you need a memorandum if you yourself will bring the jewels?
- Did you think I was a bally clerk to sell your jewels for you? You do the
- talking—and don't change the prices!”
- </p>
- <p>
- So profoundly relieved as not to resent the last insult, Mr. Boon smiled
- pleasantly and said, “I must take a man to carry them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take a regiment if you wish; but there's room for only three in the
- motor,” said the Englishman, his neck twitching and twisting and jerking
- quite violently. Anger seemed to aggravate his nervous malady. Wherefore
- Mr. Boon hastily gathered up the packages, put them into a jeweler's
- strong valise, and followed the colonel, accompanied by Terry Donnelly,
- the store's private policeman, who carried the precious satchel in one
- hand, and in the other—in his overcoat pocket—an automatic
- pistol of the latest model.
- </p>
- <p>
- One of the clerks must have told of the affair, for there was an eager
- crowd on the sidewalk. They had heard that the Duke of Connaught's
- secretary was in the store, buying diamonds. By the time it had passed
- seven mouths it was the duke himself. Mr. Boon heard: “There he comes!”
- and, “Is the princess with him?” and, “Which is the duke?” And he had
- pleasant visions of free reading-notices and renewed popularity among the
- ultra-fashionable. One of the traffic squad was trying to make the crowd
- move on—in vain.
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel good-naturedly forced his way through the mob to the motor,
- followed by the jeweler and the store policeman, who saw on the door of
- the limousine the letters “W. R.” And both of them concluded that this
- stood for the well-known initials of the duke's host.
- </p>
- <p>
- A short woman, with red hair and a self-assertive bust, stared boldly at
- the colonel and said, “He don't look like his pictures.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say, are you the duke?” asked a messenger-boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- However, the colonel merely said “Home!” and entered the motor, followed
- by Mr. Boon and T. Donnelly. The store footman closed the door as if it
- were made of priceless cut-glass. The traffic policeman touched his cap
- and the motor went up the Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel picked up a newspaper from the seat and turned to Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “See!” he said, “our pictures. Your reporters are—ah!—very
- enterprising and clever. But the photographers are worse!” He laughed and
- went on: “The pictures don't look like me, d'ye think?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I recognize the coat and the fur cap,” laughed Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, do you?” said the colonel, seriously. He looked at it and said: “But
- it might be my other fur cap, you know. What?” He looked challengingly at
- the jeweler.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It might be,” admitted Mr. Boon, diplomatically confessing his error.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so!” said the owner of the fur cap, triumphantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon, finding himself nearer the house of the duke's host, began to
- feel more confident of putting through the epoch-making deal. It is not
- often that a New York jeweler sells pearls to an uncle of the King of
- England, to be used by the king's most beautiful cousin! He would have the
- princess's photograph in his window. It should show the famous necklace!
- </p>
- <p>
- The motor took its place last in the long string of automobiles and
- carriages that were creeping toward the door of the house which his Royal
- Highness was honoring.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Democracy meekly leaving its card at the house of royalty,” laughed the
- colonel, pointing to the twoscore vehicles ahead of theirs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Americans paying their respects to an Englishman who is honored even in
- his own country,” said Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, now, I say, Boon, that's uncommonly neat, you know. What? But perhaps
- we'd better get out and walk; otherwise it may be a half-hour before—”
- </p>
- <p>
- A footman in livery came up to their motor, touched his hat with a respect
- that entitled him to a bank president's wages, and said to the colonel:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg pardon, sir, but 'is Royal 'ighness 'as gone to Mr. Walton's, sir,
- at number 899 Fifth Avenue. I was hinstructed to tell you to go there,
- sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell the chauffeur where to go,” said the colonel, briefly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir—very good, sir.” The man touched his hat and told the
- chauffeur.
- </p>
- <p>
- Their motor pulled out of the line and turned to the west.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Walton was at Eton with the duke,” explained the colonel to Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “J. G. Walton?” asked Mr. Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn't know he was educated in England,” said Mr. Boon in a tone that
- implied he knew Mr. Walton well.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Didn't you?” said the colonel, more sharply than the occasion warranted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But then, we never discussed the subject,” apologized the jeweler.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know the house?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. I've been in it several times. I understood Mr. Walton was in
- Florida and had rented his residence for the winter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know a bally thing about his private affairs,” said the colonel,
- coldly; “but I do know the duke intended to visit him, and I've been told
- to go there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It occurred to the store detective that if the Englishman was rude to Mr.
- Boon it was altogether likely the duke treated his private secretary as a
- servant. It gave the detective pleasure to imagine this, for whenever the
- colonel had looked at Mr. Donnelly it was with the casual indifference
- with which men look at chairs or cobblestones. This made T. Donnelly feel
- that he was not alive, and he disliked the aristocratic undertaker.
- </p>
- <p>
- The motor turned into Fifth Avenue, sped northward, and halted before a
- house. Mr. Boon recognized Mr. Walton's residence.
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel alighted quickly and said “Come with me!” in the tone
- foreigners use to menials, and didn't even turn his head to see if he was
- followed, but walked up to the door and rang the bell.
- </p>
- <p>
- A man in livery opened the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am Colonel Lowther!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. His Royal Highness said you were to wait in the drawing-room
- unless there was somebody with you; in which case you were to be taken to
- him, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come on!” said the colonel to Mr. Boon and the private policeman. The
- footman preceded them to a door at the back of the foyer hall, opened it,
- drew back heavy portières, and announced, solemnly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Lowther!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The colonel entered. So did Mr. Boon and Donnelly. A man stood gazing out
- of a window. His back was toward them. For the first time Mr. Boon—so
- he said later—felt that something was wrong. Yet he made no effort
- to protect himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Highness, here are the pearls.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The duke turned round. He had a kindly face, had white hair and mustaches.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me have them!” said his Royal Highness, in the husky whisper of a man
- suffering from acute laryngitis or partial paralysis of the vocal cords.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know that voice!” shouted Donnelly, and the jeweler knew he might fear
- the worst; but, before they could put their hands in their pockets for
- their revolvers, strong fingers took strangle-holds on their throats, a
- spray of ammonia had been squirted into their nostrils and eyes, and they
- were helpless. In a jiffy their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs,
- their feet were fastened with leg-irons, their mouths pried open with a
- bowie-knife blade that made them cease struggling. Pear-gags were inserted
- into their mouths. Donnelly squirmed and carried on like a frightened
- child—but at the same time kept unfrightened eyes on the duke. Not
- so Boon, who was as pale as ivory.
- </p>
- <p>
- The duke turned his back on his captives and put on a black cloth mask,
- but the watchful Donnelly noticed that he put into his pocket what looked
- like false mustaches. He also donned a pair of black gloves, but not
- before the policeman had seen a long, white scar, beginning at the
- knuckles and disappearing up the wrist into the cuff. Donnelly recalled
- having heard or read a description of a professional crook that tallied
- with what he had seen. It would make the work of capture easier.
- </p>
- <p>
- The masked duke picked up the precious valise and said, “Take them to the
- others.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The four men who had nearly strangled the jeweler and the policeman were
- dressed in overalls and jumpers, had on black masks, and wore gloves. They
- carried the helpless victims into what seemed to be the servants'
- dining-room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Propped up in high-backed chairs, Mr. Jesse L. Boon, of Welch, Boon &
- Shaw, saw Mr. Wilfred Gaylord, president of Goffony's, Mr. Percival
- Pierce, of Johnson & Pierce, Mr. J. Sumner Storrs, of J. Storrs' Sons,
- and five of their clerks. Beside Mr. Pierce was an empty chair. Mr. Boon
- was placed on it. The detective was dumped on one near Goffony's clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tie 'em in couples,” whispered the duke. Each man was tied to the back of
- his chair—and the chairs themselves were tied back to back.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That,” explained the colonel, “will prevent you from hurting yourselves
- by toppling over in regrettable efforts to reach the door. We wish no harm
- to befall you. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The masked men in overalls left the room like perfectly trained servants.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are a damned fool!” whispered the duke, angrily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” amiably asked the Englishman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The only people that don't talk are those that can't.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know—but murder will out! Never knew it to fail. We have—ah!—you
- might say—ah!—borrowed a few trinkets from these gentlemen.
- They may get them back, possibly; but you can't ever bring back the breath
- of life if you decapitate them. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I tell you I will not leave them here to blab!” hissed the duke; and Boon
- could not help thinking of the anger of a rattlesnake with laryngitis. “A
- slight nick in the jugular and they'll bleed away painlessly. Just before
- the end they will begin to dream. By———, I'll do it!
- Right now!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The duke pulled out a barber's razor, opened it, and approached Boon.
- </p>
- <p>
- Something about his manner told the jeweler that this creature was about
- to cut their throats as much for the pleasure of it as because of the
- supposed safety. It was confirmed when the masked fiend wheezed,
- malignantly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's sterilized!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Boon was suddenly conscious of an extreme cold, as if he had been
- thrown naked into an ice-cave. On Pierce's face, grown gray, the sweat
- stood in a microscopic dew. Gaylord's florid face was livid and tense; J.
- Sumner Storrs had closed his eyes and seemed asleep, but the breath
- whistled unpleasantly through his nostrils.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stop!” said the colonel so sharply that the duke turned like a flash—to
- look into the barrel of a blue-steel automatic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Drop the razor, old chap! I can't let you kill the beggars in cold blood.
- Upon my soul, I can't, you know!” His head was jerking and twisting at a
- furious rate, but the revolver was as steady as a rock.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's our only chance. It won't hurt them. They won't feel it any more
- than a feather—it's so sharp,” whispered the black-masked devil.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Drop it, I say!” said the colonel, peremptorily. They heard a gritting of
- teeth from behind the mask as the duke closed the razor and dropped it on
- the floor. Still covering his accomplice, the colonel put his foot on the
- weapon. “Thanks, old chap!” he said, pleasantly. At that very moment he
- could have capitalized the gratitude of the ten prisoners at many
- thousands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fool!” came in a husky whisper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, now! I say!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the difference between twenty years in the pen and twenty seconds
- in the electric chair? I myself prefer the chair. But I'd rather cut their
- throats and keep out of danger. I tell you, it's tempting Providence to
- leave these men—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it as much as twenty years, old fellow?” queried the colonel,
- obviously perturbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The duke nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I say, gentlemen, I don't want to stay twenty years indoors, you know.
- Really, it's not a pleasant thought. What? If I give you your lives you
- must not take away my liberty. So I will go out now and leave you here
- with my friend, unless you promise not to tell the police anything that
- will serve as a clue and yourselves do nothing to harm us. If you will act
- like gentlemen I'll undertake to prevent my friend here from severing your
- respective jugulars. Nod for 'Yes' and shake your heads for 'No.' Promise
- not to talk?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Ten heads nodded vehemently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come, old chap; you must take their words. Gentlemen, you will be
- released this evening without fail. We must have time to leave New York.
- Avoid the reporters as you would the plague. It would not be wise to
- publish the facts! Think of it—the heads of the great firms! In
- parting from you, gentlemen, I wish to thank you in behalf of the Plunder
- Recovery Syndicate, to the success of whose operations you have in this
- instance so generously contributed. Gratitude surely is not incompatible
- with business methods. Gentleman, again I say, Thank you kindly, and—
- why not?—<i>au revoir!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- And that was the last the captives saw of the man who, on behalf of the
- Plunder Recovery Syndicate, had reduced the holdings of pearls and
- trinkets of New York's most famous jewelers by a trifle over one million
- dollars' worth.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was nearly closing-time—midnight—that night when two men
- entered P. T. Ayres's corner drugstore. One of them wore a fur overcoat
- and a silk hat. The other was dressed in black, had a mourning-band about
- his hat, and wore black gloves. He carried a bag on which the sleepy lady
- cashier saw the “L” and the cabin tags of a transatlantic line. The man in
- black said to her:
- </p>
- <p>
- “May this gentleman telephone for me, miss? My throat is in pretty bad
- shape, and I don't want to use it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in bad shape, indeed. She could hardly hear him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, I say, dear chap—” remonstrated the fur-coated man, whose
- collar was so tight that he wiggled his head violently as if in search of
- comfort.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is as good a place as any,” whispered the man in black, impatiently.
- “Call 'em up! I say, miss, have you got any slippery elm or some kind of
- troches good for laryngitis?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She remembered afterward that when she said she would call the proprietor
- he kept her from it by engaging her in conversation, which likewise
- prevented her from trying to hear what his companion was saying.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fur-coated man had called up Spring 3100, which is police
- headquarters.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you there? I say, are you there? Yes, I know this is not London. You
- know Mr. Pierce and Mr. Storrs and Mr. Boon and Mr. Gaylord? Well, tell
- your men they are in a residence on Fifth Avenue, in the servants'
- dining-room. It's Colonel Walton's house. Right-O! That's not your
- business. Go to the devil!” He came out of the booth with an angry face.
- “Confound their impudence! Where is my friend?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's gone,” said the cashier. “Here—come back and pay for that
- call; five cents!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The telephone clerk at police headquarters promptly told the news of the
- whereabouts of the missing jewelers—for whom the star men had been
- searching six hours diligently and secretly—and then tried, through
- the telephone Central, to get in touch with the pay station from which the
- “tip” had come, but couldn't, as they would not answer. The reason Ayres's
- drug-store wouldn't answer was that the Englishman in his ignorance had
- disarranged the connection without betraying that fact. The detectives
- said it showed a technical knowledge of telephones and their construction.
- </p>
- <p>
- The news was kept from the newspapers, in the first place, because the
- jewelers requested it of the Police Department; and, secondly, because it
- was deemed wise by the sleuths to fight mystery with mystery. As a matter
- of fact, the detectives were confident of apprehending the miscreants
- shortly—for had they not left a trail as broad as Fifth Avenue?
- </p>
- <p>
- The jewelers went back on their words to the colonel, who saved their
- lives. From their descriptions and the information given by Ayres and the
- fair cashier, they knew the husky-voiced man with the scar on the back of
- his hand must be Whispering Willie, a clever all-round crook. The
- Englishman, they thought, was an amateur. The police communicated with the
- <i>Ruritania</i> by wireless, and asked the purser if among the passengers
- were a man of middle height, smooth-shaven, about forty years of age, with
- paralyzed vocal cords that made him talk as if he had acute laryngitis,
- and a tall, well-built, blue-eyed, blond Englishman with a nervous
- affliction of the neck like a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. Within
- twenty-four hours the purser had sent the reply: “St. Vitus here, under
- name of Lewis J. Wright. No trace of Laryngitis.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So headquarters cabled to Scotland Yard to hold the tall blond afflicted
- with St. Vitus's dance, who was thought to have sailed under the name of
- Lewis J. Wright, until the detective sergeant and one of the jeweler's
- clerks could arrive with extradition papers. And that's how Mr. L. J.
- Wright was arrested in Liverpool, less on account of New York's request
- than by reason of the absurd yarn he told. There was no such Dr. Cephas W.
- Atterbury as Wright declared he was going to see. The letter of
- introduction to the doctor, moreover, was a blank sheet of paper. The New
- York police learned about W. W. Lovell in this way and knew they were on
- the right trail.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ten days later there was arrested in Paris, at the office of the American
- Express Company, a man answering the description of Whispering Willie, who
- had presented some checks signed by W. W. Lowry. The Paris police reported
- that W. W. Lowry was probably one of a band, because the scar on his hand
- vanished when washed with alcohol. And his voice grew normal when
- questioned by the prefect of police. He told an absurd story of having
- been hired at the rate of one thousand dollars a week to ask in a whisper
- for eleven letters at the American Express Company's office on February
- 11th, at 11.11 a.m., and declared that when his employer bade him good-by
- on the steamer he painted a scar on the back of his hand and told him
- always to wear black gloves. The employer answered the description of
- Whispering Willie and also of W. W. Lovell. The police found that the
- whisperer's trail led a second time to the <i>Herald</i> office. The
- clerk, Carroll, remembered the mysterious advertiser very well indeed.
- Messrs. Reese & Silliman, real-estate agents, told the police they had
- rented Colonel Walton's house for the winter to a Mr. J. C. Atkinson, an
- Englishman who had given as references a firm of international bankers on
- whom his letter of credit for five thousand pounds was drawn. The bankers
- knew nothing about him personally or socially. Mr. Atkinson had drawn the
- entire five thousand pounds. He had occupied the house two months, paid
- his rent promptly, and had given a satisfactory deposit against possible
- damage happening to any of the furniture.
- </p>
- <p>
- The police had lost four weeks of valuable time in following clues that
- merely led back to the St. Iago Building and to the man with the paralyzed
- vocal cords and the scar on the back of his hand, calling himself W. W.
- Lovell, who was probably William W. Long, alias William W. Longworth,
- alias W. W. Latshay, alias Whispering Willie. The Englishman was not known
- to any member of the New York police force, but fortunately he had a
- nervous affliction which would betray him without recourse to the third
- degree.
- </p>
- <p>
- Exactly one month after the departure of the real Duke of Connaught from
- New York Messrs. Jesse L. Boon, Percival Pierce, J. Sumner Storrs, and
- Wilfred Gaylord each received a copy of the following letter, typewritten
- on note-paper of the Ritz-Carlton:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Having disposed of the pearls of the Princess Patricia at a price only
- eight per cent, below that at which you offered them to H. R. H. the Duke
- of Connaught, we beg to suggest that it is a waste of money for you to
- encourage the detectives and downright dishonesty for the detectives to
- encourage you. You have caused to be arrested unfortunate men suffering
- from chorea in Liverpool, Bremen, Genoa, Buenos Ayres, and Panama, as well
- as Mr. W. W. Lowry in Paris and W. W. Longman in the City of Mexico. For
- the last eleven months Whispering Willie has been in the Missouri State
- Penitentiary, where he is Number 317. Our Colonel Lowther has not St.
- Vitus's dance, is not an Englishman, and has not left New York! The Duke
- of Connaught, otherwise W. W. Lovell, of the Acme Vibrator Company, has a
- fine, strong barytone voice, has no scar on the back of his right hand, is
- too young to have gray hair, and his nose is not what it was when he was
- known as Mr. Lovell. We needed time to move about unwatched in New York,
- hence the elaborate false clues. We always plan our deals carefully and we
- are uniformly successful. We may inform you, in selfdefense, that we
- operate only on the rich enemies of society. Pearls and diamonds have
- ruined as many women as drink has ruined men or Wall Street has destroyed
- souls! We regard them as plunder to be recovered. You may be interested to
- know that we propose to induce one of our most famous high financiers to
- contribute a couple of millions to our surplus this month. At the proper
- time we shall supply the name and the particulars, in order that you may
- compare notes with the other patrons of</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Yours truly,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>The Plunderers.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The jewelers were inclined to regard the letter as a jest in very bad
- taste perpetrated by one of their number. But all denied it, and the
- communication was turned over to the police. The detective sergeant who
- was in charge of the case also thought the letter was a joke—until
- Mr. Boon told him he didn't see anything funny in the loss of a million
- dollars' worth of gems and a score of false arrests. He wondered, like the
- rest, whether there really was a syndicate, and presently found himself
- waiting for the news of the second exploit. “He fooled <i>me</i>” Boon
- confided to Donnelly. But what he really meant was that the man who
- impersonated the private secretary of the Duke of Connaught could fool
- anybody.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- II-THE PANIC OF THE LION
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> MAN walked into
- the office of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, members of the
- New York Stock Exchange. All he could see was a ground-glass partition,
- with little windows only a trifle larger than peepholes, over which he
- read, “deliveries,” “comparisons,” “telegrams,” and “cashier.” If you had
- business to transact you knew at which window to knock. If you had not you
- should not disturb the unseen clerks by asking questions that took
- valuable time to answer. It was a typical, non-communicative,
- non-confiding Wall Street office.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man approached the “cashier” window because it was open. He was tall
- and well built, with unmyopic eyes that looked through
- tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses. The brim of his high hat, the cut of his
- coat, the hang of his trousers, the hue of his necktie and the gray,
- waxed, needle-pointed mustaches proclaimed him unmistakably Parisian.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see Mr. Richards,” he said, in a nasal voice, so like the twang
- of a stage Yankee that the cashier frowned and twisted his neck to see if
- some down-easter were not hiding behind the Frenchman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You what?” asked the cashier, and looked watchful.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see,” repeated the stranger, with a formal precision meant, to
- be rebuking, “Mr. George B. Richards, senior member, I believe, of this
- firm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The cashier, with a frown that belied the courtesy of his words, said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you be kind enough to tell me the nature of your business, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gourley, the cashier, insanely hated book agents, and his one pleasure in
- life consisted of violently ejecting them from the office. When a man
- clearly established his innocence Gourley never forgave him for cheating
- him out of the kicking.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stranger said, very slowly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The nature of my business with Mr. Richards is private, personal, and
- urgent!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The stranger might, be a customer, and customers make brokers rich and
- give wages to cashiers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Richards is very busy just now, sir, with an important conference. It
- would be a favor if you could let me have your name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He doesn't know me and he has never heard my name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would any one else do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The stranger shook his head. Then:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say to Mr. Richards that a gentleman from Paris wishes to give to him—personally—ten
- letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret.” The man's
- gaze was fixed frowningly on Gourley.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ten letters of introduction, one card of same, and one life secret!”
- repeated Gourley, dazedly. “Here, Otto. Hold the fort. I'll go myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The cashier's place was promptly occupied by a moon-faced Teuton.
- Presently Gourley, whose misanthropy had in this instance merely made an
- office-boy of him, returned to the window and said, in the insolent tones
- of a puglistic <i>agent provocateur</i>:
- </p>
- <p>
- “He says to send in the letters of introduction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My friend,” said the stranger, so impressively that the cashier was made
- uneasy, “are you sure Mr. Richards said that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well—ah—he said,” stammered Gourley, “to ask you—er—would
- you please send in the letters. He will read them, and as soon as possible
- he will—ah—see you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “H'm!” muttered the stranger, skeptically. Then, as a man rids himself of
- angry thoughts, he shook his head and, without another word, went out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ha! I knew it all along,” said Gourley, triumphantly, to his assistant,
- Otto. “It beats the Dutch what schemes these damned book agents get up to
- see people during business hours. But I called his bluff that time!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Less than ten minutes later the French-looking man with the down-east
- voice opened the door, tapped at the cashier's window, and told Gourley,
- sternly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here are the ten letters and the one card. They are very important! I'll
- be obliged, sir, if you will yourself give them into Mr. Richards's own
- hands. The life secret I, of course, will impart to him myself. Make
- haste, please. I have only five business days and three hours left.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gourley laid the letters on Mr. Richards's desk and said, in the accusing
- tone old employees use when they are in the wrong: “Here are the letters
- of introduction from the book agent I spoke to you about. He acts damned
- impudent to me, but I didn't want to make any mistake.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards, a man of fifty, fastidiously dressed, but relieved from even the
- implication of foppishness by a look in his eyes at once shrewd and
- humorous, said, with a smile, “Well, he certainly has enough letters to be
- anything, even a rich man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Funny letters of introduction,” said the cashier—“all sealed and—”
- His jaw dropped. That made him cease talking.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Richards had taken from the first envelope not a letter, but a
- ten-thousand-dollar gold certificate!
- </p>
- <p>
- The cashier closed his mouth with a click. “What the—!” he muttered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Next!” said George B. Richards, cheerfully. He opened envelope number two
- and pulled out another ten-thousand-dollar bill. One after another he
- opened the letters until he had laid in a neat pile on his desk ten
- ten-thousand-dollar notes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The letters of introduction are from the Treasury Department,” said
- Richards, laughing. “Now let us see whom the card is from.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't care whom the card is from. I know the man is crazy,” said
- Gourley, in the defiant tone of one who expects not logic, but
- contradiction. “It is as plain as the nose on your face.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Maybe they are counterfeit,” teased Richards; he knew they were not.
- </p>
- <p>
- The cashier snatched one from the desk, looked at the vignette of Jackson,
- and examined the back. “It's good,” he said, gloomily.
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards opened the eleventh envelope and took out a card.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From Amos Kidder, of the Evening Planet,” he told Gourley, and read
- aloud:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Dear George,—The bearer, Mr. James B. Robison, of Paris, France,
- a friend of Smiley, our correspondent there, asked me to recommend some
- highly intelligent stock-brokers. I, of course, at once thought of you.
- Deal with him as you do with</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Yours,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Amos F. Kidder.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “Maybe it's a set of those French books that are awful until you've signed
- the contract and Volume I. comes, and they are not awful at all. Those
- fellows,” said the cashier, indignantly, “will do anything to get your
- money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You forget I've got his,” suggested Richards.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's a new one on me, I admit,” said the cashier; “but I'll bet a
- ten-spot—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll have no gambling in this office! Send in Mr. Robison; and if Kidder
- should happen in, tell him I'd like to see him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The waxed-mustached man, preceded by Otto, the moon-faced clerk, entered
- the private office of Mr. George B. Richards, who rose and smiled
- pleasantly even as his keen eyes quickly inventoried Mr. Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Richards?” twanged the stranger. That Yankee voice issuing from
- between those unmistakably French mustaches made Richards start; and yet
- the vague atmosphere of disquietude and suspicion that the ten letters of
- introduction had created seemed to be dispelled by the man's Yankee twang.
- It was so genuinely down-east that it humanized Mr. Robison and made his
- eccentricity less eccentric. Also, the eyes gleamed not with the fire of
- insanity, but with a great earnestness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. And this is Mr. Robison?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir!” Mr. Robison bowed very low, like a man who has lived abroad
- many years.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Won't you be seated, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, sir.” There was another bow of gratitude, and Mr. Robison sat
- down by Richards's flat-topped desk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What can we do for you, Mr. Robison?” asked Richards, amiably polite. His
- course of action would be determined by the stranger's own words.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can help me if you will.” Mr. Robison spoke very earnestly, after the
- manner of strong, self-reliant men when they ask for favors.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We shall be glad to if you will tell me how.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By being patient. That's how.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards laughed uncertainly. Mr. Robison held up a hand as if to check
- unseemly merriment and said, very seriously:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have lived alone too long to be politic or diplomatic or evasive. I
- wish to ask you a question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ask ahead,” said Richards, with an encouraging recklessness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell me, Mr. Richards—what is the most difficult thing in the
- world?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison was looking intently at the broker's face, as if he
- particularly desired to detect any change in expression. This intentness
- disconcerted Richards, who had at first intended to answer jocularly. He
- now said, distinctly apologetic:
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are so many very difficult things!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, there are—a great many indeed. But of all things, which is by
- far the most difficult?” His eyes held Richards's.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall have to think a little before I can answer that question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take all the time you wish!” and Mr. Robison leaned back in his chair,
- his attitude somehow suggesting a Gibraltar-like ability to withstand a
- three years' siege.
- </p>
- <p>
- It made Richards do much thinking very quickly: Here was a man who was not
- crazy; who had lying on the desk a hundred thousand dollars in cash to
- which he had not even casually referred; who probably intended to do
- business that would prove a source of profit to the firm of Richards &
- Tuttle. He might be a crank or a crook, but against either contingency the
- firm could and would protect itself. It was just as well to humor this man
- until he proved himself unworthy of humoring. The problem of the moment,
- therefore, became how to raise the siege politely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose,” began Richards, trying to look philosophical, “that telling
- the truth always and every-, where is about as difficult a thing as—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn't a question,” interrupted Robison, with a polite regret, “of as
- difficult a thing as any, but of the most difficult of all!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am afraid I'll have to ask you to tell me what you consider the most
- difficult thing in the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Brokers have to earn their money in more complicated ways than by shouting
- “Sold!” or “Take it!” on the floor of the Stock Exchange. They have to
- listen to potential customers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The most difficult thing in the world, Mr. George B. Richards, is for a
- man to give money—in cash—to a woman who is not his wife or
- his mistress or a blood-relation or a pauper!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That <i>is</i> difficult!” acquiesced the broker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is what I have to do. That is why I am here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean you wish us to give this money—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—no! How can you, pray, give money to a lady any better than I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wondered,” said Richards, patiently. He was beginning to fear that
- Robison might be one of those mysterious people out of whom no money is to
- be made.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you mind hearing my story?” Mr. Robison looked at Richards
- pleadingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not at all,” politely lied the broker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is a lady in New York—to be explicit, an old sweetheart—”
- Mr. Robison paused, bit his lip, looked away, bit his lip again and
- cleared his throat loudly. He did all these things so untheatrically that
- they thrilled the keen-eyed Wall Street man. Presently Mr. Robison went on
- in that Yankee nasal voice of his that somehow sounded like the extreme
- antithesis of sentiment: “The only woman I ever loved! I have never
- married! She did—unfortunately; and now, this girl, this woman,
- accustomed to every comfort and every refinement, has to earn her own
- living! She has five children and she is earning her living!” He rose and
- walked up and down the office like a caged wild animal. Then he sat down
- again and said, determinedly, “Of course I simply have to do something for
- her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I appreciate your position,” said Richards, tenderly. He was a very good
- stock-broker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. You cannot imagine what she was to me! I came to America to
- find her. I have found her. I wish to give her money or securities that
- will insure a comfortable income, and I have to do it circuitously. I'd
- give half a million to anybody who killed her damned husband! Yes, I
- would!” He looked at Richards with a wild hope in his eyes. He calmed
- himself with an obvious effort and proceeded: “Knowing her as I do, and
- because of—of certain circumstances of our early affair, I know she
- will never accept any help directly from me. Last night I was calling on
- her. Other friends of hers were present, among them a man who called
- himself a lawyer. His name is W. Bailey Jackson. Know him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I don't. I think I've heard of him, though.” Richards lied from sheer
- force of professional habit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I led the conversation round to Wall Street and incidentally said I
- didn't know which was easier for a man, to be a fool or to make money in
- the stock-market. I, myself, I hastened to add, had always found folly
- extremely easy—but successful stock speculation infinitely easier.
- That, I may remark to you in passing, sir, is gospel truth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are right,” agreed Richards, heartily. It did not behoove a
- stock-broker to point out the difficulty of making money in Wall Street.
- Moreover, Mr. Robison showed so quiet a confidence that Richards had
- lightning flashes of memory, and recollected every story he had ever heard
- about queer characters who had taken millions out of the Street.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This Mr. W. Bailey Jackson jeered and sneered, however, until I said I
- would bet him fifty dollars to fifty cents that I could double a sum of
- money in the Street in one week, in a reputable broker's office, operating
- on the New York Stock Exchange in a reputable and active stock—no
- bucket-shop, no mining-stock, and no pool manipulation. But I made this
- point: The trick was so easy that it was not interesting. I didn't wish to
- do it to make money, but if Mrs.—if my friend would accept the
- profits, I would prove that I knew what I was talking about; and, besides,
- would keep the children in candy for a month. And, of course, everybody
- laughed and urged her to consent—especially the Jackson person. In
- the end she gave in, doubtless thinking I'd win a few dollars—if I
- won at all. Also my offer was accepted in the presence and by the advice
- of men and women who could stop Mrs. Grundy's mouth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very clever!” said Richards, with the enthusiasm of a man who sees
- commissions coming his way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was love that made me so ingenious,” explained. Mr. Robison, very
- simply. “I've got her written acceptance in my pocket as well as that
- damned W. Bailey Jackson's bet, duly witnessed by the two gossipiest women
- there. And in this envelope you will find instructions for your guidance
- in case of my sudden death. So I now wish to double the money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked inquiringly at Richards, who thereupon felt the pangs of
- disappointment. Neither crank nor crook, decided the broker, but simply <i>Suckerius
- Americanus; genus</i> D. F.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison evidently was going to ask Richards & Tuttle to take the
- one hundred thousand dollars and double it for him, which meant that Mr.
- Richards would have to inform Mr. Robison that the firm was not in the
- miracle business; and that would make Mr. Robison go away mad. Total—no
- commissions!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” Richards said, just a trifle coldly, “did you come to us to ask us
- to double your money for you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, indeed,” answered Robison; “I came here to do it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In one week—or, rather, in five days and two hours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How are you going to do it?” The broker's curiosity was not feigned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I propose to study the Menagerie.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards said nothing, but looked “Lunatic!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That way inevitably suggests the combinations to you.” Mr. Robison nodded
- to himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards, to be on the safe side, did likewise and muttered, absently,
- “That's so!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you care to come with me?” asked Mr. Robison, with a politeness that
- betrayed effort. “Thank you, no. I am very busy, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you didn't cut me short!” said Robison, his voice ringing with
- remorse. “I'll come in tomorrow morning. Good afternoon—and please
- forgive my theft of your time, Mr. Richards.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One moment. Do you wish this money—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll get the receipt to-morrow. I am going to see Kidder now. I didn't
- mean to take up so much of your time.” And before the banker could stop
- him Mr. James B. Robison was out of the inner office and out of the outer
- office and out of the building and out of the financial district.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shortly afterward Amos F. Kidder, financial editor of the <i>Evening
- Planet</i>, west into Richards's office. He was thirty-five years old, a
- trifle under six feet, had light-brown hair and the eyes of a man who is a
- cynic by force of experience and an optimist by reason of a perfect liver—the
- kind of man who is fooled by strangers never and by intimate friends
- always. If what he had seen of Wall Street gave him a low opinion of men's
- motives he had the defect of steadfast loyalty. Having imagination and a
- profound respect for statistics, he wrote what might be called skilful
- articles on finance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your friend Robison was here to-day. What do you know about him?” asked
- Richards. He would not take a stranger's account, but he did not relish
- losing an account he already had.
- </p>
- <p>
- Kidder took a letter from his pocket, gave it to the stock-broker, and
- said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Smiley gave him a letter to me and in addition sent me that one by mail.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards read:
- </p>
- <p>
- The New York Planet, 5 Rue de Provence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Paris, February 18, 1912.
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Dear Kidder,—I've given a letter of introduction to a Mr. James
- B. Robison, who comes originally from some manufacturing town in
- Massachusetts, like Lynn or Lowell—I've forgotten which. He is well
- liked by the colony here and, I am told, has been kind to poor art
- students and other self-deluded compatriots. He is queer; is suspected of
- being rich—which he must be because he never borrows, lives well,
- and says moneymaking is too easy to merit discussion when men can discuss
- the eternal feminine or the revival of cosmetics. His trip to New York is
- prompted, he tells me, by the receipt of a letter from an old flame of his
- whom he warned against marrying her present husband. She would not listen
- to Robison, accused him in choice Bostonian of being a short sport, and
- now after long years she writes him, asking for forgiveness, being at last
- convinced that her husband is all that Robison said—and then some.
- He is off to try to find her; she is somewhere in New York. Put him in
- touch with some private detective who won't rob him too ruthlessly.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>I don't think he'll want to borrow money, as I know he is taking a
- letter of credit on Towne, Ripley & Co. for fifty thousand pounds; and
- they told me at his bankers'—Madison & Co.—that he owns
- slathers of gilt-edged bonds and that they cash the coupons for him. They
- also tell me he carries more cash about him than is prudent. You might
- suggest to him that the New York banks are safe enough. You'll find him a
- character—odd but charitable. Knowing your fondness for fiction in
- real life I commend Mr. Robison to you. Regards to the boys. Why don't you
- make a million and come over to spend it in the company of Yours as ever,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Lurton P. Smiley.
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards handed the letter back. “He came here with ten
- ten-thousand-dollar gold certificates.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; he got 'em from Towne, Ripley & Co. I went with him. They had
- instructions to pay any amount he might call for, and they did. He asked
- for large bills.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He got 'em!” said Richards, greatly relieved at seeing no necessity why
- he should refuse Robison's account.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's he going to do?” asked Kidder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know. He told me he had found his old sweetheart and that he is
- going to give her all he makes in Wall Street. He expects to double the
- one hundred thousand dollars in a week.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For Heaven's sake, George, find out his secret! Half a million will do
- for me,” laughed Kidder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He gave me an envelope,” said Richards, taking it from his desk. On it
- was written:
- </p>
- <h3>
- PROPERTY OF JAMES B. ROBISON
- </h3>
- <p>
- To be Opened by Richards & Tuttle In Case of Sudden Death
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you think?” asked Richards.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You really mean do I advise you to open it, don't you?” asked Kidder..
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not exactly; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said the newspaper man, “it does not say it is <i>not</i> to
- be opened in case of <i>living</i>. That is sufficient excuse—that
- and your curiosity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't like to open it,” said Richards, doubtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Still, I'd like to know what's inside.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then open it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't think I have a right to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't, then!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, shut up! I won't open it! I don't know whether to take the account.
- You don't know anything about this man—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You broker fellows make me tired—posing as careful business men.
- All Robison has to do is to go to any of your branch offices or anybody's
- branch office, say his name is W. Jones and that he keeps a cigar-store in
- Hackensack or Flatbush, and your branch manager will never let him get
- away. And afore-mentioned manager will swear, if you should be so mean as
- to ask who W. Jones is, that he and W. J. went to school together—known
- him for years!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “After all,” said Richards, a trifle defiantly, “there is no reason why I
- shouldn't do business for Robison that you know of?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not that I know of—but if he buncoes you out of a big wad don't
- blame me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is welcome to anything he can make out of us,” smiled Richards,
- grimly, and Kidder laughed so heartily that the broker looked pleased with
- himself and his witticism. He rang for the cashier, gave him the one
- hundred thousand dollars, and had the amount credited to James B. Robison,
- address unknown.
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter leaving the
- office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. James B. Robison went to the Subway
- station at Wall Street, rode up-town as far as Forty-second Street, walked
- to Sixth Avenue, took a surface car, jumped off at Forty-eighth, walked to
- Forty-ninth, waited there for the next car, and, being certain he was not
- shadowed, rode on to Fifty-sixth Street. He got off, walked north on the
- avenue and, half-way up the block, paused at the entrance of the
- employment agency of “<i>Jno. Sniffens, Established 1858</i>.” On the big
- slate by the door he read that there was wanted a coachman—careful
- driver; elderly man preferred.
- </p>
- <p>
- He walked up-stairs one flight and accosted the agent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Sniffens.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” answered Sniffens, son of the original Jno.,
- very obsequiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are they here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How many?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Seven.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've seen fifty-six so far—haven't I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir,” contradicted Sniffens with the air of a man who will tell the
- truth even if death should resuit. “Fifty-five. You forget you saw the
- Swede twice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is true, Sniffens. You are an honest man! Here!” And he gave ten
- dollars to the agent. “Send in the men.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He sat down in the inner office and Sniffens went out, presently to return
- with an elderly man. “This is Wilkinson—worked twenty-nine years—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sorry. Won't do. Here, my man! Take this two-dollar bill for your
- trouble. Next!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Much the same thing happened with the next four applicants. The fifth man,
- however, made Robison listen patiently while Sniffens finished his
- elaborately biographical introduction. The man's name was Thomas Gray; age
- fifty-eight; worked twelve years for General James Morris and fourteen for
- Stuyvesant R. Morris. Very careful. Excellent references. Morris family
- went abroad to live. Gray had not done anything for five years, but was
- willing and anxious to work.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison, who had been studying Gray keenly, said sharply, and not at all
- nasally:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Height and weight?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Five foot eleven and a half inches; one hundred and seventy pounds, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Deaf?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir; but I don't hear as well as I did.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can you hear this?” And Robison whispered, “Constantinople!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Beg pardon, sir!” Gray looked at Mr. Robison's face intently, but Robison
- shook his head and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No fair looking! That isn't hearing, but lipreading. Close your eyes and
- listen!” And he whispered, “Bab-el-Mandeb!” No one could have heard him
- three feet away and Gray was across the room. Robison raised his voice and
- said, “Did you hear that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- There showed in Gray's blue eyes a pathetic struggle between telling the
- truth and getting the job. “I—I only heard a faint murmur, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Try again. Listen!” Mr. Robison moved his lips soundlessly and asked,
- “What did I say, Gray?” The old man drew in a deep breath. It was not so
- much the money, for the Morris family gave him a pension; but he wished to
- feel that he was not yet useless, that he was still worth his keep.
- However, he shook his head and said, determinedly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I heard nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Open your eyes! You get the job, Gray,” said Mr. Robison. “Come here!”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Gray approached his new employer Sniffens left the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are not to tell any one for whom you are working, or where, or why,
- or for how long, or for what wages. There will be no night work. Are you
- very careful?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have to take some children to school every day—poor children
- to a public school in the morning. You are not to ask their names. Do what
- you are told, no matter how queer it seems to you, so long as you are not
- asked to break the law of the land or the rules of the road.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall send people to ask you questions, and I warn you that I'm going
- to put you to various tests. I want a man who is honest enough to trust
- with valuables, wise enough to mind his own business, and faithful enough
- to do what his employer tells him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Until you prove you are the man I want you will be paid by the day—five
- dollars. You will feed yourself and sleep home. I supply the livery and a
- second man. If after one month's trial you are found satisfactory you will
- get your wages by the month. It's big wages, but I want an honest man!” He
- looked at Gray sternly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. I'm careful and honest, sir. I think you will find that to be
- true, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I trust so. The stable is on Thirty-first Street, near Avenue B. Here is
- the number.” He gave a card to Gray. “Be there at eight sharp. You will
- drive a coupé; quiet horse; New York City.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. I'll be there, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here's five dollars for you. You don't have to pay any fee to Sniffens.
- I've paid him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, sir. Good day, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At seven-thirty the next morning Gray was at the stable. It was not a very
- good-looking place. He rang the bell, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. No
- one answered. He rang a second and a third time, and still there was no
- answer. He listened, his ear close to the door. He heard the muffled sound
- of a horse pounding in a well-littered stall.
- </p>
- <p>
- At eight o'clock—Gray heard a clock within chime the hour—the
- door opened. Gray entered. A man was hitching up a dark bay horse to a
- coupé. Mr. Robison was sitting in a sumptuous green-plush armchair in the
- carriage-room. Behind him, on a mahogany table, was a small valise,
- opened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Gray,” said Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Mr. Maynard,” said Gray, respectfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison took a clean white-linen handkerchief from his pocket and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “See that brick over there?” He pointed to a common red brick on a little
- shelf near the street door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, wrap it up in this handkerchief—here on this table. No—don't
- dust it. Just as it is!” He watched Gray's face keenly. The old man's
- countenance remained English and impassive.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Put it in the valise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In yonder box you'll find some tenpenny nails. Fetch three and wrap them
- up in the sheet of paper you'll find in the valise. Then lay them on top
- of the brick.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gray did as he was bid. If he thought his employer was crazy he did not
- look it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison then took from his pocket a sealed envelope, threw it into the
- valise, and closed the valise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find your livery in the dressing-room—door to your left.
- Put it on. Then drive so as to be before 197 West Thirty-eighth Street at
- exactly nine minutes after nine. Compare your watch with that clock. Wait
- there—Thirty-eighth Street—until a footman in dark-green
- livery comes out alone. If he asks you, 'James, did Ben win?' you will say
- to him, 'The answer is inside. Take it!' You will then return to this
- stable, fasten the horse to that chain, put on your street clothes, go
- home, and return to-morrow at eight sharp. But—” He paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pay attention, Gray! If, instead of the servant alone, the servant comes
- out of, 197 West Thirty-eighth Street accompanied by a gentleman who gets
- in, you will drive him to my office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is my office—here. You will drive back here quickly and
- disregard everything your passenger may say or whatever orders he may give
- you. You understand? These are your orders that I now give you. They are
- not to be changed under any circumstances, no matter what happens. Have
- you understood?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. I'll follow orders, Mr. Maynard.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “See that you do.” And Mr. Robison walked out of the stable.
- </p>
- <p>
- At nine-nine sharp Gray stood in front of 197 West Thirty-eighth Street.
- At nine-fifteen a footman in dark-green livery came out of the house. He
- was followed by Mr. Robison himself. The man opened the door of the
- carriage and Gray's employer got in.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you go to the office, sir?” asked the footman. Gray heard him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! Metropolitan Museum!” answered their master, distinctly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Metropolitan Museum!” said the footman to the coachman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Gray was torn by doubt, anger, and fear. Should he drive to the
- Metropolitan or back to the stable?
- </p>
- <p>
- He decided to go back to the stable. If he were discharged he would not
- regret losing so unsatisfactory a job. If, on the other hand, driving back
- should prove to be the right thing he would greatly strengthen his
- position.
- </p>
- <p>
- He arrived at the stable, fastened the horse to the chain, and went to
- change his clothes. He heard Mr. Robison tap on the glass of the door and
- saw him beckon to him and then heard him shout, “Open the door!” But Gray
- went to the dressing-room and changed his clothes. As soon as he was done
- the second man came in, showed him two envelopes, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You win! You get the ten dollars! I get the five-spot. That's how he
- pays. You obeyed orders. You are the first man that's succeeded in holding
- the job over one day. The Lord only knows what test Mr. Maynard will
- prepare for you to-morrow! It may be the children's lunch stunt or the
- runaway lunatic. Run out! Mr. Maynard won't like you to be here when he
- comes in. You can go out into the street by that door without going
- through the carriage-room.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gray put the ten dollars in his pocket and walked out. “Rum go, that!” he
- muttered. It was indeed. He nodded his head with a sad sort of triumph to
- show that though he had not solved the mystery he had at all events
- grasped the situation and was, moreover, ten dollars to the good.
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was after the
- opening of the stock-market and most of the early orders had been
- executed. The rush had given place to the calm efficiency of a
- well-organized broker's office. Mr. Robison walked into the Customers'
- Room, approached Gilbert Witherspoon, a valued customer, touched his
- hat-brim with two fingers in the French military fashion, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please, where's Mr. Richards?” His nasal twang and his Parisian
- appearance produced the usual impression of striking incongruity upon all
- men within hearing distance. Everybody frankly listened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's his private office,” answered Witherspoon, non-committally,
- pointing his finger at a door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you very much!” said Robison and bowed. Then he knocked, heard a
- peremptory “Come in!” and disappeared within.
- </p>
- <p>
- Witherspoon, who cultivated a reputation as a wit—there is a buffoon
- in every stock-broker's office—shrugged his shoulders Frenchily,
- and, in a nasal voice obviously in imitation of Robison, said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Another world-beater!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You never can tell,” retorted Dan McCormack, oracularly. He was fat,
- always played “mysteries” in the market—traded in those stocks the
- movements in which were unaccounted for—and he did not like
- Witherspoon.
- </p>
- <p>
- Inside Mr. Robison had said “<i>Bon jour!”</i> and bowed so very low that
- Mr. Richards immediately thought of the language of a fashionable bill of
- fare.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Wie geht's?</i>” retorted Richards, jocularly. Then, nicely serious,
- “How are you this morning?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't I look it?” said Mr. Robison. “I am, of course, perplexed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the trouble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The usual trouble when I try to beat the stock-market—<i>embarras
- de richesses</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is an embarrassment that most people would welcome.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tut! The more elaborate the menu is in a good restaurant the greater your
- indecision as to which particular dish you will order! Well, I went
- through the Menagerie!” There was a catarrhal despair in his voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I am undecided between four.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison looked anxiously at the broker, and Richards felt such an
- annoyance as a man might feel if compelled at the point of a pistol to
- listen to the reading of one hundred pages of the city directory. But he
- smiled tolerantly, for he had the professional amiability indispensable to
- men whose business consists of making money and of consoling clients for
- losing money.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Four what?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Four sure ways.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Which four?” asked Richards. He managed to convey both that he was dying
- to listen and that the rest of the world did not exist for him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Ant, the Spider, the Beaver, and the Lion. Out of the nineteen
- combinations in the Menagerie I've narrowed my choice to these four. You
- know conditions better than I and probably have seen the Cribbage Board.
- Have you a choice?” He looked at Richards so eagerly, and withal so
- shrewdly and sanely, that in self-defense the broker said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't say that I have. Of course I am bullish—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course. But the question is: Which—in a week?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards had no idea what was meant by this man with the sane eyes who
- said crazy things through his nose—a man who had one hundred
- thousand dollars to his credit with the firm. Perplexed to the verge of
- exasperation, Richards was stock-broker enough—when in doubt, bluff!—to
- say, with a frown, “Yes, that's the question: Which—in a week?” He
- shook his head as though he were trying to pick out the best for his
- beloved Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never was so puzzled in my life, and I want you to know that I've made
- money even in Rumanian bonds!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm afraid I can't help you much.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does the I. S. Board say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Robison, exactly what do you mean by the I. S. Board?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What? You don't know the International Syndicate Cribbage Board! Then how
- in Hades do you pick your combinations?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We buy and sell stocks on our judgment of basic conditions or for special
- reasons.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, yes—like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess.
- Well, <i>I</i> don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full
- in a week. Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with
- him. And yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest
- corner he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess
- we'll dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger
- group.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But
- Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, “I
- think you are right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: “The situation in the
- Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the Dam
- in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the Rothschilds
- worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too many people who
- have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all this, but,” he
- finished, with profound regret, “it <i>is</i> such a cinch!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But—” Richards shook his head in sympathy. He felt that he
- ought to humor this man; moreover, business was quiet, and this man was
- saying incomprehensible things that would be repeated by Richards, with
- sensational success, at luncheons and dinners for weeks.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, the Spider is the oldest stand-by. Personally I never liked
- it. In the Governor Flower boom and, indeed, up to the Northern Pacific
- panic, its popularity was due to John W. Gates. But do you know, Mr.
- Richards, I have always believed that in the first two Steel and Wire
- coups and in the Louisville & Nashville affair, Gates hit upon it by
- accident. Else,” pursued Mr. Robison, controversially, “why was he pinched
- so badly in 1901 and again in 1907? He hit upon it, after he got out of
- Federal Steel, by accident, I tell you! He was a man of genius and
- courage, but it was all instinct with him. He was no student, sir—no
- student!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've always said,” observed Mr. George B. Richards, “that Gates was not a
- student!” He glared, thereby successfully defying contradiction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It leaves the Lion!” muttered Robison. “Should I try it? And which Peg?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd try it!” counseled Richards, who was not only intelligent, but had a
- sense of humor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you, really?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I certainly would!” And the broker looked as if he certainly meant
- it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's the Dutch favorite,” said Robison, musingly. “And they are a very
- clever people. You know Van Vollenhoven in his book says that once a year,
- for thirteen consecutive years, the great Cornelius Roelofs, of Amsterdam,
- made a million gulden in London by the Lion—the most hopeful
- pessimist in the history of stock speculation! It comes easy to the
- phlegmatic Hollanders, but Americans are too nervous to take kindly to it.
- I once begged the late Addison Cammack to join me in a Lion deal, but he
- didn't. He was not very well at the time. Anyhow, he was too American.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did you know him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Like a book! Dangerous man to follow! Cynicism sounds impressive, but is
- wind. You don't win in the stock-market with catch phrases, but with
- combinations.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you use charts?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A stock speculator is not a navigator, but all commission-houses should
- have a chart. With some customers, after you have exhausted every other
- invitation, you can use the chart to get them trading. But not for us, Mr.
- George B. Richards. I think you will soon realize that I am in this affair
- not to lose money, but to make it. I shall, therefore, either buy Dock
- Island, sell Middle Pacific, buy National Smelting, or sell Consolidated
- Steel. I'll have a pad of special order-slips made so you will not mistake
- my orders for those of any one else. You will execute for me no order that
- is not written and signed by me on such a slip. I'll keep up my margin.
- We'll operate on a ten-per-cent, basis; and I hereby authorize you to sell
- me out when my margin is down to six points. That gives you ample safety.
- It is really unnecessary, as I never lose; but I always protect the
- broker. The sudden death by heart disease of Baron Lespinasse in 1883 sent
- into bankruptcy the great firms of La Croissade et Cie. and Mayer, Dreyfus
- et Cie., of Paris, Ver-brugghe Frères, of Brussels, and about a dozen
- smaller houses. Mine, to be sure, is a trifling operation, designed to
- supply a modest income to an old flame. But I may—who knows?—decide
- to take a few millions back with me. And your firm, Mr. Richards, will be
- my principal brokers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison said this so impressively, so much as though he had made the
- firm of Richards & Tuttle rich beyond the dreams of avarice, that
- George B. found it easy to look grateful as he said, “Thank you, Mr.
- Robison.” It would be worth while watching this mysterious man, to see,
- first, if he made money; and if he did, how!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll write it here and now. If my margins are down to six points at any
- time close me out, for I shall have been mistaken, which is a sign I've
- gone crazy; or I shall be dead, in which case protect yourself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison wrote out the instructions, signed them, and gave them to Mr.
- Richards. He must have noticed a look of uncertainty or dissatisfaction on
- the broker's face, for he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have no desire to pose before you as an unfailing winner, though I
- assure you I seldom lose. It is not brains, but carefulness. If you know
- nothing about the International Syndicate's information collecting
- machinery, why, just take my word for it that there are people in this
- world who don't work on the hit-or-miss plan. We don't eliminate all
- possibilities of failure; we merely reduce them to a negligible minimum.
- We cannot prevent all accidents, but we can and do foresee some of them.
- This sounds crazy to you, I know—no, don't deny it!—but all I
- can say is that your natural suspicions don't affect your kindness and
- courtesy, and I am more grateful than I can say. Of course, my own
- operations here will be conducted with your approval, in strict accordance
- with the rules of the New York Stock Exchange.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I am sure I haven't doubted your sanity,” said the broker, who had
- been much reassured by Mr. Robison's look of frankness and earnestness as
- he spoke. “I have merely suspected the depths of my own ignorance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your retort is both kind and clever. I thank you. I shall have to borrow
- one of your clerks or office-boys between nine-forty and ten a. m., to
- whom I may give my orders to bring to this office, and also ask you to
- recommend to me some young man who is intelligent but honest, wide awake
- but deaf to the ticker.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall need a young man who can watch certain developments and at the
- crucial moment will hasten to me without stopping on the way to take
- advantage in the stock-market of what he has learned while working for
- me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall let you have one of my own clerks. He'll do as he is told.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is not always to be taken as praise—but I thank you. There
- will be some telegrams come for me. Will you kindly see that they are
- held? Good morning!” And he left the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- An hour later cablegrams and telegrams by the dozen began to come in for
- Robison, care Richards & Tuttle. But Robison did not return to the
- office until after the close of the stock-market.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Any messages?” he asked Richards.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not over a hundred!” answered the broker, smilingly. He felt less
- suspicious after the telegrams began to arrive; they were tools he
- understood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I used the Triple Three,” explained Robison, opening telegram after
- telegram; the cables he seemed to leave for the last. The telegrams were,
- as Richards later ascertained, from San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Los
- Angeles, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and other points west of the Rockies.
- Each contained but one word, but always the word ended in “less,” such,
- for example, as Headless, Toothless, Tailless, Nerveless. All were signed
- in the same way, to wit: Three-Three-Three.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No Beaver! I'm just as glad,” Robison mused aloud and took up the
- cablegrams. They were from London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and
- Amsterdam. They were in code, but he seemed to have the key by heart. The
- very last one made him thoughtful.
- </p>
- <p>
- He handed the cablegram absently to Richards and said, “The Lion after all—and
- artificial at that!” He seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious of his
- whereabouts, as Richards read:
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison, care Richtut:
- </p>
- <p>
- Mogulgar wind Lloyd Vast Nigger Shaw twice home urban sweet Edward.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Code, hey?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lion! Oh! Code, did you say? No. Code is too risky. Plain reading! Of
- course I have more practice than you. Give it to one of your office-boys
- to decipher. If he succeeds give him fifty dollars and charge it to my
- account. But what I can't tell is the politics of it. Is it collusion,
- philanthropy, or fear? Is it wise? After all, the unusual is not
- necessarily dangerous. I shall double my money within four days and you
- will make the commissions in a perfectly simple, legitimate way; and you
- will think I am a pretty sane lunatic; and you will respect me for having
- such sources of information; and if I can induce Mrs. Le—my friend
- to take it, I'll make a million for her in a month, and you will get the
- benefits accruing from having the market named after you—a Richards
- & Tuttle market, the papers will call it. Thank you very much for your
- kindness. I'll be down to-morrow before the opening. Good day, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- And Mr. Robison left the office with a calm, confident look in his face.
- Richards gazed after him, a look of perplexity on his own face. Presently
- he shook his head. It meant that he gave up efforts to solve the puzzle,
- but that he would wait until commissions began.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>rom Richards &
- Tuttle's office Robison went to the nearest Western Union office and gave
- a letter to the manager.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Send this at once! City editor, <i>Evening World</i>, Park Row. No
- answer. How much?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The manager told him. Robison paid him and then went to the
- Postal-Telegraph office and sent a message to the city editor, <i>Evening
- Journal</i>. Inside of each envelope was a letter. Both read alike, as
- follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Dear Sir,—Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good
- turn. In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big
- piece of news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things
- looked pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his
- name. He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot
- ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore
- eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking
- cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving Bank.
- Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being good to me.
- Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and promoter, is
- going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be held for one
- hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to him, because he
- will be sure to pay.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it
- and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, but it
- will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance relaxes,
- as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy yan! Don't print
- anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of Garrettson, his home,
- art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, and corporations controlled by
- him, and so on. Keep this letter for reference, and just before you throw
- it into the waste-basket remember this: It costs you nothing; it commits
- you to nothing, involves no expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no
- fool joke. Remember my writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I
- shall send you if I possibly can, so that you alone publish the news.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Grateful Friend.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but
- each made a mental note—in case! Also they did not “tip off”
- anybody. They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson,
- because if they acted on every freak missive they received half the city
- would not sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great
- Garrettson.
- </p>
- <p>
- At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied by
- an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed “From J. B. R., for
- Richards & Tuttle,” went to the Broad Street entrance of the New York
- Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or so it
- seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: “There he is!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing but
- hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so disappointed
- that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, “Who, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nobody!” answered Mr. Robison, shortly. “Go back to the office and tell
- Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me—the clerk with the
- ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here is Mr. Manley,” the office-boy told Mr. Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The office-boy put the five-dollar bill in his pocket, said “Thank you” in
- a voice celestial, and hurried away before the crazy Frenchman with the
- Cape Cod voice discovered the size of the tip. To Manley, the clerk, Mr.
- Robison said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look across the street—W. H. Garrettson & Co. You can see Mr.
- Garrettson by the window. See him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, just you stay here and watch him; and if you see him do anything
- unusual or if anything happens in Garrettson's office that you think
- strange, run to our office and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. Don't
- be afraid to say so if you think something unusual is going on, because I
- tell you now that Mr. Garrettson never does anything unusual.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now what would you call unusual?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If a bareheaded man came out of the office, stood at the head of the
- steps and threw an egg into the middle of the street, I'd call it
- unusual.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So would I.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Especially if I went up to the smashed egg and found the insides were of
- ink. It might be red ink or black.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That would be queer!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly. You watch. Go to lunch at twelve-thirty and be back at one.
- Remember! Watch closely, and if anything unusual happens look carefully
- and then come and tell me. Here's ten dollars for you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's only a beginning,” smiled Mr. Robison, promisingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Manley, the clerk, put the money in his pocket and began to think he might
- be able to buy the motorboat next spring if this business kept up.
- </p>
- <p>
- Between what Sweeney, the office-boy, suspected aloud and what Manley, the
- clerk, confirmed the office force of Richards & Tuttle discussed Mr.
- Robison with the zest of the deciding baseball game.
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards had confided to his intimates some of his experiences, and Amos
- Kidder, the <i>Evening Planet</i> man, was as interested in the mystery as
- if he had not been the man who first let loose the flood of surmise by
- introducing Robison to the brokers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nothing happened on Tuesday more exciting than keeping tally on the
- telegrams and cables received by Mr. Robison, which amounted to
- thirty-seven in all. The object of so much conjecture—and hero of
- the office-boy's improvised dime novel—spent the day in an arm-chair
- looking at the blackboard, making elaborate calculations that convinced
- other customers he must be a “chart fiend.” At three o'clock sharp he went
- home.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stopped long enough to send by messenger-boy a letter to the city
- editor of the <i>Evening World</i> and another to the city editor of the
- <i>Evening Journal.</i> They bore the same message and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Refer to my letter of yesterday. To-night W. H. Garrettson goes to the
- opera to see “The Jewels of the Madonna.” He will leave the Metropolitan
- in his automobile. In it will be his wife, his daughter, and his friend,
- Harry Willett. And he will not arrive at his house—Lexington Avenue
- and Thirty-eighth Street. Somewhere between the Opera House and his
- residence he will vanish! It will be the most mysterious kidnapping on
- record. Follow the Garrettson motor and have your reporters watch
- carefully.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Grateful Friend.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Whatever the city editors may have intended to do in the matter is of no
- consequence, because at seven o'clock messages were received as follows:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Kidnapping of W. H. G. postponed. Will keep you posted.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Grateful Friend.</i>
- </p>
- <h3>
- V
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t nine-forty-five
- on Wednesday morning Mr. James B. Robison entered the office of Richards
- & Tuttle, sought the senior partner, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall both buy and sell Con. Steel—or possibly sell first and buy
- later. The order clerk knows about my printed slips. The orders will go to
- you first. If at any time you are worried about margin, remember to tell
- me at once, because, as you know, I have not yet used half of my letter of
- credit; and, besides, the cables are working. I'd like to see Amos
- Kidder.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's in his office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you mind having some one telephone to him? Thank you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison promptly left the office, followed by his faithful attendant
- Sweeney, the office-boy. They took their stand just north of the Broad
- Street entrance of the Stock Exchange.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not long before Amos Kidder, of the <i>Evening Planet</i>, who had
- received the message, found Mr. Robison in the act of gazing unblinkingly
- toward the Subtreasury.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Mr. Robison.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison started as if he had been rudely awakened out of a profound
- reverie.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! Kidder! How d'ye do? Ah, yes! Ah—I'd like you to dine with me
- and a few friends—interesting people. You will—don't be
- offended!—you will learn why all newspaper articles on the
- stock-market arouse mirth among the people who pull the wires. What do you
- say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I say,” replied Kidder, with a good-natured smile, “just this: When and
- where?” His smile ceased. Mr. Robison had turned his back on his friend.
- Kidder heard a nasal mumble and made out:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here in eight minutes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall learn if the Lion ate the man or if it's a case of another day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Robison, I don't understand—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon. I was thinking of the old man who was seen in a front
- seat at the circus every day. They asked him what he found so interesting,
- and he said that some day the lion would eat the man and he wanted to be a
- spectator. Well, one day he was sick. That day the lion ate the
- lion-tamer. Well, I am here waiting to see Garrettson come out of the
- cage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Garrettson?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The great W. H. Garrettson! I am planning a campaign in Con. Steel.
- Garrettson's health is important. I must consider the state of his liver
- as carefully as the condition of the iron trade, because it is not only a
- question of the dividend rate, but of the price per share—not alone
- an investment, but a speculation. You can't lose all your mills and
- furnaces in one minute and you can't destroy all your customers overnight;
- but Garrettson can die in a second!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course that contingency has been provided for. His firm would
- undoubtedly be on the job.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So would the undertaker. As a matter of fact everything to-day depends
- upon the character of Garrettson's life. Have you ever stopped to think of
- how much depends upon the character of his death?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All deaths are alike. You talk like a novelist unaware of the resources
- of a firm like Garrettson's.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you talk like a plain ass or a bank president, my boy. Is there no
- difference to the stock-market between the death of Garrettson by
- pneumonia and his death by lynching at the hands of a thousand indignant
- fellow-citizens? Stop and think.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, well, that will never happen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot swear that it will, but you cannot guarantee that it never will.
- Stranger things have come to pass. By Jingo! it's three minutes to ten!
- Would it not be curious if something had happened?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have studied the great Garrettson and his habits, that I may, in my
- operations in Con. Steel, know on what to bank and against what to guard.
- He leaves his Lexington Avenue house every morning at nine and arrives at
- his office not later than nine-fifty. He is like the clock. All his life
- he has come down-town in his coupé, driven by a coachman who has been in
- his employ thirty years. In this age of novelties that old-fashioned coupé
- suggests a stability and solid respectability comparable to <i>Founded
- 1732!</i> on a firm's letter-head. However, just as the wireless has
- introduced a new element into maritime life, so has the automobile changed
- the character of street traffic. Do you remember the case of James M.
- Barrier, the famous sculptor, smashed in his taxicab on his way to his
- studio? You remember the insurance advertisements, and how he carried a
- two-hundred-and-seventeen-thou-sand-dollar accident policy? Well, it's ten
- o'clock. In one minute, if Garrettson is not here, I shall sell short one
- thousand shares of Con. Steel. For each delay of one minute, one thousand
- shares.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your
- operation is of the kind that sounds wise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A
- fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five or
- ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, boy,
- rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall need
- another boy besides you, for a few minutes only.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand
- shares of Con. Steel “at the market.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair,”
- observed Kidder, pleasantly. “In assuming that disaster has overtaken
- Garrettson—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What the
- nature of it is I know not—nor whether it is capitalizable, sight
- unseen. Here, boy!” Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison sent
- the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of Steel. Watch
- in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the north. Kidder also
- looked up Nassau Street, expecting and—such, alas, is human nature!—hoping
- to see Garrettson's familiar coupé.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here, boy!” And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up
- until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares.
- </p>
- <p>
- At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, that's a story! Any deviation from the normal is, even though it
- may not be tragedy. The delay may mean—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing whatever,” finished Kidder, a trifle exultingly. “There comes
- Garrettson's carriage. I guess you'd better cover!”
- </p>
- <p>
- And the <i>Planet</i> man laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kidder, you'll never be rich! Of course I shall not cover until I know
- the reason for the delay. Make haste! I ought to take a good look at his
- face. I want to see how he looks and notice how he walks up the steps to
- the office. One glimpse of Harriman getting off the train once put a cool
- quarter of a million in my pocket.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stocks went up when he died. People sold them thinking—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When you know a man is dying and you know that the rabble doesn't know
- it, you don't always sell stocks short, Kidder,” anticipated Robison, with
- a gentle smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello!” said Kidder, and ran forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison followed. The coupé had stopped before the door of the banking
- firm's offices. The herculean private policeman in gray had hastened to
- open the door of the chief's carriage and had staggered back as if
- horrified by what he had seen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Murdered!” thought the newspaper man in a flash. “What a story!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The policeman turned an alarmed face toward the coachman and asked:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where's Mr. Garrettson?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” Lyman, the coachman, who had been in Garrettson's employ
- thirty-odd years, turned livid. He stared blankly at the big man in the
- gray uniform.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He isn't here!” said Allcock, the policeman. Kidder and Robison heard
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The coachman looked into the coupé.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good God!” he muttered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you sure he was inside?” asked Allcock. “Sure? Of course! There's the
- newspapers. Look at the cigar-ashes on the floor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did you see him get in?” persisted the policeman. “Of course I saw him! I
- heard him call to the footman, who was going back to the house without
- leaving the newspapers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you didn't stop anywhere?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. I was delayed a little at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, and again—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you sure he didn't jump off?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would he be jumping off for?” queried the old coachman, irritably.
- “And wouldn't I have heard the door slam? I can't account for it! My God!
- Where's Mr. Garrettson? Where is he? Where is he?” He repeated himself
- like one distraught.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Could he have jumped out without your knowing it?” queried Kidder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shut up, Jim. That's a reporter!” the policeman warned the coachman.
- “Wait here and I'll tell Mr. Jenkins.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The private policeman rushed into the bank, and rushed out, followed by
- William P. Jenkins, junior partner of W. H. Garrettson & Company.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is all this about?” Mr. Jenkins, who had been speaking in a sharp
- voice to the coachman, caught sight of Kidder. Nothing concerning Mr.
- Garrettson's whereabouts could be discussed by or before newspaper men.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come with me, James,” Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old
- coachman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Get on the job!” whispered Robison to Kidder. “Don't be bluffed. You've
- got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a lifetime!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's
- eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great
- financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but all
- efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see
- perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that
- Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall Street
- and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was, moreover,
- fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary say: “Mrs.
- Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about nine-twenty in the
- carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the footman helped him into
- the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I said, 'Nothing that I
- know of.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and hastened
- back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the coachman—a
- man above suspicion—was carried on by the other partners.
- </p>
- <p>
- Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the
- patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near
- Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James
- Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family from
- boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. He was
- smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily newspapers.
- These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the coupé when it
- reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, where the offices
- of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are unable to say
- where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. Garrettson is
- equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as usual. The butler
- saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes this remarkable is that
- Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and not once in forty years has he
- failed to reach his office before ten o'clock. His disappearance from the
- coupé is not thought to be a joke; but, on the other hand, there is no
- reason to apprehend a tragedy. “It is mysterious—that's all,”
- remarked a prominent Wall Street man; “and mysteries are not always
- profitable in the stock-market!”</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “How long,” inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth,
- “will it be before the <i>Evening Planet</i>, with your account of the
- non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said Kidder, looking a trifle important, “if it had been any one
- else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in
- verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As quickly as that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, maybe seven minutes—but that,” said Kidder, impressively,
- “would be slow work for the <i>Evening Planet!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Amazing!” murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. “And did you make
- it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad
- daylight in the city of New York—taken out of his own cab and
- carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if
- unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, it can't,” agreed Robison. “Nevertheless, it has been done.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How could—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kidder, the taxicab has introduced a new and easily utilizable
- possibility into criminal affairs, against which the police cannot yet
- protect the public. I can see one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen
- different ways in which Mr. Garrettson could have been abducted from his
- own carriage, put into a taxi, and carried away. Suppose there are six
- taxis. Three are in front to prevent the coachman from passing them. The
- coachman is also compelled to regulate his speed according as they desire.
- Then put one taxi on each side and one behind. These taxis not only escort
- the cab; they pocket it and keep out help. At one of the many halts the
- cab door is opened and Garrettson induced to enter one of the side taxis
- while the coachman is occupied taking care of his horses because one of
- the taxis in front threatens to back, which will crush the prancing
- beasts. Do you suppose the coachman, especially if he is elderly and
- somewhat deaf, as all old people are, could hear a cry for help with six
- taxis making all the noise they can, muffler cutouts going, or backfiring,
- or—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think that is—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think nothing! I cited it as one of fourteen—indeed, twenty—possible
- ways,” said Robison, quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's funny—I mean it is a curious coincidence that on the one day
- you had sold Steel short—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My young friend,” interrupted Robison, gravely, “I sold after Garrettson
- was late! Wisdom is always accused of unfairness. A man whose mind enables
- him to win steadily at cards is invariably suspected of marking them. I
- had planned to buy Con. Steel provided Garrettson's health, state of mind,
- and trade conditions satisfied me! Instead I sold a little because of his
- delay. Why, man, we did that in London once—Cecil Rhodes and I—when
- Barney Barnato, at the height of the Kaffir craze, suddenly decided—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait till I get a piece of paper,” said Amos Kidder. He saw a big story.
- But Robison said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll tell you all you wish to know—if you promise not to use names—in
- Richards's office later, when Garrettson's disappearance is officially
- admitted. You should hang round Garrettson's office. Don't lose sight of
- it for one minute! Your office will keep in touch—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; they are sending three men down to work under me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Keep me posted, will you? I am going to Richards's office and watch the
- market.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kidder nodded and hurried to the Wills Building. Robison went to the
- office of his brokers, stopping previously at a telephone pay-station to
- telephone to the city editors of the <i>Evening World</i> and the <i>Evening
- Journal</i>. This was his message:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>The Evening Planet is getting out an extra about the disappearance of
- W. H. Garrettson. Send your men to Garrettson's office and also his
- residence. Hurry!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The <i>Evening Planet</i> story was on the street before Robison returned
- to Richards & Tuttle's office, and five minutes later <i>World</i> and
- <i>Journal</i> extras were selling in the financial district. Curiously
- enough, both papers used the same scare-head, and that fact had a great
- deal to do with the acceptance of the story by many people. The heading
- was:
- </p>
- <h3>
- HELD FOR RANSOM!!
- </h3>
- <p>
- And each stated it had information that W. H. Garrettson had been
- kidnapped and was held for one hundred million dollars ransom. The Wall
- Street news agencies sent out the news on the tickers. One of them subtly
- finished:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Those who know Mr. Garrettson state that the two things the greatest
- financier of our times cannot do are: first, take advice; and second, be
- coerced. A man who has compelled a President of the United States to come
- to him for advice, and who has flatly told a reigning monarch, No! is not
- going to do as he is told by any band of crooks! The worst is, therefore,
- to be feared!</i>
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or one brief dazed
- moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly the ticker stopped, as it
- did in the old days whenever a member's demise was announced. The ticker's
- silence, with its suggestion of death, did in truth strangle bull hopes.
- Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost stopped when the ticker did. Then the
- storm burst, increasing in violence as corroboration came from newspaper
- extras, from the Wall Street news agencies and the news tickers, from
- brokers and bankers who had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson
- & Company and had rushed out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal
- moment the great house of W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the
- capital crime—in high finance—of indecision.
- </p>
- <p>
- The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir—: the selling-power
- is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice—a
- beginning!—and it will itself complete the havoc.
- </p>
- <p>
- Inside support—that is, buying by Garrettson's firm—would have
- been the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the
- brief instant that saw absolutely no “support” forthcoming the flood of
- selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big
- margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and
- reputations.
- </p>
- <p>
- The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume of
- selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the hillside.
- From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to sixty-five by
- fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time—to sixty; to
- fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital stock,
- of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen million
- dollars—one million a minute! A psychological statistician would
- have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of the moneyed
- world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial invulnerability;
- it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result of his partners'
- inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the firm's existence. The
- partners would have understood death and could have provided against it,
- stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even might have capitalized their
- senior partner's demise had it come from typhoid, tuberculosis, or
- taxicab. But the disappearance of the great Garrettson, the fatal
- incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing and the hoping, paralyzed
- the faculties of the junior partners of Wall Street's mighty firm. And the
- costliness of their indecision was raised into the millions by the fact
- that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, the junior partners, agreed that
- Garrettson, though absent, was well, and were about to take steps to check
- the gamblers' panic, the telephone summoned Jenkins.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to
- Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B—D! Say nothing
- to the family! Hurry!” And the speaker rang off.
- </p>
- <p>
- His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still unrelieved
- uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest and—Wall
- Street said—the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and repeated the
- message.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?” asked Johnson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know—yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,'
- and I didn't suspect—yes; I think it was.” After a second's pause,
- “I know it was Pierson!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, for Heaven's sake—” began Lane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious
- wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!” said Johnson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Meantime we are losing precious time—” Johnson had already gone to
- the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he
- said, the receiver at his ear:
- </p>
- <p>
- “We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if—” The
- emphasis on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that
- there was no need to say it. “You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and
- we hoping and expecting and uncertain if—Hello! Dr. Pierson's
- office? This is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the
- doctor there? Out? Where did he go? Speak out—I am Mr. Garrettson's
- partner. Hotel Cressline, Suite D? Thank you.” Johnson turned and said:
- “Dr. Pierson was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to
- attend Mr. Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And meantime,” said Jenkins, excitedly, “he might be dying or dead; and
- we—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive
- use. Hurry!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone
- once more.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me the Hotel Cressline!” And presently, “Hello! Cressline? This is
- W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes—Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's
- partner. Is Mr. Gar—... Yes—yes—I want to talk to
- him.... Why not? Is it our Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You
- will tell me!—or, by Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What did they say, Walter?” asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law of
- Garrettson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He said I could go to hell!” growled Johnson, his face brick-red from
- anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great
- Garrettson. “He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled
- lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not to
- be interrupted under any circumstances—no cards sent up, no
- telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was something
- like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though each expected
- the other to say he did not expect a terrible final chapter. In the veiled
- woman each feared what was worse than mere death—scandal! Of course,
- much would be suppressed, as had been done in the case of Winthrop Kyle or
- of Burton Willett, to whom death had come suddenly and under dubious
- circumstances.
- </p>
- <p>
- “William is not that kind!” said Lane, loyally. “He has never—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!” repeated
- Walter Johnson, vehemently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Neither do I,” agreed Lane. “But—” He looked furtively at Walter
- Johnson.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johnson nodded, and said, “Yes, that's the devil of it!” He lost himself
- in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved
- Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced
- his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have
- posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson.
- </p>
- <p>
- That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving off a
- panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied themselves
- to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and such was the
- discipline of the office that no word was brought to the palefaced
- partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or of the
- newspaper extras.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or force
- of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic message of
- the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in stocks had taken
- on the proportions of a panic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” incredulously shouted Lane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It'll never do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to do
- things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began to give
- out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson brokers—they
- kept some of these for the effect of obvious “Garrettson buying.” It was
- all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter what had happened,
- the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! Silence, yes; untruth,
- never! And yet silence might be taken as corroboration of the awful
- stories. He could not say that the great Garrettson was alive and could
- not say he was dead. He must not mention Hotel Cressline. A trying
- situation! To the news-agency men, who would put out the news on the
- Street, from whom also the daily papers would get it, he said, very calmly
- and impressively:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The iron
- trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest business in
- its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we consider the
- stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent speculative movements.
- They are designed to frighten timid holders. I advise every man who owns
- Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But about Mr. Gar—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not another word!” he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece
- of will-power.
- </p>
- <p>
- The newspaper men translated it: “Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!” And
- in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the message.
- What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was dead or not—the
- kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!—and if so what would be
- done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. Wherefore the traders
- sold more of the same stock—short—and the bona-fide holders
- could develop no conviction strong enough as to the wisdom of holding on,
- so long as the price continued to go down.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in a
- fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send up
- any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent,
- succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after repeated
- knocking brought no response from within.
- </p>
- <p>
- They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they found
- on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length
- Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never telephoned you!” interrupted Dr. Pierson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, you said—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the hotel—or
- so the voice said—to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken suddenly
- ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Damn!” said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the office,
- hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the fake
- messages and Dr. Pierson's story.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a bear raid then!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry down!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully
- following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the higher
- Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and the
- office-boys.
- </p>
- <p>
- In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in a
- voice which one might say sweated respect:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you think now, Mr. Robison?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the
- quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These
- customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened
- to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of Steel,
- and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger had scented
- a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” said Mr. Robison, absently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you think now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do I think now?” repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir,” said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an office-boy
- about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at the broker. Then,
- with a little start, he said so distinctly that every listening customer
- heard very plainly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It looks to me,” persisted Richards, fishing for information, “that they
- can't keep on going down forever.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—not forever,” assented Mr. Robison, calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Maybe the bottom is not far off.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Maybe not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If a man bought now he might do well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then buy 'em.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to go
- long.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In that case,” said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, “don't
- buy 'em.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to say
- “Thank you!” in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed customers
- drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, but any
- experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more important
- to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken Profit is the
- jeremiad of the ticker-fiend.
- </p>
- <p>
- Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show “resiliency,” as
- financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. Robison's
- side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of money-making
- news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, whose paper
- profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Robison!” he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is accustomed
- to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The other customers,
- who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to cover, looked at the
- boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his whispered words.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing,” said Mr. Robison
- through his nose, with a pleasant smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness
- which would give them the tip they all expected.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, “Stung again!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait a minute my lad. Here!” and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar
- bill and a small envelope.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy. He put the five dollars in his
- pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the
- customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, “Mr. Richards.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private
- office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on
- which was written:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>J. B. Robison.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the
- price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the empty
- place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite customers
- moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen just the
- same.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your order is executed, Mr. Robison.” Mr. Richards whispered it out of a
- corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking
- meditatively at the quotation-board.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Got the whole twenty?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think—” began the broker in a voice that would make flint
- turn to putty.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do!” cut in Robison. “I do, indeed! There is no telling what has
- happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts.” He had
- unconsciously raised his voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen
- customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces drew
- nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other
- listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably:
- </p>
- <p>
- “By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H.
- Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be
- because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in the
- stock-market—failure, for instance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but that's out of the question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the
- best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very
- efficiently policed city thoroughfare.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but a failure—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't
- believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you think—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions so
- characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I ascribed
- the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull cards, as
- you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. Now it isn't
- likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. Garrettson. There
- would be no sense in murdering him—not even by a stock speculator;
- but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson specialties has by
- now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I should say prices ought
- to be touching bottom; and what ought to be generally is, in the
- stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or another, very soon now. If
- the news is good the price of Steel will rebound smartly. If it is bad
- we'll at least know what to look to, and with the elimination of the
- mystery there should be a cessation of the selling. There will follow a
- rush to cover and then—There you are! I believe it's begun already.
- Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! Get 'em back!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover and
- gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in figures on
- the quotation-board.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before the
- newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H.
- Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly
- now. Somebody must pay—-and it wouldn't be the firm.
- </p>
- <p>
- Amos Kidder rushed into the office. “He's found!” he yelled, excitedly,
- addressing Mr. Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where was he?” asked Mr. Robison, very calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At home—damn 'im!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why that, my boy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He won't talk—says he was in his library all the time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?” said Robison, with a smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it were
- the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove that he
- wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The whole truth?” echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't you know it?” Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about anything.
- Take dinner with me to-morrow night—will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.” There was a smoldering defiance—it wasn't suspicion exactly—in
- the newspaper man's voice and eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now that Garrettson is—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, now—at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a
- week?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I told you I would.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An accident is not a fair test of—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such
- thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact
- seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I
- must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been figured
- out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was informed by Mr.
- George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of $268,537.71 with
- the firm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've won my bet!” murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have indeed, Mr. Robison.” Richards spoke deferentially.
- </p>
- <p>
- “H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to—Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to
- sign this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the document:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened
- an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers,
- members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the sum of
- $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net profit of
- $168,537.71.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks
- and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order from
- Mr. James B. Robison.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>For Richards & Tuttle:</i> <i>George B. Richards.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison said,
- amiably:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the pleasure
- it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers more than
- double their money in one week.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new,
- clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I told
- you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have given me a
- certificate of sanity a week ago. What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and
- intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent.” Mr.
- Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered
- enough to blush.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand—” The broker
- paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a profitable
- customer. He did not wish commissions to stop.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn
- to speak, said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't
- understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind
- healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in life.
- Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life
- interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so
- little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death
- you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of the
- first chapter of a big, black book—Mystery!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” murmured the dazed broker.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison continued, cheerfully: “My dear Mr. Richards, by all means don't
- understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand
- dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but
- interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James
- Burnett Robison.” With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude
- and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose
- speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five thousand
- dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, which
- he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a check for
- his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and lachrymosely
- hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close the account, Mr.
- Robison answered, very impressively:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a
- glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the
- marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I
- personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through
- Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the
- state tax. Good day, sir!” And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just
- afterward and wondered, without shaking hands.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VIII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>mos Kidder dined
- with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel, the Regina.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Americans,” explained the host, “always flock to the newest hotel on the
- theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest thing is
- necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary plumbing; it is an
- art! I am here not because of the journalistic, Sunday-special character
- of the filtered air and automatic temperature adjusters of this hotel, but
- because I discovered it had the best chef of all New York here. The food,”
- he finished, with an air of overpraising, “is almost as good as in my own
- house. Have you any favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order,” replied the
- newspaper man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, Kidder—thank you!” said Mr. Robison, with an air of such
- profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. “I was hoping you would
- leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!”
- And he beckoned to the <i>maître d'hôtel</i>, who immediately hastened to
- the table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. “You
- may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine,” said Robison, simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dewey at Manila!” thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His Wall
- Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him to all
- sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never eaten so
- unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and the
- heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man who
- said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things in a
- remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the coffee:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd like to ask you two questions—just two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to
- ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “O king, live forever!” said Kidder, saluting. “Thanks. Shoot ahead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the
- chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?” Kidder was
- looking at Robison with a steady gaze.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have
- invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my boy!”
- And Robison nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious,” said Kidder, with an
- accusing tone of voice he could not quite control.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International
- Cribbage Board—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But not exactly criminal, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose you
- call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the
- inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the mind
- of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than on the
- possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to tell you
- that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I sha'n't! But
- that I go about my business scientifically you yourself have seen. At
- least you are witness that I have won.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the second question?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There isn't a second if you won't answer the first,” said Kidder, with
- the forced amiability of the foiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose we
- imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now let us
- wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here is an
- incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of a panic—short-lived
- though it was—that caused mental anguish to his friends, relatives,
- and associates; and yet that great genius of finance, Wall Street's
- demigod, says nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He says he was in his library.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What
- compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to lie?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You ought to; there is only one thing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he
- protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something
- else. It's fear!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of the alleged kidnappers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear—” He paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” eagerly asked the newspaper man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ridicule!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. Robison. He
- discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his philosophical
- eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's too much for me,” finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the
- frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on.
- </p>
- <p>
- Robison smiled forgivingly, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual things
- in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known principles to
- well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most unusually. Now what
- do you gather from the Garrettson episode?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be a
- most unusual succession of coincidences.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your voice,” said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, “exudes
- suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an
- instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It
- puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids'
- millennium—or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And newspaper men—what?” Kidder prompted, pleasantly. “Don't mind
- me. I enjoy it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a
- letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave
- me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is
- an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are an
- irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours about
- me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did not have it. I have it now, however.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and
- my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left
- his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive at
- his office. We have the evidence of his coachman—a man above
- suspicion—of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for
- you heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home.
- We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming
- circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to
- allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares—led,
- I am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed
- up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson
- there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or
- suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of the
- obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity I found
- out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling himself W.
- H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It wasn't
- Garrettson, though.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you know?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was clearly a ruse—having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip
- that would—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very ingenious; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners,
- and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to say the
- least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but Garrettson,
- Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his highly
- inconvenient disappearance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form a
- syndicate of intelligent men!” He made a motion with his hand as if waving
- away the necessity of further elucidation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Friend Robison,” said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's manner,
- “you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than his
- silences. <i>Continuez, s'il vous plaît.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate
- accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their
- object.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A band of robbers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; an aggregation of philosophers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “None the less crooks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class of wealth
- which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the plunderers,
- themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the syndicate a
- confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that would make
- success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street contribute to the
- fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's life was a bull factor,
- and his death a bear card. But they had old-fashioned, unphilosophical
- scruples against murder. Moreover, the sensational disappearance of
- Garrettson would serve even better than his death. Problem: How to kidnap
- Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make Garrettson kidnap himself?
- Simplicity itself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you
- with admiration. And so—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con. Steel
- and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H.
- Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand shares,
- studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for millions!
- They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The rest is
- obvious, even to you—isn't it?” Mr. Robison gazed benignantly at his
- guest.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; it isn't obvious to me—or to any one else,” retorted Kidder,
- sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you ask
- me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an
- obvious way?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Insult ahead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter of
- collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house—an
- impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic
- attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture. He
- tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr. Garrettson.
- The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The stranger says to
- the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning. Tell Mr. Garrettson he
- will see me at once or not at all. Give him this paper and show him this
- sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives Mr. Garrettson the paper, which
- is apparently the first page of the <i>Knickerbocker History of New York</i>.
- The memorandum informs Mr. Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the
- MSS. of this history, Cooper's “Spy,” Poe's “Goldbug,” three love-letters
- of George Washington to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed
- letters of Thomas Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence
- whose autograph is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the
- stranger!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving's <i>Knickerbocker
- History</i> is a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to
- make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken into
- the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of which the
- stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation, particularly
- since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger has prepared
- himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a lunatic, for he
- wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and five
- fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue and
- haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic are
- quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting outside as
- usual.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is the
- usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man running
- from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with a horsewhip;
- also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This attracts the
- coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street from the
- Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the coachman has
- turned his head away from his master's house on the left to the
- horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé slam—a
- rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and prepares
- to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always the office.
- While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has come out of
- the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done every day for
- thirty years.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to
- the house—a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery,
- a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns
- round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him
- say, 'Beg pardon—here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand
- papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. H.
- Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives away,
- sure that his master is within. His customary route has been studied and
- it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage arrive at the
- office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because he was in the
- library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has in readiness an
- exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, and even of the
- coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do come out,
- Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is driven away—but
- not to his office! And there you are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you really think that is what happened?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is very fine—only it cannot happen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you knew the history of our old New York families you would recall the
- episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English and stiff-necked,
- one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, thinking he carried
- his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed in the carriage by the
- footman before the old lady had gotten in—and usually the old lady
- got in first and the lap-robe followed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the
- cigar-ashes were there on the floor!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of making
- Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled newspapers
- clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered seeing Garrettson
- get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of memory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, well—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here, let
- me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist, better
- known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted compatriots like
- you, has to say about this. I copied it:
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and
- under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of us
- realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in
- connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals of any
- actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a
- memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought,
- accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past life.
- When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has
- suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>“The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a
- misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience, but
- one by which we are led to make a false judgment—and this because
- the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably
- fully justified.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>“A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in
- regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation in
- fact.”</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he wouldn't
- notice a different coachman?” Kidder looked incredulous in advance of the
- answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he
- wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing unusual,
- nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops introspective
- misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of course the coachman
- drove to some place or other and left the great financier a prisoner in
- the cab.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside, so
- that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a matter
- of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that, since
- there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate continued to
- be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it impossible for
- Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the private stable whither
- he was taken, carriage and all, except by going through a lot of cobwebs
- and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged from the coal-chute a
- photographer could take pictures of him—no hero of a thrilling
- escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump, full of dirt and
- soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed! A quickly
- developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two would, of course,
- make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of the most gigantic of his
- promotions—the Intercontinental Railway Consolidation. Indeed,
- Garrettson can use the break in prices and the recovery of the market to
- increase his prestige by pointing out how important not only his life is,
- but, indeed, his physical presence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the syndicate—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson
- stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well,
- my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of
- Bohême. Come on!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making
- dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked a
- great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally
- knew.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson in
- the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and his
- face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself of cobwebs
- and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why Garrettson had
- not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful forenoon—and
- why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for his
- misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Sir,—We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall
- Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain
- morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the house.
- We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon by what
- you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was formed to
- reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still operating
- successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read it by taking
- the first two letters of each word—except only the first word, which
- is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to tell you this
- because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended it should be,
- and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You might compare
- notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you for your
- benevolence, we remain,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Respectfully,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>The Plunder Recovery Syndicate.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Kidder showed this letter to Richards. “Let us see,” said Richards,
- “whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the
- office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street,” said
- Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover the
- obvious.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it
- really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram.
- Possibly Robison himself faked it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why don't you find out?” suggested the broker. “I will,” said Kidder, and
- he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable companies had
- any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison in the brokers'
- office.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality,” said
- Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes,” acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; “but what astonishes me is the
- syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder,” echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the market
- was going up or down.
- </p>
- <p>
- Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he
- knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch,
- Boon & Shaw “had lost a few pieces”—but not for publication.
- Such things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss.
- Kidder knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might
- again cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself
- Robison.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- III—AS PROOFS OF HOLY WRIT
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE bell of the
- telephone on the desk of the alert city editor of the New York <i>Planet</i>
- rang twice. The alert city editor did not instantly answer it. He was
- reading a love-letter not meant for his eyes. It had been sent in with his
- mail by mistake. The bell rang again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” he said, angrily. “Who? Oh, hello, Bill!” There was a pause. Then:
- “Shall we? Why, friend, he's already started. Thanks awfully! Sure thing!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He swung round and cast a roaming glance about the big room. It was
- Sunday, the sacred day when nothing happened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Parkhurst!” he called.
- </p>
- <p>
- Parkhurst, one of the <i>Planet's</i> star men, sauntered over to the
- desk. He had planned to do other things with his time this nice Sunday
- afternoon. Monday-morning stories are not apt to be exciting. Therefore he
- limped pathetically in anticipation of the excuse he proposed to make to
- get off. He was Williams's chum.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jimmy,” said the city editor, with his habitual air of giving assignments
- as though they were decorations awarded for distinguished services, “I
- just had Bill Stewart, of the Hotel Brabant, on the telephone. He says
- there is a man there who has seven million dollars in gold-dust in the
- engine-room of the hotel. Klondike mine-owner. Does not believe in banks,
- I guess. Takes mighty big stocking to hold the cash—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you want <i>me</i> to write the story?” interrupted Parkhurst, coldly.
- It was his way of showing his city editor his place.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Coal-Oil Johnny up to date! Don't fall for any press agent—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Parkhurst forgot the excuse he was going to make. His limp vanished. The
- story promised well. He hastened to the Brabant and saw the room clerk,
- Stewart, who had tipped off the city editor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; he is in,” said Stewart. “But if you think it is another case of
- Coal-Oil Johnny you've got another guess coming. Not that he is a
- tightwad; he is liberal enough with his nuggets, the bell-hops say. But he
- is no fool. And yet—think of it!—he takes into Seattle with
- him from Nome eight or ten millions of gold-dust! There he hires a special
- train to bring him and his gold-dust to New York. He arrives at the Grand
- Central in the early morning. They hustle round and find seven trucks to
- carry the boxes of gold-dust for him. He follows in a taxicab. He comes
- straight to this hotel—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewart here swelled up his chest. It made the reporter say, amiably:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was considered a good hotel once; but news travels slowly in the
- frozen North.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He comes up here, registers, and then expects me to let him take the
- whole fifteen tons of gold up to his room. What do you know about that?
- Well, then he wanted to hire a whole floor so as to distribute the weight.
- But you know it is a highly concentrated weight. No floor would stand it.
- Gold is the heaviest thing there is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is,” agreed Parkhurst, hastily. “It is, dear friend. That's why I
- never carry more than a couple of tooth-fillings with me, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me tell you,” cut in Stewart, full of his story. “So, being Sunday
- and no banks open, we arranged for him to keep the gold-dust down-stairs
- in the engine-room. And it is there now, a hundred and fifty boxes, worth,
- he says, about eight million—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lead me to it before you hand in your bill,” entreated the reporter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are eight Old Sleuths, with sixteen automatic pistols, on the job
- of keeping hungry newspaper men from the nice little paper-weights,
- Jimmy,” said Stewart. “I am so kind to Mr. Jerningham myself that I think
- he will remember me in one of those wills you fellows are always writing
- about—don't you know? How a fabulous fortune is left to the polite
- hotel clerk who was so nice to the stranger in the spring of eighteen
- seventy-four?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the full name?” asked the reporter. “There it is!” and Stewart
- pointed to the autograph in the hotel register.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alfred Jerningham. Nome and New York. Suite G.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There followed the names of the eight bullion guards and his two personal
- servants.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Looks like a school-boy's writing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is about forty,” said the clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then it means he probably stopped writing for publication when he was
- about fourteen. That is the immature chirography of a man who is more at
- home with a pick than with a pen. And, furthermore—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here he comes,” interjected Stewart. “I'll introduce you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- J. Willoughby Parkhurst, the reporter, was startled by the change in
- Stewart's face. It had taken on the ingratiating soul-sweetness of one who
- enjoys your story with all his faculties—the complete surrender of
- self, soul, and hopes of heaven. The clerk exuded gratitude from every
- pore.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gosh!” exclaimed J. Willoughby Parkhurst in amazement, and turned quickly
- to see who it was that had made Stewart's greed-stricken face turn itself
- into a moving-picture film of all the delights.
- </p>
- <p>
- A man was approaching—a man of about the reporter's height,
- square-shouldered, smooth-shaved, strong-chinned, with an outdoor
- complexion, and the clear, clean, steady eyes of a man without a liver.
- There was a metallic glint to the gray-blue of the iris that made the eyes
- a trifle hard. The lips were not only compressed, but you guessed that the
- compression was habitual. Even a private detective could have told that
- this man had made up his mind to do one thing, and therefore he would do
- it. There was no doubt of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Mr. Jerningham!” The name issued like a stream of saccharin out of
- the eddying smiles on Stewart's face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The expectation of twenty millions of gold, at least, on that face!”
- thought Parkhurst, more impressed by the smile than by the cause thereof.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here is that nugget I promised you.” And Mr. Jerningham dropped
- four-and-three-quarter pounds troy of gold into the clerk's coy hand. “It
- is the largest I ever found in six years' mining on the Klondike.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter later told the city editor—he did not print this—that
- Stewart, as he got the nugget, showed plainly on his face his
- disappointment that Jerningham had not come from the South-African
- diamond-fields. A carbon crystal weighing four pounds and three-quarters—that
- would have been worth a real smile! But the clerk said, gratefully: “It's
- very good of you. Thank you ever so much! I'd like to introduce to you my
- friend, Mr. Park-hurst.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. Parker, did you say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Klondiker spoke coldly. It made the reporter say, subtly antagonistic:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Parkhurst!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Any relation to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Haven't a relation in the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shake again, friend,” said Jerningham, warmly. “I am in the same boat
- myself!”
- </p>
- <p>
- They shook hands again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you want to be very nice?” asked Jerningham, almost eagerly, of the
- reporter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is my invariable custom to be that,” Parkhurst assured him, gravely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dine with me to-night.” Jerningham looked expectant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have an engagement with my friend the bishop,” said the reporter, who
- hated clergymen for obvious reasons. “But—let me see!” Parkhurst
- closed his eyes the better to see how he could break his engagement. “I'll
- send regrets to the bishop and dine with you with pleasure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Parkhurst is on the <i>Planet</i>” put in Stewart. It was the way he
- said it!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, yes,” said Jemingham, vaguely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In fact, Mr. Jemingham,” said Parkhurst, “I was sent to interview you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Huh?” ejaculated the Klondiker, blankly. It was plain he was virgin soil.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All to myself!” thought J. Willoughby, with a mental smack of the lips.
- Then he began, in that congratulatory tone of voice with which practised
- interviewers corkscrew admissions out of their victims: “We heard about
- your trip from Seattle, and about your—er—baggage. Would you
- mind telling me a little more about it? We could”—with a honeyed
- grin at Stewart—“sit down in a nice little corner of the café and
- have a nice little chat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't mind—if you don't,” said Jemingham, with one of those
- diffidently eager smiles of people who are doing you a favor and do not
- know it.
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter led the way to the café, selected a small table in the
- farthest corner, beckoned to a waiter, pointed to a chair, and nodded
- toward the Alaskan Monte Cristo.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you!” said Jemingham, with real gratitude, and sat down. Then he
- looked at his watch, saw that it was only four o'clock, and said to the
- waiter, “A cup of tea, please.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Huh?” It was all J. Willoughby could rise to. A miner and tea? What about
- the free champagne for the hundreds? A tea-drinker would not scatter
- walnut-sized diamonds along the Great White Way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I got used to it. My pal was English. We found it preferable to whisky in
- the Klondike.” Mr. Jerningham made no effort to disguise the apologetic
- tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll have the same,” cleverly said J. Willoughby. Then, to clinch it, “Of
- course you know that in the exclusive clubs to-day men drink more tea than
- liquor!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's the proper thing—eh?” said Jerningham, with a sort of
- head-waiter deference that made the reporter stare in surprise. “I am glad
- you told me that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes. It is no longer good form to get load—er—intoxicated.
- It's one of the few good things we've got from England—tea-drinking,”
- the reporter said. “And, Mr. Jerningham, to get back to our subject, just
- how did you happen to go to the Klondike?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It began in New York,” said Jerningham, and drew his lips together. It
- was clearly not a pleasant memory.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It did?” You could tell that J. Willoughby was grateful. “Well, well! And—”
- He frowned as though a date had escaped him. He really suggested time to
- the miner, for Jerningham volunteered: “When I was twelve years old.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's about twenty years ago,” ventured the reporter in the affirmative
- tone of voice that inevitably elicits contradiction and the exact figures
- from the victim.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thirty-two years ago, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, well! And—How did you say it began?” The reporter put his
- hand to his ear to show that his hardness of hearing had prevented him
- from getting Jerningham's previous answer to the same question.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My father!” Mr. Jemingham nodded twice, to show that those two words told
- the whole story.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, yes! And then?” The reporter looked as if instant death Would follow
- the non-receipt of information; and Jerningham, as though against a
- lifelong determination to be silent, spoke—and frowned as he spoke:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My father! He was a coachman in the employ of old David Soulett, who was
- the son of Walter and the father of Richard and David the third, and of
- Madge, who married the Duke of Peterborough. Old David Soulett—the
- second, he was—was my father's employer. My father was English. He
- came to New York when he was eighteen. He went straight into the Souletts'
- stable, became head coachman, and lived with the family for fifty years.
- They pensioned him off. I grew up with the boys—called one another
- by our first names. Do you get that?—by our first names!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham compressed his lips tightly and nodded. His eyes filled with
- reminiscence—sweet, yet sad.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You did, eh?” said the reporter.
- </p>
- <p>
- If J. Willoughby had been addicted to slang he would have used the same
- wondering tone of voice and would have exclaimed, “What do you know about
- that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And that is why I went to the Klondike!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There are times when a man's voice and attitude show that he is speaking
- in italics. This was one of the times. Having said all there was to be
- said, he turned to the tea with a gesture of such determination that
- Parkhurst leaned over, half expecting to see a dozen starving
- grizzly-bears jump out of the cup. Then the thought came to the watchful
- reporter that the grim-shut lips merely expressed that some memory was
- bitter. He asked, very sympathetically, “Did they send you away?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They did not send me away. They did nothing! They were! That's all. It
- was enough.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, of course!” The reporter agreed with Jerningham absolutely. “But I
- don't quite see the exact reason, as you might say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They were!” explained Jerningham as one might talk to a child. “They were
- Souletts, rich by inheritance, in the best society. They had everything I
- did not have. So I went to the Klondike.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it not clear?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” said the reporter, grateful for the chance to use the plain
- negative.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They were in the Four Hundred. They were gentlemen. They were
- good-looking, pleasant-mannered, kindly-hearted fellow-Christians. But if
- they had not been the sons of David Soulett, and if David had not been the
- son of Walter, and Walter the son of the first David, they wouldn't have
- been in the Four Hundred, or in the Four Thousand even. Policemen at the
- corners used to touch their hats to them as they drove by and seemed
- really glad to get a pleasant smile in return. You felt the cops would
- never have dreamt of taking a Soulett to the station-house—always to
- the Soulett mansion. New-Yorkers used to point to it—the Soulett
- mansion—with an air of pride, as though they owned it! Clerks in
- shops would send for the proprietor if one of the Souletts walked in, and
- later they would brag how they said to David Soulett, they said; and he
- said, said he—and so on. And why? Why, I ask you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” repeated the reporter, hypnotically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because an ignorant old cuss couldn't read or write and had to go to
- digging graves in Trinity churchyard for a living. It was old David's
- proud boast that he put away one thousand six hundred and thirty-two
- people, including the very best there were in literature, art, science,
- theology, commerce, and finance, besides nineteen murderers, thirty-eight
- pet slaves, and one dog of his own. A very snob among grave-diggers,
- laying the foundation for the nonsnobbishness of his great-grandchildren!
- Digging graves, you see, turned his mind to soil. The only thing that
- didn't burn up or evaporate or shrink was soil. Genius for real estate
- they call his madness to-day. But it was an obsession. He bought a farm in
- what is now the swell shopping district; and another where the Hotel
- Regina is; and another beginning where the Vandeventer houses are. The old
- lunatic's mad purchases are now worth one hundred and fifty million
- dollars; and he himself is an ancestor, with fake portraits showing an
- intellectual-looking country squire. Grave-digger—that's what! But
- the money really began with him and the near-gentleman with Walter, who
- knew the best families because his father buried them one after another.
- By the time the real-estate market got to going in earnest David was born—of
- course a gentleman! What did it? Unearned money!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But what's digging graves got to do with your going to the
- Klondike?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Everything. It gave me the secret of it—the unearned part. Don't
- you see?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir, I loved the company of the Soulett boys and I enjoyed the
- society of their equals. So I naturally desired to become their equal. To
- become a gentleman I had to become rich. But the money must not be earned;
- so I couldn't make it in trade—which, moreover, was too slow. The
- careers of butcher, plumber, and liquor-dealer, that might have made me
- rich quickly, were closed to me by the social disqualifications they
- carry. And the careers of Jim Sands and Bill Train in Wall Street were too
- malodorous; besides which, you can't make very much money on the Stock
- Exchange without treading on influential social toes. Hence the Klondike.
- Do you see now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm beginning to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean,” said the reporter, to get it straight, “that you went to
- the Klondike to make money so as to climb—I mean, so as to go into
- society?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly so! Yes, sir! And I tell you, Mr. Parker—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Park-<i>hurst!</i>” said J. Willoughby, with a frown of injured vanity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Parkhurst, a man has to have some strong motive to enable him to
- conquer success. In all my wanderings for twenty-five years, prospecting
- in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, the Southwest, Nevada, California,
- Oregon, and Washington, and finally all over Alaska, I had but one object
- in mind, one purpose. It sustained me. It gave me courage when others
- despaired; it kept me marching onward when others fell by the wayside and
- died or became sheep-ranchers. I had no thought for amusement, none for
- pleasure, none for love. I simply kept up my search. It was the search for
- happiness that the old knights used to go out on. It was a search, Mr.
- Parker-hurst, for the yellow admission ticket to the Four Hundred!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you found it?” J. Willoughby could not help it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me tell you,” pursued Jerningham, ignoring the question. “I used to
- read the society columns of the New York papers whenever I felt myself
- growing discouraged; and that always revived me. Up in the Klondike I had
- saved fifteen hundred dollars and I paid one thousand dollars in gold-dust
- for a six-months-old copy of a society paper which had an account of Mrs.
- Masters's ball. To me, 'among those present' meant more than a list of
- gilt-edge bonds. I've got it yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused to take from his pocket-book a tattered clipping and showed it
- to the newspaper man with a mixture of pride and tenderness and solicitude
- lest it be harmed, as a father shows the only extant photograph of the
- most wonderful baby in captivity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought my name would fit in very nicely between the Janeways and the
- Jesups. It was a good investment, that one thousand dollars, for I felt I
- had to get a gait on, and that very same day I went on that prospecting
- trip to the Endicott Mountains which changed my luck for me. Everything
- came my way then—I mean, in mining. I am getting six hundred
- thousand dollars a year out of my claims; and that is because I believe
- fifty thousand dollars a month enough for a bachelor. More would be—er—sort
- of ostentatious. Don't you think so?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, indeed,” agreed J. Willoughby Parkhurst, with a shudder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I marry I'll make it one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a
- month.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I agree with you,” said Parkhurst—“because, really, two cannot live
- as cheaply as one.” He thrilled when he thought how he would play up that
- promised income in his story.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's what I say,” Jerningham said, gratefully. “Of course there's the
- seven millions and a half of gold-dust I have brought with me. It's
- downstairs.” His grim mouth became more determinedly grim than ever. This
- man was the kind that gets what he wants, with or without money. He will
- not climb, thought Parkhurst; he will vault into society. He asked
- Jerningham:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you really got that much down-stairs? I mean,” he hastily corrected
- himself, “have you no fear of the danger of going about with that much
- loose change?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. It's guarded by men who are getting big pay for being honest. You can
- buy honesty—if you treat it as a luxury and pay for it as such. Each
- box weighs one hundred and fifty pounds, for convenience in handling.
- Would you like to see the stuff?” He could not hide a boyish eagerness—not
- at all offensive—to impress his new friend. J. Willoughby Parkhurst
- forgave him in advance, and to prove it said, heartily:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very much indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well. Please come with me.” And he led the way to the engine-room.
- They went down two flights. At the door of the engine-room they met the
- engineer, who bowed with an obsequiousness that indicated sincere
- gratitude and renewed hope—as of a man who has received a handsome
- gratuity and is expecting another.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the middle of the concrete floor, of the engine-room, piled up in an
- amazingly small mound of boxes, was the gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Each box has about fifty thousand dollars in dust,” explained Jerningham,
- with what one might have called a matter-of-fact pride. “Would you like to
- open one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't want to put you to any trouble—not for worlds; but I do
- want to see the inside of one like anything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No trouble. I say, Mr. Wilkinson,” to the hotel engineer, who had
- followed them, a deferential smile fastened to his face, “could you get me
- a hammer and chisel and a screw-driver?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly, Mr. Jerningham,” said the engineer, with obvious pride at
- being part of an extraordinary adventure. He reappeared presently with the
- tools and a burly assistant. They pried off the steel hoop and cracked off
- the sealing-wax from over the heads of the screws that held the lid in
- place. They then unscrewed the cover—and there before their
- wide-gaping eyes was a boxful of yellow Yukon gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham smilingly looked at J. Willoughby Parkhurst and waved his hand
- toward the treasure—a gesture that said Help yourself!—only it
- said it humorously. And so the reporter smiled indulgently and plunged his
- hand in it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How heavy!” he exclaimed, involuntarily. He had meant to be witty, as
- penniless people always are in the presence of great wealth to show that
- they are not impressed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be light enough to blow away here,” said Jerningham so seriously
- that nobody smiled—indeed, everybody hoped for a blast in the
- direction of his own pocket. Put Jerningham merely said: “Thank you. Will
- you screw it on again?” And the engineer did. Jerningham did not stay to
- see the rescrewing finished. He took Parkhurst's arm and walked out. The
- reporter told him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't help thinking it was imprudent. The detectives now know they can
- open the boxes and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn't likely that all eight will be dishonest at the same minute.
- That's why I got eight instead of four. But, even if they all wanted to,
- how much could they get away with? With the contents of one of the boxes,
- fifty thousand dollars? Well, that isn't much. I can't afford to let that
- gold be a bother to me. I brought it along so that it could be my servant—not
- for me to be its slave.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've heard others make that selfsame remark,” said J. Willoughby,
- cheerfully, “but they never struck off the aureate shackles!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My friend, it's not in striking off shackles; that is always difficult.
- The secret is in not letting them become shackles!” said Jerningham,
- grimly. “A man does not confidently expect during twenty-five years to
- strike it rich some day without very carefully thinking of what he is
- going to do with the gold after he gets it.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p>
- The story, as James Willoughby Parkhurst wrote it, and even as the <i>Planet</i>
- printed it, was a masterpiece. It was far more interesting than a fake.
- The truth often may be stranger than fiction, but it is seldom so
- exciting. With the generous desire to repay Jerningham's hospitality with
- kindness, to say nothing of an eye for the picturesque, the reporter made
- his victim an Admirable Crichton. Parkhurst's Jerningham was very
- distinguished-looking, which every woman knows is better for a man than
- being handsome. He not only was “probably the richest man in the world,”
- but a fine linguist—indeed, a philologist. You saw Jerningham
- digging in his gravel-bank by day—-spadeful after spadeful of clear
- gold-dust—and at nights reading Aristophanes in the original by the
- flickering and malodorous light of seal-fat lamps.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the same day that Jerningham learned that his own wealth was
- practically inexhaustible, and decided to limit his income in order that
- gold might not be demonetized, he—the philologist in him—discovered
- also amazing analogies between certain Eskimo and Aleutian words and their
- equivalents in Tibetan. This and a monograph on “Totemism in the Light of
- Its Undoubted Babylonian Origin,” he would read in London before the Royal
- Society. Of Jerningham's ancestry the article said that the erudite
- Croesus was “of the Long Island Jerninghams.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At three separate and distinct places in the article, each time
- differently worded, but the intention and purpose thereof being the same,
- the writer said that for generosity, lavish extravagance, capacity for
- spending, and deep-rooted belief that there was no difference between gold
- coins and stage money, the learned Klondiker was a combination of Monte
- Cristo, Boni de Castellane, Coal-Oil Johnny, and Alcibiades—only
- more so. But his feverish efforts were all in vain—he only grew
- richer! If he decided to give a million to a newsboy who was polite, that
- same moment he would be sure to get a cablegram from one of his
- superintendents that the vein had widened to three miles and the assays
- jumped to three hundred thousand dollars a ton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Parkhurst finished by saying that Jerningham had no use for women. In
- divers countries world-famous sirens had sung to him—in vain. He was
- the kind that registered zero, even though plunged to the chin in Vesuvian
- lava. So the dear things might as well save time, breath, and muscular
- exertion; he would have none of them, no matter what their age, color of
- hair, temperament, accomplishments, or even faces might be. He was
- arrow-proof and Cupid had given up trying. Still, there must be One—somewhere!
- </p>
- <p>
- When J. Willoughby Parkhurst went to the Hotel Brabant on Monday morning
- in the hope of a second-day story, he was not sure how Jerningham would
- take his masterpiece. He was going so early in the hope of shunting off
- the head-line artists of the afternoon papers, for all that he had begged
- Stewart to fix it so that nobody got to Jerningham before the <i>Planet</i>
- man turned up.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he entered the lobby he saw in a corner lounge five reporters from the
- yellows, three photographers from same, a professor from the Afternoon
- Three-Center, and a “psychological portraitist,” feminine and fat, but
- dressed with unusual care and even piquancy, from a magazine. He saw
- Jemingham's finish—not!
- </p>
- <p>
- The competitors were too busy talking to see J. Willoughby Parkhurst,
- author of the day's sensation, walk up to the desk and greet Stewart
- affectionately. They did not see J. W. P. turn sharply, approach a
- well-built, square-shouldered man, with an outdoor complexion, who had
- just emerged from the elevator, and shake hands warmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- After one and a half seconds of dialogue, consisting of “Good morning!”
- and “Good morning!” J. Willoughby cleverly realized that Mr. Alfred
- Jemingham could not possibly have read the article. On general principles
- he took the Klondiker to one end of the corridor, out of sight of the
- other reporters.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am very anxious to make arrangements to store my gold in some bank's
- vaults. I don't know any bank—that is, I have no account in any; and
- I wondered if I needed to be introduced.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham looked anxiously at Parkhurst.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course!” said J. Willoughby, and immediately looked alarmed. “Of
- course! They are very particular—very! The good ones, you know. A
- man's bank is like a man's club—it can give him a social standing or
- it can prove he hasn't any.” He looked at his Klondike friend with a frown
- of anxiety.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what
- you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he
- will make the trust company take it—unless he thinks there is
- another still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and
- we'll tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us—what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive
- property of the <i>Planet</i>. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called
- up the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take
- pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great
- vaults, escorted by the <i>Planet's</i> special commissioner in one of the
- armored automobiles which the <i>Planet</i> supplied to its bright young
- men.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the <i>Planet's</i> financial editor;
- and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller Trust
- Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all arrangements,
- including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy O'Loughlin, who did
- all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson & Company, Wolff, Herzog
- & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms. Photographers were
- duly stationed at the various points by which the aureate procession would
- pass.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the
- ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be “tipped off” by
- hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to the
- Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the <i>Planet's</i>
- automobile and followed the trucks.
- </p>
- <p>
- In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder, and
- Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was
- carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the
- heap.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd like to have these cashed,” he said, with that delightful humor of
- all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody
- always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was
- not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark at
- home that night.
- </p>
- <p>
- Word of what was happening went about, and soon the great little narrow
- street was blocked by people who wished to see six or eight millions go
- into a place where there were one hundred and fifty. But there was this
- difference—the one hundred and fifty already there would stay there;
- but a handful or two of the six or eight might be distributed among those
- present by the latest Coal-Oil Johnny from the Klondike. The hope of a
- stray nugget or two kept two thousand busy people about the doors of the
- VanTwiller Trust Company nearly two hours.
- </p>
- <p>
- As for Jerningham, the trust company was to send the twenty boxes of
- gold-dust to the Assay Office and credit Mr. Jerninghan's account with the
- proceeds of the sale thereof. Two days later Mr. Alfred Jerningham had to
- his credit in the VanTwiller Trust Company $1,115,675.28; and in the
- vaults boxes containing, as per his most conservative estimates, gold-dust
- valued at six millions and a half. And everybody knew it—the Planet
- saw to that. Great potentialities in that golden fame of Jerningham's—what?
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he <i>Planet's</i>
- official version of the Jerningham affair, and the flood of sensational
- literature turned loose on the community by the other papers, made the
- Klondiker's name as familiar to New-Yorkers as a certain breakfast-food
- advertisement.
- </p>
- <p>
- His daily mail was enormous, especially after the newspapers said that he
- was looking for a house in which to entertain. “The richest bachelor in
- the world,” he was called, and the real-estate agents acted accordingly.
- So did no end of unattached females of dubious age, but of not at all
- dubious intentions. Also it became known that he needed a social secretary
- to guide him in two things—the two things being whom to invite and
- how to spend six hundred thousand dollars a year in entertaining those who
- were invited by the social adviser.
- </p>
- <p>
- The applications came by the dozen—in the strictest confidence. If
- somebody had said this aloud in the hearing of society, society would have
- laughed scornfully. A gentleman was always a gentleman, and could never,
- never be secretary to a parvenu! But, for all that, there were scores of
- well-born men who appeared willing enough—don't you know?—to
- help spend the six hundred thousand a year. Or else some historic names
- were forged by dastards. The <i>Planet's</i> society editor, who would
- never allow herself to be called editress, proved invaluable as a living
- Who's Who, and demonstrated her worth to her paper by making connections
- that would further her work; for she was much sought by people who wished
- introductions to Mr. Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- They would trade with her—items for letters.
- </p>
- <p>
- It helped all concerned that not only Parkhurst, but the rest of the
- kind-hearted space-grabbers, informed the world that the possessor of the
- income of six hundred thousand a year was a fount of erudition, and withal
- a man of the world, with exquisite manners—invulnerable to the
- optical artillery of the fairest sirens on earth. And always the six
- hundred thousand dollars a year to spend, so that the beastly stuff would
- not accumulate and choke up the passages of the palace he proposed to
- build! That was how Francis Wolfe came to be introduced to Mr. Jerningham
- by J. Willoughby Parkhurst, and how the position was delicately offered to
- him, and how F. Wolfe delicately accepted.
- </p>
- <p>
- A fine-looking, well-built young fellow, this Frank—dark-eyed,
- black-haired, with a wonderfully clean pink but virile complexion that
- made him physically very attractive. In those Broadway restaurants that
- have become institutions Francis Wolfe was himself an institution. His
- debts were discussed as freely as the cost of gasoline. And yet the chorus
- contingent and their lady friends, consisting of the most beautiful women
- in all the world, not only preferred, but publicly and on the slightest
- provocation proclaimed their preference for, Frank Wolfe penniless to
- almost any one else—short of millions. But if Frank Wolfe was the
- chorus-girls' pet, Mr. Francis Wolfe was the only brother of Mrs. John
- Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham, and favorite nephew of old Mrs. Stimson.
- And everybody knew what that meant!
- </p>
- <p>
- J. Willoughby Parkhurst left them alone, even if he was a reporter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you do not mind talking business,” said Jerningham, with a deprecatory
- smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not at all,” eagerly said young Wolfe, who was consumed by curiosity to
- listen to the golden statistics. “In fact,” he added, with a burst of
- boyish candor, “I'd be glad to have you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are a nice boy!” said Jemingham, so gratefully and non-familiarly
- that Frank could not find fault with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I need a friend,” continued Jerningham. “I know friendship cannot be
- bought. It grows—but there must be a seed. It may be that after you
- know me better you will give me your friendship. That is for the future. I
- also need a man! A man whom I can trust! A man, young Mr. Francis Wolfe,”
- he said, with a sternness that impressed young Mr. Francis Wolfe, “who
- will not laugh at me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank was not an intellectual giant, but neither was he an utter ass. He
- said, very seriously, “Go on!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am willing to pay such a man twenty-five thousand a year—” He
- paused and almost frowned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on!” again said young Mr. Wolfe, looking the Klondiker straight in the
- eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Twenty-five thousand dollars—to begin with!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” said young Mr. Wolfe, quite calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The duties of such a man—and keep in mind I mean a man when I say a
- man!—entail nothing whatever of a menial or dishonorable character;
- nothing to which a gentleman could possibly object. But it would
- necessitate a certain spirit of good-will toward me. I am not only
- willing, but even anxious, to pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and
- all traveling expenses, to a clean-minded young man who, for all his
- wild-oat sowing, is a gentleman and will learn to like me enough not to
- laugh at me when I intrust him with the secret desire of my heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Before Frank's thoughts could crystallize into the definite suspicion that
- Jerningham wanted to be helped to climb socially, Jemingham went on so
- coldly that again young Wolfe was impressed:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will admit, Mr. Wolfe, that a man who has prospected all over North
- America from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle, and who has,
- unfortunately, been compelled”—he rose, went to his bureau, brought
- out two revolvers of a rather old-fashioned kind—“compelled against
- his will to draw first”—he showed the young man about a dozen
- notches in the handle of one of them—“one who fears no man and no
- government and no blackmailer; who owns the richest placer mines in the
- world—is not apt to be an emotional ass!” There was a pause. But
- Jemingham continued before young Wolfe could speak: “Neither is he a
- damned fool—what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Francis Wolfe felt he had to say something, so he said, “I shouldn't
- think so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt that Jemingham was not a man to trifle with—a tough customer
- in a rough-and-tumble fight; a man who had taken life in preserving his
- own; altogether a man, a character, who would make an admirable topic of
- conversation with both men and women—therefore a man to be
- interested in.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know Mr. Ashton Welles?” asked Jer-ningham, almost sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not intimately.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know Mrs. Ashton Welles?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Same answer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ever dine at their house?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank thought a moment. He had dined at so many people's houses. “No,” he
- answered, finally. “Could you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are your relations with Welles such, or could they be cultivated so, as
- to make him invite you—not me—you!—to dine at his
- house?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here, Mr. Jerningham,” and young Mr. Wolfe's face flushed, “a fellow
- doesn't do some things for money; and this is one—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know it! Not for money. For friendship, yes! That's why—you
- understand now, don't you?” He looked so earnestly at young Wolfe that
- Frank absolved him of wrong-doing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I don't!” said the young man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did you ever know Randolph Deering, who used to be president of the
- VanTwiller Trust Company?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean Mrs. Welles's father?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't recall speaking to him more than to say 'How do you do?' I don't
- remember when or how I met him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know Mrs. Deering, Mrs. Welles's mother?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know anybody who does?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose I do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anybody who would give you a letter of introduction?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know. If my aunt or my sisters know her it would be easy. But, of
- course, I should have to know first why I should want to meet her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course. Did you ever hear anything about Mrs. Welles's sister, Naida
- Deering?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Didn't know she had a sister.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, of course, you never saw her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Francis Wolfe thought a long time. His mind did not work very quickly at
- any time. At length he said: “I don't think there could have been a
- sister, for I never heard of her having any; indeed, I distinctly remember
- hearing that she was an only child. Maybe she was a cousin or—er—something
- of the sort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; Naida was a sister; a good deal older and—But we are drifting
- away from business. Will you accept my proposition to be my—er—adviser
- in certain matters on which I think you are qualified to give advice, and
- accept twenty-five thousand dollars a year?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mind if I speak frankly?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly not. Speak ahead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you offering me this—er—salary when, of course, I know I
- am not worth a da—a cent in business; I mean, isn't it really in
- exchange for what I may be able to do for you in a—a social way? You
- know what I mean.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir!” said Jerningham, decisively. “Not for an instant! I do not,
- dear Mr. Wolfe, give an infinitesimal damn for what is called society.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I thought Jimmy Parkhurst told me—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot help what Jimmy Parkhurst told you; but I tell you that I like
- interesting people, and I don't care who or what they are socially. I hate
- bores—whether they are hod-carriers or dukes. If I can meet people
- who will instruct me when I want to learn, or amuse me when I want to
- laugh, I'm satisfied. And I can always meet that kind without anybody's
- help. You know how it is.” Then he spoke perhaps thirty words in a foreign
- language that Frank thought must be Hungarian. “You remember your Latin,
- of course. That's from Petronius.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought so!” said Frank Wolfe, the pet of the chorus-girls, laughing to
- himself. Remember his Latin! He? Haw!
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is from his 'Cena Trimalchionis.' The <i>arbiter elegantiarum</i> knew
- what social climbers might be expected to do, though I neither boast of my
- money nor do I eat with my knife. The Latin of the 'Cena' is difficult—too
- slangy, full of the <i>sermo plebeius</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is,” agreed Frank, so gravely that it was all he could do to keep
- from laughing at himself. This Klondiker was not only a gun-fighter and
- richer than Croesus, but also a highbrow! Could you beat it?
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you accept my offer? Will you try to be my friend?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Suppose I find I can't?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll be sorry. The money is nothing. The inability to make a friend will
- be my real loss.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, we might try six months.” He looked inquiringly at Jerningham. “I
- don't exactly know what you wish me to do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Become my friend! You yourself said some things cannot be done for money
- by a gentleman; but there is nothing—so long as it is not
- dishonorable—that a gentleman may not do for a friend. Shall I
- explain a little more?” He looked anxiously at young Mr. Wolfe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—do,” said Frank. It occurred to him that this singular man was
- in reality proceeding with a curious delicacy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Just as soon as you feel you know me I will ask you to help me. Mrs.
- Deering is now abroad. Mrs. Welles may be of help to us. Mr. Wolfe, now
- that I am not so poor as I was, I want to find Naida Deering, the only
- woman I ever loved—and, God help me, the only woman I still love!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham rose hastily and walked up and down the room, his face
- persistently turned away from Wolfe. He walked to a window and stared at
- the sky a long time. Finally he turned to the young man, who was watching
- him, and said, with profound conviction:
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- Young Mr. Wolfe at first felt like saying, “Yes, indeed!” which would, as
- a matter of fact, have been a very pat retort. But he weakened and said,
- “What is that quotation from?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Publilius Syrus. Mr. Wolfe, I must find her. And of course I can't employ
- a private detective. You understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. That is true,” said Frank.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In her youth something happened.” Young Mr. Wolfe sat up straight. Here
- at last was something really vital! Jerningham proceeded: “She was a
- high-strung girl—pure as gold. Her very innocence made her
- indiscreet. There was no scandal—no, indeed! But she disappeared.
- And now, when I have more than enough money for the two of us, I wish to
- find her. If I don't—of what possible good are my millions? Tell me
- that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham glared so angrily at young Mr. Wolfe that young Mr. Wolfe felt
- a slight spasm of concern. The Klondiker had a metallic gray eye that at
- times menaced like cold steel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Excuse me!” said Jerningham, contritely. “My dear boy, do you know what
- it is to go chasing over the landscape for years and years in the hope of
- striking it some day so as to be able to go back to your native city and
- marry the one woman in all the world—particularly when she was one
- whom her parents, not understanding her nature, practically disowned? In
- all my prospecting what I wanted was to find Naida's mine—gold by
- the ton—so I could buy back her place in society!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was such determination in Jerningham's voice and look that young
- Wolfe felt a thrill of admiration and, with it, a distinct masculine
- liking.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's a great story!” he said. “I never heard of your—er—Miss
- Naida. She never married, I suppose?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know! I don't know! She promised to wait for me. The Deerings
- used to live in Jersey; and living in Jersey when I was a kid wasn't what
- it is to-day. They were not prominent in society. Of course the Deerings
- kept it quiet. I think Mrs. Welles may know where her sister is—the
- sister who is never mentioned by her own flesh and blood! Mrs. Deering, of
- course, does; but she is abroad somewhere. I must find Naida, I tell you—and—”
- Jerningham was silent, but Wolfe saw that he was breathing quickly, as
- though he had been running. Frank never read anything except the afternoon
- papers, love-letters, and the more romantic of the best-sellers. He now
- very laboriously constructed a romance of Jemingham's life that became so
- thrilling it took away his own breath. It made him feel very kindly toward
- the new Jerningham—everybody feels kindly toward his own creations;
- and so he said, in a burst of enthusiasm:
- </p>
- <p>
- “By George! I'll help you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- And thus was begun the pact between the two men.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the very, next
- morning Mr. Jerningham, instead of going to Wall Street as was his custom,
- went instead to Mrs. Charlton Morris's Agency for Trained Nurses.
- </p>
- <p>
- An empress—no less—sat at a desk. She was not, however, one of
- those empresses who change the destiny of nations by their beauty. She had
- merely an arrogance more than royal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should like to see Mrs. Charlton Morris,” said Jerningham, briskly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am Mrs. Morris,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- You at once perceived that she was even more than imperial. She was a
- woman of forty, dark, slender, with shell-rimmed, round lenses that gave
- her that look between a Chinese philosopher and an ancient owl, which
- those tortoise-shell goggles always do. You also obtained the impression
- that a completely successful operation had removed Mrs. Morris's sense of
- humor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should like, if you please—” began Jerningham; but Mrs. Morris
- interrupted with an effect as of thrusting an icicle into the interior
- mechanism of a clock.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon, but we must know with whom we are dealing. What is the
- name, please?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I prefer not to give you mine yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh no, sir; I must know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Suppose I had given you a false one, how would you have been the wiser?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but also you must give me the name of your doctor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He sent me here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And who is he, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- From her voice and her look you gathered that she was in charge of a
- hospital and was obtaining indispensable clinical data.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam,” said Jemingham, very coldly indeed, “you talk like the census
- man. Would you also like to know my age, sex, and color?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We never,” retorted Mrs. Morris, imperturbably, “do business with
- strangers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you want me to get a letter from the President of the United States? I
- know him pretty well. Or from my bankers? They are known even in
- Brooklyn.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We are here to supply trained nurses to people whose physicians we know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A trained nurse must have unfailing good humor—it is part of her
- professional requirements. But a purveyor of trained nurses may permit
- herself much dignity, as though her mission in life consisted, of fitting
- nurses to cases—the best nurse for the worst case.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My doctor,” said Jerningham, “is Dr. Jewett.” It was the name of a very
- great surgeon.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, yes. Surgical case! Yes! I have Miss Sennett and Miss Audrey. Dr.
- Jewett knows them very well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kindly wait a second! I must see them myself. And it is not a surgical
- case. It is no case at all—yet. Show me the girls!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, this is not an intelligence-office; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know there is no intelligence in this office. This is merely the
- anteroom of a hospital and you are the superintendent. By rights you ought
- to be on the faculty. I am perfectly willing to pay for any loss of time
- or trouble to which you and the young ladies may be put.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Must she be young?” asked Mrs. Morris.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her voice was at least thirty degrees below zero, for all that there was
- no devilishness about Mr. Jerningham. He said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; and good-looking—not a girl in her teens, but a young woman. I
- should say, without meaning to be personal, about your age, Mrs. Morris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was plain that Mrs. Morris had almost superhuman control over her
- facial muscles—she did not beam on him!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I understand,” she said, in a quite human voice. This man was, after all,
- neither rude nor blind. “A woman—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “About thirty—or a little less,” said Jerningham. He looked at Mrs.
- Morris's face and nodded confirmatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly,” said Mrs. Morris, genially. First impressions are so apt to be
- unfair!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll be more than satisfied with one of your age and good loo—and—er—appearance
- “—here the Morris smile irrepressibly made its début—“and also
- tactful. It is an unusual case. It will necessitate going to Europe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With the patient?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For the patient,” said Jerningham, and waited.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you will tell me a little bit more about the case—” said Mrs.
- Morris, encouragingly. She had just taken a good look at the pearl in the
- scarf of this delightful judge of ages—at the lowest estimation,
- five thousand dollars!
- </p>
- <p>
- “My—I—We have reason to believe that a—friend is ill in
- London. Kidneys. We wish her to take care of herself. She is a woman of
- fifty-odd. We want a nurse, refined, well-bred, good-looking, and
- competent—like yourself; so that she could be a companion and at
- home among wealthy people. You know what I mean.” He paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perfectly, sir!” said Mrs. Morris, veraciously. Did she not know Mrs.
- Morris?
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be nice to find such a nurse—and, if possible, also one to
- whom the fact that she is going to visit England, and possibly other
- countries, may be a sort of compensation for her sudden departure from New
- York. Of course she will be paid all her traveling and living expenses—first-class
- all through—and her regular honorarium. I believe it is thirty-five
- dollars a week. As I am leaving New York myself soon, I'll pay in advance,
- and will leave instructions with my bankers to honor any of your drafts,
- Mrs. Morris. It will be a good opportunity for the young lady to know
- London—and you know how attractive it is—and Paris!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Mrs. Morris, suddenly looking like Baedeker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The young lady—I am sorry you could not go in her place! Yes, I am!—will
- live at the same hotel with the patient and become acquainted with her—and
- advise her to see a physician regularly—a specialist in kidney
- diseases. We think her only daughter ought to be with her. But you can't
- say anything to either of them, because if the mother doesn't think she is
- ill the daughter cannot know it, either. We only suspect it is Bright's.
- You can't afford to wait until you have to go to bed with Bright's—can
- you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, indeed!” gravely agreed Mrs. Morris, specialist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So now you know what sort of a girl I wish—one who will be there if
- the trouble should take a sudden turn for the worse; one who will induce
- the old lady to consult a physician. Do I have to give a preliminary fee?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not at all. Call this afternoon at four and I'll try to have one of my
- best nurses here. She is—well, quite young; in fact”—with what
- might be called a desiccated archness—“she is a little younger than
- I and quite pretty. I call her handsome!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Some women are so sure of their own position that they do not fear
- competition.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you! I'll be here at four, sharp.” And Mr. Jemingham went away
- without having given his name to Mrs. Morris.
- </p>
- <p>
- At four o'clock Mr. Jemingham called at Mrs. Charlton Morris's agency and
- had an interview with Miss Kathryn Keogh. Mrs. Morris gave them the use of
- her own little private office; Jemingham very impressively waited for Miss
- Keogh to sit down and then did so himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- He threw at Miss Keogh one of those inventorying looks that women find so
- difficult to appear unconscious of, probably because they know their own
- weak points.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Keogh was beautiful—and when an Irish girl is beautiful she is
- beautiful in so many ways! She had the wonderful complexion of her race
- and a mouth carved out of heaven's prize strawberry. Her eyes were an
- incredibly deep blue when they were not an incredibly deep pansy-purple,
- and they were abysses of velvet. In the darkness, without seeing them—just
- by remembering them—you loved those eyes. In the light, when you
- could see them, you simply worshiped! Her throat was one of those
- paradoxical affairs, soft and hard, which made you think at one and the
- same time of marble and rose-leaves—Solomon's tower of ivory,
- crowned by the glory of golden-brown hair, so fine that you thought of
- clouds of it!
- </p>
- <p>
- If you looked at her eyes you suspected, and if you looked at her throat
- you were certain that you, a respectable married man, had in you the
- makings of a criminal—the crime being bigamy. Also you would have
- sworn to her only too cheerfully that she was the only girl you had ever
- loved. With one look, remember!
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham looked at her with a cold, impersonally appreciative eye, as he
- might have scrutinized a clock that was both beautiful and costly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Miss Keogh understood it perfectly. It piqued her, accustomed as she was
- to instant adoration. Yet it was not entirely displeasing. This man knew
- as a connoisseur knows—with his head. That he had not permitted the
- silly heart to disturb the critical faculties was less flattering, of
- course. It deferred the inevitable triumph and thus would make it sweeter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Has Mrs. Morris told you what I should like you to do?” Jemingham's voice
- was coldly emotionless, and his gray eyes showed frosty lights.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She has told me what you doubtless told her. But I must confess I am not
- very clear in my own mind,” answered Miss Keogh.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her voice was what you would have expected an artistic Providence to give
- her. It complemented the lips. If you closed your eyes and heard the voice
- you saw her eyes and felt the heavenly strawberries on your own lips!
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham had not taken his cold eyes off her. He asked as if she were
- anybody—a woman of forty, for example, “Will you listen to me
- carefully?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I provide transportation, first-class, to London. I pay you thirty-five
- dollars a week for your services and allow ten dollars a day for hotel
- expenses, and so on. At the end of the case your contingent fee will
- depend upon your success. We don't want to skimp—but we are not
- throwing away money. It may be one hundred or five hundred dollars. But
- forget all about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have—in advance,” said the marvel, calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham looked at her steadily. She looked back unflinchingly and yet
- not at all defiantly as a lesser person would.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you accept my offer you will go when in London to Thornton's Hotel—an
- old-fashioned but very select hotel—where you will find a nice room
- reserved for you; I will cable for it. It will cost you a guinea a day—for
- the room and table board. You will thus have five dollars a day for cabs
- and incidentals. In that hotel lives Mrs. Margaret Deering, an elderly
- American widow, who looks healthy enough. We fear she is not so strong as
- she looks, and don't want her to be alone. But she will not take hints. I
- wish you to make friends with her, so that if she should become ill enough
- to need attention you may see that she gets proper care and induce her to
- cable to her only daughter.” He stopped and looked at Miss Keogh
- inquiringly, as if to convince himself that Miss Keogh had understood.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What,” said Miss Keogh, calmly, “is the rest of it?” Her eyes were very
- dark. They always seemed to deepen in color when she frowned. She always
- frowned when she concentrated—all women do, notwithstanding their
- dread of wrinkles.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham stared at her. Then he said, “The lady is not insane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nervous?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not yet!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” Miss Keogh nodded her head. Her color had risen somewhat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is there anything in what I have said so far that makes you unwilling to
- take this case?” asked Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing—so far,” she said, looking steadily into his cold, gray
- eyes. She was, of course, Irish.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well. You can save her family much worriment by suggesting to Mrs.
- Deering that she ought to have a trained nurse in constant attendance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By the name of Keogh?” interjected the most wonderful.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. You are supposed to be a young lady with an income of your own. You
- might explain that you took up trained nursing to help your only brother,
- a physician.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well. And—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “After you meet Mrs. Deering you might make judicious remarks about her
- health.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For example—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, at breakfast you say: 'You didn't sleep well last night, did you?'
- If she says no, you can immediately suggest a physician. If she says she
- did, you say: 'Well, there is something wrong with you! Did you ever have
- your kidneys examined?' A simple remark in the proper tone of voice
- sometimes does it—like, 'Whatever in the world is the matter with
- you, dear Mrs. Deering?' You understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you mean that I must suggest to her that she is ailing—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely. The idea is not to frighten her to death, my dear young woman
- with the beautiful but suspicious eyes, but simply to induce her to send
- for her only daughter, so that afterward the two will not be separated.
- And the old lady, I may say for the benefit of your still suspicious eyes,
- is not very rich, though the daughter is. So your imagination need not
- invent any devilish plot. I think you can accomplish your work in six
- weeks. For every day under the six weeks you will receive five pounds.
- That's twenty-five dollars a day. That is intended, Miss Keogh, to make
- you hurry. But you must be tactful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Make it a fixed sum. You look like a clever man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at him challengingly. He stared back, and gradually a look of
- admiration came into his eyes. He said, with a smile of appreciation:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You win! You are certainly the most wonderful girl in the world! I'll
- make it one thousand dollars, win, lose, or draw. But the quicker the
- cablegram—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—grams,” she corrected—“plural. For greater effect at this
- end!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—grams!” he echoed. “And now you must come with me to the bank to
- get your letter of credit and some English money. I'll pay in advance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose. Miss Keogh motioned to him to sit down again. He did so, and
- looked at her alertly. It might have disconcerted some girls—but not
- the only absolutely perfect one. Not at all!
- </p>
- <p>
- “There remains something,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” he queried, sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You forgot it!” she told him, with one of those utterly maddening smiles
- of forgiveness with which beautiful women rivet the fetters and make one
- grateful.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What? What?” he asked, impatiently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” she answered. “That is what! Why?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her beautiful head nodded twice with a birdlike gracefulness. Her eyes
- were very blight—and very dark! Her cheeks were flushed. Her ripe
- lips, slightly parted, were overpoweringly tempting.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham stood up again and stared fixedly at her as though he would
- read miles and miles beyond her wonderful eyes—into the very depths
- of her soul! He approached her and held out both his hands. After a
- scarcely perceptible hesitation she placed hers in his. He shook them with
- profound gravity; then bowed and raised her right to his lips—and
- kissed it twice. Still holding her hands in his, he said to her,
- earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear child, you are the most wonderful woman in all the world. You are
- simply the last word in utter perfection. I am a millionaire, but not a
- crook. I am forty, but still strong. I have never been in love with a
- woman; but I now know I could be. If you ever wish to marry for the ease
- and comfort that great wealth gives, or if you ever feel like using your
- wonderful gifts to make a man who has both money and brains become an
- important personage in the world—just say the word. There is nothing—nothing,
- do you hear?—that we could not do together, you and I. My name is—”
- He paused and looked at her as if to make sure again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” she said, in her most heavenly voice. She released her hands, but
- her eyes never left his. “Jerningham.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Klondike millionaire who—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The same!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” said Miss Keogh, calmly, but her flowerlike cheeks were azalea-pink,
- and her eyes were full of light. She had read the <i>Planet's</i>
- articles. She did not remember how many million dollars Jerningham was
- supposed to have; but she did remember how the fairest of the fair had
- tried—and failed!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Remember—any time, with or without notice. My offer is open until
- you accept it or definitely refuse it. Perhaps I never could make you love
- me; but I know I could love you if I let myself go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have not answered me,” said Miss Keogh. “Ask again,” he smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?” There was no smile in her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- It made him serious. He answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “For friendship.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To a woman?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To a man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Again I ask, Why?”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a pause. Then he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs. Ashton Welles is the only daughter of Mrs. Deering.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is twenty-two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her husband is fifty-two. That's all!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So far as I am concerned, it is—really!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is Mr. Ashton Welles your friend?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. But he is no enemy, either.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No? But you have a friend, a Mr. Wolfe—a Mr. Francis Wolfe?” She
- knew it from a newspaper item.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Mr. Jerningham jumped up from his seat. “Marry me, dear girl! Marry
- me, I beg of you! You are the only woman in the world! You are the most
- beautiful ever created and, beyond all question, the cleverest. You are a
- genius! Why isn't all mankind on its knees worshiping? Will you marry me?
- Wait! Don't speak. I know what your answer will be.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do?” She smiled inscrutably.
- </p>
- <p>
- Imagine the Sphinx—if the Sphinx were Irish and very beautiful—with
- those eyes and those lips! Guess? You couldn't guess where your soul was—or
- whose!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I do,” answered Jerningham, confidently. “I will write it on a piece
- of paper and prove it. But first tell me this: Will you take Mrs.
- Deering's case?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at him, and said, “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well.” He wrote something on one of his cards, doubled it so she
- could not see what he had written, and gave it to her, saying, “Now answer
- me: Will you marry me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at him a long time. He met her gaze squarely. Presently she
- said, very seriously:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not yet!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look in the card,” he said, also very seriously.
- </p>
- <p>
- She did. It said: <i>Not yet!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- A vague alarm came into her purple-blue eyes. She was on the point of
- speaking, but he held up his hand, and said, earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please don't say it. We'll meet in London. You will enjoy the Continent
- later on. Now let us go and get your letter of credit, and see whether you
- like the stateroom that I ordered reserved.” They did.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the next day Jerningham's limousine took Miss Keogh and her
- hand-luggage to the steamer.-Jerningham was there to see her off. She had
- invited a dozen of her friends to do the same, and they were there—all
- of them women and most of them frankly envious, for her stateroom was full
- of beautiful flowers and baskets of wonderful fruit—quite as if she
- already were a millionaire!
- </p>
- <p>
- As she said good-by to Jerningham there was in her eyes a look of
- intelligent, almost cold-blooded, gratitude which seemed to embrace Mr.
- Jerningham's kindness, his thoughtfulness, and his bank account.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish you a very pleasant voyage!” he said. “Think over my offer. When
- you get to London will you mail these letters for me? Remember, you are to
- cable if you need anything, money or advice—or a husband. And cable
- at once if Mrs. Deering cables. Good-by! <i>Bon voyage!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- When Miss Keogh came to open the package of letters she found in it
- thirty-three, stamped with British stamps, on stationery of Thornton's
- Hotel'! They were addressed in a woman's handwriting to various business
- houses, some of which she recognized as manufacturers of medical goods and
- agents of mineral waters of the kind used by people who suffer from kidney
- diseases. It made her think that if—between the deluge of medical
- prospectuses and Miss Keogh's efforts—Mrs. Deering did not cable for
- her only daughter it would be a wonder! Jerningham was neglecting nothing
- to succeed.
- </p>
- <h3>
- V
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>rank Wolfe's first
- task in his new and now famous job consisted of helping Jerningham buy two
- automobiles. Then, when the weather permitted, they toured Westchester
- County and Long Island.
- </p>
- <p>
- Usually they took along some of Frank's men friends. It was pleasant work—-at
- the rate of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham did not again refer to his love-affair, and Frank could not
- very well allude to it; but it was perfectly plain to the young man that
- within a very short time their friendship would be sufficiently strong to
- justify Mr. Jerningham in asking Frank to help actively in the search of
- the vanished Naida Deering.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day Mr. Jerningham waited in vain for young Mr. Wolfe. They had
- planned to go to Mount Kisco to look at a farm that was offered for sale,
- Mr. Jerningham having developed the usual millionaire's desire to own an
- estate. At one o'clock the telephone-bell rang. Jerningham answered in
- person. He heard a feminine voice say that Mr. Wolfe regretted that a
- severe indisposition had prevented him from going as usual to Mr.
- Jerningham's rooms, but he hoped to be sufficiently recovered to have that
- pleasure on the next day.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham merely said, “Say I hope it is nothing serious—and ask
- him, please, whether there is anything I can do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Silence. Then: “He says, 'No—thanks!' It is nothing very serious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell him not to come down until he has entirely recovered and to take
- good care of himself. Good-by!”
- </p>
- <p>
- If Mr. Jerningham heard the tinkling music of an irrepressible giggle at
- the other end of the wire he did not show it. His face was serious as he
- found an address in the telephone-directory. He called up the Brown
- Lecture Bureau and made an appointment to see Captain Brown, the manager,
- at 3 p.m. At that hour, to the minute, he was ushered into the private
- offices of the world-famous manager of the lecture bureau.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Captain Brown?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should like to know what lecturers you have available at the moment,”
- said Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Klondiker did not look like the chairman of a church entertainment
- committee or like a village philanthropist. So Captain Brown asked:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is the—er—Is it a club?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. It is myself. Here in New York.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, we provide speakers and lecturers, not exactly entertainers, to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know all that. I wish to know whom you could send me to entertain me.
- Let me see! Is Commander Finsen, the explorer, here now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And his terms?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It depends upon where it is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Evidently Jerningham did not think Captain Brown realized what was wanted,
- for he said, earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Captain Brown, get this clearly fixed in your mind, if you please: I am
- anxious to hear some of your lecturers by myself alone, in my own
- apartments. I wish men who have done things—men who are, above all
- things, brave and resourceful. I don't want decadent poets, but explorers,
- gentlemen adventurers, humanists, or scientists, who have a knack of
- imparting their knowledge in such a way as to interest men who are neither
- old nor scientific. I am perfectly willing to pay your usual rate. What's
- the odds if one of your clients spends an evening with me or whether he
- spends it in Norwalk, Connecticut, or Boundbrook, New Jersey? Do you get
- me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, perfectly. I might suggest—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Here the genial manager ceased speaking to smile, grateful that so unusual
- a man as Jerningham should condescend to listen. It was a habit—this
- thankful smiling—that came from having dealt with geniuses for
- thirty years. Then Captain Brown permitted himself to suggest a dozen or
- more men who had very interesting stories to tell. Jerningham asked him to
- make a memorandum of the men and their specialties, and agreed to call on
- Captain Brown when he needed entertainment. After Captain Brown had given
- him the names and prices, Jerningham gave his own name and address.
- </p>
- <p>
- Captain Brown looked grieved. He read the newspapers. He might have asked
- double the fees from the Alaskan Monte Cristo!
- </p>
- <p>
- On the next day, when Mr. Francis Wolfe showed up with never a trace of
- anything but good health on his pleasing face, Jerningham invited him to
- spend the next evening in the apartments and hear Finsen tell how he had
- discovered the tribe of Antarctic giants, the shortest of whom was seven
- feet three inches; and how he had captured alive, thirty-three white
- bears. He asked Frank to invite five friends who might be interested,
- first, in dining with Jerningham and Commander Finsen, and then in hearing
- Finsen spin his yarn.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank gladly undertook to find the audience.
- </p>
- <p>
- So they had a very nice little dinner, with just enough to drink and no
- killjoys in activity. And later, in Jerningham's little sitting-room at
- the hotel, they heard the great Dane, who was a prosaic viking with iron
- muscles and pale-blue eyes that made you uncomfortable for reasons
- unknown, tell them all about his remarkable voyage of discovery and his
- hunts—no end of things that he could tell them, but could not tell a
- mixed audience: perfectly amazing details, of which Frank and his friends
- talked for weeks.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then there was a little midnight supper, at which they all told stories
- that left no unpleasant aftereffects.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day after luncheon Jerningham, who had been in a particularly jovial
- mood, suddenly became very serious. He aimed at Frank one of those
- searching looks that seemed to go to the young man's soul. Then he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy, I'd like to say something to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall probably hurt your feelings, so you must be prepared to keep your
- temper well in hand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You ought to know me better than that by now, Jerningham,” retorted
- Frank. He had grown not only to like, but even to admire, this strange
- miner.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wolfe,” said Jerningham, slowly, “you are one of those unfortunate chaps
- who are cruelly handicapped by perennial youth. It is doubtless a pleasing
- thing to feel at fifty as you did at twenty. Nevertheless, it is bad
- business. It is all very nice to shun responsibility, but it makes you
- careless; and you can't expect to saddle consequences on your guardian
- after you are twenty-one. A boy of forty can't be trusted to take care of
- his own property.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can take care of mine,” laughed Frank, “without any trouble.” His
- property was about minus thirty thousand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your property now—yes. But suppose you had a million or two left
- you—or even more? Do you know what would happen to those millions,
- and do you know what would happen to you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know—but I won't tell.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you let me tell you?” asked Jerningham, so earnestly that Frank
- almost stopped smiling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll hear you to the bitter end.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The millions would go from your pocket into the pockets of—well,
- you know whose pockets! And your life would go into the Big Beyond by the
- W. W. route.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I bite. What's W. W.?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wine and woman. You would last perhaps five years. You would die a
- dipsomaniac at thirty or thereabout. The chief folly of fighting booze
- when you are rich is that it renders wealth utterly futile.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you can get just as drunk on ten dollars a day as you can on one
- thousand dollars—with this difference, that in the one case you
- would have to get drunk on whisky by yourself and in the other you might
- get drunk on vintage champagne in the company of paid parasites. The
- morning after is the same in both cases: you don't remember any more of
- the ten-dollar jag than of the thousand-dollar orgy! When a drunkard sets
- out to squander a million all he really does is to carry a sign on his
- back with letters a mile high—the sign reading, 'I am a d———d
- fool!”'
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank took it good-naturedly because he liked Jemingham and because he was
- not a millionaire. It really would be asinine to be a millionaire and try
- to drink all there was; so he said, amiably:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Having downed the Demon Rum, then what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll put it up to you this way: I have no family and I may never marry. I
- certainly won't if I don't find my first and only sweetheart. Suppose I
- felt like leaving you some of my money? You are a nice boy, but you also
- have been a D. F., and you must admit that no man likes to see his friend
- trying to beat all D. F. records. Don't get mad and don't look indignant!
- I want to make a proposition to you: I'll agree to deposit to your account
- in a trust company one hundred dollars a day for every day you don't touch
- a drop! I don't want to reform you. I merely want to train you—in
- case! There will be some times when you will forfeit that. It will amount
- to paying one hundred dollars for a Martini. It will become a luxury.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Too expensive for me!” said Frank, seriously. “And, my boy, it is more
- than being on the water-wagon—it's being able to stay on! Booze is
- so foolish! I want to give you some business matters—for you to
- handle for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know what I know about business—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can't you do as you are told? Don't you know enough to look clever and
- say, 'Sign here!' in a frozen voice?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes. But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know you will miss your evenings at first. But I'll tell you what to
- do. I am no killjoy. Well, you spend as many evenings as you wish with me.
- Invite as many friends as you please—sex no bar. Will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jemingham, you are a nice chap. I'll do it. But you must not think of
- that one hundred dollars—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tut-tut! Can't you understand that I want to do it—that I love to
- see your bank account grow? Run along now. I want to read Lucretius.”
- </p>
- <p>
- From that day Francis Wolfe became Jemingham's inseparable companion.
- Every night they went to the theater together or else they spent the
- evening in Jemingham's rooms, listening to celebrities. Their evenings
- soon became famous. Indeed, people began to talk about Frank Wolfe's
- reform. Even his fairest and frailest friends, knowing that Frank
- forfeited one hundred dollars a day by falling off the water-wagon, kept
- him firmly on the seat—and borrowed the hundred. In due time the
- miracle reached the ears of Frank's sisters and of his aunt, Mrs. Stimson.
- They had a talk with Frank. They were first amazed, then delighted, when
- they saw Frank and when they heard about Jerningham's intention of making
- him his heir.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus it came about that, out of gratitude for the man who was making a man
- of their brother, Mrs.
- </p>
- <p>
- John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham accepted Mr. Jerningham's invitation
- and attended one of the lectures at the Klondiker's apartments. The little
- supper that followed was a great success. Mr. Jemingham talked little, but
- extremely well—as when he said to Mrs. Jack in a low voice that he
- loved Frank Wolfe and some day everybody would be sure of it!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am merely training him. But don't think I am asking the impossible. I
- wish him to know enough to hold on to what I'll leave him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course after that Mr. Jerningham was not only in society, but even in a
- fair way of becoming a fad. Gerald Lanier, the short-story writer, said
- that Jerningham was society's gold cure and had climbed into the inner
- circles on a ladder made of tightly corked wine-bottles; in fact, he wrote
- what his nonliterary friends called a skit—and Frank's friends a
- knock—entitled: “How to Capitalize Intemperance.” But that did not
- hinder Jerningham from receiving invitations from families with thirsty
- younger sons.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>ne morning
- Jemingham, who had seemed preoccupied, said to Frank:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if I can ask you—” He paused and looked doubtfully at
- Frank.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A favor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course. Why, you can even touch me if you want to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder if your—if Mrs. Burt would invite Mrs. Ashton Welles to
- dinner?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I guess so. I'll ask her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That way you could meet Mrs. Welles, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean,” said Frank, trying to look like Sherlock Holmes, “I could ask
- her about your—about her sister?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham jumped to his feet in consternation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Great Scott, no! No!” he shouted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, I thought—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can't ask her that until you know her so well that you can take a
- friend's liberty. Promise me you won't ask her until I myself tell you
- that you may! Promise!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was in his eyes a look of such intensity that young Wolfe was
- startled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course I'll promise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must make friends with her first. She must learn to like you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Francis Wolfe smiled a trifle fatuously. It was merely boyish. A little
- more, however, would have made the smile ungentlemanly. Jerningham
- continued, very earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, lad. She will have to do more than merely like you—she will
- have to trust you. And the only way to make a young and pretty woman trust
- a <i>young</i> and not unattractive man is by having that man never,
- never, never fail in respect of her. He may be in love with her, or he may
- only pretend to be in love with her; but he must act as if he regarded her
- with such awe that he dare not make direct love to her. Do you get it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no but. She must first like you, which is not difficult; and
- then she must trust you as a true friend, which is, to say the least, a
- slower matter. Be a brother to her. Do you think you like me well enough
- to do this for me now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham looked at young Wolfe steadily—a man's look.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank said: “I'll do it gladly. And my sisters—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They must never know about—about Naida!” interrupted Jerningham,
- hastily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course not. But they will do anything for me—and for you, too!”
- </p>
- <p>
- That is the true story of how it came about that Mrs. Ashton Welles was
- taken up by the Jack Burts; and how she met Francis Wolfe; and how Mrs.
- Stimson invited Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Welles to one of her old-fashioned and
- tiresome but famous and very formal dinners; and how Frank again took in
- Mrs. Welles. Thereafter they met often. At some of these dinners they met
- Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Klondiker paid his court to Mr. Welles. Indeed, he seemed to have for
- the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company an admiration that closely
- resembled the worship of a matinée girl for an actress like Maude Adams.
- It was an innocent sort of worship, but, nevertheless, not displeasing. In
- men it sometimes makes the worshiped feel paternally toward the worshiper.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham developed a habit of going every day to the trust company; and
- he made it a point always to see Ashton Welles, if only to shake hands.
- One morning he told Mr. Welles he desired advice about an investment.
- Jerningham, it must be remembered, had on deposit with the trust company
- over a million dollars, and there were six or seven millions in gold-dust
- in the company's vault.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Welles, I—I,” said the Klondiker, so earnestly that he
- stammered—“I should like to buy some VanTwiller Trust Company stock,
- to have and to hold as long as you are president.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was in Jemingham's eyes a look of that admiration that best
- expresses itself in absolute confidence in the infallibility of a very
- great man. Welles was a very cold man; but flattery has rays that will
- thaw icebergs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Welles nearly blushed and smiled one of his politely deprecating smiles—as
- if he were apologizing for smiling—and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, Mr. Jemingham, I'll confess to you that I myself think well of that
- stock. I guess we'll keep on paying dividends.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jemingham smiled delightedly—the king had jested! Then he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll buy as much as I can, but I don't want to put up the price on
- myself. Who can give me pointers on how to pick up the stock quietly? Do
- you think I should see Mr. Barrows or Mr. Stewardson?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked so anxiously at Mr. Welles that Mr. Welles said, kindly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, see Stewardson. I'll speak to him, if you wish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Welles,” said Jer-ningham, so gratefully that
- Welles felt like a philanthropist as he rang the bell to summon the second
- vice-president.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Stewardson, Mr. Jemingham, wants to buy some of our stock. I want you
- to help him in any way possible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Delighted, I'm sure!” said the vice-president, very cordially. He was
- paid to be cordial to customers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I had my way I'd be the largest individual stockholder,” said
- Jerningham, looking at Welles almost adoringly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope you will,” said Welles, pleasantly. “Mr. Stewardson will help
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham and Welles shook hands. Then Jerningham and Stewardson left to
- go to the vice-president's private office.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he remarkable Miss
- Keogh was one of those remarkable people who are really remarkable. Within
- three weeks came a cablegram from her to Mr. Jerningham to the effect that
- a letter had been sent by Mrs. Deering to her daughter—the first.
- Mrs. Deering had begun to doubt her own health. Then came cablegrams from
- her to Mrs. Welles; and in a few days, before Ashton Welles could think of
- a valid excuse for not letting his wife go to England, Mrs. Welles told
- him to engage passage for her on the <i>Ruritania</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was very unfortunate that he could not accompany her; but the annual
- meeting was only three weeks away, and the minority, never strong enough
- to do real damage, always was devilish enough to be very disagreeable to
- the clique in control. Ashton Welles, after the extremely stupid fashion
- of all strong men, had always kept the absolute control of the company's
- affairs in his own hands. It was the one thing he refused to share with
- his subordinates. He was a czar in his office. He was, in reality, the
- trust company—or he so believed and so he made others believe. His
- vice-presidents were merely highly paid office-boys, according to the
- gossip of the Street, which was not so far out of the way in this
- particular instance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ten minutes after Mrs. Ashton Welles engaged Suite D on the <i>Ruritania</i>,
- due to sail on the following day, Jerningham said to Mr. Francis Wolfe:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy, I should like you to go to London on business for me—and
- for yourself. You've got to represent me in a deal with the Arctic Venture
- Corporation. You will have my power of attorney and you will sign the deed
- for one of my properties, as soon as they have deposited two hundred and
- fifty thousand pounds to my credit in Parr's Bank. And also you will call
- on the prettiest girl in the world—the prettiest, do you hear?—who
- unfortunately is also the brightest and cleverest. Her name—” He
- paused and looked at Francis Wolfe meditatively, almost hesitatingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on!” implored Francis Wolfe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her name is Kathryn Keogh and she is stopping at Thornton's Hotel. She
- will help you find Naida. Miss Keogh is a friend of Mrs. Deering.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is Irish—eh?” asked Frank.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs. Deering?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; the peach—the—Miss Keogh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is of the Waterford Keoghs, famous for their eyes and their
- complexions. But business first. You are not to fall in love with Miss
- Keogh until after my two hundred and fifty thousand pounds are safe in
- bank. I'd go myself, but I have a still bigger deal on here in New York.
- I've taken the liberty to engage a stateroom on the <i>Ruritania</i>,
- sailing tomorrow, and a letter of credit has been ordered for five
- thousand dollars. Have I taken too much for granted?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but you know perfectly well that I don't know a thing about business,
- and I'd be afraid—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My solicitors in London will call on you when they are ready for you. I
- shall give you a memorandum for your own conduct; you will find there
- instructions in detail—just as though you were a ten year-old boy;
- but that is really for your own protection, and I don't mean to imply that
- your mind is ten years old—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No feelings hurt,” said Frank, who in reality was much relieved to learn
- that the chances of his making a mistake had been intelligently minimized.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm glad you take it that way. Now we'll go down-town to Towne, Ripley
- & Co. and give them your signature for the letter of credit; from
- there we'll go to the British Consulate and have my own signature on my
- power of attorney certified to by the consul, and then you can skip
- up-town and say good-by to your friends.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank left Jerningham at the consulate and went home to pack up and
- arrange for his more pressing adieus. Jerningham went into a public
- telephone-booth and called up the offices of <i>Society Folk</i>. When
- they answered he asked to speak with the editor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well?” presently came in a sharp voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is Mr.—er—a friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anonymous! All right. What do you want?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To give you a piece of news.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We verify everything and take your word for absolutely nothing. I tell
- you this to save your telling me a lie.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all right. You'll find it true enough. I—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One minute. Where is that pencil? All right! Now the name of the woman?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you know I want to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All you fellows always do. What's her name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs. Ashton Welles.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The wife of the president of the VanTwiller—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Correct!” said Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now the name of the man?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Francis Wolfe,” answered Jerningham, unhesitatingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The chorus-girls' pet?” asked the voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The same!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Has it happened yet? Or do you merely fear it? Or is it a case of
- hoping?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know what you are driving at.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you don't read <i>Society Folk</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I don't—regularly. All I know is that Frank has been very
- assiduous in his attentions lately. He's shaken the Great White Way and
- hasn't been in a lobster-palace in two months. He and Mrs. Ashton Welles
- are sailing on the <i>Ruritania</i> tomorrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Under what name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Their own.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, kind friend. Thank you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you say that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because we can now use names. Does Mr. Welles also go?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course not!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Excuse me for asking such a silly question. What other crime has he
- committed besides being old?—I mean Mr. Welles.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stupidity is worse than criminal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aye, aye, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When does your paper come out?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Day after to-morrow. Much obliged. You are a friend in need. Don't ring
- off yet. Listen! You are also a dirty, low-lived, sneaking, cowardly dog,
- and a general, all-round, unrelieved, monumental—” It was the one
- way the editor had of showing that he was better than his anonymous
- contributor.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham, of course, went on board the <i>Ruritania</i> to see Frank
- off. Ashton Welles was also there to say good-by to his young and
- beautiful wife. It was their first separation, and Welles did not like it.
- He seemed to feel her absence in advance; it was really that, as the hour
- drew near, he realized more vividly how lonely she would leave him! They
- have a saying in Spain that a man may grow accustomed to bearing sorrow,
- but that nobody can get used to that happiness which comes merely to
- disappear immediately after. A cigar manufacturer from Havana had once
- quoted this to Ashton Welles, and Ashton Welles was impressed less by the
- saying than by the fact that the Spaniard was so serious about it. But now
- he remembered it.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was very uncomfortable and this discomfort made his mental machinery
- act queerly; it seemed to tint his thoughts with strange, unusual hues
- that made them almost morbid. He would have felt contempt for his own
- weakness had he not been so full of half-angry regret at being left alone
- in New York—this man who never had possessed an intimate friend; who
- not even as a boy had a chum!
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course it was only a coincidence that young Mr. Francis Wolfe was to be
- young Mrs. Ashton Welles's fellow-passenger; and it was also a coincidence
- that Mr. Wolfe's stateroom was just across the passageway from Mrs.
- Welles's suite. Indeed, neither of the young people had picked out the
- cabins—but there they were. And there, in Ashton Welles's mind, was
- another unformulated unpleasantness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frank's sisters were so proud Frank was going to put through an important
- business deal that they showed it. But if they were glad that Mrs. Welles
- was also going they did not show it. They recalled Frank's desire to meet
- the pretty young matron whose husband was thirty years older, and they
- were rather ostentatiously polite to her. Ashton Welles, in his disturbed
- state of mind, somehow felt that the attitude of Mrs. John Burt and Mrs.
- Sydney Walsingham was one of blame-fixing; but he could not definitely
- understand why there should be any blame to fix! He dismissed his
- semi-suspicions with the thought that women had petty minds. His wife was
- very pretty and Wolfe's sisters were not as young as they used to be. And
- youth is a terrible thing—to lose! It is hard to forgive youth for
- being, after one is past—well, say, past a certain age. And to prove
- that he himself had nothing to fear—absolutely nothing—he even
- smiled and said to young Mr. Wolfe:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I feel certain, of course, that if Mrs. Welles should need anything—”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the season of the year when east-bound liners carried few
- passengers. The young people were bound to be thrown together a great
- deal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, Mr. Welles. Only too delighted, I'm sure!” said Frank, very
- eagerly.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was a fine-looking chap, with that wonderfully clean, healthy pink
- complexion which suggests a clean and healthy mind. His eyes were full of
- that eager, boyish light that makes the possessors thereof so nice to pet,
- small-child wise.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles received an impression of Frank Wolfe's face that was
- photographic in its details.
- </p>
- <p>
- The floating hotel moved off slowly. Ashton Welles, on the pier, watched
- the fluttering handkerchief of his wife out of sight. He had the
- remembrance of her beautiful young face framed in Siberian sable to cheer
- him. She certainly looked heavenly. She had cried at leaving him. She had
- waved away at him vehemently, and there was the unpleasant suggestion that
- always attends such leave-takings—that the parting was forever. A
- frail thing—human life! A little speck of vitality on the boundless
- waste of grim, gray waters! And she seemed so sorry to go away from him!
- And she waved and waved, as if she, also, feared she might never see him
- again! And Francis Wolfe stood beside her, very close to her, and waved
- also—to Jemingham, who stood beside Ashton Welles.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles accepted Jerningham's invitation and rode to his office in
- the Klondiker's sumptuous motor in the Klondiker's company. Ashton Welles
- looked at the flower-holder. Instead of the white azaleas he saw two white
- handkerchiefs waved by two young people.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are very friendly with young Wolfe?” said Ashton Welles, carelessly
- inquisitive—merely to make talk, you know. All rich old men who
- marry young women have ostrich habits. They put an end to danger by
- closing their eyes to the obvious. That is why they always discover
- nothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather—yes. I think he is a fine chap—one of those clean-cut
- Americans of the present generation that European women find so perfectly
- fascinating.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles instantly frowned—and instantly ceased to frown.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” he said, and grimaced, thinking it looked like a smile. “What
- business is taking him to London? I thought he was a young man of—er—elegant
- leisure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He was that until very recently; but he has turned over a new leaf. He
- has forsworn his old and, I suppose, rather disreputable companions. I
- find him rather serious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What has changed him?” Ashton Welles was foolish enough to be brave
- enough to ask. When a question can have two answers—one of them
- disagreeable—it is folly to ask it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know,” answered Jerningham, as if puzzled. “He has acted a little
- queerly and secretive-like; but it is, I admit, a queerness that other
- young men would do well to imitate, for it has made him cease drinking,
- and cease—er—you know. I rather suspect it is his sister, Mrs.
- Burt. He is very fond of her. A man will do things for a good woman that
- he won't for his best man friend, or for his own sake. You saw him. There
- is no viciousness or dissipation in that face. Damned handsome chap, I
- call him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “H'm!” winced the glacial Ashton Welles. He could not help it.
- </p>
- <p>
- There came upon him a strange mood, almost of numbness, that made him
- silent against his will. He answered by nods—the nods of a man who
- does not hear—to Jerningham's chatter. He gathered in some way that
- the Alaskan Monte Cristo was talking of buying VanTwiller Trust Company
- stock, and that he would ask Stewardson how much he could borrow on the
- stock.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—do!” said Ashton Welles as the motor stopped in front of the
- imposing entrance of the trust company's marble building.
- </p>
- <p>
- They stepped out; Welles excused himself almost brusquely and went into
- his own private office to think all the thoughts that a millionaire of
- fifty-two thinks when he thinks that he married at fifty a girl thirty
- years his junior, with cheeks like flower petals and eyes like skies, who
- is going to spend the best part of a week on a steamer in the company of a
- man who is much worse than handsome—young!
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Jerningham, who did not seem to have noticed the near rudeness of Mr.
- Ashton Welles, promptly sought the second vice-president and asked how
- much the company would lend on its own stock.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is against the law for us to lend money on our own stock,” said the
- vice-president, who did not add that this provision had prevented many an
- inside clique from eating its pie and having it too.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will the banks loan money on V.T. stock?” asked Jerningham. He had
- already bought three thousand shares at an average of four hundred dollars
- a share.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I guess so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “On a time loan?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is not much,” objected Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, it isn't. But—May I ask you a question?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two if you wish,” said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold you
- have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your boxes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash the
- trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's
- iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson,” said Jerningham, with that
- curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not
- really understand—“let me tell you this: The time is coming—and
- coming within a few months!—when good, hard gold is going to command
- a premium just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in
- 1896. I am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take
- advantage of—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But present conditions are utterly different—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are always different—and yet the panics come! You thought that
- after 1896 there would never again be any need for clearing-house
- certificates; and yet, in 1907—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They were unnecessary—” began Stewardson, hotly.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had been left out of all conferences among the powers at that trying
- time, and naturally disapproved their actions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But they happened, just the same! I know myself. If I cash in now I'll
- buy something with the money. I don't want to buy now. No, sir! If I
- should happen to need a million or two I prefer to borrow it for a few
- weeks until my next shipment comes in. There will be two millions coming
- in about the middle of next month. I've sent word to get out as big an
- output as possible. See? You bet your boots Wall Street is not going to
- get either my cash or my mines, as they did Colonel Cannon's. You know he
- was The Mexican copper king' one day and That jackass from Chihuahua' the
- next! See?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The vice-president looked at him and said “I see!” in a very flattering
- tone of voice; but in his inmost mind he was thinking that such a thing
- was precisely what doubtless would happen to Mr. Alfred Jemingham, late of
- Nome. It is always the extremely suspicious, too-smart-for-you-by-heck!
- farmer who buys the biggest gold brick.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They'll find out I'll never let them change my name into That
- blankety-blank-blank from Alaska!'” And Jemingham put on that look of
- devilish astuteness that buyers of stocks always put on when they buy at
- top prices.
- </p>
- <p>
- He left the vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company and called on
- the vice-presidents of several other trust companies and banks, and found
- out that he could borrow, more than three hundred dollars a share on his
- V.T. stock. And he did—then and there. He impressed the genial
- philanthropists on whom he called as being a child of Nature—a great
- big boy playing at being a financier. There was in consequence much
- smacking of financial lips. It was morsels like this naïve and honest
- Alaskan miner with the millions that helped to reconcile men to living the
- Wall Street life.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VIII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>n the day after
- the <i>Ruritania</i> sailed Ashton Welles, whose first wifeless evening at
- home had not been pleasant, found on his desk a marked copy of <i>Society
- Folk</i>. These were the four marked paragraphs:
- </p>
- <p>
- The man who first said there was no fool like an old fool had in mind that
- form of folly which consists of the purchase of a beautiful girl by a man
- who endeavors to span a difference of thirty years in age by means of a
- bridge of solid gold. It is unnatural, unwholesome, and even immoral. The
- sordid romances of high life that begin in a Fifth Avenue jewelry-shop are
- apt to end in a Reno divorce-mill. Why shouldn't they?
- </p>
- <p>
- A girl who marries once for money is always ready to marry again for more
- money—or for more love—for she always wants more than the
- desiccated ass who first bought her can give her.
- </p>
- <p>
- A girl of twenty who is famous for her good looks is always a beautiful
- young woman, no matter what else she may be. But a man close to sixty,
- whether he is the head of a big trust company or a poet, is nothing but an
- old man. Speaking of remarkable coincidences, is it not odd that both Fool
- and Financier should begin with an F? And Frailty, too, whose other name
- is Woman?
- </p>
- <p>
- If there are some things that gold cannot do it is perfectly wonderful how
- many things love can do! It bridges all chasms with kisses, and solves all
- riddles—with glances. It even defies the high cost of living and
- makes men think themselves demigods. It has been known to make champagne
- drunkards swear off long before they are bankrupt. It even now depopulates
- the lobster-palaces. It turns dining-room navigators into fearless
- vikings, braving the wild Atlantic and its midwinter gales in order to be
- by their lady-loves. It may even reform Tammany leaders—for we know
- it can transform young asses into handsome Lancelots.
- </p>
- <p>
- Among the passengers on the <i>Ruritania</i>, sailing for Liverpool at
- this unfashionable season of the year, were Mrs. Ashton Welles, who has
- the gorgeous Suite D all to herself, and young Mr. Francis Wolfe, who is
- content with the more modest stateroom across the way. Frank's friends are
- always singing his praises these days. He never looks at a chorus-girl
- save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger
- than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty
- shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelorus-girl
- save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger
- than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty
- shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelor who ever
- sidestepped matrimony.
- </p>
- <p>
- It takes more than money to keep the Wolfe from the door—eh? What?
- </p>
- <p>
- The Ashton Welles who finished reading the beastly paragraphs of <i>Society
- Folk</i> was not the same Ashton Welles who began them. He was no longer
- an efficient financier, but a man benumbed, whose brain had turned to
- plaster of Paris. His mind at once lost all elasticity, all power to
- functionate. And, since he could not think, he could not act. That
- wonderful world, which financially successful people create for themselves
- with so much pride, tumbled about his ears. Out of the chaos made by a few
- printed words, only one thing was certain—he suffered!
- </p>
- <p>
- Men are always wounded in a vital spot when they are wounded by jealousy,
- and Ashton Welles was particularly vulnerable because he lived in only two
- places—his office and his home. He did not have other houses of
- refuge to which his soul could retreat—like music or literature or
- art—in case of need. He had been so busy winning success that he had
- not had time for anything else. He had worked for the aggrandizement of
- the personal fortune of Ashton Welles. When circumstances and that
- reputation for luck, shrewdness, and caution, which is in itself a golden
- sagacity, finally placed him, still a young man, at the head of the
- VanTwiller Trust Company, David Soulett, one of the directors, remarked:
- “Welles has married the company; but we don't yet know whether he is to be
- the company's husband or whether the company is to be his wife!” And a
- fellow-director, who had been in profitable deals with Welles, retorted,
- “Well, I call it an ideal match!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Welles brought to the company what it needed and the presidency brought to
- Welles many opportunities—none of which he neglected. He saw the
- deposits increase tenfold—and his own fortune twentyfold. What might
- not have been politic in an individual playing a lone hand was altogether
- admirable in the head of a financial institution—his
- cold-bloodedness, for example, and the dehumanized attitude toward life
- habitually assumed by the principal cog-wheel in that intricate
- aggregation of cog-wheels known as a modern trust company. Being an
- excellent money-lender, he was an uninteresting human being. You lose much
- when you win money—for gold is hard and cold, and the enjoyment of
- life calls for softness and warmth. It is the appalling revenge capital
- takes on its self-called masters.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he approached his fiftieth year Welles began to find that his isolation
- might be splendid, but that it was also damnably uncomfortable. Did you
- know that in certain millionaire households, where everything always runs
- very smoothly, the master gets to long for a burnt steak or the spilling
- of soup by the very competent servant? Welles, accustomed to the
- wonderfully comfortable life of a very rich bachelor in New York, desired
- a home where everything need not be so comfortable. And as his fortune
- became a matter of several millions it began—as swollen fortunes
- always do, also in revenge!—to take on the aspect of a monument,
- something to admire during the monument-builder's lifetime and to endure
- impressively afterward! With the desire of permanence came the dream of
- all capitalists that makes them dynasts of gold—an heir to extend
- the boundaries of the family fortune! It was inevitable that Ashton Welles
- should grow to believe that, though the trust company's deposits were in
- other people's names, they really belonged to Ashton Welles, because they
- were merely the marble blocks of the Welles monument. The name of Welles
- must never cease to be identified with the work of Ashton the First!
- </p>
- <p>
- Wherefore the need of an heir became almost an obsession with him, and
- with it came a quite human dissatisfaction with hotels and clubs, and
- trained nurses in times of illness. When a capitalist realizes clearly
- that, apart from his money-lending capacity, he has absolutely no power to
- bring tears to human eyes, he grows jealous of his own money. He wishes to
- be feared, though penniless, just as he would be loved, though a pauper.
- All these desires combined to force Ashton Welles into a decision. He had
- kept up a desultory sort of friendship with Mrs. Deering, the widow of his
- predecessor in the presidency of the trust company, and Anne Deering was
- the girl he knew best of all—though he really did not know her at
- all.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Deerings had not been fortunate in their investments; in fact, the
- Deering holdings of Van-Twiller stock had been benevolently assimilated at
- one-fifth of their value by Ashton Welles himself during one of those
- panics that make reckless persons cease being reckless ever after. It was
- not very difficult for Anne Deering to be made to feel that she could save
- her mother's life and assure ease and comfort for herself forever by
- marrying Mr. Ashton Welles, who at fifty was one of those men whom old
- friends invariably classify as well-preserved. To be just, he was really
- distinguished-looking and had a sort of uniform urbanity that made him at
- least unobjectionable.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was also very rich. She married him. She learned to like him. He grew
- to love her!
- </p>
- <p>
- She was a doll—beautiful and utterly useless; but it was this very
- uselessness that made Ashton Welles worship her. This financier, who in
- his office was not only a skilful bargain-driver, but preached and
- practised the religion of efficiency, in his home plunged into an orgy of
- utterly juvenile lovemaking. He reveled in his wooing, which he had to do
- after his marriage. He did not merely desire to have a wife—he must
- have a wife of an extreme femininity; she must be one of those womanly
- women who exist only in the imaginations of men of a tyrannical cast of
- mind. His life having been for years exclusively a money-making life, he
- became very selfish. And he continued to find his greatest pleasure in
- pleasing himself—only that he now best pleased himself by being a
- boy sweetheart; by achieving his puppy love at fifty and deeming it
- marvelously rejuvenating and therefore altogether admirable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Very well! Now imagine that man, living for two years amid those pitifully
- evanescent illusions so cherished by middle-aged men of money who marry
- very young women of looks—imagine that man suddenly informed that he
- is no longer to be anything but an old man! And not only old, but
- deserted! Imagine that selfsame man brought face to face with the
- invincible Opponent of all old men—youth!
- </p>
- <p>
- To Ashton Welles, sitting in his office, surrounded by glittering
- millions, there came the deadly chill of age—doubly cold from being
- surrounded by gold. In the twinkling of an eye all young men suddenly
- became redoubtable warriors, love-conquerors, irresistible as a force of
- nature—and as heartless! He was beaten by the universal victor—Time!
- </p>
- <p>
- He stared fixedly at a photograph of his wife in an elaborately chased
- silver frame, but he did not see her. He saw ruins, as of a conflagration—the
- smoking débris of a destroyed home; and heaps of ashes—ashes
- everywhere! And in the rising puffs of smoke he saw faces of men—of
- young men—of very handsome young men!
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson, the vice-president, walked in—the door was open, as
- usual. He saw his chief's face and was shocked into a quite human feeling
- of consternation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Great heavens, Mr. Welles, what is the matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing!” said Ashton Welles. He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse to
- hide his face from the sight of his fellow-men. He thought his forehead
- must show in black letters—<i>Fool!</i> and—and—and ten
- thousand terrible legends that changed with each beat of his heart, and
- told what he had been and what had happened; and—yes—what was
- bound to happen!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing! Nothing!” he repeated, fiercely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing, I tell you!” He was certain all the world knew his disgrace.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall I call a doctor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! No!” he snarled. Call in the entire world and gloat at his
- discomfiture? He glanced at the vice-president. The impolitic alarm on
- Steward-son's face exasperated him. “What do you want? Damn it, what do
- you want?” It was almost a shriek.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wanted to consult with you about that Consolidated Cushion Tire bond
- issue—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes! Well?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you decided whether to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes! I mean—no! I mean—Wait! Ask Witter. I dictated a
- memorandum to him, I think. Yes, I did!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was making desperate efforts to speak calmly; but he stopped, because
- Stewardson, a dastard of thirty-two, suddenly grew to resemble young Mr.
- Francis Wolfe! Stewardson saw the gleam in Ashton Welles's eyes and felt
- that the president must have hated him all his life!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll get it from Witter,” he said, and hastily left the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Welles stared wide-eyed at the open door for perhaps a full minute; always
- he saw ruins—smoke and ashes—ashes everywhere! And then he
- started up and squared his shoulders. He rang for an office-boy and said
- to him, “Tell Mr. Witter I've gone for the day”—Witter was his
- private secretary—and left the office.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could not bear even to think of going home, for he now had no home!
- Therefore he went to Central Park and walked aimlessly about until his
- unaccustomed muscles compelled him to sit down. There he sat, thinking!
- After three hours he had grown sufficiently calm to believe himself when
- he called himself a fool for being jealous. Having convinced himself of
- his folly, he clutched eagerly at every opportunity to close his own ears
- to the whisperings of his own doubts. At length he went to his house,
- dressed as usual, and went to the Cosmopolitan Club to dine.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IX
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> few minutes after
- Ashton Welles left his office, stabbed to the soul by the poisoned
- paragraphs of <i>Society Folk</i> Jemingham sought Stewardson and told him
- he had decided to send some more gold-dust to the Assay Office. His own
- attendant, a young man, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who properly answered
- to the name of Sheehan, accompanied him. Stewardson, whose nerves had not
- recovered from the shock of Mr. Welles's behavior, decided that he, also,
- would go to the vaults.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want ten boxes sent to the Assay Office,” said Jemingham.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly, sir,” said the superintendent of the vaults, very
- obsequiously. To show how eager he was to please, he asked, “Any
- particular boxes, Mr. Jemingham?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Immediately a half-formulated suspicion fleeted across the mind of the
- second vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company. How did they know
- what those boxes contained? How did they know that all of them were full
- of Yukon gold? How did they know anything about this man or about his
- treasure—his alleged treasure?
- </p>
- <p>
- Almost immediately afterward, however, he reproached himself. Why, the man
- had deposited over a million—the proceeds of twenty of the boxes!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, take any ten,” said Jerningham—“the first ten. They are the
- easiest to take out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The last ten!” said Stewardson, hastily, obeying an impulse that came
- upon him like a flash of lightning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham turned and asked: “Why the last ten? They are away back, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have my reasons,” smiled Stewardson—the smile of a man who knows
- something funny about you, but does not wish to tell it—not quite
- yet. It is the most exasperating smile known.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham looked at him a moment. Then he said, coldly: “Why not pick
- them out haphazard—one here and another there, as if you were
- sampling a mine and wanted to make sure they hadn't salted it on you?” He
- turned to the men and said, “Pick out ten at random, no two from the same
- place; and be sure they are not full of stable litter!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson flushed, and whispered apologetically to the superintendent,
- “The more the boys work, the more grateful he will be.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, he is very generous, anyhow,” said Sullivan, the superintendent,
- watching his helper and Sheehan pick out the ten boxes at random.
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson accompanied Jerningham up-stairs and then excused himself long
- enough to say to a confidential clerk: “Follow Mr. Jerningham and his ten
- boxes of gold-dust, and find out what he does, how much he gets, and every
- detail of interest. Don't let him see you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk found out and later reported to the vice-president that the ten
- boxes all contained Alaskan gold-dust, and that their value was $531,687,
- the boxes averaging a little better than fifty thousand dollars each.
- Stewardson then had the remaining boxes counted. There were one hundred
- and twenty-one left. They were worth over six million dollars. Jerningham
- ought to have the gold-dust coined and then deposit the proceeds in the
- trust company. The company would allow him two and a half per cent.—or
- maybe three per cent.—on the six millions. That would be one hundred
- and eighty thousand dollars a year. The company could then loan the entire
- six millions, not having to bother with keeping a reserve like the
- national banks, and, the way the money-market was, the money could be
- loaned at five per cent. That would be three hundred thousand dollars a
- year.
- </p>
- <p>
- Men properly must end in dust; but dust, when gold, should end in eagles.
- He would speak to Jerningham about it—one hundred and eighty
- thousand dollars a year that Jerningham was not making—which was
- silly! And one hundred and twenty thousand a year the company was not
- making—which was a tragedy!
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles sent word to the office on the following morning that he
- would not be down until late, if at all. He did not send word that he had
- decided to consult his lawyer about the <i>Society Folk</i> article. He
- had received eight marked copies, addressed to him at his house in
- different handwritings, and he did not know that on his desk at the office
- there were a dozen more. Friends always tell you about anonymous attacks
- anonymously. They wait for them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham seemed disappointed when he learned, at ten-thirty, that Mr.
- Welles might not come to the office at all. Stewardson came upon him
- looking disgruntled. That did not deter the vice-president from broaching
- the subject nearest his heart. “I'd like to ask you one question, Mr.
- Jerningham. Of course I know you must have a reason—a very good
- reason, too—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If the reason is good I'll confess,” said Jerningham, pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'd like to know what your reason is for not sending all your gold
- to the Assay Office?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My reason is that I want to make a lot of money later by not sending the
- gold to the Assay Office now. Remember my very words!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how are you going to do it?” Stewardson could not help asking,
- because he was so puzzled that his sense of humor was paralyzed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By having the gold—that's how.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all right! But why don't you change it into coin? That way you can
- have it at a moment's notice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear chap, do you know how many hours it will take the Assay Office,
- after I take my dust in there, to give me a check for the proceeds? I get
- ninety per cent, of the value at once. If I cash this gold now I'll spend
- it. I know it! I never could resist the temptation to spend—it is my
- one weakness. And if I spent it what would I have to show for the
- hardships of thirty years?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But why don't you deposit it with us? We'll allow you two and a half per
- cent. Or if you make it a time deposit we can do better than that by you.
- You know you can always get gold for it if you ask us for it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can, can I?” laughed Jerningham, with a sort of good-natured mockery.
- “How about 1907 and your old clearing-house certificates—eh? What?”
- Stewardson was nettled. So he permitted himself the supreme,
- all-conquering argument of business: “But you are losing one hundred and
- eighty thousand dollars a year by leaving your gold uncoined and
- undeposited.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I won't lose a year's interest, because it isn't going to take a year for
- the big panic to come.” Stewardson laughed—a kindly laugh. “For
- pity's sake, don't wait for that! Panics have a habit of not coming if
- expected. Just now everybody is bluer than indigo. You'd think the United
- States was on its last legs. Invest at once, and don't wait for the
- bargains at the funeral that may never come.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How sound is this institution?” Jerningham looked Stewardson full in the
- face.
- </p>
- <p>
- The vice-president answered, smilingly, “Oh, I guess we'll weather the
- storm.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I'll buy more stock. Mr. Welles advised me to buy all I could get
- hold of. A wonderful man—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Stewardson, solemnly. “Wonderful! Great
- judgment!” pursued Jeming-ham, with a sort of boyish enthusiasm that made
- Stewardson think his superior had designs on the Klondike gold in the
- vaults. “He is so clear-cut—and never, never loses his head! To tell
- you the truth,” and Jerningham lowered his voice, “I used to think he was
- an icicle—the sort of man nothing can disturb; but, for all his
- calmness and imperturbability, he has a great warm heart and a great big
- brain!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson had never before heard anybody accuse the president of the
- VanTwiller Trust Company of having any heart at all. Why had Welles taken
- the pains to pose before the Klondike miner as a philanthropist? And why
- had the imperturbable Ashton Welles been so perturbed the day before?
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ablest man in this country!” said Stewardson, his mind wrapped in the
- folds of his unformulated mysteries and his own half-asked questions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I'll get a little more of the stock,” said Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go ahead! You can't go wrong,” Stewardson assured him; “in fact, you
- ought to send some of your gold to the Assay Office and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What will you lend me on my gold—on the six millions I've got
- down-stairs?” asked Jerningham, with a frown. He looked intently at the
- vice-president with his cold, gray eyes, and Stewardson somehow fancied he
- saw a challenge in them; but he was an old bird at the game. He laughed
- and said, jovially:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not a penny!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know it. It shows you how incompetent all these financial institutions
- are. You think you are doing your duty by being suspicious—what?
- Well, you don't unless you are intelligently suspicious. Never mind; you
- are only the vice-president. I'll buy the stock just the same.” And
- Jerningham laughed, exaggeratedly forgiving, and went away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Later in the day, when Stewardson thought he might sell his own holdings
- of VanTwiller Trust stock to Jerningham and trust to luck to pick it up
- again here and there at a lower figure, he called up a firm of brokers who
- made a specialty of dealing in bank and trust-company stocks. He was
- surprised to learn that V.T. stock was scarce and thirty points higher.
- The vice-president called up specialists and heard the same story—the
- floating supply had been quietly bought.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By whom?” he asked Earhart.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know very well!” retorted the last broker, in an aggrieved tone of
- voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not!” Stewardson assured him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, it all goes into your office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—yours! And it's paid by your checks. The name signed is Alfred
- Jerningham. Are you going to cut a melon? Just whisper!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” and Stewardson laughed. “What a suspicious man you are, Dave!”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the alarmingly inexplicable frame of mind in which Ashton Welles was
- Stewardson did not feel like speaking to his superior about Jemingham's
- investment. There was no reason why the Klondiker should not buy all the
- VanTwiller Trust Company stock he could pay for; but a day or two
- afterward the vice-president learned that Jerningham had secured control,
- by purchase outright or by option, at prices ranging from three hundred
- and ninety-five to five hundred dollars a share, of twenty-two thousand
- shares. That was important for two reasons: In the first place it was more
- than Jerningham could pay for even if he sold all his gold-dust; and,
- secondly, such a block in unfriendly hands might work injury to the
- controlling clique. He decided to see the president; but he was told that
- Mr. Ashton Welles was engaged at that moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham was talking to him. They had exchanged greetings with much
- cordiality.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you heard from Mrs. Welles?” asked the Alaskan.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She hasn't arrived yet—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know it. But I received a wireless from young Wolfe—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What did he say?” asked Ashton Welles before he knew it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham looked mildly surprised. He answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was a funny message. He asked me to go to his room and get his trunks,
- and send all his belongings to London, as he had decided to stay there
- indefinitely.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” It was all Welles could say.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I wired back, 'Are you crazy?'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did he answer that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.” Jerningham paused. Then he laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What did he answer?” queried Welles.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, he is crazy, all right. He answered, 'Yes—with joy! Please send
- trunks to Thornton's Hotel—'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” Ashton Welles rose to his feet, his face livid. It was the London
- hotel where Mrs. Deering lived, the hotel to which Mrs. Welles was going!
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's the matter?” asked Jerningham, in amazement.
- </p>
- <p>
- “N-nothing!” said Ashton Welles, huskily. He gulped twice. Then, having
- spent thirty-five years in Wall Street making money, he explained, “I've
- got a terrible toothache!” And he put his hand to his left cheek.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sorry!” said Jemingham so sympathetically that Welles, for all his
- distress—and nothing is so inherently selfish as suffering—felt
- a kindly feeling toward the man from Alaska. “Could I ask your advice
- about a business matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles tried to smile. It was ghastly, but Jemingham did not remark
- it. He said, placidly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've bought quite a little bunch of VanTwiller stock because you are its
- president, Mr. Welles. On my honor, that is my only reason. I've paid good
- prices, too; but you are worth it—to me!” And Jemingham beamed
- adoringly on the efficient president of the VanTwiller Trust Company.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles said, “Thank you!” and even tried to feel grateful to this
- queer character from the frozen North who was so naïve in his admiration—and
- envied him for not having a young wife who had sailed on the same steamer
- with an exceedingly attractive young man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I guess I'm all right in my purchase—what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes!” said Welles. He was thinking of the <i>Ruritania</i>. It did not
- even occur to him that this Monte Cristo might be worth while to pluck.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. I hope I didn't bother you. Good morning, Mr. Welles.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Mr. Jemingham. Er—come in any time you think I can be
- of service to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As Jemingham was leaving the president's office he almost bumped into the
- vice-president.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You've bought quite a lot of our stock,” said
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson, full of his errand. His voice had an accusing ring.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. I was just speaking to Mr. Welles about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And what did he say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ask him!” teased Jerningham, with a smile, and went away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Stewardson felt it his duty to do exactly as Jerningham had mockingly
- suggested. It was an abnormal situation. That being the case, there was no
- regular provision—no indicated chapter and verse—for meeting
- it. The principal function of a chief in business is to supply answers to
- puzzled subordinates.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles was sitting back in his swivel chair. He was staring fixedly
- at a hook on the picture-molding that had been left there after the
- picture was taken away. He was thinking that if he employed private
- detectives in London he would have to hire them by cable. There are
- suspicions a man cannot help having and yet cannot set down in plain black
- and white. He cannot hint when he writes, for written instructions must
- always be explicit and categorical. That is why no love-letter of which
- the real meaning is to be read “between the lines” is ever satisfactory to
- the recipient.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ashton Welles turned his head and, still frowning, asked Stewardson,
- sharply:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's about Jerningham. You know he has been buying our stock. But I
- thought you ought to know—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He wished to tell the president what a big block the Alaskan had already
- secured. But the president, from force of habit, perhaps, or possibly by
- reason of the irritation of his nerves, assumed the usual financial
- attitude of omniscience:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know all about it,” he said. “Anything else you wish to say to me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir!” answered Stewardson, who felt rebuffed and now would not have
- turned in an alarm of fire if he had seen the place beginning to burn. He
- was, after all, human.
- </p>
- <p>
- You cannot, in your lust for absolute power, make your subordinates into
- sublimated office-boys or decorative figureheads without paying the price
- some time. Stewardson was justified in assuming that Mr. Welles was
- worried about business—it was perfectly obvious; and it was a
- natural suspicion, also, that said deal must threaten destruction to the
- company since Ashton Welles was so eager to have poor Jerningham buy so
- much VanTwiller stock. Therefore Stewardson and his intimate friends, in
- order to be on the safe side, very promptly sold out their own holdings—to
- poor misguided Jerningham's brokers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course other people who did not wish Welles well heard about it, and
- the whisper ran about the Street, getting blacker and blacker as it ran,
- until everybody knew something had happened—everybody except the
- directors of the VanTwiller Trust Company. And when the transfer-books
- closed for the annual meeting of the stockholders it was found that Mr.
- Alfred Jerningham owned, by purchase or option, and had irrevocable
- proxies on, a little more than twenty-eight thousand shares of the stock.
- This, together with the twelve thousand shares owned jointly by Patrick T.
- Behan and Oliver Judson, the street-railroad magnates, and the blocks
- controlled by the Garvin brothers, Tammany contractors, and Mayer &
- Shanberg, F. R. Chisolm, John Matson & Company, and others of the
- Behan-Judson clique, which once tried to secure control of the company and
- were foiled by Ashton Welles, made a combination that was bound to win at
- the annual election.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham ceased going to the VanTwiller Trust Company because Ashton
- Welles had sailed for London on the receipt of a cablegram that read:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Leaving for Continent. Mother and I cannot return before three months.
- Will write soon.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Anne</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Instead of calling on his friend Stewardson, Jerningham preferred to spend
- hours and hours conversing with Patrick T. Behan, “the most dangerous man
- in Wall Street!”—and the slickest. But on the day before the
- election Jerningham did call on Stewardson and offered to sell his
- holdings of VanTwiller stock at six hundred dollars a share.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, I thought you—” began the vice-president.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know you did. I wanted you to. But six hundred dollars is only
- twenty-five dollars a share more than Behan, and Judson, and Garvin, and
- the rest of those pirates have offered me. I've decided not to be a
- stockholder of the trust company; so just get your friends together and
- tell them if they want to retain the control they can give you a check for
- me—six hundred dollars a share on twenty-eight thousand, one hundred
- and twenty-three shares. Put it down—twenty-eight thousand, one
- hundred and twenty-three shares. Good day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait! I want to say—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't say it! Write it! I'm still at the Brabant,” said Jerningham,
- coldly. “I advise you to get at Mr. Welles on the steamer by wireless.
- Good day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, I—” shouted Stewardson.
- </p>
- <p>
- Jerningham paid no attention to him and walked away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Later in the day negotiations were resumed. In the end Jerningham accepted
- a little less; but the deal yielded him a net profit of about two million
- dollars. He insisted upon being paid in gold coin. This convinced
- Stewardson and the other victims that Jerningham was out of his mind; but
- there is no law that enables officers of a trust company to imprison a
- gold maniac or to take away his gold, particularly when his lawyers stand
- very high in the profession.
- </p>
- <p>
- Five minutes after getting the gold coin in his possession—and
- drawing every cent of it—Jerningham told Stewardson he would leave
- the dust in the VanTwiller vaults. That reassured Stewardson, who
- otherwise might have suspected Jerningham of various crimes. He then sent
- two cablegrams to London. One was to
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Kathryn Keogh,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Thornton's Hotel, London.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Your services are no longer needed. Go ahead and have a nice time!
- Thanks awfully!</i> <i>Jerningham</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other was to Francis Wolfe—same address. It read:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>You ought to marry Kathryn Keogh. Never mind anything else. I am
- disappearing for good. God bless you both, my children! Letter follows.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Jerningham.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Francis Wolfe showed his cablegram to Miss Keogh and Miss Keogh did not
- show hers to Francis Wolfe.
- </p>
- <p>
- A week later Frank asked Miss Keogh to read a letter he had received from
- Jerningham, and to tell him what to do.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the letter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dear Boy,—We needed a million or two out of Ashton Welles, and the
- only way we could see of getting it was by selling to him what he already
- had—to wit, the control of the VanTwiller Trust Company. From
- previous operations the syndicate I have the honor to represent had
- accumulated enough cash to render this operation feasible; but Welles
- watched the trades in VanTwiller stock so closely that we could not have
- bought a thousand shares without blocking our own game. So we planned our
- operations very carefully, as we always do. And because I like you I will
- tell you how we went about it—that you may profit by our example.
- </p>
- <p>
- First, I had to become instantly and sensationally known as the possessor
- of vast wealth. The mere deposit of a million or two in a bank would not
- do it. We must have the cash and a stupendous cash-making property—hence
- the mines in the Klondike. Purely mythical mines, dear lad! We sent to
- Alaska, bought $1,686,000 of gold-dust, put it in boxes, and put a lot of
- lead in other boxes—now in the VanT. vaults!—thereby
- increasing our less than two million into more than eight—and nobody
- hurt thereby! Then the shipment to Seattle, so that every step could be
- verified—and the special bullion train to New York; and the
- eccentric miner—myself—with his gold—no myth about the
- gold—what? in a New York hotel; and of course the reporters were
- only too willing to help and to magnify our gold-dust.
- </p>
- <p>
- The <i>Planet's</i> articles were our letters of introduction to the trust
- company and to Wall Street. Could not have done better—could we? But
- how to catch Welles off his guard? By breaking it down, of course. Best
- way? By rousing jealousy. That's where you come in. Mrs. Welles must go to
- England with you on the same steamer. How? By winning your friendship and
- rousing your romantic interest in an unhappy love-affair—that would,
- moreover, explain my interest in Mrs. Welles. Of course there never was
- any Naida Deering for me to be interested in!
- </p>
- <p>
- But you had to meet Welles's wife. How? By means of your sisters. How did
- I make friends of them? By reforming you and making you my heir.
- </p>
- <p>
- How did I make Mrs. Welles take the same steamer that you did? By having
- her mother cable for her. How did I do that? Ask Miss Keogh.
- </p>
- <p>
- I admit that much of what we were compelled to do was not gentlemanly;
- but, after all, our only crime is the crime of having been business men—buying
- something at four dollars and selling it at five or six dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- Take my advice, dear boy, and stay on the water-wagon! If you marry Miss
- Keogh I think you can show this letter to A. Welles and ask him to give
- you a nice position in the trust company.
- </p>
- <p>
- I am sorry I cannot see you again; but believe me, dear boy, that we are
- very grateful for your efficient assistance. We would send you a check—only
- we need it in our business. Tell Jimmy Parkhurst to tell you and Amos F.
- Kidder all about it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yours truly,
- </p>
- <p>
- The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, Per Alfred Jerningham.
- </p>
- <p>
- But it was a long time before Frank Wolfe returned to New York—without
- Miss Keogh, who flatly refused to marry him. Jerningham had disappeared,
- leaving absolutely no trail. Parkhurst introduced Frank Wolfe to Fiske,
- but all that came of it was that Fiske added a few fresh notes to his
- collection.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- IV—CHEAP AT A MILLION
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>OM MERRIWETHER,
- only son and heir of E. H. Merriwether, finished the grape-fruit and took
- up the last of that morning's mail. He had acquired the feminine habit of
- reading letters at the table from his father, who had the wasteful
- American vice of time-saving.
- </p>
- <p>
- He read the card, frowned, glanced at his father, and seemed to be on the
- point of speaking; but he changed his mind, laughed, and tore the card
- into bits.
- </p>
- <p>
- The day was Monday, and this was what the card said:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>If Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether will go to 777 Fifth Avenue any
- forenoon this week and answer just one little question about his past life
- he will hear something to his advantage.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Idle men who live in New York are always busy. Tom had many things to
- think about; but all of them were about the present or the future. His
- past caused him neither uneasiness nor remorse.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the following Monday young Mr. Merriwether received, among other
- invitations, this:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>If Tom Merriwether will call at 777 Fifth Avenue any forenoon this week
- and answer one question he will do that which is both kindly—and
- wise!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in the same handwriting, on the same kind of card, and in the same
- kind of ink as the first. Now Tom had the Merriwether imagination. His
- father exercised it in building railroads into waterless deserts whereon
- he clearly saw a myriad men labor, love, and multiply, thereby insuring
- freight and passengers to the same railroads. The son had to invent his
- romances in New York.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ordinarily the second invitation would have given him something to busy
- himself with; but it happened that he was at that moment planning to do a
- heartbreaking thing without breaking any heart. Billy Larremore, the
- veteran whose devotion to polo was responsible for so many of the team's
- victories in the past, was not aware that age had bade him cease playing.
- It would break his loyal heart not to play in the forthcoming
- international match. Tom Merriwether had been delegated to break the news.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thinking about it made him forget all about the letter until the following
- Monday, when he received the third invitation:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Merriwether,—Come to 777 Fifth Avenue Tuesday morning at
- ten-thirty without fail and answer the question.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- He crumpled the card and was about to throw it away when he changed his
- mind. Perhaps it would be wise to give it to a detective agency. But what
- could he say he feared? Then he decided it was probably a joke. Somebody
- wished to put him in the ridiculous position of ringing the bell of 777,
- showing the card—and being told to get out. It was to be regretted
- that this would seem funny to some of his perennially juvenile intimates
- at the Rivulet Club.
- </p>
- <p>
- An hour later, as he walked down the Avenue, he looked curiously at 777.
- It was one of those newcomer houses erected by speculative builders to
- sell furnished to out-of-town would-be climbers or to local stock-market
- bankers who, being Hebrews, were too sensible to wish to climb, but were
- not sensible enough not to wish to live on Fifth Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom resolved to ask Raymond Silliman, who played at being in the
- real-estate business, to find out who lived at 777. Meantime he did a
- little shopping—wedding-presents—and went to luncheon at his
- club. He had not quite finished his coffee when he was summoned to the
- telephone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello! Mr. Merriwether?” said a woman's voice—clear, sweet, and
- vibrant, but unknown. “This is Miss Hervey—the nurse—Dr.
- Leighton's trained nurse. They asked me to tell you about your father.
- Don't be alarmed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on!” commanded young Merriwether, sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is nothing serious—really! But if you could come home it
- probably—Yes, doctor! I am coming!” And the conversation ceased
- abruptly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom instantly left the club. He took the solitary taxicab that stood in
- front of the club. He afterward recalled the fact that there was only one
- where usually there were half a dozen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eight-sixty-nine Fifth Avenue. Go up Madison to Sixtieth and then turn
- into the Avenue. Hurry!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good, sir,” said the chauffeur.
- </p>
- <p>
- The taxicab dashed madly up Madison and up Fifth Avenue, and finally
- stopped—not before the Merriwether home, but in front of Number 777.
- Before he could ask the chauffeur what he meant by it both doors of the
- cab opened at once and two men sandwiched between them Mr. Thomas Thorne
- Merriwether. The one on the west, or Central Park, side threateningly held
- in his hand a business-like javelin—not at all the kind that silly
- people hang on the walls in their childish attempts at decorative
- barbarity. The man who half entered the taxicab from the east, or
- sidewalk, side held in his left hand a beer-schooner full of a colorless
- liquid that smoked, and in his right something completely but loosely
- covered by a white-linen handkerchief.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please listen, Mr. Merriwether!” said the man with the glass. “Do
- nothing! Don't even move! Hear me first!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is my father—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am glad to say he is well and happy, and working in his office
- down-town. The message that brought you here was a subterfuge. Your father
- is as usual. We arranged it so you had to take this particular taxicab.
- Don't stir, please!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does all this mean?” asked Tom, impatiently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am about to have the honor of telling you,” answered the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had no hat and wore clerical garments. His clean-shaved face was pale—almost
- sallow—and young Merriwether noticed that his forehead was very
- high. His dark-brown eyes were full of the earnestness of all zealots,
- which makes you dislike to enter into an argument—first, because of
- the futility of arguing with a zealot; and, second, because said zealot
- probably knows a million times more about the subject than you and can
- outargue you without trouble. So Tom simply listened with an alertness
- that would not overlook any chance to strike back.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This glass contains fuming sulphuric acid. It will sear the face and
- destroy the eyesight with much rapidity and completeness. Also”—here
- he shook off the handkerchief from his right hand and showed a revolver—“this
- is the very latest in automatics; marvelously efficient; dumdum bullets;
- stop an elephant! I am about to solicit a great favor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom Merriwether looked into the earnest, pleading eyes. Then he glanced on
- the other side, at the bull-necked husky with the business-like spear.
- Then he turned to the clerical garb.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I see I am in the hands of my friends!” said Tom, pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The doctor was right,” said the man with the glass, as if to himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come! Come!” said young Mr. Merriwether. “How much am I to give? You
- know, I never carry much cash with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We, dear Mr. Merriwether,” said the pale-faced man in an amazingly
- deferential voice, “propose to be the donors. If you will kindly permit us
- we shall give you what is more costly than rubies.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” Tom's voice was perhaps less skeptical than sarcastic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. Would you be kind enough to accept our invitation—the
- fourth, dear Mr. Merriwether—to join us at 777 Fifth Avenue—right
- here, sir—and answer one question? Please listen carefully to what I
- am saying: You don't have to go. Moreover, if you should go you don't have
- to answer any question. We would not, for worlds, compel you. But, for
- your own sake, for the sake of your father's peace of mind and of the
- Merriwether fortune, for the sake of your happiness in this world and in
- the next; for all that all the Merriwethers hold most dear—come with
- me and, if you are very wise, answer the question that will be asked you
- by the wisest man in all the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He must be a regular Solomon—” began Tom, but the man held up the
- glass and went on, very earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, please! If you decide to accept our invitation I shall spill this
- acid in the street and I shall give you this revolver. I repeat, you do
- not have to answer the question. You will not be harmed or molested. I
- pledge you my word. Will you, in return, give me yours to follow me at
- once into 777, and that you will not shoot unless you sincerely think you
- are in danger?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom Merriwether looked at the pale-faced man a moment. He was willing to
- take his chances with that face. Also, he could not otherwise find the
- solution of this puzzling affair. Therefore he said: “Yes. I give you my
- word.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Instantly the pale-faced man with the high forehead laid the revolver on
- the seat beside young Mr. Merriwether and withdrew from the cab. Tom saw
- him spill the fuming acid into the gutter. The burly javelin-man took
- himself off. The temptation to use the butt of the revolver on the
- clerical-garbed man with the earnest eyes came to Tom, but he saw in a
- flash that if he should do such a thing he would be compelled in
- self-defense to tell a story utterly unbelievable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Moreover, the pale-faced man was a slender little chap of middle age and
- no match for big Tom Merriwether. So, assuring himself that the revolver
- was in truth loaded and that it worked, he put it in his pocket, kept his
- grasp on it there, and got out of the taxicab. His one impelling motive
- now was curiosity. Afraid? With the pistol and his muscles and his youth,
- on Fifth Avenue, at two-thirty in the afternoon?
- </p>
- <p>
- The pale-faced man, the empty glass in one hand, walked toward the door of
- 777 without so much as turning his head. Tom followed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The door was opened by a man in livery who took Mr. Merriwether's hat and
- cane. Tom saw in the furnishings of the house—complete with that
- curious unhuman completeness of a modern hotel—the kind of
- furnishings that interior decorators usually sell to first-generation rich
- on their arrival at Fifth Avenue residenceship. The furniture had every
- qualification possessed by furniture in order not to suggest a home to
- live in. Wherefore Tom, whose mind always worked quickly, reasoned to
- himself:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rented for the occasion to the man who has made me come to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Also Tom noticed four men-servants, all of them well built and all of them
- owning faces that somehow were not servant faces. The revolver, which had
- seemed amply sufficient outside, seemed less so within the house.
- Supposing he killed one—or even two—the other two would down
- him in an affray. He tightened his grip on the revolver and planned and
- rehearsed a shooting affair in which four men in livery were disabled with
- four shots. A great pity E. H. Merriwether was such a very rich man—a
- great pity for his son Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- At a door, on the center panel of which was a monogram in black, red, and
- gold the last of the footmen knocked gently. The door was thereupon opened
- from within.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether, 7-7-77!” announced the intelligent-looking
- footman, with a very pronounced English accent.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether entered. It was a <i>nouveau-riche</i>
- library. The Circassian-walnut bookcases and center-table were
- over-elaborately carved, and the hangings of rich red velvet were
- over-elaborately embroidered. The bronzes on the over-elaborate mantel
- looked as though they had been placed there by somebody who was coming
- back in a minute to take them away again.
- </p>
- <p>
- Altogether the apartment suggested a salesroom, and there was a note of
- incongruity in a golden-oak filing-cabinet of the Grand Rapids school.
- </p>
- <p>
- At one end of the room in an arm-chair, with his back to a terrible
- stained-glass window, sat a man of about forty. He had a calm, remarkably
- steady gaze, with a sort of leisureliness about it that made you think of
- a drawling voice. Also, an assurance—a self-consciousness of
- knowledge—that was compelling. His chin was firm and there was a
- suggestion of power and of control over power that reminded Tom of a very
- competent engineer in charge of a fifty-thousand-horse-power machine.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kindly be seated, sir,” said the man in a tone that subtly suggested
- weariness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom sat down and looked curiously at the man, who went on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir, I have a question to ask you. If you see fit to answer, be good
- enough to answer it spontaneously and in good faith. Do not, I beg you, in
- turn, ask me questions—such as, for example, why I wish to know what
- I ask. If you decide not to answer you will leave this house unharmed,
- accompanied by our profound regret that you should be so unintelligent at
- your life's crisis.” The man looked at Tom with a meditative expression,
- then nodded to himself almost sorrowfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom, though young, was a Merriwether. He said, politely, “Let me hear the
- question, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He himself was thinking in questions: What can the question be? Who is
- this man? What is the game? What will be the end of it all?
- </p>
- <p>
- “One question, sir,” repeated the stranger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am listening, sir,” Tom assured him, with a quiet, but quite
- impressive, earnestness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Where did you spend your vacation at the end of your Freshman year?”</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom was so surprised, and even disappointed, that he hesitated. Then he
- answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “In Oleander Point, Long Island, in the cottage of Dr. Charles W. Bonner,
- who was tutoring me. I had a couple of conditions and I stayed until the
- third of September!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you! Thank you! That is all—unless, Mr. Merriwether, you wish
- to do me and yourself three very great favors. Three!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked at Tom with a sort of intelligent curiosity, as of a chemist
- conducting an experiment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let's hear what they are,” said young Mr. Merriwether, calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was at times like these that he showed whose son he was—alert,
- his imagination active, his nerves under control, and his courage steady
- and at par. He had, moreover, made up his mind that he would do some
- questioning later on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “First favor: Concentrate your mind on how you used to spend your bright,
- sunshiny days in Oleander Point and your beautiful moonlight nights.
- Recall the pleasant people you were friendly with during those happy
- weeks. Visualize that summer! Make an effort! Think!”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a command, and Tom Merriwether found himself thinking of that
- summer. He closed his eyes. His grip on the revolver in his pocket
- relaxed.... He saw his friends. Some of them he had not seen in years.
- Others he saw almost daily. And somehow it seemed to him that all the
- girls were pretty and kindly; and in particular—well, there were in
- particular three. But the affairs had come to nothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could not have told how long his reverie lasted—the mind
- traverses long stretches of time, as of space, in seconds.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well?” said Tom at length.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you,” said the man, with the matter-of-fact gratitude a man feels
- toward a servant for some attention.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took from his pocket a small black-velvet bag, opened it, and spread on
- the table before Tom Merriwether a dozen pearls, ranging in size from a
- pea to a filbert. They were all of a beautiful orient.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg you to select one of these. You need not use it. You may give it to
- your valet if you wish, or throw it out of the window. Only accept it as a
- souvenir of our meeting. That, Mr. Merriwether, would be favor number
- two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He pointed toward the pearls. Tom picked one—pear-shaped, white,
- beautiful—and put it in his waistcoat pocket. The man swept the rest
- into one of the drawers of the long library table.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thank you very much,” said Tom. He was not sure the pearls were not
- genuine.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; please don't,” said the man. There was a pause. Presently he asked,
- “Do you know anything about pearls, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am no expert,” answered Tom. “Characteristic. You Merriwethers are
- brave enough to be truthful, and wise enough to be cautious. Have you any
- opinions?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think they are beautiful,” said Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are more than that. They represent, Mr. Merriwether, the hope of the
- Kingdom of Heaven. The pearl is the symbol of purity, humility, and
- innocence. Do you know the legend of the mild maid of God—Saint
- Margaret of Antioch?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Margaret is from Margarites—Greek for pearl. And the reason why
- faith—But I beg your pardon. Men who live alone talk too much when
- they are no longer alone. I beg you to forgive me. Tell me, Mr.
- Merriwether, did you ever hear of Apollonius of Tyana?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not until this minute,” answered Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt almost tempted to ask whether the poor man was dead, but refrained
- because he was honest enough to admit to himself that the question would
- savor of bravado. Tom was consumed by curiosity as to what would be the
- end of it all. To think of it—on Fifth Avenue, New York, in broad
- daylight—all this!
- </p>
- <p>
- How money was to be made out of him he could not yet see.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will show his talisman to you—the Dispeller of Darkness!” The man
- clapped his hands twice. At the summons a negro walked in. He was dressed
- in plain black and wore a fez. The man spoke some guttural words and the
- negro salaamed and left the room. Presently he returned with a silver tray
- on which were seven gold or gilt candlesticks and candles, and seven gold
- or gilt small trays or plates, on each of which was a pastil.
- </p>
- <p>
- He arranged the seven candlesticks in some deliberate design, carefully
- measuring the distance of each from the other, and of all from a point in
- the center. He arranged the plates and pastils about the candlesticks.
- Then he left the room, to return with a lighted taper, with which he lit
- the seven candles and the seven pastils. Tiny spirals of fragrant smoke
- rose languidly in the still air.
- </p>
- <p>
- Again the negro left the room and returned with a small parcel wrapped in
- a piece of raw silk which he gave to his master. He then went away for
- good.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man began to mutter something to himself and very carefully took off
- the silk cover, revealing a wonderfully carved ivory box. He opened the
- gold-hinged lid and took out a silver case. He opened that and from it
- took a gold box elaborately though crudely chased. He opened the gold box
- and within it, oh a little white-velvet pad, was a cross of dull gold
- curiously engraved. He put the pad, with the cross on it, in the middle of
- the seven lights. On the arms of the cross and at the intersection Tom saw
- seven wonderful emeralds remarkable as to size, beautiful as to color.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look at it, Mr. Merriwether. It is priceless. The gems alone are worth a
- king's ransom. If you consider it merely as a piece of ancient art there
- is no telling what a man like Mr. W. H. Garrettson would not give for it.
- And as a talisman, with its tried wonder-working powers, there is, of
- course, not enough money in all the world to pay for it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom stretched his hand toward it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please! Do not touch it, I beg,” said the man, in a voice in which the
- alarm was so evident that Tom drew his hand back as though he had seen a
- cobra on the table. “Not yet! Not yet!” said the man. “It is the most
- wonderful object in existence. It is a cross that antedates Christ!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is obviously of a much earlier period than the Messiah. Great scholars
- have thought it a legend, but here it is before you. It belonged to
- Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker. Philostratus, who wrote the life
- of that great man, does not mention this talisman; he dared not!
- Apollonius, who to this day is not known ever to have died, gave it to a
- disciple, who gave it to a friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom looked interested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We know who has owned it. It was worn by Arcadius in the fifth century.
- The Goths took it and Alaric gave it to the daughter of his most trusted
- captain, who commanded his citadel of Carcassonne. Clovis, a hundred years
- later, secured it at the sack of Toulouse. We have records of its having
- been praised by Eligius, the famous jeweler of Dagobert, in the seventh
- century. It was included in the famous treasures of Charlemagne. It went
- to Palestine during the first and third crusades—the first time
- carried by a maid who loved a knight who did not love her. She went as his
- squire, he not suspecting her sex until they were safely back in France,
- when he married her. It is a wonderful talisman. The emeralds came from
- Mount Zabara. They have the power to drive away the evil spirits and also
- to preserve the chastity of the wearer. Moreover, they give the power to
- foretell events. Apollonius did—time and again. This is historically
- true. But alone he, of all the men who have owned it, never had a
- love-affair; hence his clairvoyance. I have bored you. Forgive me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not at all. I was interested. It is all so—er—so—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Incredible—yes! There is no reason why you should believe it. It is
- of no consequence whether you think me a lunatic or a charlatan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He said this with a cold indifference that made Tom look incuriously at
- the man, whose obvious desire was to excite curiosity. Then the man said,
- with an earnestness that in spite of himself impressed the heir of the
- Merriwether railroads:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, classified in our books as 7-7-77, you are
- the man I need for this job!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed?” said Tom, politely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, you are.” Tom bowed his head and looked resigned. He deliberately
- intended to look that way. The man went on, “The reason I am so sure is
- because I know both who and what you are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, you know me pretty well, then.” Tom could not help the mild sarcasm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have known you, young man, for eighty-five years, perhaps longer.” The
- man spoke calmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed!” said Tom. He was twenty-eight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. On top of that cabinet is a book. After the name Thomas Thorne
- Merriwether you will find 7-7-77. In the cabinet—seventh section,
- seventh drawer, card Number 77—you will find clinical data,
- physiological and psychological details, anecdotes, and so on, about you
- and your father, E. H. Merriwether, and your mother, Josephine Thorne;
- your grandfathers, Lyman Grant Merriwether and Thomas Conkling Thorne, and
- of your grandmothers, Malvina Sykes Thorne and Lydia Weston Merriwether.
- Indeed I know about your great-grandfathers and three of your
- great-great-grandparents; but the data in their case are of little value
- save as to Ephraim Merriwether, who in seventeen sixty-three killed in one
- duel three army officers who laughed at his twisted nose, bitten and
- disfigured for life by a wolf-cub he had tried to tame. Facts not
- generally known, but, for all that, facts, young Mr. Thomas Thome
- Merriwether, which enable me to say that I have known you these hundred
- and fifty years—if there is anything in heredity, environment, and
- education! And now, shall I tell you what favor number three is?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you please,” said Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the first time he felt that the usual suspicions as to a merrymaking
- game could not be justified in this particular instance. It was much too
- elaborate for a practical joke. He did not know how the matter would end;
- but he did not care. In New York, on Fifth Avenue, on Tuesday afternoon,
- he was having what, indeed, was an experience!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg that you will listen attentively. You will take the Dispeller of
- Darkness with you. Do not open the gold box under any circumstances.
- Tonight go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street so as to be there at eight
- o'clock sharp. The door will not be locked. Don't ring. Walk in. Go up one
- flight of stairs to the front room—there is only one. You will stand
- in the middle of the room, with the talisman resting on the palm of your
- hand—thus! Do nothing! Say nothing! Wait there! The talisman will be
- taken from you by a person. Do not try to detain her—this person.
- After the talisman is taken from you count a hundred—not too fast!
- At the end of your count leave the room and come back here and tell me
- whether you have carried out my instructions. Now, young sir, let me say
- to you that you don't have to do what I am asking you to do. There is no
- compulsion whatever. There is no crime in contemplation—no attempt
- is to be made against your life, your fortune, or your morals. I pledge
- you my word, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man looked straight into Tom's eyes. Tom bowed gravely. This man must
- be crazy—and yet he certainly was not. This interested Tom by
- perplexing him as he had never been perplexed in his eight-and-twenty
- years.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether, this will be the most important step of your life. Its
- bearing on your happiness is vital—also on the success of your great
- father's vast plans. I give you my personal word that this is so.” There
- was a pause. Tom had nothing to say. The man went on:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you care to take reasonable precautions against attack do so. Thus,
- keep the revolver you now have in your pocket—it is excellent. Try
- it and make certain. You may write a detailed account of what has happened
- and leave it with your valet; but mark on it that it is not to be opened
- unless you fail to return by 10 p.m. Also you may, if you wish, station
- ten private detectives across the way from 7 East Seventy-seventh Street,
- and instruct them to go into the house at a single shout from you or at
- the sound of a shot. Believe me, it is not your life that is in danger,
- sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I believe you,” said Tom, reassuringly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you do me favor number three?” The man looked at Tom with a steady,
- unblinking, earnest—one might even say honest—stare.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom considered. His mind worked not only quickly, but Merriwether-fashion.
- He saw all the possibilities of danger, but he saw the unknown—and
- the lust of adventure won. He looked the man in the eyes and said,
- quietly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. There is the talisman. Each of the seven emeralds is flawless—the
- only seven flawless emeralds of that size in existence. Two of them have
- been in great kings' crowns, and the center stone was in the tiara of
- seven popes; after which, the Great Green Prophecy having been fulfilled,
- it came back to its place on the Cross. Apollonius raised people from the
- dead, according to eyewitnesses. The pagans tried to confute the believers
- in Christian miracles by bringing forward the miracles of the sage of
- Tyana—and they did not know that Apollonius wrought marvels by the
- Sign of the Son of Man—the Cross! This cross! I pray that you will
- be careful with it. Show it to nobody. You have understood your
- instructions?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom repeated them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely! I did not make a mistake, you see. In spite of your father's
- millions you will be what your destiny wills. Young man, good luck to
- you!” The man rose and walked toward the door. Tom Merriwether followed
- him and was politely bowed out of the room. From there to the street
- entrance the four athletic footmen, with the over-intelligent faces, took
- him in tow, one at a time. And it was not until he was out on the Avenue,
- headed north, walking toward his own house, that Thomas Thorne
- Merriwether, clean-living miltimillionaire idler, shook himself, as if to
- scatter the remnants of a dream, felt the butt of the revolver, hefted the
- silk-wrapped parcel in which was the talisman, and said, aloud, so that a
- couple of pedestrians turned and smiled sympathetically at the young man,
- who must be in love, since he talked to himself:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What in blazes is it all about?”
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>is perplexing
- experience developed so insistent a curiosity in Tom that he grew
- irritable even as he walked. That some sort of a game was being worked he
- had no doubt; but the fact that he could see no object or motive increased
- his wrath. He discarded all suggestion of violence, though he was bound to
- admit now that anybody could be kidnapped in New York in broad daylight.
- </p>
- <p>
- He decided to begin by verifying those allusions and references that he
- remembered. He walked down the Avenue to the Public Library and there he
- read what he could of Apollonius and of Eligius, the marvelous goldsmith
- who afterward became Saint Eloi. The helpful and polite library assistant
- at length suggested a visit to Dr. Lentz, the gem expert of Goffony &
- Company, a man of vast erudition as well as a practical jeweler. Tom
- promptly betook himself to the famous jewel-shop.
- </p>
- <p>
- They knew the heir of the seventy-five Merri-wether millions, and
- impressively ushered him into Dr. Lentz's office. Tom shook hands with the
- fat little man, whose wonderfully shaped head had on it no hair worth
- speaking of, and handed him the pearl he had picked out from the dozen the
- man in 777 Fifth Avenue had placed before him. Dr. Lentz looked at it,
- weighed it in his hand, and, without waiting to be asked any questions,
- answered what nearly everybody always asked him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Persian Gulf. About fifteen grains—perhaps a little more. We sell
- some like it for about thirty-five hundred dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thanks,” said Tom, and put the pearl in his pocket.
- </p>
- <p>
- If it was a joke it was expensive. If not, the other pearls the man had
- shown, nearly all of which were larger, must have been worth from fifty
- thousand to a hundred thousand dollars. Such is the power of money that
- this young man, destined to be one of the richest men in the world and,
- moreover, one who did not particularly think about money, was nevertheless
- impressed by the stranger's careless handling of the valuable pearls. He
- concluded subconsciously that the talisman was even more valuable. He took
- the package from his coat pocket and gave it to Dr. Lentz.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Raw silk—Syrian,” murmured the gem expert, and undid the covering.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ha! Italo-Byzantine. The Raising of Tabitha. No! no!” He glared at young
- Merriwether, who retreated a step. “Very rare! It's the Raising of
- Jairus's Daughter. Same workmanship in similar specimen in the
- Lipsanoteca, Museo Civico, Brescia. If so, not later than fourth century.
- Very rare! H'm!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it?” said Tom. “I don't know much about ivories.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No? Read Molinier! Græven!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. I will, Dr. Lentz.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Dr. Lentz opened the little ivory box and pulled out the silver case.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ha! H'm! Not so rare! Asia Minor. Probably eighth century.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- “B C?”
- </h3>
- <p>
- “Certainly not. Key? H'm!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Haven't got it here,” evaded Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- The little savant turned to his secretary and said, “Bring drawer marked
- forty-four, inner compartment, antique-gem safe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was examining the little box, nodding his head, and muttering, “H'm!
- H'm!” Tom felt the ground slipping away from under the feet of his
- suspicions even while his perplexity waxed monumental. And with it came
- the satisfaction of a man convincing himself that he is neither wasting
- his time nor making himself ridiculous.
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk returned with a little drawer in which Tom saw about a hundred
- and fifty keys.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Replicas! Originals in museums of world!” explained Lentz. “H'm!” He
- turned the keys over with, a selective forefinger. “It's that one or this
- one.” And he picked out two. “Probably this! Damascus! Eighth century.
- Byzantine influence still strong. See that? And that? And that? H'm!” He
- inserted the little key and opened the casket. He saw the gold box within.
- “Ha! H'm! Thracian! How did you get this? H'm!” He raised his head, looked
- at Tom fiercely, and then said, coldly, “Mr. Merriwether, this has been
- stolen from the British Museum!”
- </p>
- <p>
- It beautifully complicated matters. Tom's heart beat faster with interest.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you sure?” he asked, being a Merriwether. “Wait! H'm!” He lifted it
- out and examined the back. “No! No! Thracian! Of the Bisaltæ! Time of
- Lysimachus! But—Well! Aryan symbolism! Possibly taken to India by
- one of Alexander's captains—perhaps Lysimachus himself! And—Oh!
- Oh, early Christians! Oh, early damned fools! See that? Smoothed away to
- put that—Oh, beasts! Heritics in art! Curious! Do you know the
- incantation to use before opening?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was in Greek, and—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. He said this had belonged to Apollonius of Tyana.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How much does he ask?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not for sale.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Inside is a pentagram?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; a cross, with seven emeralds as big as that, all flawless.”'
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are only two such emeralds in the world without flaws and we have
- one of them. The other is owned by the Archbishop of Bogota, Colombia.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He said these were flawless and that he has proofs. He says Eligius
- studied this—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether, you have on your hands either a very dangerous impostor
- or else—H'm! He must be an impostor! How much does he want?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not for sale!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “H'm! Worse and worse! If I can be of use let me know! They'll fool us
- all! All! Good day!” And Dr. Lentz walked away, leaving Tom more puzzled
- than ever, but now determined to go to 7 East Seventy-seventh Street at
- eight o'clock that night.
- </p>
- <p>
- He went home and wrote an account of what had happened, placed it in an
- envelope, sealed the envelope, and gave it to his valet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you don't hear from me by ten o'clock tonight give this to my father;
- but don't give it to him one minute before ten. And you stay in until you
- hear from me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He then went to the club, ordered an early dinner for two, and invited his
- friend Huntington Andrews to go with him. He did not go into details.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shortly before eight he stationed Andrews across the way from 7 East
- Seventy-seventh Street and told him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I am not back here at eight-fifteen come in after me. If you don't
- find me go to my house and wait until ten. My man has instructions. See my
- father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom was Merriwether enough to have in readiness not only an extra revolver
- to give to his friend, but also a heavy cane and an electric torch. Also
- he drove Huntington to within a hair's-breadth of death by unsatisfied
- curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- At one minute before eight Mr. Thomas Thome Merriwether went into the
- house of mystery, realizing for the first time how often the mystic number
- seven recurred. The Bible teemed with allusions to the seven stars, the
- seven seals, the seven-branched candlestick, the seven mortal sins. The
- Greeks had Seven Wise Men and Seven Sleepers, and the Pythagoreans saw
- magic in all the heptamerides. And there were seven notes of music and
- seven primary colors, and seven hills in the Eternal City. Also, it had
- never before occurred to him that he was born on the seventh day of the
- seventh month. And now it had its effect.
- </p>
- <p>
- He tried the door. It opened when he turned the knob. The hall was dark,
- but he could descry the staircase. He grasped his revolver firmly and
- entered.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a smell of undusted floors and unaired walls. The darkness
- thickened with each step as he climbed, compelling him to grope. And
- because he groped there came to him that fear which always comes with
- uncertainty. It permeated his soul and was intensified, without becoming
- more concrete, by reason of the ghostly emptiness peculiar to all
- unoccupied houses. The absence of furniture served merely to fill the
- comers with shadows that bred uneasiness. People had been there; people no
- longer were! The house was empty of humanity, but full of other beings—impalpable
- suspects that made the flesh creep! It was like death—unseen, but
- felt with the senses of the soul.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was no place, decided Tom, so fit to murder people in as an empty
- house. His adventure now took on an aspect of reckless folly. But though
- he felt in this ghostly house what might be called the ghost of fear, he
- also felt the impelling force of an intelligent curiosity. In this young
- man's soul was a love of adventure, a gambler's philosophy, a reserve
- force of cold intelligence and warm imagination such as is found in the
- great explorers, the great chemists, and the great buccaneers of dollars.
- </p>
- <p>
- That was why in the year of grace 1913 Tom Merriwether stood in the middle
- of the second-story front room of a house situated in a very good street,
- only three doors from Fifth Avenue, with his left hand outstretched, and
- on the open palm of it a cross with a Greek name that meant Dispeller of
- Darkness—in a darkness that could not be dispelled. His right hand
- grasped the butt of an automatic.45 loaded with elephant-stopping bullets—but
- of what avail was that against a knock in the head from behind?
- </p>
- <p>
- Listening for soft footsteps, he seemed to hear them time and again—and
- time and again not to hear them! People nowadays, he finally decided, do
- not want to take other people's lives—only their money. Whereupon he
- once more grew calm—and intensely curious! He had not one cent of
- money on his person. He had left it at home intentionally.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently he thought he heard sounds—faint musical murmurings in the
- air about him, low wailings of violins, scarcely more than Æolian
- harpings, and pipings as of tiny flutes—almost indistinguishable.
- Then a delicate swish-swish, as of silken garments. Also, there came to
- him a subtle fragrance that turned first into an odorous sigh and then
- into a summer breath of sweet peas; and he imagined—he must have
- imagined—hearing, “I do love you!” ah, so softly!
- </p>
- <p>
- He smelled now the odor of sweet peas, which stirred sleeping memories
- without fully awakening them, as all flower odors do by what the
- psychologists call association. He heard, “I do love you!”—and then
- the Dispeller of Darkness was taken from his outstretched hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood there, his muscles tense, braced for a shock, ready for a life
- struggle, perhaps half a minute before the sound of footsteps retreating
- in the hall outside recalled to him his instructions. He vehemently
- desired to follow and see who it was that had taken the Dispeller of
- Darkness; but he had pledged his word not to. He hesitated.
- </p>
- <p>
- The odor of sweet peas was flooding him as with waves. And he heard, “I do
- love you!”—heard it again and again with the inner ear of his soul,
- the listener of delights. He thrilled at the thought of being loved. It
- made him incredibly happy. He felt unbelievably young!
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not counted a hundred as he had
- promised, though he must have spent more than a minute wool-gathering. He
- counted a hundred as fast as he could and then hastened from the room. It
- was plain that Tom Merriwether was already doing incredible things or, at
- least, failing to do the obvious. Great is the power of suggestion on an
- imaginative mind!
- </p>
- <p>
- He flashed his electric torch. He was in a bare room with a dusty hardwood
- floor, ivory-tinted wainscoting, and a Colonial mantel. The hall was
- empty.
- </p>
- <p>
- He walked down the stairs, his steps raising disquieting echoes and creepy
- creakings.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mindful of his waiting friend outside, he quickly walked out of the gloom
- into which he had carried the Dispeller of Darkness of Apollonius of
- Tyana, the cross of the seven emeralds. Huntington Andrews saw him coming
- and crossed over to meet him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How did you make out, Tom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm a damned fool, Huntington; and so are you! And so is everybody!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Right-O!” agreed Andrews, who was inveterately amiable and, moreover,
- loved Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's the most diabolical—” Tom paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is,” agreed Huntington Andrews, so obviously anxious to dispel
- his friend's ill temper that Tom laughed and said, cheerfully:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come on, me brave bucko!” And together they walked to the corner and then
- down the Avenue to 777.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Huntington, you wait here; and if I am not back by nine-forty-five go to
- my house. At ten o'clock have my valet deliver the letter I gave him for
- my father. You can be of help to the governor if you will.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And Huntington Andrews asked no questions—he was a friend.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom rang the bell of 777. The door opened. One of the four
- over-intelligent-looking footmen stepped to one side respectfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is your—” began Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, Mr. Merriwether,” answered the man, with a deference such as only
- royalty elicits.
- </p>
- <p>
- He then delivered Tom to footman number two, who in turn escorted him as
- far as number three; then number four led him to the door of the master's
- library. The footman knocked, opened the door and announced, with a
- curious solemnity:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether, 7-7-77.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The strange man was there in his arm-chair, his back to the window. The
- room was lit by candles. The man rose and said, respectfully:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thank you, Mr. Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't mention it,” said Tom, amiably.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man bowed his head and looked at Tom meditatively. Tom was the first
- to break the silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I ask what—” Tom began, but was checked by the other, who held
- up his right hand with the gesture of a traffic policeman and said,
- slowly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “A message in the dark! You carried one to another soul, who waited for
- it. And that other soul is taking one to you. Some day you will meet her.
- You will marry her. There is no doubt whatever of that. None! Ask me no
- questions, Mr. Merriwether. I ask nothing of you—no money, no time,
- no services, no work, no favors—nothing! Your fate is not in my
- hands. It never was! You will follow your destiny. It will take you by the
- hand and lead you to her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is very nice of destiny.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My young friend, you are very rich, very powerful. You can do everything.
- You fear nothing. This is the year nineteen hundred and thirteen. But I
- tell you this: the woman who will be your wife, in this world and
- throughout eternity has received your message. It was ordained from the
- beginning. You have not seen her; you have not heard her; you have not
- touched her. And yet you will know her when you see her and when you hear
- her and when you feel her. Into the darkness you went. Out of the darkness
- she will come. Nothing you can do can change it. Improve your hours by
- thinking of her. Think of the love you have to give her! Think of it
- constantly! Of your love! Yours! Of hers you cannot guess. The love you
- will give will make her your mate! Your love! And so, Thomas Thome
- Merriwether, think of the One Woman!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know! Amusement, sneers, skepticism, anger—all are one to me. I
- ask nothing, expect nothing, desire nothing, and fear nothing from you,
- young sir. A queer experience this—eh? An unexplained and apparently
- unconcluded little game? A plot foiled by your cleverness—what? A
- joke? A piece of lunacy? Call it anything you wish. Again I thank you.
- Good evening, Mr. Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And Tom was politely ushered from the room by the strange man and from the
- house by the four over-intelligent footmen.
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>ext day Tom
- Merriwether found himself unable to think of anything but the mystery of
- the fateful Tuesday. He felt baffled. His curiosity had been repulsed at
- every step. In their definite incomprehensibility all the incidents that
- he so vividly recalled took on an irritating quality that made him a
- morose and uncomfortable companion. Huntington Andrews noticed it at
- luncheon; and so admirable was the quality of his amiability that after
- the coffee he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom, I've got important business to attend to to-day, and if you don't
- mind I'll be off now. Of course if you think I can help you in any way all
- you have to do is to tell me what it is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Huntington, you are the best friend in the world. I've been thinking—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom paused and stared into vacancy. He was trying to recall whether the
- man at 777 Fifth Avenue had a criminal look about the eyes. Huntington
- Andrews rose very quietly and walked away. He knew his friend wished to
- think—alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lost in his exasperating speculations, Tom finally ceased, thinking of the
- man and began to think of the girl. Was the game to rouse his interest in
- an unknown, later to be introduced to him? Was the scheme one that
- involved an adventuress? Why all the claptrap? And why had his thoughts,
- in spite of himself, dwelt so persistently on love and somebody to love?
- Why had the springtime—since the night before—come to mean a
- time for loving? Why had he begun to see, in flashes, tantalizing glimpses
- of rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Why had he permitted his own mind to be
- influenced by the strange man's remarks, so that Tom Merri-wether was
- indeed thinking—if he would be honest with himself—of
- marriage? Was his affinity on her way to him at this very moment, as the
- man said? He began to hope she was.
- </p>
- <p>
- He dined at home and was so preoccupied at the table that even his father
- noticed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's up, Tom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What? Oh! Nothing, dad! I was just thinking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Terrible thing, my boy—thinking at meal-time,” said E. H.
- Merriwether, with a self-conscious look of badinage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, it is. I'll quit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it anything about which you need advice—or help, my boy?” said
- the great little railroad dynast, very carelessly.
- </p>
- <p>
- His eyes never left his son's face; but when Tom raised his gaze to meet
- his father's the elder Merriwether showed no interest. Tom knew his father
- and felt the paternal love that insisted on concealing itself as though it
- were a weakness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, indeed. There is nothing the matter—really. I was thinking I'd
- like to do a man's work. I guess you'd better let me go with you on your
- next tour of inspection.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The face of the czar of the Southwestern & Pacific lighted up.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you?” he said, with an eagerness that made his voice almost tremble.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And that evening E. H. Merriwether delivered a long lecture on railroad
- strategy and railroad financing to his son, which brought them very close
- to each other.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the next day, however, all thoughts of being his great father's
- successor were subordinated to the feeling that, if Mr. Thomas Thome
- Merriwether had to be the successor of a railroad man, he should himself
- take steps to provide his own successors. Feeling that he was his father's
- son made him think of paternity. And that made him think of the message he
- had delivered in the dark and of the message the man had said would some
- day come to Tom Merriwether. He drew a deep breath and thought he smelled
- sweet peas. And that somehow made him think of the girl he should marry.
- Try as he might, he could not quite see her face. He thought he kissed
- her, and he inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas. Her complexion was
- beautiful. No more!
- </p>
- <p>
- On the afternoon of the third day Tom decided that he was wasting too much
- time in thinking of the possible meaning of his queer experience, and also
- that it was of little use trying not to think about it. Therefore he would
- try to put an end to the perplexity.
- </p>
- <p>
- He went to 777 Fifth Avenue and rang the bell. A footman opened the door
- and stared at him icily. Tom perceived he was not one of the men whose
- faces looked too intelligent for footmen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see Mr.—er—your master.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Does he expect you, sir?” The tone was not as respectful as footmen in
- Fifth Avenue houses used in speaking to the heir of the Merriwether
- millions. “No; but he knows me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who knows you, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your master.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Could you tell me his name, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but I can tell you mine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's not at home, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm Mr. Merriwether. Say I wish to speak to him a moment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sorry, sir. He's not in.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman was so unimpressed by the name of Merriwether that Tom
- experienced a new sensation, one which made him less sure of his own
- powers. He took out a card and a bank-note and held them out toward the
- man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am anxious to see him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Im sorry. I can't take it, sir,” said the footman, with such melancholy
- sincerity that Tom smiled at the torture of the cockney soul.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he ceased to smile. The master of this mysterious house had compelled
- even the footmen to obey him!
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if you will call again in an hour, sir, I think perhaps, sir—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. Take it anyhow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He again held out the bank-note. The man saw it was for twenty dollars,
- and almost turned green.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I—I d-daresent, sir!” he whimpered, and closed his eyes with the
- expression of an anchoret resolved not to see the beautiful temptress.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom left him, walked across the Avenue to the Park, and sat down on a
- bench. He settled down to think calmly over the mysterious affair, and
- looked about him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The grass in the turf places had taken on a definite green, as though it
- were May. The trees were not yet in leaf, making the grass-greenness seem
- a trifle premature, but Tom noticed that the buds on the trees and shrubs
- were bursting; there were little feathery tips of tender red and pale
- green—tiny wings about to flutter upward because the sun and the sky
- beckoned to them to go where it was bright and warm. The sky was of a
- spotless turquoise, as though the spring cleaning up there had been
- thorough. The clouds were of silver freshly burnished for the occasion.
- The air was alive, laden with subtle thrills; it throbbed invisibly, as
- though the light were life, and life were love. He saw hundreds of
- sparrows, and they all twittered; and all the twitterings were very, very
- shrill, and yet very, very musical. And also they twittered in couples
- that hopped and darted and aerially zigzagged—always together and
- always twittering!
- </p>
- <p>
- A policeman stopped and said something to a nurse-maid. The nurse-maid
- said something to the policeman. He was young and she was pretty. Then the
- policeman said nothing to the nurse-maid, and the nurse-maid said nothing
- to the policeman. Then two faces turned red. Then one face nodded yes.
- Then the other face walked away, swinging a club; and—by all that
- was marvelous!—swinging the club in time to the tune the sparrows
- were twittering—in couples—the same tune, as though the
- club-swinger's soul were whistling it!
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom smiled uncertainly—he wanted to give money, lots of it, to the
- policeman and to the nursemaid; and he knew it was impossible—it was
- too obviously the intelligent thing to do! So, instead, he drew a deep
- breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- Instantly there came to him not the odor of spring and of green things
- growing, but of sweet peas and summer winds, and changing, evanescent
- faces, pink-and-white as flowers, with flower-odor associations and eyes
- full of glints and brightnesses that recalled dewdrops and sunlight and
- stars. And these glittering points shifted in tune to the twittering of
- birds and the swinging of Park policemen's clubs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that
- love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to do
- something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he walked
- briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had begun to
- walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to think. So
- he shook himself free from the spell and walked back.
- </p>
- <p>
- An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman opened
- the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is he in?” asked Tom, impatiently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir—he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir.” He
- looked as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What did he say?” asked Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He said: 'How much did he offer to give you when you said I wasn't at
- home?' Yes, sir. That's what he asked me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you said?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I said it was a yellowback, sir. That's all I could see. I said I
- wouldn't take it, and he said I might just as well have taken it. Thank
- you, sir! This way, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman led the way to the door in the rear, rapped, and in the
- sonorous, triumphant voice that a twenty-dollar tip will give to any
- menial he announced:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The same man was in the same chair in the same room, with his back to the
- stained-glass window. Tom recalled all the incidents of his previous
- visits—recalled every detail. Also the old question: What is the
- game? Also the new question: Where is she?
- </p>
- <p>
- The man rose and bowed. It was the bow of a social equal, Tom saw.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Mr. Merriwether. Won't you be seated, sir?” And he motioned
- him to a chair.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How can I serve you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is the woman?” said Tom, abruptly. “Your fate!” answered the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot tell you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her address?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is your game?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have money enough for my whims and time enough to gratify my desire to
- help you. Eugenics is my hobby. I recognize that I cannot fight against
- the decree of destiny.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am tired of all this humbug.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ask nothing of you now. You can go or you can come. You can go to India
- or to Patagonia—or even farther. You may send detectives and
- lawyers, or even thugs, to me. You may cease your search for her—if
- you can!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have roused my curiosity—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is a sign of intelligence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I tell you now that I don't believe a word of what you say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Free country, young man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've had enough of this nonsense—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Though I am always glad to see you, young sir, and would not wound your
- feelings for worlds”—the man's voice was very polite, but also very
- cold—“I might be forgiven for observing that I did not ask you to
- call.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll give you a thousand dollars—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man stopped him with a deprecatory wave of the hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “One of the pearls I offered you, Mr. Merriwether, is valued at ten
- thousand dollars. You did not select that one; but I'll exchange the one
- you took for it—now if you wish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all very well, but—” Tom paused, and the man cut in:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you wish to see her from a safe distance? Or do you wish to talk to
- her without seeing her? Or—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To see her and talk to her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man intently regarded the tip of Tom's left shoe for fully five
- minutes. Then he raised his head and clapped his hands twice. The black
- manservant with the fez appeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man said something in Arabic—at least it sounded so to Tom. The
- black answered. The man spoke again. The black replied:
- </p>
- <p>
- The man said what sounded to Tom like, “<i>Ay adad</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The negro answered, “<i>Al-sabi! Al-sabi wal Saboun</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man waved his hand dismissingly and the negro salaamed and left the
- room.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a moment the man turned to Tom and said, with obvious perplexity: “I
- am not sure it is wise for me to meddle, but perhaps it is written that I
- am to help you three times. Who knows?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He stared into Tom's eyes as though he would read a word there—either
- yes or no. But Tom said, a trifle impatiently:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go to the opera to-night. Take seat H 77. No other seat will do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “H 77—to-night,” repeated Thomas Thorne Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The opera is 'Madame Butterfly.'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thanks,” said Tom, and started for the door. He halted when the man
- spoke.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is the seat back of G 77. None other will do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good day, sir,” said Tom, and left the room.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he telephone
- operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the plugs in the
- switchboard and answered in advance:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether's office!”
- </p>
- <p>
- From the other end of the wire came:
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H.
- Merriwether. Personal matter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. Say it is Mr. Waters—about Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. E.
- H. Merriwether—deluded people who thought they could get what they
- wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never
- succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented
- the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her
- business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private
- secretary's line, saying: “Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to
- Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll talk to him,” hastily said the private secretary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private secretary.
- Has anything happened to Tom that—Oh! Yes—of course! At once,
- Mr. Waters.”
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who?” said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. “Waters? Oh yes.
- Go ahead!”
- </p>
- <p>
- And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak
- to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean
- crazy or—er—alarming; but—don't you know?—unusual....
- Yes, sir! A little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about
- the opera. Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs.
- Of course it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No;
- never! We don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan,
- where he has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't
- bring us into any—you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a
- little worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about
- being in love, and he—er—he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes,
- Mr. Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It
- was a very delicate matter and—Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether.
- We'd all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by.”
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his admirers
- called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive gambler's face
- which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could be that he was
- wounded in a vital spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- His son Tom was all this great millionaire had!
- </p>
- <p>
- His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste
- paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was it
- one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by
- baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond the
- reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend of Tom's;
- but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private secretary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to
- find out whether my son Tom has been up there—box-office—and
- what he is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy
- goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist on—er”—he
- could not bring himself to say mental diseases—“on nervous troubles,
- and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow morning. He
- will have breakfast with us—say, at eight-thirty. I don't want Tom
- to know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He avoided McWayne's eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir,” said McWayne.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about Tom.
- I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop everything
- else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that Tom is acting
- a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke—or a trick. I want to find
- out—that's all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in
- his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him
- from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and
- drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would be
- a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could not
- afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said in his
- calm, emotionless voice:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick
- of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that at
- will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart—this little chap
- that people called ruthless.
- </p>
- <h3>
- V
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>om Merriwether
- went to the box-office at the Metropolitan and said, pleasantly, as men do
- when they ask for what they know will be given to them:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want the seat just back of G 77—orchestra—for to-night. I
- suppose it will be H 77.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk, who knew the heir of the Merriwether millions, said, “I'll see
- whether we have it, Mr. Merriwether.” He saw. Then he said, with sincere
- regret: “I'm very sorry. It's gone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must have it,” said Tom, determinedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't quite see how I can help you, Mr. Merri-wether. I can give you
- another just as—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't want any other seat. Who bought it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know. It may be a subscription seat, sold months ago.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's the double seven on the seventh row that I am concerned about. I
- want the seat just back of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll call up the ticket agencies. There's a bare chance they may have
- it.” After a few minutes he said, “I'm very sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but I
- can't get it. They haven't it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm willing to pay any price for H 77. I'll give you a hundred dollars if
- you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether, I couldn't do it if you offered me a thousand! If I
- could do it at all I'd be only too glad to do it for you—for
- nothing,” the clerk said, and blushed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Everybody liked Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sincerity in the clerk's voice impressed young Mr. Merriwether, who
- thanked him warmly and withdrew. The baffled feeling that he took away
- with him from the ticket-window grew in intensity until he was ready to
- fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a natural-enough impulse that led him back to 777 Fifth Avenue; but
- he was not quite sure whether he was angry at the man for telling him to
- do what was obviously impossible or at himself for determining to find
- her!
- </p>
- <p>
- He rang the bell of the house of mystery. The footman that answered was
- one of the intelligent four; but his face was impassive, as though he had
- never before seen Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your master?” asked Tom, abruptly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your card, please,” said the footman, impassively.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom gave it to him. The man disappeared, presently to return.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This way, sir.” And at the door in the rear he paused and announced, “Mr.
- Merriwether!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The master of the house was in his usual place. He bowed his head gravely
- and waited.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I couldn't get the seat,” said Tom, with a frown.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is written, 'Vain are man's efforts!'”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's all very well, my friend. But the next time—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fate deals with time—not with next time! There is no certainty of
- any time but one. If you can do nothing I can do nothing. I still say, The
- seat back of G 77 to-night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom Merriwether looked searchingly into the calm eyes before him. The
- baffled feeling returned; also, a great curiosity. What would the end be?
- At length he said, “Good day, sir.” He half hoped the man would volunteer
- some helpful remark.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good day, sir,” said the man, with cold politeness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom went back to the Opera House and asked for somebody in authority to
- whom he might talk. They ushered him into Mr. Kirsch's presence. Mr.
- Kirsch, amiable by birth, temperament, and training, listened to him with
- much gravity; also, with a concern he tried to conceal, for it was too sad—a
- bright, clean-living, intensely likable chap like Tom, only heir to the
- Merriwether millions!
- </p>
- <p>
- Fearing a scene, he told Tom that he would speak to the ticket-takers in
- the lobby to be on the lookout for ticket H 77. Then he conferred with the
- emissary McWayne had sent, who thereupon was able to send in a most
- alarming report.
- </p>
- <p>
- The private secretary softened it as much as he could, and even dared to
- suggest to the chief that it might be a bet; but the little czar of the
- Pacific & Southwestern, who had never flinched under any strain or
- stress, grew visibly older as he heard that his son was offering thousands
- for an opera-seat—for the seat back of the double seven, seventh
- row. It could mean but one thing!
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom was so fortunate as to be standing beside the ticket-collector at the
- middle door of the main entrance when the owner of H 77 appeared. He was a
- fat man with a pink and shiny face, a close-cropped mustache, and huge
- pearl studs. The fat man was fortunately alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” said Tom, “I should like to speak a moment with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man looked apprehensive. Then he said, “What is it about?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For very strong personal reasons I should like to exchange tickets with
- you. I can give you G 126—every bit as good—on the other side
- of the aisle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why should I change?” queried the shiny-faced man, suspiciously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To oblige a very nice young lady and myself. Of course, if you prefer to
- be paid—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't need money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I'll pay you a hundred dollars for your ticket,” said Tom, coldly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man shook his head from force of habit, in order that Tom might see he
- was offering too little. Then he said, recklessly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's yours, my friend. I have a pet charity. I'll give your money to it.
- Where's the hundred?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom took out a small roll of yellow bills, pulled off one, and handed it
- to the man with the pet charity, who took it, looked at it, nodded, put it
- in his pocket, gave the coupon to Tom, and then held out his right hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is the ticket for G 120 that you'll give me in place of mine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom gave it to him and walked into the house, not knowing that McWayne's
- emissary had listened and reported. He sat in H 77 and tried to laugh at
- his own absurd behavior; but somewhere within him—away in, very deep—something
- was thrillingly alert, tantalizingly expectant.
- </p>
- <p>
- The seat before him was empty. It remained empty during the first act. It
- angered Tom that the climax should be so long in coming. The three seats
- in front of him remained vacant until just before the curtain went up on
- the last act. Somebody came in just as the lights were lowered and
- occupied seat G 77.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom sat up and braced himself. He leaned over, vaguely desiring to be near
- her. Unconscious that he was under a strain he, nevertheless, drew a deep
- breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- Instantly there came to him the odor of sweet peas, and with it thoughts
- of summer, of a beautiful girl, of a soul-mate, of a wife. Love filled his
- being. He wished to love and be loved. He wished to be somebody's husband,
- so that he might begin to live the life he was to live until the day of
- his death!
- </p>
- <p>
- He leaned back in his chair and again inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas—the
- odor that must mean kisses in the open; the inarticulate love-making of
- breezes and blossoms; the multitudinous whispers of midsummer nights heard
- by love-hungry ears. And then the music! There came the breaking of a
- heart about to cease beating and the sobbing crash of the brasses in the
- finale. It was almost more than Tom could bear.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then the curtain fell and light flooded the house. People streamed out.
- Tom twisted and turned to see the face of the lady who made him think of
- the sweet peas, which made him think of love and marriage and children—but
- she was wrapped to the cheeks in a fur-edged opera-cloak and her head was
- covered with a black-lace wrap. He could not see her face; and after
- rivulets of people reached the main stream in the middle aisle he found
- himself hopelessly separated from her. He tried to jostle his way through.
- McWayne, his father's private secretary, suddenly happened to be there.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hello, Tom!” he said. “What's your rush?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom saw that it was useless to pursue the phantom of sweet peas and dreams
- of love unless he vaulted over the stalls. McWayne's presence made him
- realize how his friends would be shocked by such actions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No hurry at all,” said Tom, who, after all, was a Merriwether. “Just
- wanted to smoke and to see whether I knew that girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll bet she's a pippin!” said McWayne, with a friendly smile. It
- irritated Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know any of your friends,” said Tom, coldly; “lady friends and
- pippins, fellows like you call them, I believe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was what convinced McWayne that the worst was to be feared about poor
- Tom, who was so considerate and amiable when normal. Poor Tom! McWayne
- telephoned to the waiting E. H. Merriwether, whose only reply was to ask
- the private secretary to arrange to have Dr. Frauenthal, the great
- specialist, at breakfast in the Merriwether house the next morning,
- without fail.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a common occurrence for Dr. Frauenthal to meet—under false
- pretenses, as it were—persons whose sanity was suspected by fond
- relatives who dared not openly acknowledge their suspicions. He was a man
- whose eyes had been compared to psychic corkscrews, with which he brought
- the patient's secret thoughts to the light of day. Some one said of him
- that, by inducing a feeling of guilt and detection among the predatory
- rich, he was able to exact colossal fees from them. He was the man who had
- made Ordway Blake give up making six millions a year in Wall Street by
- quitting the game. Mr. Blake was still alive.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frauenthal was introduced to Tom as a gentleman whose advice “E. H.”
- desired. The men conversed on various topics apparently haphazard; but in
- reality Tom, without knowing it, was answering test questions. The answers
- could not conclusively prove insanity, but they would certainly show
- whether a more thorough examination was necessary.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether and Frauenthal left the house together. They entered the
- waiting brougham. The great little railroad magnate gave the address of
- the doctor's office to the footman, then turned to Frauenthal and said,
- calmly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what do you think of him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- His voice was steady and cold; his face imperturbable; his eyes were fixed
- with intelligent scrutiny on the specialist's, but his fingers tightly
- clutched a rolled morning newspaper.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frauenthal turned his clinical stare on E. H. Merriwether, as though the
- financier were really the patient. He swept the little man's face—the
- eyes, the mouth, and the poise—and then let his eyes linger on the
- clenched fingers about the newspaper.
- </p>
- <p>
- The iron-nerved, glacial-blooded, flint-hearted Merriwether could not
- control himself after forty-five seconds of this. He flung the newspaper
- on the floor violently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go ahead!” he said, harshly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The doctor did not smile outwardly; but you felt that within himself he
- had found an answer to one of his own unspoken questions about the father
- of the suspect.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are, Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” he began, in the measured tones and
- overcareful enunciation of a lecturer at a clinic, “various forms of—let
- us say—madness; and your son Tom, a fine young man of twenty-eight,
- is quite unmistakably suffering from—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused to give the fine young man's emotionless father an opportunity
- to show human feelings. Frauenthal was always interested in the struggle
- between the emotional and the physical in his millionaire patients.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on!” said E. H. Merriwether, so very coldly as to irritate.
- </p>
- <p>
- His eyes never left the alienist's own secret-draggers; but he was
- drumming on his thigh with the tips of his uncontrollable fingers.
- Ordinarily his desk would have screened from sight this betrayal of human
- feeling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your son, sir, is suffering, beyond any question, from the oldest madness
- of all—love!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your son Tom is in love. That is what ails him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you serious?” Mr. Merriwether was frowning fiercely now.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You'll think so,” retorted Frauenthal, coldly, “when you get my bill.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy Tom in love?” repeated the czar, blankly. “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With whom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't know. I'm a neurologist—not a soothsayer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, suppose he is in love—what of it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing—to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then what is serious about it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can't tell you, for its seriousness to you depends on your point of
- view toward society at large. There are, of course, the obvious
- disquieting circumstances.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For instance?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is a fine chap—healthy, bright, honest. What is the reason he
- has said nothing to you? Is he ashamed or afraid? If he is ashamed it is
- very serious to both of you. If he is afraid—well, then the
- seriousness depends on how intelligent a father you have been to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't talk like a damned fool! I've been a good father to him; of course—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait! Wait! First tell me why you do what you ask me not to do?” In the
- specialist's eyes was a sort of professional curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?” said E. H. Merriwether, impatiently. It exasperated
- him to be puzzled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you talk like a damned fool?” said Frauenthal.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nobody ever talked that way to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, overlord of the
- greatest railroad empire in history. He flushed and was about to retort
- angrily, but controlled himself in time. The brougham had reached
- Frauenthal's office. Mr. Merriwether spoke too calmly—you could feel
- the tense restraint:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dr. Frauenthal, I've heard a great deal of your wonderful ability.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused. It came hard to him to be ingratiating. This difficulty is the
- revenge which nature takes on people who acquire the habit of 'paying
- money for everything in this world. Such men cannot talk except with a
- check-book, and the check-book loses the power of speech before happiness—and
- before death.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What very difficult thing is it you wish me to do for you?” asked
- Frauenthal, coldly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are sure Tom is not—” He hesitated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Crazy?” prompted the specialist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; I'm sure he is not. Therefore he is saner than you who are a
- money-maker.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether let this remark pass. He was anxious to save Tom. This man
- was uncannily sharp. He said, “And can't you do something, so that Tom
- will not—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not God!” interrupted Frauenthal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, what can I do? What do you suggest might be done?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As a neurologist?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, as a man of the world—as one who knows human nature? You see,
- this—this—er—sort of thing is not in my line. What shall
- I do?” It was a terrible thing for the great Merriwether to confess
- inefficiency in anything.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The little magnate flushed. “Dr. Frauenthal,” he began, with chilling
- dignity, “I asked—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to whatever
- other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a prima donna nor
- a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really worse than you
- deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There are check-book
- gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd pray to Him if I
- were you. Good day, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without another
- look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where to, sir?” asked the footman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his anxiety
- over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread question—Why
- had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be either crazy or in
- love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? What was she? Why was
- she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: “Hell!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir—very good, sir,” said the footman, from force of habit.
- Then he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed
- deeply and said, tremulously, “B-beg p-pardon, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nearest Subway station!” said E. H. Merriwether. .
- </p>
- <p>
- He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important
- business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best in
- his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was an
- autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands that
- were obeyed. He had much thinking to do—Tom was concerned, his son
- Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's
- future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether!
- </p>
- <p>
- Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of a
- clear sky—this love-affair was a million times worse! It was
- mysterious—and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is
- worse than nitroglycerine—infinitely more dangerous.
- </p>
- <p>
- What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the
- dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could not
- Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good girl
- who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding her own
- business—to wit, a few little male Merriwethers?
- </p>
- <p>
- It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether had
- loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his pleasure.
- But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far greater importance than the
- worker. The work was the work of the Merriwethers—not of one
- Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but of all the Merriwethers,
- living and to be.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be
- himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad
- expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a successor—flesh
- and blood the same; the fortune the same.
- </p>
- <p>
- And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H.
- Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness
- Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only
- Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter his father
- and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel that he had finished
- his breakfast—that is to say, he attempted to read the newspapers.
- But the printed letters failed to combine themselves into intelligible
- forms, and even when he read a word here and there his mind did not record
- it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to
- reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in
- that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to him
- in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open air,
- and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies to soar
- unchecked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he did
- not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his mind
- that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with
- precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime—also
- young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and burros—and
- even bankers!
- </p>
- <p>
- Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave up
- trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning papers.
- His nervous system coined a proverb for him: “When in doubt, walk out!” So
- he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- He found himself in Central Park—the remedy which the very rich do
- not and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as
- he walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite
- cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about
- them systematically.
- </p>
- <p>
- The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth Avenue—on
- Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the jewelry-shops where the
- wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. Everybody was getting
- married! What business had people to make people think of wives—yes,
- wives—plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all desirable and
- worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to be rolled into
- one—Tom's?
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one he
- desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the amorous
- crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the springtime—a
- nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion from a distant
- relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the heart of the sun—and
- lo! the wife-to-be!
- </p>
- <p>
- And so the wedding-presents—a silver service, to be used by two
- sitting on opposite sides of a table, looking into each other's eyes; a
- glittering string, to be admired on a wonderful throat—were heavy
- enough to keep Tom's soul from soaring. And because his feet were on the
- pavement he soon found himself—of course!—before 777 Fifth
- Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- Why should he not go to that house? And why should he not ring the bell?
- Why not? He was just in the mood to meet her!
- </p>
- <p>
- His intentions were above suspicion, though marriage is a serious thing;
- but, really, now was the time for the adventure to appear—even if
- the adventure turned out to be merely the adventuress.
- </p>
- <p>
- Therefore, with the inexorable logic of the most illogical state of mind
- known, he rang the bell and waited with an eagerness—half hope, half
- curiosity—most unusual among people who, like Tom, early acquire the
- habit of asking, check-book in hand, for whatever they wish.
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman who answered was one of the men with the over-intelligent
- faces.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am Mr. Merriwether. I wish to see your master.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom's voice rang a trifle more commandingly than the occasion appeared to
- call for. There was a physiological reason for it. The man hesitated so
- that Tom wondered; but presently all expression vanished from the
- non-menial face and the footman said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “This way, if you please, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He preceded Tom to the door of his master's library. He rapped twice
- smartly and waited in an attitude of listening. Tom also listened
- intently; he could not have told why he did it—though it was, of
- course, inevitable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not a sound was heard. The over-intelligent footman's lips moved for all
- the world as though he were counting, and presently he opened the door and
- announced:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether—7-7-7 7.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom entered. The master of this strange house was seated at the
- over-elaborate library table, writing. He looked up, but before Tom could
- speak the man said, coldly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot do anything for you, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was so much like a refusal to give alms to a beggar that Tom flushed
- angrily. He managed to check a sharp retort on the very brink and,
- instead, began in a mildly ironical tone:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course you know what I—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course!” interrupted the man, rudely; and he began impatiently to drum
- on the edge of the table with his penholder. “Do you imagine for a minute
- that you are the only mateless male in New York looking for his destined
- bride? And do you really think that the fruitlessness—until now—of
- your search is a world-tragedy? Because your name happens to be Thomas—which
- is a descriptive title when applied to marriageable felines of your own
- sex—do you fancy I am concerned with your affairs? Young man, you
- are the only son and heir of a very rich man; but there are some things
- that money cannot buy. Love is one of them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He frowned at Tom, but something in the young millionaire's face made him
- relent. He went on, more kindly, more encouragingly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My boy, she is seeking you, even as you are seeking her. She is very
- beautiful! You will meet her at the appointed hour—have no doubt of
- it. After your perfectly stupid failure at the opera—Wait!” He held
- up a hand as Tom was about to speak in self-defense. “The very futility of
- your manoeuvers shows that youth, brains, money, persistence, and desire
- are all powerless to hurry fate. As you, who have never seen her, love
- her, she loves you, though she has never seen you. She will know you as
- you will know her; but she is gone!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where?” Tom spoke before he knew it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be patient! After you meet her you will live with her until death parts
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He said this, without theatrical emphasis, in a most matter-of-fact way.
- Tom's suspicions, always present in this house of mystification rather
- than of mystery, were not made livelier by the man's words; but neither
- were they allayed by the tone of his voice. He hesitated, and then,
- adventure whispering, he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be perfectly frank, I am interested in this—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Young man, I told you before that I ask nothing of you—no favor, no
- money, no service; not even your interest. When I asked you to do a
- certain thing you did it. I am not particularly grateful. You could not
- have refused! Possibly you can explain to your own satisfaction your own
- inexplicable acquiescence; you doubtless have evolved a dozen most
- ingenious theories to account for your doings and mine. The shortest and
- easiest explanation is the true one—fate. After you marry you will
- compare notes with her—and yet you will not understand why I
- concerned myself with your lives. You will perplex yourselves so
- unnecessarily; all because of your unwillingness to say, fate! Men hate
- fate as a hypothesis. It is not flattering to admit that we are but
- puppets—the strongest of us no stronger than an autumn leaf in the
- wind. And because you do not see fate you do not believe in it. And, for
- fear of being considered an ass by a lot of asses, who also do not believe
- in fate, you will never tell any one your romantic story. And yet, of the
- scores you call friends, there are only seven men who are happily married.
- And those seven I helped, as I have helped you and as I shall help those I
- am ordered to help. Even now the Dispeller of Darkness is out, making one
- heart send a message in the dark to another heart waiting for it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean to say you cannot or will not arrange for my meeting the
- mysterious person you tell me I am going to marry?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean to say that your coming to this house with such a hope merely
- means a waste of your time, young sir, and of mine. You will meet your
- love, but you cannot find her. No man finds happiness by means of a
- systematic or diligent search. It comes or it does not come—as God
- wills.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man rose. Tom also rose and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “But at least tell me where this—this alleged fate of mine is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man shook his head with a smile that was in the nature of a mild
- sneer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doubting Thomas! He won't admit it, but he can't deny it! Ah, so wise! So
- clever in his suspicions! So intelligently skeptical! Ah yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still nodding in ironical admiration, he approached the filing-cabinet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me see—you are 7-7-77.” He pulled out drawer seven in section
- seven and took out an envelope from which he drew a lot of papers. He read
- a typewritten sheet. He replaced the papers, closed the drawer, turned,
- and stared doubtfully at Tom, muttering half to himself: “I don't know! I
- don't know!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” asked Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you really want her? Do you feel that you must meet her soon or die?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom knew he would not die if he did not meet her soon, but as for wanting
- her, he certainly did. Every cell in his body was on the alert, waiting
- for her, hoping to see her; and adventure, through a megaphone, was
- vociferating in the middle of his soul: “Come! Come!” Therefore Tom looked
- the man straight in the eyes and answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man hesitated. Then he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen! It is for the last time. Do you hear? For the last time! Do you
- agree?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked sternly at Tom, who thereupon answered, impatiently:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes! Yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Boston! Hotel Lorraine! Secure Room 77, seventh floor. On Thursday at
- exactly 7 p.m. be in the southeast corner of the library or reading-room,
- which is on the left of the hall as you go to the main dining-room. Green
- arm-chair. Hold your hat between your knees—bottom side upward.
- Close your eyes. A letter will be dropped into the hat. Then do as you
- please. Personally I don't think it will help or hinder. But you are
- young; and perhaps if you wish hard enough it may happen according to your
- desire. Good day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man turned his back squarely on Tom, leaving to the heir of the
- Merriwether millions no alternative but to go out dissatisfied, excited,
- skeptical, hopeful, and determined to go to Boston—danger or no
- danger, swindle or no swindle.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mysterious man, too mysterious to be anything but a charlatan, who
- said he did not wish Tom's money and, for that reason, probably did—this
- man promised Tom he should meet a girl—a beautiful girl, the girl he
- would marry. If there was to be no compulsion about it; if they, the man
- and his accomplices, counted on her charms to capture Tom's heart and hand—why,
- the sooner she began the attack, the better. Also, it was one of those
- things that only an ass would talk about, since the telling would put an
- end to all doubts as to the teller's asininity.
- </p>
- <p>
- Therefore, without saying a word to anybody, Tom went to Boston, not
- knowing that McWayne's detectives had orders to follow Tom wherever he
- went and to report in detail what he was seen to do and what he was heard
- to say and to whom.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom arrived in Boston, went to the Hotel Lorraine, registered, and asked
- the polite room clerk for Room 77 on the seventh floor. The clerk smiled
- pleasantly, as he always did whenever a guest-to-be asked for rooms that
- did not end in thirteen, disappeared to look at the index, and returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm sorry, sir, but that room is taken. I can give you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Taken!” said Tom, in such a disappointed tone that the clerk deigned to
- explain sympathetically: “Engaged by telegraph.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who engaged it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with
- raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of
- once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with a
- cold determination in his voice: “I made a mistake. I thought we had a
- vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere.
- I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He
- evidently considered the incident closed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His business
- in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son of his
- father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the clerk:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no consequence.
- I am Mr. Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I told you it was engaged.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don't you?” said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness
- with a sneer.
- </p>
- <p>
- This made Tom calm. He said, quietly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of
- this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should have
- forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, Wilkinson
- & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket National
- Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good heavens!
- there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the last
- twenty years!” The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether had a
- familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more politely:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want—and three others
- with it—have been engaged.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By whom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are asking me to break one of our rules.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, can you tell me whether it has been engaged since yesterday?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, longer than that!” He disappeared, consulted a book, and came back
- with the triumphant expression human beings put on when they do not wish
- to say “I told you so,” aloud, “Engaged and paid for since the eighth, Mr.
- Merriwether. That's nine days ago. So, you see, we can't do what you ask
- us to. Sorry!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wherever he went, Tom thought he was confronted by crude attempts at
- mystery. To send him to this particular room, 77 on the seventh floor, was
- merely the same as an effort to impress children by using the magical
- number seven.
- </p>
- <p>
- Who had engaged the room? Was it an accomplice or some stranger guiltless
- of participation in the rather juvenile joke?
- </p>
- <p>
- Still, Tom was in Boston to do a particular thing; and, though much of the
- spring restlessness had gone from his veins, there remained the desire to
- see the affair through to the end, whether the end should be a smile or a
- mild oath. Therefore, after a pause, Tom said to the clerk:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can you give me the room exactly opposite 77 on the seventh floor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk hesitated, then said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Just a minute, please.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He consulted one of the bookkeepers, from whom he must have learned whose
- son Tom was. And, though Boston is not New York, money is money, even in
- Massachusetts; and the heir to fifty or a hundred million dollars is
- something, whether or not he is somebody.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” said the clerk, and handed the key to a young man called, in
- New York, a bell-boy. The young man now preceded Tom to the seventh floor
- and ushered the New-Yorker into Room 78.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom gave the studious youth a dollar and never noticed that the boy
- regarded the bill with a mixture of suspicion and alarm, put it gingerly
- into his pocket, and left the room, closing the door. Tom opened the door.
- The boy thought it had opened itself and returned to close it. Tom waved
- him away. The boy hastily retreated. He did not, however, throw away the
- dollar. He had discovered it was not “phony.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The bell-boy found the room clerk engaged in conversation with two men.
- He, divining that the talk concerned the generous lunatic, flung at the
- room clerk that look of exaggerated perplexity which will cause any normal
- human being inevitably to ask: “What is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men;
- whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and
- muttered, “He is in his room!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What's that, boy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I said,” retorted the studious youth, glacially, “he was in his room—78.
- He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close it, but he
- opened it again—after he gave me the dollar.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your man!” he said. “Of course we don't want any fuss—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow
- isn't violent, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only son, too—isn't he?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard.” The detective, induced
- thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed inside
- information.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Too bad!” murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom.
- “Too damned bad!” he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million and
- himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, sternly,
- “No trouble, you understand!”
- </p>
- <p>
- One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the lobby
- just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's permission,
- went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor telephone operator.
- From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on Room 78.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit
- still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. The
- thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him that
- perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely on rousing
- the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise awaited the man
- who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied by some one who
- had nothing to do with her—and therefore nothing to do with him.
- Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. Perhaps a
- million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously the unwise
- thing to do to go into Room 77.
- </p>
- <p>
- All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with him.
- The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more
- difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across the
- hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked again. A
- hotel maid approached him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What party?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In Room 77.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. I am in 78.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am very sorry—but it is against the rules of the house, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own room,
- conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much concerned
- over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to either of his
- Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever Mr. McWayne's
- star sleuths.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had
- come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it was
- not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So long as
- no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no mystery is
- laughable—at least, not while in the act of mystifying.
- </p>
- <p>
- So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or
- not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked
- man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two men
- from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the
- liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity.
- </p>
- <p>
- All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock;
- but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most human
- beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not “act right” to the
- watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused of being mad,
- will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five minutes. People who
- never think and never imagine are never taken for lunatics. That nowadays
- is about the only compensation for being an ass.
- </p>
- <p>
- At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the
- green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an
- elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at
- exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid of
- the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming the
- office.
- </p>
- <p>
- His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for insanity,
- and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his inventiveness. He
- merely drew his chair very close to the startled old lady and opened a
- magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the exasperating
- undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to yours at the
- opera.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, and
- at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched fist
- bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, looked
- at it, exclaimed, “Gracious!”—and blew his nose loudly and
- determinedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose,
- looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the room.
- In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked hats and
- coats near the entrance of the main dining-room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! He
- simply drove me out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Goodness! What a narrow—“.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, he is quite harmless, madam.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are right!” agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to
- encourage generosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down in
- the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The mahogany
- clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom felt a pang
- of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened—except that he again
- had made an ass of himself!
- </p>
- <p>
- A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at Tom,
- saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last person
- in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the
- room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way to
- attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was not a
- good place in which to do any robbing or murdering.
- </p>
- <p>
- Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into
- his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils—the odor he
- had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, and
- therefore with love.
- </p>
- <p>
- This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him—that
- made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife—that made
- him thrill obediently at the call of adventure—made him feel that
- the mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within his
- hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what it
- said, rushed from the room into the corridor.
- </p>
- <p>
- He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was
- among them or whether the man who had entered the library—who
- probably was the man that put out the light—was among the crowd. But
- the sleuths and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt
- could remain? In their minds there was none.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He
- was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it
- were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a
- woman's hand:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>For T. M.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, on
- which he read, in the same handwriting:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Too late!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must—” he began, but stopped.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a man
- saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother.
- </p>
- <p>
- “About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What? Has she—Is it vacant?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see
- whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous
- occupants.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly. Front!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He thought
- he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but the odor,
- which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented him from
- thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. There was no
- sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the mist of dreams
- and longings.
- </p>
- <p>
- He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often
- had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors to
- look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife—the mother of
- his children—the woman whose mere existence will influence his life
- more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a different
- man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different point of
- view.
- </p>
- <p>
- Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of view
- would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she be the
- girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the mysterious
- person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with whom he might
- fall in love—adventuress or not? His love of love had not yet
- changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a definite
- love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that this
- affair was being stage-managed for his benefit.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would forgive everything so long as in the end something happened—something
- in which there was a girl, whether or not she was the girl. What most
- irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery so far. The spice of
- danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of adventure; the call of the
- unusual; the attraction of the unknown and therefore of the interesting—were
- no longer quite enough. The glimpse of a face—of a living face—and
- a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and lips to kiss—these things he
- now desired.
- </p>
- <p>
- His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew
- keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the
- mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New
- York.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>ome men are so
- picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and so intelligent
- that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. E. H. Merriwether was
- one. He employed the ablest experts for his corporations and they got more
- than their share of publicity; but for himself—nothing. Possibly he
- realized that ungratified curiosity is a valuable asset; and, of course,
- he knew that in a democracy the less a man raises his head above the level
- of the mass the better it will be for his comfort.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because
- that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was
- not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned with
- despoiling the public—which, in turn, clearly proved he was not
- dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers the
- more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. Everything
- he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about him were so hard
- to get that the brightest minds in the profession manufactured a few. They
- had to be very good anecdotes—and they were.
- </p>
- <p>
- To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known to be
- mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, and, besides,
- devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from reporters, because
- they had learned to save themselves time by the simple expedient of
- writing their interviews with him in their own offices, after this
- fashion:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor
- denial could be obtained at his office.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never too
- busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the
- Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A
- stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the
- general and unwelcome public.
- </p>
- <p>
- At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a
- man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a
- letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: “Well?”—but
- kept on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by
- making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire
- magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” said the young man, pleasantly and
- unimpressed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked,
- wearily:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Got an appointment?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped
- insolence, said, still without looking up:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see
- any one to-day. Good day!”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an exaggerated
- and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the stranger without
- the gate said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance
- about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young man,
- of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight,
- well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and general
- air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as good an
- account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of wits.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of
- hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police
- nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good
- standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made
- possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My good James,” said the new-school reporter, with a mocking
- superciliousness, “I would see your boss. Be expeditious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed dangerously;
- but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his temper under
- control. For all that, his voice shook as he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger
- from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I—I'm sorry!” Here Doyle
- gulped. Then he finished: “Good day!”—and resumed, his writing.
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter said, “Look at me!” so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed
- back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man who
- dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My Celtic friend,” pursued the reporter, in a voice of such cold-blooded
- vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment and respect,
- “for years the domestics of this office have been rude and impolite to my
- profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry reporters might feel or
- what they said about him; but to-day I am the one who does not care, and
- E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally concerned. <i>I</i> don't give
- a damn whether he sees me or not. And as for you, in order to avenge the
- poor chaps to whom you have been intelligently rude, I, to whom you have
- been unintelligently impolite, shall have you fired. I've got E. H.
- Merriwether where I want him. If I can end your boss I can end your job—can't
- I? Oh no, Alexander! I am not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound
- to happen, for Waterloo comes to all great men who are not clever enough
- to die at the right time. Now you go and get McWayne—and be quick
- about it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doyle at times saw things through the top of his head, which was red. He
- said, a bit thickly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “When you tell me in plain English, so I can understand—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are not paid to understand; you are paid to use common sense and
- discrimination. You go to McWayne and say to him a reporter is here and
- wishes to speak to him about a sad Merriwether family matter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Doyle knew from the office gossip that something was supposed to be wrong
- with Tom Merriwether; so, his heart overflowing with anger because chance
- had put the one weapon in the hands of an insolent newspaper man, Doyle
- went off to tell the boss's private secretary. Presently McWayne, walking
- quickly, came from an inner office, and asked: “You wish to see me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” answered the reporter, flatly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then—” began McWayne.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't wish to see you. I wish to see if you have the sense to
- understand that I wish to do Mr. E. H. Merriwether the favor of letting
- him talk to me. Do you want me to tell you what I want you to tell Mr. E.
- H. Merriwether?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter looked as though he hoped McWayne would say no. Reporters did
- not usually look that way; therefore McWayne was perturbed. He replied,
- with a polite anxiety:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you please—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell Mr. Merriwether that I wish to see him about his son's marriage.
- Tell him that if he does not wish to talk about it, he needn't. You might
- add that there is absolutely no use in his trying to keep it out of the
- newspapers. Make that plain to him, McWayne.”
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne did not dare deny the marriage. Tom was, alas! capable of even
- worse things. He did the only thing possible while there was still a
- chance to suppress the news; he said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you represent which paper, please?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Reporters do not always know why or how news is suppressed, nor the price;
- but this reporter laughed good-naturedly, and replied:
- </p>
- <p>
- “McWayne, the trouble with you Irish is that you are so infernally clever
- that plain jackasses like myself are prepared for you. I represent myself
- and I don't want to be paid to suppress. No blackmail here; no threats;
- nothing except amiability and good-will. Have you begun to accumulate a
- few suspicions that your taciturn boss is going to talk to me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll see!” promised McWayne, non-committally; but he was so perturbed
- that he could not help showing it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Doyle, who had made a pretense of resuming his letter-writing, noticed it,
- and felt uncomfortable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And—say, McWayne,” pursued the reporter, “could you let a fellow
- have a photograph or two? You know we've got some, but we'd prefer to
- publish those you think the family consider the best. Some people are
- queer that way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne shook his head and went away, convinced of the worst. He returned
- and beckoned to the reporter, who thereupon said, sharply, to Doyle:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Open the door—you! Quick!” And Doyle, who saw McWayne beckoning,
- had to do it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Four hundred and seventeen reporters were avenged!
- </p>
- <p>
- Doyle was so angry that he was full of aches. He was tempted to throw up
- his job. Then he hoped E. H. Merriwether, who was a very great man, would
- order him to throw the insolent dog out of the office. Doyle would earn a
- bonus.
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad,
- fearless fighter, iron-nerved stock gambler, but, alas! also a father, was
- seated at his desk. He turned to the reporter the inscrutable poker-face
- of his class:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You wished to see me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir,” said the reporter, and waited; two could play at that game.
- The great financier was compelled to ask:
- </p>
- <p>
- “About what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “About what McWayne told you.” The reporter spoke unemotionally.
- </p>
- <p>
- “About some rumor concerning my son?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No?” E. H. Merriwether looked surprised.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. I wished to know what statement you desire to make about your son's
- engagement and marriage. If you do not care to say anything we shall not
- publish any fake interview, no matter what opinion I personally may form
- as to the real state of your feelings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I take it you are from one of the yellow papers, young man?” E. H.
- Merriwether spoke coldly; but, within, his heart-tragedy was being
- enacted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You usually take what you wish if it isn't nailed down, I have heard; but
- that, doubtless, is one of the slanders that automatically grow up about a
- great man, sir,” said the reporter, without the shadow of a smile or
- frown.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I am mistaken about the newspaper you represent—” Here Mr.
- Merriwether paused, as if to allow the young man to introduce himself; but
- the young man said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I told you the name of the newspaper that honors itself by playing
- fair with you, I suspect you would set in motion the machinery that you—er—men
- of large affairs use to suppress news. You couldn't reach my city editor,
- who is a poor man with a family of eight, or the reporter, who is
- penniless; but you could reach the owner, who is a millionaire. This is my
- first big story in New York and it will make me professionally. It means a
- lot to me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “About how much does it mean to you, young man?” asked E. H. Merriwether,
- with a particularly polite curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Speaking in language that should be intelligible to you and using the
- terms by which you measure' all things down here—” He paused, and
- then said, bluntly, “You mean in cash, don't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that this story is worth to me—Let
- me see!” And he began to count on his fingers, like a woman. This habit
- inexpressibly angers men who find no trouble in remembering numbers of
- dollars. “I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that it is worth about three
- thousand two hundred and eighty-six—millions of dollars. If I am to
- stop being a decent newspaper man to become a blackmailer and general
- damned fool I'd want to make enough to endow all my pet charities and
- carry out a series of rather expensive experiments in philanthropy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—” began the magnate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir,” interrupted the reporter, “no money, please. Just assume that I
- am a damned fool and, therefore, refuse to consider a bribe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have not bribed you,” suggested E. H. Merriwether, calmly. His eyes
- never left the reporter's face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I misjudged you, and I apologize abjectly; but permit me to continue
- to be an ass and blind to money. What about Thomas Thorne Merriwether,
- only son and heir of the railroad king of the Southwest?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what about him?” The face of E. H. Merriwether showed only what you
- might call a perfunctory curiosity. The reporter looked at him admiringly.
- After a pause, he asked:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know her?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you don't!” exclaimed the reporter, triumphantly. “This is better
- than I had hoped.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly; it means a better introductory article. The first of the
- series will be: 'To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged?' Think of it, sir,”
- he said, with the enthusiasm of the true artist, “the heir of the
- Merriwether millions! By the way, could you tell offhand how many millions
- I might safely say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Whatever Mr. Merriwether may have thought, he merely said, with the cold
- finality that often imposes on young reporters:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Young man, if you begin your career by being vulgar your ruin will be of
- your own doing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir, vulgarity never ruined any career. All the great men of
- history were at the beginning accused of hopeless vulgarity—by those
- on whom they trod. I tell you it is not vulgarity that prompts me, but
- mastery of the technic of my trade. Do you care to have me tell you about
- my article?”
- </p>
- <p>
- What Mr. E. H. Merriwether really wished to hear was that Tom was not in
- love—that he was not on the verge of brutally assassinating all the
- hopes and dreams of a fond father. What he said to the unspeakable
- reporter was:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I start with this basis—my knowledge of your son's
- engagement.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where did you get that knowledge?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One of the few things a reporter is incapable of doing is betraying a
- confidence. To tell you the source of my information would be that.
- Starting with that one fact, my problem is to make that one fact so
- important as to enable me to write several thousand words. To justify this
- I must make your son very important. He is not really very important, but
- you are. I shall slightly over-accentuate here and there”—he waved
- his hand in the air, and repeated, dreamily—“here and there! You
- will be the Napoleon of railroads, the Von Moltke of the ticker, doer of
- deeds and upbuilder, indisputably the greatest captain of industry that
- America has yet produced!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heavens!” burst from the lips of the imperturbable little magnate.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are a stunning study for a novelist. Yours is the great romance of
- the American business man! Having made you romantic, I wave my magician's
- wand and quadruple your millions. Yours, my dear sir—if you don't
- happen to know it—is one of the great fortunes of the world! You've
- got Croesus skinned to death and John D. whining over his lost
- pre-eminence!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now look here—” interjected E. H. Merriwether, sternly; but the
- reporter retorted, earnestly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hold your horses!” And the great millionaire did. The young man continued
- in his enthusiastic way: “It is much to have the hundreds of Merriwether
- millions, but it is infinitely more to have all the Merriwether millions
- and such a father and youth. I thus make Tom, who is really of no
- importance, of even greater importance than the great E. H. Merriwether.
- Do I know my business?” And he bowed in the general direction of the elder
- Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I begin to suspect,” replied the elder Merriwether, “that you do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was watching the reporter closely. He always had found it profitable to
- let men talk on. A man who talks is apt to show you what he is; and that
- furnishes to you the best available weapon. You also may learn when it is
- better not to fight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “When it comes to picturesque writing about people I do not know, I can
- assure you, Mr. Merriwether,” the young man said, modestly, “that I
- haven't an equal in the United States. In your case I shall not be
- handicapped by either facts or knowledge, which are always fatal to the
- creative faculty. I shall be free—absolutely free to write!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether permitted himself a frown in order to conceal his
- uneasiness. This young man was talking like a humorist. The eyes were
- intelligent and fearless. The combination was formidable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your theory has doubtless many supporters among your colleagues.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are,” admitted the reporter, cheerfully, “other bright young
- creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a paragon—a
- clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Which he is!” interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that
- even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention—with a cleverness I'd
- call devilish if it wasn't my own—to the strange and, on the whole,
- agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, a
- hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great
- engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are—do you
- know what?—a poet!—a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel,
- whose numbers are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand
- purring wheels of your tireless cars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr,” mildly objected the
- railroad poet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They do in my story,” said the reporter, firmly. “And to prove it I'll
- quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great writers
- always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the creation
- of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on the map of
- America—in green!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That sounds good to me,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached
- air of a critic of literature.
- </p>
- <p>
- He did not know just how to win this young man's silence—perhaps by
- letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the
- inauguration of a molasses diet at once!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This
- young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world—handsome, rich, a
- fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself
- inviolate—pretty swell word that?—in-vi-o-late—all these
- years, opens at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the
- engagement. High society is more than interested—more than startled.
- As thinks society, so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of
- her. What society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To
- whom is Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article?
- I leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!” The young man looked inquiringly at
- Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'd read it myself,” said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. “I couldn't
- help it!” You could see that literature had triumphed over the
- stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you! And what do you find at the end of the article? What? Why, a
- nice psychological little paragraph to the effect that we propose to print
- the name of the one woman who, of all the tens of thousands who have
- tried, has won the heart of Thomas Thome Merriwether, whose father you
- have the honor to be. We refrain, in order to have the parents of the
- young people formally announce the engagement. By doing this we get the
- full value of the to-be-continued-in-our-next suspense, for the first time
- utilized in a news story; and we also increase our reputation for
- gentlemanly conservatism, which prevents the refined reporter of the—of
- my paper from intruding into a family affair.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will your paper be damned fool enough to—” began E. H. Merriwether,
- intentionally skeptical.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not damned folly to extract all the juice contained in the scoop of
- the century—it is technical skill of a very high order. Now what
- happens? My esteemed contemporaries, morning and evening, chuck a fit and
- bounce their society editors. They then rush for the telephone and
- despatch their strongest photographers, sharpest sleuths, and entire
- dictagraph corps to the scene. They can't find Tom—because, as you
- know, he is in—he is out of town. And they can't find her—because
- I haven't said who she is. There remains you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That won't do them any good,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, decisively; but
- he shuddered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely! I banked on that. But, even if you did see them, what could
- you tell them? Deny what is bound to be confirmed in the next issue of my
- paper? You know better than to acquire a reputation for lying in the
- newspapers. No, siree! Your game is to deny yourself to all inquirers and
- say nothing. My esteemed contemporaries have now but one desire—to
- wit: to print the name and publish the portrait of your son's fiancée. Of
- course you see what happens then, don't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter looked at the iron-hearted E. H. Merriwether, with such pity
- in his eyes that the great little czar of the Southwestern Railroad for
- the first time in his life realized he was merely a man—a human
- being; an ordinary, every-day father; one drop in the vast ocean; one of
- the crowd temporarily aboveground and therefore exposed to the same
- sorrows and troubles and sore vexations as all mankind. His millions, his
- position in the world, his great work, his undoubted genius—could
- not avail even to rid him of annoyance. Can you imagine John D.
- Rockefeller living on Staten Island in June and unable to buy
- mosquito-netting—price, five cents a yard?
- </p>
- <p>
- “What will happen?” asked the great millionaire, who was also a father.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My intelligent colleagues, of course, will look for the lady. Where there
- is a strong demand the supply automatically offers itself for consumption.
- And what will the seven hundred and fifty alert young men, with great
- capacities for fictional art, who are temporarily assisting actress-ladies
- and self-paying authoresses and unprinted poetesses and
- fertilizer-manufacturers unmarried daughters, do? What will those
- estimable young artists, miscalled press agents, do when they encounter
- the demand for Tom's fiancée's photograph? What except 'Here she is!'—six
- thousand words, thirty-two poses, and a facsimile of a love-letter or two,
- to prove it! And then—chorus-ladies, poetesses, fair divorcées about
- to honor the vaudeville—” The reporter stopped—he had seen the
- look on E. H. Merri-wether's face. He felt sorry. “But it is true,” he
- said, defensively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes!” Tom's poor rich father felt cold all over.
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter pursued, more quietly: “You know the ingenuity of my
- colleagues, the great American respect for a millionaire's privacy, and
- the national sense of humor. Will your son's love-affair be discussed?
- Will it be discussed with the gentlemanly reticence and innate delicacy of
- feeling of <i>my</i> story?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether never before realized that the law against homicide
- was even more absurd than an Interstate Commerce Commission order; but he
- had to bow to the inevitable. He was beginning to understand how Napoleon
- felt on the deck of the <i>Bellerophon</i> when on the way to St. Helena.,
- Do you remember the picture? He nodded—not dejectedly, but also not
- far from it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, in a day or two or three, according to conditions; we come out with
- it. We print the lady's name and her portrait—possibly not the best
- of all her photographs, but the only one I could—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is she?” burst from the lips of the reporter's victim.
- </p>
- <p>
- Instantly the reporter's face became very serious. “I feared so, Mr.
- Merriwether,” he said, very quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here, my boy!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether, with an earnestness that
- had in it a threat. “I don't know what your game is and I don't care. I'll
- admit right now that you are a very clever young man and probably not a
- crook; but I tell you calmly, quietly, without any threats, that you are
- not going to publish any damned-fool article about my family in any paper
- in New York.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter rose and looked straight into the unblinking eyes of the
- great financier. Then he said, slowly, and, the old fellow admitted,
- distinctly impressively:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I tell you, twice as quietly and ten times as calmly, without any
- fool threats, that all the daily newspapers in New York and Philadelphia,
- Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and ten thousand other towns in the United
- States, Canada, Mexico, the Canal Zone, and countries in the Postal Union,
- are going to publish articles about your son Tom's engagement, and later
- on about his marriage. Understand once for all, that there are some things
- all your millions and all your will-power cannot do. This is one of them.
- It is the penalty of being a public character—or, if you prefer, of
- being an exceptionally great man. Do I understand that you have nothing to
- say about your son's coming marriage?”
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether in less than five seconds thought of more than five
- thousand possibilities, all in connection with his son's marriage. Then he
- said, very slowly, fighting for time and a chance to escape:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My son will marry whenever he and the young lady chiefly interested judge
- fit to do so. He and I are in perfect accord, as always.” Mr. Merriwether
- was looking into the too-fearless and too-intelligent gray-blue eyes of
- the reporter. Then he did what he did not often do in his Wall Street
- affrays—he capitulated. “Will you give me your word that you will
- not use for publication what I am about to tell you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir, I won't!” emphatically replied the reporter. “You might tell me
- something I already know and then you'd always think I had broken my word.
- I will not pledge myself not to print the name of your
- daughter-in-law-to-be; but anything that concerns you personally or your
- attitude toward your son's finacée, or hints of a family quarrel—or
- those things that offend a sensitive man—I promise not to print. You
- have some rights; but I also owe certain things to myself and my paper.
- I've been frank with you. You can be frank with me if you wish. I put it
- up to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether, after a thoughtful pause, said: “Look here! I don't know
- anything about my son's engagement. I cannot swear he is not engaged, but
- I don't know that he is. It follows that I do not know the young lady. You
- don't have to print that, do you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter gazed on the financier meditatively. Presently, instead of
- answering the question, he asked:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you had no suspicion of any romance?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well”—and it was plain that E. H. Merriwether was telling the
- truth, having made up his mind to that policy as being the wisest—“well,
- I have of late suspected that such a thing might be possible. It is, I
- will confess to you, a terrible predicament, because a man naturally
- cherishes certain hopes for his only son.” On Mr. Merriwether's face there
- was a quite human look of suffering.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” said the reporter, apologetically, as though offering an
- excuse for a friend's misdeed—“of course a man in love is not always
- wise.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. And though I have no intention or desire to bribe you, and though I
- would not presume to interfere with you in your professional activities or
- influence you by pecuniary considerations, you will pardon me for
- suggesting—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter did not let him go on. He rose and said, with real dignity:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether, suppose we drop the matter right here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will not print any story yet—on one condition.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Name it. I think likely I can meet it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me your promise that you will give me an interview the next time I
- come to see you. It may be in a day or two or a week. I don't promise not
- to print the story, you understand, but it will give you time to—well,
- to see your son.”
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether held out his hand and said: “I will see you any time you
- come. But let me say, as an older man, that if you should suffer any loss
- by not printing—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh no—I shall not suffer. I propose to print my story. I am simply
- deferring publication; but I thank you for the offer you were going to
- make. It shows more consideration and, therefore, far greater common sense
- than most men in your position habitually display before a reporter. I'll
- do even more—I'll give you a friendly tip.” He stopped talking and
- looked doubtfully at E. H. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you,” said Mr. Merriwether, with a remarkable mixture of gratitude,
- dignity, and anxiety. “I am listening.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Find out why he goes to 777 Fifth Avenue. There are some things a really
- intelligent father, poor or rich, should—” He caught himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please finish, my boy!” cried the great little man, almost entreatingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are just a few things”—the reporter was speaking very slowly
- and his voice was lowered—“which an intelligent father does not
- trust to others—not even to the most loyal confidential men—things
- that should be done by the father himself. The number is 777 Fifth
- Avenue!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thank you, Mr.—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “William Tully,” said the reporter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Tully, I thank you. I think you are throwing away time and brains in
- your present position, and if you should ever—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, sir. Don't be afraid. I shall not bother you by—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I mean it,” said E. H. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- The reporter smiled and said, “If you knew how often my fortune has been
- made by men whose story I have not printed you'd be deaf, too.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Young man, I sometimes forget favors, but not the possession of brains. I
- need them in my business.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, suppose you show your appreciation by telling the red-headed
- person in the outer office that he is to take in my card to you when I
- call again?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly!” And the czar of the great Pacific & Southwestern system
- nearly slew Doyle by accompanying the reporter to the outer door and
- saying:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doyle, any time Mr. Tully comes to see me let me know instantly, no
- matter what I may be doing or who is with me. Understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir!” gasped Doyle, looking terrifiedly at the sorcerer.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tully! Irish! That was the reason, of course; but he was a wonder, all the
- same.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good day, Mr. Tully. I thank you. And don't forget my offer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether bowed as the door closed on Mr. William Tully and then,
- walking like a man in a trance, returned to his private office. He rang
- the push-button marked No. 1, and when McWayne appeared turned a haggard
- face to his private secretary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “McWayne, that reporter has a story of Tom's engagement, but he wouldn't
- tell me who the girl is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't believe it!” cried McWayne, with a not very intelligent intention
- of comforting his chief. At times the male Irish mind works femininely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Neither do I—and yet I do. It confirms Dr. Frauenthal's diagnosis.
- I guess he knows his business, after all. Well, the story will not be
- published yet. He acted pretty decently.”
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne wondered how much it had cost the old man, but he said, “Didn't he
- intimate—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That reporter knows his business,” cut in E. H. Merriwether. “He ought to
- be a dramatist. Have you heard from your men?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir. Tom has gone to Boston. Two of them are with him. He suspects
- nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What else?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They will let me know by long distance if anything happens.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If anything! Great Scott! isn't it enough that—Let me hear what
- they report—on the instant!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, McWayne—” He hesitated.
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne, his face full of sincere solicitude, prompted, gently:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, chief?”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the first time he had ever used that word. It made his speech so
- friendly, so affectionately personal, that E. H. Merriwether said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, McWayne. I wish you would find out for me at once who lives in
- 777 Fifth Avenue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir,” said McWayne. “That's where—” He caught himself. .
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am afraid so!” acquiesced the railroad czar, listlessly.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VIII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ithin an hour
- McWayne walked into the private office. His chief closed his jaws—a
- weaker man would have clenched his fists—in anticipation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Breese & Silliman, the real-estate men, say they rented 777 Fifth
- Avenue, furnished, to a Madam Calderon—an American woman, widow of a
- Peruvian nitrate king. She came up here and asked Breese about a suitable
- location. She has a daughter she wishes to marry in America. She talked
- quite freely about her affairs. The house was for sale, but she leased if,
- furnished, with privilege of purchase. Belongs to the Martin-Schwenk
- Construction Company. The daughter is about thirty, dark, Spanish-looking,
- and fleshy; rather—er—inclined to make googoo eyes, as Breese
- says, in a kind of foreign way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on,” commanded E. H. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mrs. Calderon said point-blank that she wished her daughter to marry a
- nice young man of wealth and position, preferably a blond. I gather that
- the agents were rather anxious to let the house and probably encouraged
- her. She has paid quarterly in advance, and her banking references are O.
- K.; but nothing about her personally is known to any one. That's all I
- could get.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well. Thank you, McWayne.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The private secretary stood beside the desk, hesitated, and presently
- walked out. Shortly afterward, the great and ruthless E. H. Merriwether,
- full of perplexity and regret—and some remorse over his neglect of
- his only son for so many years—went uptown. He desired to know what
- to expect, in order to be able to think intelligently, and, therefore, to
- fight efficiently. How could he fight—not knowing what or whom to
- fight?
- </p>
- <p>
- He told the chauffeur to wait, and then rang the bell of 777.
- </p>
- <p>
- One of the four footmen whose faces had impressed Tom as being distinctly
- too intelligent for menials, opened the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see Madam Calderon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg pardon, sir. Have you an appointment?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. Say it is Mr. Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. who, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether took out a card. The footman received it on a very
- elaborate silver-gilt card-tray and, pointing to a particularly
- uncomfortable, high-backed Circassian-walnut chair in the foyer, left the
- great little multimillionaire under the watchful eye of footman Number
- Two. This annoyed Mr. Merriwether. Nobody is altogether invulnerable.
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman returned, with the card and the tray.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam is not at home, sir; but her brother would be glad to see you, if
- you wish, sir. He is madam's man of affairs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you please, sir, this way.” And the footman led the way to the door of
- the library, where Tom had been received so often.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Edward H. Merriwether!” The emphasis on the first name made the
- little czar of the Southwestern roads think it was done in order to
- differentiate him from Mr. Thomas Merriwether. Even great men are not
- above thinking themselves clever.
- </p>
- <p>
- He entered the room and took in its character at one glance, just as Tom
- had done. He became cool, watchful, alert, and observing, as he always did
- when he went into a fight. He looked at the man who was said to be the
- brother of the woman who had leased the house—the woman who had a
- daughter she wished to marry to a blond with money and position.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man had a square chin and, even in repose, suggested power and
- self-control. Mr. Merriwether met the remarkably steady, unblinking gaze
- of two extremely sharp eyes, and recognized without any particular motion
- that he confronted a man of strength and resource, who, moreover, had the
- double strategical advantage of being in his own house and of not having
- sought this interview.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be seated, sir,” said the man, in the calm voice of one who is accustomed
- to obedience, even in trifles.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether sat down. He noticed little things, as well as big.
- He noted, for instance, that he had begun by doing exactly what this man
- told him to do. The man intelligently waited for Mr. E. H. Merriwether to
- speak. Mr. E. H. Merriwether did so. He said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I called to see Madam Calderon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “About?” The man spoke coldly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether raised his eyebrows. He did it in order not to
- frown. There is no wisdom in needless antagonisms. His only son was
- concerned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “About my son,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tommy?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The great railroad magnate, accustomed to the deference even of the
- self-appointed owners of the United States, flushed with anger. Had things
- gone so far that such intimacy existed?
- </p>
- <p>
- “I understand,” he said, trying to speak emotionlessly, “that my son
- visits this house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of his own volition, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I did not think there was physical coercion; but, of course, as his
- father—” He stopped in the middle of the sentence.
- </p>
- <p>
- This never before had happened to this man, who always knew what to do and
- what to say, and always did it and said it with the least expenditure of
- time and words; but, as a matter of fact, what could he say, and how?
- </p>
- <p>
- “That relationship,” the man said, calmly, “often interferes with the
- exercise of what people formerly called common sense. Will you please do
- me a very great favor, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A favor?” Mr. Merriwether, skilful diplomatist though he could be at
- times, now frowned in advance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, Mr. Merriwether—indeed, two favors; or rather, three. First:
- Will you please ask me no questions now? Second: Will you please return to
- this house at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning? And third: Will you
- promise not to speak to your son about your visit here until after you
- have paid your second call, to-morrow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- It flashed through Mr. Merriwether's mind that to grant the favors might
- expedite Tom's appalling marriage. He said, decisively:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot promise any of the things you ask.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” said the man, composedly. “Then, I take it, there is nothing
- more to be said.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose politely, and as he did so pressed a button on the table. The
- footman appeared and held the door open for Mr. Merriwether to pass out.
- </p>
- <p>
- The autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, with unlimited credit
- in the money-markets of the world, was not accustomed to being treated
- like this: but, precisely because he felt hot anger rising in tidal waves
- to his brow, he instantly became cool.
- </p>
- <p>
- He remained sitting, and said, very politely:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you will allow me, sir, to tell you that my reasons—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man, who was still standing, held up a hand and broke in:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if you will allow me to tell you that I am neither a criminal nor a
- jackass I shall then proceed to say that nobody in this house has any
- intention of entering into any argument or controversy with you. I am
- actuated much less by personal considerations of my own than by a desire
- to avert from you eternal regrets and—er—unseemly displays of
- temper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether knew exactly what he would like to do to this man. What
- he said—very mildly—was:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must admit, sir, that your requests might be interpreted—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I see!” And the man smiled very slightly. “Well, suppose you take Tom
- to your office with you to-morrow morning, and keep him there while you
- come here? Tell him to wait for you, because you wish to have luncheon
- with him. I do not care to discuss my reasons—for example—for
- not wishing you to speak to Tom about this visit. I do not wish to wound
- your feelings; but I am not sure that you know Tom as well as a father
- ought to know his only son. And there are times when a man must be more
- than a father, when he must be a tactful man of the world, and a
- psychologist.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether realized the force of this so clearly that he winced, but
- said nothing, since he could not admit such a thing aloud. The man
- proceeded coldly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you are both an intelligent man and a loving father, you will promise
- what I ask—not for my sake, for yours. There are many things, Mr. E.
- H. Merriwether, that money does not cure, and that not even time can heal.
- Ask me nothing now; come here at eleven to-morrow morning, and in the mean
- time do not speak to Tom about himself—or your fears.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you were only not so—er—well, so damned mysterious—”
- And Mr. Merriwether forced himself to smile pleasantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah—if!” exclaimed the man, nodding. “Do you promise?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes!” answered Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had made up his mind that Tom would not be abducted. As for worse
- things, if Tom had not already committed matrimony, he could not very well
- do it in his father's private office. It was wise to keep Tom virtually a
- prisoner without his knowledge. And parental opposition has so often
- served merely to add gasoline to the flame of love that one father would
- not even whisper his objections.
- </p>
- <p>
- He bowed and left the room, angry that nothing had been accomplished,
- relieved that within twenty-four hours the matter would probably be
- settled, and not quite so confident of the power of money as he had been
- for many years.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IX
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>om arrived at his
- home early enough to have his bath at the usual hour. Though he had never
- been asked to account for his movements, he nevertheless made it a point
- to breakfast with his father. He would do so to-day. There was no occasion
- to say he had been to Boston or that he had slept in a Pullman.
- </p>
- <p>
- As a matter of fact, he had not slept well. The stateroom seemed full of
- those elusive flower-fragrances that always made him think of her,
- particularly sweet peas—a beautiful flower, and of such delicate
- colors, he now remembered, who had not thought of them for years. He
- really loved them, he now discovered. Their odor always tinged his.
- thoughts with a vague spirit of romance; and this, in turn, in some subtle
- way, rendered him more susceptible to the lure of adventure. It almost
- made him feel like a boy.
- </p>
- <p>
- For all the stimulating reaction of his cold plunge, Tom looked a trifle
- tired about the eyes at breakfast.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether looked at his son with eyes that also looked tired; said,
- “Good morning, Tom!” in his usual tone of voice, and hid behind his
- newspaper. Instead of reading about the absurd demands of the railroad
- workers all over the United States for higher wages, he was thinking that
- he had never allowed anybody to do his work for him, because he had always
- intended that Tom should succeed him. He had at one time fully intended to
- train Tom for the succession, to have him learn railroading from brake-man
- up.
- </p>
- <p>
- Indeed, the boy after leaving college had seemed much taken with the idea
- and listened with interest to his father's talks about his plans and
- desires and hopes. But with the great boom, that wonderful era of amazing
- reorganizations and stupendous consolidations, the great little man had
- been swamped by the flood of gold that poured into Wall Street.
- </p>
- <p>
- And gold, as usual, had been ruthless in its demands on the great little
- man's time. For years he had averaged a net personal profit of a million a
- month; but it was not that he wished to make more money. It was that his
- time no longer belonged to himself; it was not his family's, but his
- associates'—not his only son's, but his many syndicates'. And he had
- devoted himself to the welfare of his syndicates and had written a
- dazzling page in the annals of Wall Street.
- </p>
- <p>
- But what about his son's present and the future of the Merriwether roads?
- If Tom died, the Merri-wether dream would follow him, but that would be a
- natural death at the hands of God. If Tom lived and refused to be a
- Merriwether, the death of the Merriwether dreams would be by slow
- strangulation. In short, hell!
- </p>
- <p>
- His promise to the brother of the woman who had a daughter that might
- prove to be the executioner of his dreams stared him in the face. The
- situation called for tact and skill and superhuman self-control. He liked
- to fight in the open; but this was not a battle for more millions; it
- involved more than the deglutition of a rival railroad.
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne had reported that Tom had acted like a lunatic when he could not
- secure the room in the Hotel Lorraine that had been engaged by Mrs.
- Calderon and daughter. The only ray of light was that Tom had not talked
- to the ladies.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom,” asked Mr. Merriwether, casually, “have you anything on special for
- this morning?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom had in mind a visit to 777 Fifth Avenue, at which he promised himself
- to end the affair; but he answered:
- </p>
- <p>
- “N-no.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mean,” said the father, speaking even more casually, because he noted
- the hesitancy, “anything that could not be done just as well in the
- afternoon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh no, I have nothing special; in fact, nothing at all,” said Tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether saw in his reply merely Tom's way of not declaring his
- intention to see the girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I wish you would come down-town with me. I have some papers I want
- you to look over, and we'll have luncheon together. What do you say?”
- </p>
- <p>
- A prisoner accused of murder in the first degree does not listen to the
- jury's verdict with more interest than E. H. Merriwether waited for Tom's
- reply, for at this crisis he realized that he had not been in his son's
- confidence in those other important little crises of boyhood that breed in
- sons the habit of confiding in fathers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sure thing!” said Tom', cheerfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- Though thus relieved of some of his fears, there remained with E. H.
- Merriwether the determination that Tom had not volunteered any
- information. The little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern was so
- intelligent that in general he was fundamentally just. He did not exactly
- blame Tom for not confiding in him, but, also, he did not blame himself.
- And this was because he had habituated himself to paying for his mistakes
- in dollars. What could not be paid off in dollars was never a mistake,
- though it might well be a misfortune.
- </p>
- <p>
- They went down-town together. Mr. Merriwether took Tom into one of his
- half-dozen private offices, made him sit down in one of those
- over-comfortable arm-chairs that you paradoxically find in busy Wall
- Street offices, and said to him very seriously:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My son, here is the history of the Pacific & Southwestern system from
- its very start. It goes back to the early stage-line days and is brought
- up to to-day. I had it prepared in anticipation of an ill-advised
- Congressional investigation. I have thus far succeeded in staving off the
- investigation, not because I was afraid of it or because it might hurt me,
- but because the market was in bad shape to stand the alarmist rumors and
- canards and threats that always go with such affairs. Other people would
- have quite unnecessarily lost money. As soon as the investigation cannot
- be used as a bear club I'll let up opposing it. I'll even help it.” He
- paused and gave to Tom a book bound in limp black morroco. “I want you to
- read this book because it is written with complete frankness in order to
- spike certain political guns. You will get in it the full story of what
- has been done and what we hope still to be allowed to accomplish. When you
- get through with it you'll know as much about the system as I do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man had spoken quietly and impressively. Tom was so pleased at
- having something to occupy his mind and keep it from dwelling on the girl
- he had never seen and the exasperating scoundrel at 777 Fifth Avenue that
- his face lighted up with joy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You could not have given me anything to do that I'd like better, dad!” he
- said, with such obviously sincere enthusiasm that Mr. Merriwether felt
- profoundly grateful for this blessing.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then came the inevitable reaction and with it the thought: “Have I gained
- a successor only to lose him to some—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head, clenched his jaws, and looked at his watch. It was not
- yet time to go to fight for the possession of his son. He had much to do
- before he left his office to go to 777 Fifth Avenue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom,” he said, “'you stay here until I return—will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You bet!” smiled Tom, looking at the thickness of the system's history.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have a meeting or two before luncheon, but I'll try not to let them
- interfere.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Any time before three, boss,” said his son, cheerfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- His heir and successor, but, above all and everything, his son! There was
- no sacrifice he would not make for this boy to keep him from blighting his
- own career—and his father's hopes, he added, with the selfishness of
- real love.
- </p>
- <p>
- Knowing that Tom was safely imprisoned and could not marry at least for a
- few hours, he was able to concentrate his mind on his railroad's affairs.
- He disposed of the more urgent matters. At ten-forty he sent for McWayne.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'm going to 777 Fifth Avenue.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Again?” inadvertently said the private secretary.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether looked at him.
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne went on to explain: “I've had a man watching it since we found Tom
- called there, just before going to Boston.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Right! I expect to be back in time to lunch with Tom; but if I should be
- delayed—” He paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “—delayed beyond one o'clock have luncheon brought from the Meridian
- Club and tell Tom I wish him to stay until I return. This is important.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think that is all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If no word is received from you by—” McWayne paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether finished. “By two o'clock, come after me. But always
- remember the newspapers!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll telephone before two in case I expect to stay beyond that hour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether put on his hat, familiar to the world through the
- newspaper caricaturists—and walked toward the door. Then he did what
- he never before had done—he repeated an order! He said to McWayne,
- “Look after Tom!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he went to 777 Fifth Avenue to learn whether Tom was to be his pride
- and successor or his sorrow and dream-slayer.
- </p>
- <h3>
- X
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>. H. Merriwether
- drove to the house of mystery in his motor, told the chauffeur to wait,
- and rang the bell. One of the over-intelligent-looking footmen opened the
- door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish to see Mr.—whoever is master in this house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman led the way. At the door of the library he knocked twice,
- sharply, then, after a pause, once, and then twice again. He waited; and
- presently, having evidently heard some answer not audible to the
- financier, he opened the door and announced:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. E. H. Merriwether!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Why had there been any necessity for signals? Why such cheap theatrical
- claptrap? To make him think things? These questions in Mr. Merriwether's
- mind showed that the mysterious master of the house knew the advantage of
- suggesting the important sense of difference.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning,” answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- No girl!
- </p>
- <p>
- It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking very
- deliberately, as one to whom time is no object:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am a very busy man,” began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of
- railroad.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down, anyhow,” imperturbably suggested the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- The autocrat sat down. He said, “But please understand that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down to
- business?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke almost dreamily—“do you know
- why I asked you to call to-day at eleven?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because when you were here yesterday it was after banking hours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And?” The little czar was in a hurry to finish.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You, Mr. Merriwether, are one of those fortunate mortals about whom the
- newspapers do not lie.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, am I? I take it you haven't seen a newspaper in twelve years.” Mr.
- Merriwether, after all, was an American. His sense of humor helped to make
- him great.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I've read every line that has ever been printed about you—I had to,
- in order to study you exhaustively. I find that you are acknowledged by
- both friends and foes to be an intelligent man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A very intelligent man,” continued the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And therefore?” said the very intelligent man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, therefore, I now ask you to give me one million dollars.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether never so much as batted an eyelid. He kept his eyes
- fixed on the stranger's eyes. He repeated, a trifle impatiently:
- </p>
- <p>
- “And?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A certified check will do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come to the point. I am a busy man,” said Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man looked at the little financier admiringly. Then he said, “You mean
- you wish to know why you should give the million, or what you will get for
- it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Either! Both!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You should give it because it is I who ask it. You will get for it what
- is very, very cheap at a million.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir, we'd do business quicker if you'd play show-down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Now that it was a matter of money, of paying, of trading, Tom's father
- felt a great sense of relief. Still, there was Tom's unhappiness to
- consider. Poor boy!
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want you to give me a million so that in return I may give you a
- daughter-in-law.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean you will not give me a daughter-in-law if I give you a million,
- don't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am in the habit of meaning what I say. The sooner you learn that, the
- quicker we'll close the deal. I mean that for a million dollars I'll give
- you a daughter-in-law.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether shook his head. It was plainly to be seen on his face that
- every moment spent in this room was a sad waste of time.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Isn't it worth a million to you?” asked the man, as if he knew it was.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether proceeded to look as though it were worth even less than a
- Santo Domingo mining concession. Then he said, with finality:
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then,” he spoke indifferently, “come back when it is. I'll ask you to
- excuse me. I, also, am a busy man. Good day, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether rose and bowed. He looked straight into the man's very
- shrewd eyes, smiled very slightly—and sat down again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean,” he asked, very pleasantly, for his bluff had been called,
- “Miss Calderon?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man sat down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh no!” he answered, unsmilingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No? Then?” Mr. Merriwether was so surprised that he forgot not to show
- it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sorry you are a busy man, because what I have to say can not be
- hurried. First, you must chase from your mind all thoughts of Wall Street,
- high finance, railroad systems—and fill it with love!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether looked alarmed. Would it all end with a Biblical text and
- an exhortation to endow some sort of a Home?
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can do this,” pursued the man, imperturbably, “by thinking of your
- son Tom. He is your only son. You should love him. Once your mind is
- attuned to thoughts of love, you will be able to understand me more
- easily. Concentrate on love!” The man leaned back in his chair as though
- he were certain the attuning process would consume an hour, this being,
- alas! a Wall Street man; but Merriwether said, very promptly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am ready for chapter two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I doubt it. Love! The love of father for son, of son for mother, of son
- for wife, of son for father!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I understand. My mind works quickly. Go on!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you by any chance happen to know that your son is in love?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Where is the girl?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn't the girl. It's just girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, hell! Quit vaudevilling!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is no girl who is the girl. There never was. There doesn't have to
- be any!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Quite obviously this man was a lunatic—with the eyes of a
- particularly sane person. If there was no girl Tom was in no danger of
- marriage. A million for not marrying an undesirable person, yes, but a
- million for a daughter-in-law, when Tom was not in love!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only,” thought Mr. Merriwether, “in case I have the selecting of her! And
- if I pick her I don't have to pay.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet,” said the man, musingly, “Tom loves her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether's perplexity was fast rising to the dignity of anger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If there had been a girl of Tom's own class,” the man went on, as if
- talking to himself, “why shouldn't he have been seen in public with her?”
- Mr. Merriwether was listening now with his soul. “And if this girl were of
- the other class—that financial geniuses, alas! sometimes have to
- accept for daughters-in-law—a nice, vivacious chorus-lady, or a
- refined Reno graduate, or worse—she would have insisted on being
- seen in public with Tom, to show her power and to raise the paternal
- bid-price for a trip to Europe—alone!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man ceased to speak and began to nod his head slowly, his gaze on the
- rug at his feet. Mr. Merriwether could stand it no longer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If there is no girl, what in blazes do I get for my million?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your pick of eight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eight what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eight perfect daughters-in-law!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A thought shot through Mr. Merriwether's mind: Was any form of insanity
- contagious? He looked at the lunatic. The eyes were sane, cold, shrewd,
- mind-reading eyes full of a sardonic humor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are all,” added the man, as if he wished to dispel unworthy
- suspicion, “in love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With Tom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With love—like Tom!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With love—like Tom!” helplessly repeated Mr. E. H. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your mind”—the man spoke very slowly and distinctly, as if he
- wished to deprive Mr. Merriwether of every excuse for not understanding
- him—“does not seem to be working this morning with its usual
- efficiency!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” admitted Mr. Merriwether, sadly. “If you'd only use words of one
- syllable I think I could follow you better.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It isn't that. It is that your mind was not attuned in the beginning to
- the thought of love, and, therefore, could not follow my words. You compel
- me to spend time in explaining the obvious. Listen! If you wish Tom to
- become the heir to your name, to your railroad, to your work, and to all
- the dreams you have dreamed about your work and about your son; if you
- want him to be your successor, to continue your work, to perpetuate the
- name and influence of Merriwether in his country—I say, if you wish
- all this, he must do one thing, and you must see that he does it. And that
- one thing, Mr. Merriwether, is for him to marry wisely. Do you get that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, very simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If he doesn't, it will be death to your hopes, a tragic break in the
- Merriwether succession. No, don't shake your head. Admit it. Face it
- frankly. I know it. I know that you also know it. Can you expect me to
- believe that you want Tom to be the fool husband of a fool girl whose
- influence on him—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tom isn't that kind,” interrupted E. H. Merri-wether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All men are that kind. Does history record the case of a man, greater
- even than E. H. Merriwether, who, when it came to women, was an utter ass?
- Yes, of a thousand; in fact, the stronger the man, the weaker she makes
- him—the better his brain, the worse his folly. And the cure? When an
- intelligent man realizes that he is a hopeless ass over one woman he
- realizes that his only escape is by the suicide route. No! It's much
- cheaper for you to pay the million. Oblige me by thinking. Isn't it
- cheaper to pay a million?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He held up a silencing hand, as though he wished Mr. Merriwether to spend
- a full hour thinking of the bargain he was getting. Mr. Merriwether
- thought—quickly and accurately as was his wont. And he admitted to
- himself that it was indeed cheap at a million. But there must be value
- received. Promises, however plausible, are no more to be capitalized
- blindly than threats. It depends on who promises, and why; and also on
- what is promised. He thought of offering a smaller sum and of going
- through the usual preliminaries of a trade, but decided to be frank.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you can deliver the goods, I'll pay the million.” And, after a pause,
- he added, “Gladly!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I banked on that when I decided you ought to contribute a million to our
- fund,” said the man, simply. “I studied you and your fortune and your
- vulnerability, and I decided to attack <i>via</i> Tom. This was easier and
- cheaper than a stock-market campaign.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man somehow looked as though he had said all that was necessary; but
- Mr. Merriwether reminded him:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must prove your ability to deliver the goods.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought”—the man seemed mildly surprised—“we had.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly not. The million hasn't stirred.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are a brave man, Mr. Merriwether.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether laughed, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What should I fear? People don't murder a man like me and get away with
- it—not when the motive is money. Political assassination, perhaps;
- but not for a few dollars—especially when my heirs would spend
- millions to see that justice did not miscarry.” He shook his head,
- smilingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir, when we decided to go into the gold-mining business—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gold-mining business!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly! We thought to save time and effort by getting our gold already
- coined. Our general staff studied various methods—the ticker, for
- instance, and legislative attacks on your roads; but we went back to Tom.
- It is, of course, nearly as stupid to overestimate as to underestimate
- one's opponent; so, while we provided against every contingency arising
- from your undoubted possession of a resourceful and fearless mind, we also
- thought—please take note—that you might display stupidity; and
- we prepared for it. Such as, for instance, in case you point-blank said
- No! We have also provided ways of preventing you and your uncaptured
- millions from hurting us. Of course we could make the stock-market pay us
- for the trouble of kidnapping you or of murdering you. Don't you see
- clearly what you would do if you were in my place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes—I see it clearly; but I don't believe you could do what I
- could in your place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nobody is free from vanity, for everybody seems to be a natural
- monopolist when it comes to brains. You are kidnapped at this very moment,
- aren't you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “People know I am here—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes! We expect to have you telephone McWayne presently not to expect
- you to lunch, and that we have extended every facility to his detectives
- for having this house under surveillance. We kidnapped the great
- Garrettson and kept him out of reach of the great world of finance long
- enough to enable us to cash in. Not only that, but he never told how we
- did it. You remember when Steel broke to—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You didn't do that!” exclaimed E. H. Merri-wether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes, we did; and I'll tell you how.” And the man briefly outlined the
- case for him.
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether listened with much interest. When the man made an end of
- speaking, the financier shook his head skeptically, which made the man
- ask: “You don't believe it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” answered Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nevertheless, it is so. We also might have engineered in your case some
- deal such as that by which we compelled Ashton Welles to disgorge some of
- the money he had no business to have.” And he proceeded to enlighten the
- financier.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather neat!” modestly acquiesced the man. “Suppose we had decided to
- kidnap you? The first thing to do is to get you here. Well, you are here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How will you make money by that?” asked the financier, smiling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We don't expect to. We have not planned to make money by kidnapping you.
- Nevertheless, you must admit it can be made a very expensive matter for
- you. But please let me kidnap you without interruption!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon!” said Mr. Merriwether, gravely.
- </p>
- <p>
- It struck him that the possession of a sense of humor makes a crook ten
- times more dangerous. It was what made the reporter, Tully, really
- formidable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We assume that you foresaw the danger to yourself in coming alone to this
- house. You'd employ private detectives to watch it at ten dollars a day a
- man, exactly as you have had your son watched the moment we decided it was
- time for you to begin the watching. McWayne, your efficient private
- secretary, is ready to move to your rescue. I don't see what else you
- could have done to protect yourself that we have not provided for.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The police!” mildly suggested Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the reporters!” mocked the man. “Pshaw! We know what we are doing.
- Why, we have rehearsed your kidnapping and even your death. Our ablest
- members have in turn impersonated you—put themselves in your place
- and fought us. I will not bore you with more details, and I admit that the
- human mind cannot foresee accidents; but we have studied how your mind
- would work. Suppose you assume that you are kidnapped and beyond the
- possibility of help from your friends. Shall I tell you what we have done
- to make Tom marry one of our eight desirable candidates?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you still wish that million.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Having decided to attack through Tom, we studied him and his ancestry on
- both sides. We easily learned that he had never had a serious love-affair,
- and that he was imaginative and adventurous, like yourself. There were
- many young women who would have liked to become your daughter-in-law—too
- many. That was Tom's trouble. But our problem was really made easier by
- that. We simply had to turn his thoughts to love and to one girl. We
- therefore did.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We got him here. I piqued his curiosity and made the affair an
- extraordinary one by saying all we wished him to do was to answer one
- question. As we had rather expected, he would not come; but, of course, we
- had foreseen that, and so we got him here in one of our own taxicabs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We telephoned him that the doctor said he should come instantly, and that
- you were not really in danger. We don't believe in lies; but we took pains
- that no other cab should be in front of the club when we telephoned him
- from the corner drug-store. Attention to details, my dear sir, always
- brings home the bacon. Having roused the spirit of adventure in a
- remarkable way, I then asked him the great question. What do you think it
- was?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tom's father shook his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was this: Where did you spend your summer at the end of your freshman
- year? He told me. Then I gave him a box made to order for me by a French
- expert, which would deceive other experts so long as we did not try to
- sell it. Anybody can imitate the goldwork of any period. In all the
- museums of the world you will find fakes. Attention to details! I was
- prepared to have him show that box to local experts. I assumed he would do
- so, being a Merriwether and, therefore, intelligently curious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Box with what?” asked Mr. Merriwether, also intelligently curious.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait! When your son told me where he spent his summer at the end of his
- freshman year I knew he was then about nineteen—too young to think
- of marriage, but old enough to think of love. He had for the first time in
- his life been free from home influences and direct parental supervision.
- He was bound to regard himself as a man of the world and think of innocent
- flirtations as a manly art. Being in that frame of mind, and at the same
- time being a nice, rich, good-looking chap, all the girls would naturally
- make a dead set for him. Their numbers would keep him from having one
- love-affair. All love-affairs at twenty are much the same. A boy always
- begins by being in love with love. Indeed, I believe twenty-year love to
- be exclusively a literary passion—that, is, boys get it from reading
- about it. Of course I studied time, period, locality, and manifold
- probabilities; and, therefore, I sent him on a mission that suggested love—love
- for the one girl that Fate intended him to love and to marry. In order to
- fix, accentuate, and accelerate his love-thinking I used the perfume of
- sweet peas.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How does that work?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I picked out sweet peas because they are found everywhere. Their odor is
- strong and characteristic. He must have inhaled that odor thousands of
- times when he was flirting with pretty girls the summer he spent at
- Oleander Point with Dr. Bonner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but about suggesting—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I advise you to read up on the psychology of odor associations. You will
- learn that there is a very close relation between the olfactory sense and
- the desire to love. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that memory,
- imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached
- through the sense of smell than by almost any other channel; and, also,
- that 'olfactory impressions tend to be associated with a sum-total of
- feeling-tone.' This has been known for thousands of years. A very
- interesting paper was written by Mackenzie, of Johns Hopkins. If you read
- it you will know more than I can now take the time to tell you. The Orient
- understands the value of perfumes in lovemaking, and I could tell you
- amazing things; but I will refer you to Cabanis, Dadisett, Hobbes,
- Jaworski, Jwanicki, Schiff, Wolff, and Zwaardemaker. If you wish, my
- secretary will prepare an exhaustive bibliography of the subject for you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, thanks,” said Mr. Merriwether. “But I still don't understand—”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man sighed. Then he said, “I'll tell you, of course.” He then told
- Tom's father about the message in the dark that Tom had carried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he couldn't believe it!” exclaimed Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; he couldn't—but he did. Of course I have taken you behind the
- scenes—-that is, I have opened your eyes and turned your head in the
- proper direction and held it firmly there and shouted, 'Look!' And of
- course you see the machinery standing still and you can't imagine it in
- motion. You are not as imaginative as I thought you were.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Huh!” said E. H. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then after a pause he said:
- “I see the wheels revolving. Ingenious!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “More than that, practical! My object in having Tom fall in love with
- love, suggesting that there was one girl born to be his bride, accentuated
- by my use of the sweet-peas odor as a <i>leit-motif</i>, was to have
- something to offer you which would be cheap at a million. The next step
- was to make Tom do foolish things—for effect on you. First, to make
- you fear Tom was crazy. I had a girl who knew young Waters talk to him
- about Tom's new and alarming queerness and suggest that he telephone to
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Of course Waters wouldn't telephone—and of
- course I did. And, of course, if you had disbelieved or suspected you
- would have sent for young Mr. Waters and he would have denied the
- telephone, but admitted the queer actions of Tom and the fact that people
- were talking about them. That would have allayed any suspicion you might
- have entertained. So I stage-managed the opera scene and the Boston trip
- to make you fear the worst. In that frame of mind you could be induced to
- come here voluntarily. I sent Tully to you. You had to come!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether, with a thoughtful absence of
- enthusiasm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Therefore,” continued the man as if he had not heard the other's
- interpolation, “your son, being full of the thought of love and, even
- worse, of marrying the mate that Fate selected for him five million years
- ago, is now ready to marry any girl that smells of sweet peas. We thought
- that, instead of vulgarly extracting the million from you by torture or
- threats, we would place you in our debt by perpetuating the Merriwether
- dynasty. Hence the preparation of eight very nice girls—three of
- them in your own set, three others children of people you know, and the
- remaining two equally desirable but less historical, as it were.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who are they?” If Mr. Merriwether was to pay a million he might as well
- see the label.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cynthia, Agnes, and Isabel, daughters respectively of Gordon Hammersly,
- William Murray, and Vanderpoel Woodford. Any objections?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but you can't—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I can. Also, Louise Emlen, daughter of Marbury Emlen, the lawyer—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He's a crook!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He doubtless interfered with one of your deals; I see you respect him.
- He's a crank, but she is a brick. And a Miss Lythgoe, daughter of
- Professor Lythgoe, of Columbia, the most beautiful girl in New York.
- Ramona Ogden; her father is Dr. Ogden, the lung specialist; her mother was
- a Jewess. The remaining two are of humble birth. But all of them are
- healthy and beautiful, plenty of honesty, brains, and, above all,
- imagination. Any one of them will not only make Tom happy, but will make
- him a worthy successor of a great man. And such grandchildren as they will
- give you! I envy you!” The man spoke with such fervent sincerity that E.
- H. Merriwether merely said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is a risky business, even though the chances appear to be—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That's why we ask one million dollars—because we have eliminated
- the risk. Very cheap. Are you ready?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said Mr. Merriwether, grimly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, will you kindly—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; I will kindly tell you that you are a damned fool! You've wasted my
- time. I'm going to my office, and if I don't have you put in jail it will
- be because I don't want the publicity. But don't push me too far or I'll
- do it anyhow!” And Mr. E. H. Merriwether rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sit down!” said the man, with a pleasant smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go to hell!” snarled the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, and
- looked at the man with the eyes that Sam Sharpe once said reminded him of
- a mink's when it kills for the sheer love of killing.
- </p>
- <p>
- For all reply the man clapped his hands sharply twice. Four men—the
- over-intelligent-looking footmen—came from behind the heavy plush
- portières. Also, the ascetic-looking man who had held the glass of acid in
- the taxicab and had brought Tom into the house the first time. The
- ascetic-looking man held a cornet to his lips, and his lungs were filled
- with still unblown blasts.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Three weeks ago, Mr. Merriwether,” explained the mysterious master of the
- house, “this worthy artist began to practise on his beautiful instrument
- at exactly this time every morning. This was in anticipation of the
- morning when you should be here—the idea being to drown your cries.
- The neighbors have complained and I have promised to play pianissimo; but
- a few loud blasts, which will do the trick, will be forgiven. Attention to
- details, Mr. Merriwether! Ready!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The cometist inflated his lungs and held the comet to his lips in
- readiness. The footmen seized Mr. Merriwether by the arms and legs, one
- man to each limb.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doctor!” called the master.
- </p>
- <p>
- A sixth man came from behind the portières. He had some tin cans in his
- hand—plainly labeled ether—and also a cylinder of compressed
- laughing-gas and an inhaler.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Expert! Anesthetics!” said the man, curtly, to Mr. Merriwether. “We
- propose to take you out of this house if we kidnap you. If we decide to
- kill you we have arranged to do it right here at home. I think we'll
- kidnap you. A week or two will make you amenable to reason. We realize, of
- course, that every day you spend under our hospitable roof will make it a
- little bit more difficult to get the million into our clutches. Would you
- like to know how we propose to kidnap you and get away with it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” replied Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with a pleasant smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell our Mr. E. H. Merriwether to come in,” said the man to the cometist,
- who thereupon disappeared and presently returned, followed by a man made
- up to resemble the great financier.
- </p>
- <p>
- The task was rendered easy by the famous flat-brimmed hat, with the crown
- like a truncated cone, so familiar to newspaper-readers through the
- cartoonists' efforts. The resemblance was not striking enough to deceive
- at close range, but it probably would work at a distance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Walk like him!” commanded the master.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fake Mr. Merriwether walked up and down the room with the curious
- swaggering, jockey-like jauntiness of the little railroad man. From time
- to time he snapped his fingers impatiently in the same characteristic way
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether almost always used when giving an order to
- subordinates.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That will do!” said the man, with a broad grin at the impersonator of the
- little financial giant. The double left the room—still walking <i>Ã
- la</i> E. H. M.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have had that man—an actor of about your build with a gift of
- mimicry—coached for weeks to imitate you. We told him it was a joke
- and guaranteed him an appearance before the most select audience in New
- York at one of Mrs. Garrettson's world-famous functions. We pledged him to
- a secrecy so natural, under the circumstances, as to rouse no suspicions.
- A few minutes ago we sent a footman to tell your chauffeur to go away and
- return at one. He wouldn't do it. The footman said the boss said so. Your
- man retorted that he took orders from only the boss himself—especially
- when countermanding previous orders.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So our Mr. Merriwether went out to the front door, yelled 'One!' in your
- voice, and snapped his finger at the intelligent chauffeur, who thereupon
- beat it. But the sleuth remains. It makes us laugh! But, after all, since
- we have provided for him, it would be a pity not to go through the entire
- program. Does this bore you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Must I tell the truth?” asked Mr. Merriwether, anxiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can stand more.” In point of fact, Mr. Merriwether was sure the
- situation was serious for him. That is why he joked about it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Over six months ago we opened an antique-shop on Fourth Avenue. We had
- the usual truck. Also we have had this antique-dealer—who is your
- humble servant—go from house to house on the Avenue offering to buy
- or exchange those antiques of which people have grown tired. We even asked
- you. We have offered such good prices and such excellent swaps that we
- have taken antiques from some of the wealthiest houses on the Avenue. Also
- we have made a practice of importing antiques from Europe, which we
- auction off every two weeks. The money we get we deposit in various banks,
- and then we buy bills on Paris. The banks now know us. Remember that—it
- is important. Well, we also have an exact copy of your motor, even to the
- initials in the door panels. Pretty soon we send for our Merriwether motor
- and our E. H. Merriwether emerges from this house and gets into his car
- and off he goes—and the watching sleuth with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if there should be two, and one stay?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then number two will see not long afterward an elaborately carved Gothic
- chest taken from here into the antique-dealer's wagon—a wagon now
- known to the traffic squad. We carry you away and lock you in a small
- sound-proof room, to get to which people would have to move out of the way
- a lot of heavy pieces of furniture. There is no question of our ability to
- kidnap you and to keep you a prisoner. I tell you we have paid attention
- to details persistently and intelligently. Meantime what does Sam Sharpe
- do to the stock-market? And Northrup Ashe? How much will a month's absence
- from your office cost you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not half as much as it will cost you when I get out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if you don't get out?”
- </p>
- <p>
- For reply Mr. E. H. Merriwether grinned broadly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke very seriously now—“we
- had not really expected such unintelligent skepticism from you; but, as we
- prepared for everything, we, of course, prepared for even crass stupidity
- on your part. In demonstrating our power to do what I say some painful
- moments will be your portion. This I regret more than I can say. Just now
- our problem is to prove our complete physical control of you and also our
- utter indifference to your feelings. I am going to do what will make you
- hate me to the murder point. In deliberately making a violent enemy of a
- man like you we pay ourselves the compliment of thinking ourselves
- absolutely fearless. I propose to have you spanked—to whip you as if
- you were a bad little boy. We shall at first use a shingle on you—undraped.
- You may begin when ready, James.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir,” said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H.
- Merriwether, “will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat,
- preliminary to the removal of your trousers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the
- men's faces had taken on a grim look—as if they knew that after the
- whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an
- impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless
- appreciated the gravity of the offense.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We know,” said the master, solemnly, “that for every blister we raise you
- will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish to be
- spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The alternative is the million—or death.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can't kill me and get away with it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes—even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it.”
- He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small,
- morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether a
- lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. “Cultures!” explained the man—“typhoid;
- bubonic plague; anthrax; <i>Bacillus mallei</i>—that's glanders—meningitis;
- Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for instance—number thirteen—is
- the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with an ordinary culture would take
- days; but with this virus it will take hours. What a wonderful thing
- science is! You know what tetanus is?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, “lockjaw.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't be
- able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't help
- you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last—and you
- will not make yourself understood. The <i>risus sardonicus</i>, which is a
- most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile
- naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really ought
- to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a warning to
- those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. And, of course,
- I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the mildest and
- slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I'll do that much to please you,” said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still
- believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did
- not believe they would go that far.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you like to know how we propose to dispose of the body?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I might as well see everything,” he answered, in a resigned tone of
- voice. The man looked at him admiringly, and said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come on!”
- </p>
- <p>
- They led the great E. H. Merriwether to the cellar. There he saw that the
- furnace coal had been taken out of its bin and put in the adjoining
- compartment. The plank floor had been taken up, and what looked like a
- short trench—or a grave—had been dug. Outside stood a pile of
- crushed stone, some bags of cement, some bundles of steel rods, a section
- of five-inch iron soilpipe with a mushroom-head trap at one end, and
- concrete-workers' tools.
- </p>
- <p>
- “After we make absolutely sure that you are dead we throw a lot of soft
- mortar into the grave, deposit the corpse, and then pour in more cement—so
- that you will be completely surrounded by it. It will make it very
- difficult indeed to recognize you when they try to chip away the hard
- cement—if they ever try! Then we fill the grave up to the top with
- concrete, using plenty of steel rods—not to re-enforce the concrete
- at all, but to make it very hard digging with a pick.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We also stick the soilpipe into the—er—cavity in order to
- account for the disturbed pavement. Intelligent searchers—your son
- and his detectives—will assume it is plumbing—and seek no
- further. We replace the plank flooring in the bin and fill it up with
- coal, thereby further obliterating all traces of your grave.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We have provided for that part, you see. Why, my dear Mr. Merriwether,
- what we really do to you is confer immortality on you. We elevate you to
- the rank of one of the mysteries. Charlie Ross and E. H. Merriwether! Just
- assume that we'll do what I say. Very well! Now, visualize the search made
- for you. Endow your people with superhuman ingenuity. Useless!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man waved a hand toward Mr. Merriwether; but Mr. Merriwether said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You assume that the search will be exclusively for me—but they will
- also search for you!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear sir, that is unkind of you!” The man spoke reproachfully. “We
- know that when we go into the plunder-recovery business we must guard
- against the chief contributory cause of the vast majority of all business'
- failures, according to the statistics of Dun and Bradstreet—to wit,
- insufficient capital. Murderers are caught when their faces and habits and
- families are known. Usually their lack of means forces them to betray
- themselves. But nobody knows how the men who will kill E. H. Merriwether
- look, simply because we have enough money to go anywhere. We will become
- tourists—like thousands of others. Some of us will stay in New York;
- others will go on round-the-world tours. See this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man pulled from his pocket some packages of well-worn bills, with the
- bank-wrappers round them, though a finger hid the bank name. Also the man
- showed to Mr. Merriwether several books of travelers' checks of the
- fifty-dollar denomination—the specimen signature also being covered
- by the man's finger.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Enough for all,” said the man. “Kindly oblige me by thinking of what you
- would do in my place; and, in all frankness, acknowledge that nothing
- would be easier than to get away. Ordinary crime is so largely accidental
- that the average criminal is at the mercy of even the unintelligent
- police. Professionals do the same thing over and over and acquire telltale
- mannerisms. Also, they lack culture, and find the class attraction too
- strong to resist—besides always being hard up and therefore
- defenseless. Whenever you find a crook who is thrifty, you will find him
- always out of jail—like any other business man of equal thrift. We
- have gone about this case systematically. We wanted your million—but,
- more, we wanted the sport of taking it from a man who had no moral right
- to the particular million we desired. If you had been a really
- conscienceless financier we'd have made it five millions; in fact, it is
- because we are not sure that even this million is tainted that we ask you
- to pay it to us for giving you a fine daughter-in-law. Shall we go
- up-stairs?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The master of the house led the way up-stairs and Mr. E. H. Merriwether,
- escorted by the stalwart footmen with the intelligent faces, followed, his
- own intelligent face impassive. That he was thinking meant only that he
- was doing what he always did.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man sat down in his chair, with his back to the stained-glass window.
- He asked, pleasantly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you say now, Mr. Merriwether?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I say,” the little czar answered, with a frown of impatience, or anger,
- or both, “that when you are tired of playing the damned fool I'd like to
- return to my business.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man rose to his feet quickly, his face pale with anger. He took a step
- toward the financier, his fists clenched—and then suddenly
- controlled himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You jackass!” he said. “You idiot! Have you no brains whatever? Must I
- lash common sense into you? Take 'em off!” It was a command to the
- footmen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you disrobe, sir?” very politely asked the oldest of them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether, six inches shorter than the speaker, and a hundred pounds
- lighter, drew back his fist, but the four men seized him and began to take
- his clothes off. Mr. Merriwether, recognizing the uselessness of
- resistance and the folly of having garments torn so far from home, helped
- by unbuttoning here and there. Presently he stood <i>in puris naturctlibus</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- His face was pale and his jaw set tight.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tie him!” commanded the master.
- </p>
- <p>
- They tied him to the library table, face down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Music!” cried the man; whereupon the cometist began to play the
- Meditation from “Thaïs” softly, but obviously ready to play fortissimo at
- a signal from the chief.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to lick you with a whip; and, for every lash I give you, you
- will have to pay me one hundred thousand dollars in addition to the
- original million. Theatrical, is it?” And his voice was hoarse with anger.
- “Yes? Well, look at this melodramatic whip. Your tragedy will be my
- comedy, you————jackass!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He showed to Mr. E. H. Merriwether a quirt—a veritable miniature
- blacksnake of plaited leather.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can stand twenty; that will make three million in all. I'll draw
- blood after the fifth. I'll stop when you've got enough. Remember the
- price!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He snapped the whip viciously and walked round the table until he stood
- behind Mr. Merriwether. He lifted his arm and then the great Merriwether,
- autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, iron-nerved, fearless,
- imaginative, and intelligent, yelled: “Wait!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The million?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Help him!” said the man; and the intelligent-looking footmen respectfully
- served as valets.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don't believe you would kill me—but I never liked spankings.” Mr.
- Merriwether spoke jocularly—almost!
- </p>
- <p>
- The man confronted Mr. Merriwether and said, very seriously:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Merriwether, we should certainly have killed you if you had persisted
- in your stubbornness to the end. We knew we had to convince you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man looked inquiringly at the financier to see whether any doubt
- remained; but Mr. Merriwether asked, quizzically:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Honest, now, would you—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We would!” interrupted the man, looking straight into Mr. Merriwether's
- eyes. And what Mr. Merriwether saw there made him ask:
- </p>
- <p>
- “How will you have the million?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In cash. I'm glad you will make the payment. But really, sir, I wish to
- impress on you that Tom is ripe to be taken for better—or for
- worse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether looked long and earnestly into the eyes of the
- mysterious man who was despoiling him of a million dollars. It began to
- seep into his understanding that if Tom could be married to a nice girl
- the resulting peace of mind would indeed be cheap at a million.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, if you please,” pursued the man, pleasantly, “telephone to McWayne
- that you wish him to come here with certified checks on your different
- banks, aggregating one million dollars, made payable to Michael P.
- Mahaffy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether started. The name was that of the world-famous political
- Boss of New York City. Explanations as to the million might be
- embarrassing to any political boss; but for a million dollars in cash any
- political boss would be glad to explain—or even not to explain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From this house Mr. McWayne will go to the banks, accompanied by the
- studious gentleman who had the honor of holding your left leg. You will
- indorse each check by writing 'indorsement correct' and signing your name.
- McWayne will go with our Mr. Michael P. Mahaffy and get the money in
- fives, tens, and twenties, in handy wads—old bills preferred and so
- requested from the paying tellers, who will intelligently understand that
- Mr. Mahaffy is not signing his name in person, so he can swear in any
- court of justice that he never saw the checks. Asking for old bills is to
- make them impossible to trace. This will also allay the banks' suspicions.
- The worst that can happen will be that a few tellers will wonder what Mr.
- Merriwether has to do with city politics that he needs Mahaffy's aid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I see!” said Mr. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: “Where
- is the telephone?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There!”
- </p>
- <p>
- In plain sight and hearing of the master of the house the master of the
- Pacific & Southwestern called up his own office. He spoke to McWayne:
- “Make out checks on all banks according to my balances in them, so that
- the checks will aggregate one million dollars, payable to Michael P.
- Mahaffy.... What? Yes?... Have the checks certified.... Of course, if
- there isn't enough!... We shall want bills that have been used—fives,
- tens, and twenties.... Yes, all cash. Come up to 777 Fifth Avenue. You
- will go to the banks with a man—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “With Mr. Mahaffy,” prompted the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “With Mr. Mahaffy,” repeated Mr. Merriwether. “And tell Tom to have
- luncheon and wait for me,” again prompted the man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And tell Tom I can't go to luncheon with him, but to wait for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether hung up the receiver and turned to the man, saying:
- </p>
- <p>
- “The idea of using Mahaffy's name—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather good, isn't it?” smiled the man. “Of course you wondered how we
- were going to cash the checks, didn't you? Well, that's the way. The bank
- officials will be surprised to see the checks and they will watch McWayne
- and my man to the last. They will thus be able to hear my man say loudly
- to the chauffeur, 'Tammany Hall, Charlie!' Attention to details, my dear
- sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I still am not quite convinced that—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Mr. Merriwether, there are so many ways of safely getting money
- from you Wall Street magnates that the only thing that really protects you
- is the sad fact that the professional crooks are even more stupid than
- you. Men like you are compelled to bet your entire fortune, your very
- life, on averages. The average man is both stupid and honest; so you and
- your like are fairly safe for fairly long periods of time. Of course if we
- had been obliged to kill you we should have done so and buried you, and we
- should have been wise enough to utilize your death in as many ways as
- possible in the stock-market—and out of it. For instance, I should
- have instantly telephoned to all the men in your class and told them we
- had eliminated you—as an example—and to remember that in case
- we ever had occasion to ask anything from them. We should also give them a
- countersign, so that they would be able to recognize us when the proper
- time came. I can kidnap or permanently suppress any millionaire in New
- York, with neatness, despatch, and safety.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But killing a well-known man—” began Mr. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If Big Tim Sullivan could be killed and lie in the Morgue for days
- unrecognized, what chance do relatively unknown people like you great
- millionaires stand to be found, once dead? A dead capitalist, remember, is
- no more impressive than a dead streetcar conductor. If I got you into this
- house on the strength of Tom, as I got Tom to come in on the strength of
- you, what millionaire would refuse, for example, to go, in answer to a
- telephone message that his child had been run over and was now, let us
- say, at 128 East Seventy-ninth Street? Or that his wife, acting more or
- less as if she were intoxicated, was scattering money at the corner of
- Seventh Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street? And suppose the millionaire is
- bound and chloroformed, and taken to the top floor of a tenement hired by
- a humpback with red beard and one leg shorter than the other—same
- humpback not being really a humpback or red-bearded or a cripple, but a
- fake, to furnish false clues in advance—and this humpback has
- previously given fire-extinguishing hand-grenades to all the other
- tenants, as advertisements! Then we have a charge of dynamite inserted in
- the thoroughly prepared corpse of the millionaire—his face burned
- off in advance—and he is also soaked in inflammable material and set
- on fire. And the deed is done at 11 a.m.; so that all the children will be
- in school and all the adults awake and able to get out. Find you? Bits of
- flesh and sympathy for the poor humpback is all the police would find in
- that tenement. Oh! sir, you were wise to pay—very wise indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether looked at the man a long time. He could not deny that to
- really desperate men such deeds offered no particular difficulty. The
- average crook is not dangerous to a millionaire; but a man like this is
- more than dangerous. He thought quickly and formed his conclusions
- accurately.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How are you going to make Tom marry one of the girls whose names you
- mentioned?” he asked, in the tone of voice one uses toward physicians.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man smiled slightly and said: “Oh, I am not going to do it. I don't
- care whether he marries or not. You must do that. But I'll tell you how,
- if you wish,—after McWayne gets here. Just think over the affair. It
- will put you in a more intelligently receptive frame of mind.” And with a
- pleasant smile the man took a little book bound in green leather and began
- to read.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. E. H. Merriwether, as was his wont when thinking, began at the
- beginning and reviewed the entire affair quickly but carefully. He did
- this again—it did not take him long—and then he began to
- co-ordinate his ideas and study the case. Within ten minutes he had
- forgotten his animosity. In fifteen he felt respect for this man. In
- twenty he was thinking how helpless any one man is against his ten billion
- trillion natural foes—microbes, seismic disturbances, floods, and
- the chemical reaction of hostile brains. This man, whose very name was
- unknown to him, had vanquished the victor—had looted the tent of the
- victorious general!
- </p>
- <p>
- This was incredible when spoken in a conversational tone of voice. Perhaps
- this same remarkable man might tell how to make Tom choose a desirable
- wife. It was worth while making the experiment. It was in the nature of a
- gamble in which E. H. Merriwether stood to win a happiness worth all the
- money in the world and stood to lose nothing!
- </p>
- <p>
- A knock at the door roused him from his reverie. One of the footmen
- arrived from the threshold.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. McWayne!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether's private secretary entered. E. H. Merriwether held out
- his right hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. McWayne took four slips of paper and gave them to his chief, who
- quickly looked at them and passed them over to the master of the house.
- The man looked at them, indorsed them, and handed a pen to Mr.
- Merriwether. The czar of the Pacific & Southwestern wrote on each of
- the checks:
- </p>
- <p>
- Indorsement correct.
- </p>
- <p>
- E. H. Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- He returned the checks to the man, who thereupon pushed a button a number
- of times.
- </p>
- <p>
- One of the footmen with the non-menial faces appeared dressed for the
- street. He looked Irish. He wore a big solitaire scarf-pin. His hat
- inclined to one side noticeably. He carried a square valise in each hand.
- They looked as if they had seen service. On each was printed, “Treasurer
- Tammany Hall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go with Mr. McWayne to the banks and cash the checks. Mr. McWayne will
- identify you,” said the master of the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yis, sor!” said the footman.
- </p>
- <p>
- The brogue was unnecessary, but E. H. Merri-wether smiled slightly.
- McWayne and the footman in mufti left together.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think some more!” said the man to E. H. Merri-wether, and resumed his
- reading of the little green-leather book.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether leaned back and thought some more. To him the
- million-dollar loss was already ancient history. The only virtue that the
- Wall Street life gives to a professional is the ability to take a loss of
- money with more or less philosophy. That philosophy is also met on the
- race-track, and among experts in faro as well as among real Christians.
- </p>
- <p>
- McWayne and the man were gone an hour and eighteen minutes. Mr.
- Merriwether had time to think of Tom and of himself and of the relation
- that had existed between himself and his son, and of the relations that
- would exist between them in the future—God willing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. McWayne!” announced the servant.
- </p>
- <p>
- The private secretary entered; also the Irishman with the two valises.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell the others! At five o'clock!” said the master of the house, and the
- footman left the room—with the valises!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. McWayne, will you kindly wait in the other room?” The man rose and
- parted the portières for the secretary to pass through.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” said McWayne, frowning politely. “Now, Mr. Merriwether,” said
- the man, “as I told you, Tom's mind and soul are prepared for love. The
- romantic vein in him has been worked to the limit. He can be laughed out
- of it very easily, for he is not entirely convinced; but it is too
- valuable a frame of mind for a really intelligent father to destroy. The
- young ladies, also, are ripe for the coming of the one man in all the
- world. They will respond readily—and, I may add, respond with relief
- if they see he is a man like your son, against whom nothing can be said.
- It will clinch the affair. My advice is for you to call on the young
- ladies I have mentioned and judge for yourself, and then you be your own
- stage-manager!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you any choice yourself?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know Woodford?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And his daughter Isabel?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, she has the complementary qualities. She will, as it were, complete
- Tom. She is bright, healthy, very handsome, utterly unspoiled by the
- knowledge of her good looks—that is, she is highly intelligent. Her
- mind functionates quickly and is regulated and made to work safely by her
- keen sense of humor. You will love her for herself, as well as for Tom's
- sake and for Tom's children's sake. Arrange two things and you can do it.
- One is prepare her to meet Tom. Tell her you don't know why you want her
- to know him, but you do. Tell her you wanted this before you ever saw her.
- And tell her you know she must think you must be going crazy—but
- will she meet Tom in her father's home?—in some room with the lights
- turned out? She will ask you why you ask such things. And you will rub
- your hand across your eyes and say, dazed-like: T don't know! I don't
- know! Will—will you do it?' And when you take Tom to her, take
- advantage of the dark, and open this little bottle and touch Tom's lapel
- with this. It is essence of sweet peas. He will associate Isabel with the
- mysterious girl to whom he took a message in the dark, and by the same
- token she will know he is the man who destiny decrees shall be her
- husband. Then leave the rest to nature. They won't struggle. They couldn't
- if they wished; but they won't wish to fight. My parting words to you are:
- the man who was smart enough to get a million dollars out of you finds it
- even easier to make a young man who wants to love fall in love in the
- springtime with a handsome, healthy girl who wants to be loved. You and
- McWayne will now use one of my prisoner-carrying motors. This way, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He led the way into the next room, picked up McWayne, and escorted the
- financier and his private secretary to the curb. A neat little motor stood
- there.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Merriwether climbed in. McWayne followed. And then the man said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will find that the doors cannot be opened from the inside. The
- chauffeur was told this queer feature was due to the fact that his master
- expects to use this car for his two very active and very mischievous
- children. He will drive you anywhere. You can arrest him if you wish; but
- it will be useless. We have spent a good many thousands of dollars in
- accessories that will be thrown away to-day.” And the man sighed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who do you mean by we?” asked E. H. Merriwether, politely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Plunder Recovery Syndicate, which, having completed its operations,
- will now dissolve. Good day, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the issue of the <i>World</i> of June 9th two advertisements appeared.
- One, under “Marriages,” read:
- </p>
- <p>
- Merriwether-Woodford.—On June 8th, at the Church of St. Lawrence, by
- the Rev. Stephen Vincent Rood, Isabel Woodford to Thomas Thome
- Merriwether.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other, under “Personals,” read:
- </p>
- <p>
- P. R. Syndicate,—It was cheap at a million!
- </p>
- <h3>
- E. H. M.
- </h3>
- <p>
- On June 10th the great railroad financier received a typewritten letter.
- It read:
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>In the course of our operations, having for an object the recovery of
- plunder taken from unidentified individuals by malefactors of great
- wealth, it has happened that we have grown fond of some of our
- contributors. We thus are able most sincerely to extend to you our hearty
- congratulations. It was indeed cheap at a million, and we shall remember
- your good fortune if ever we need advice or additional funds. What we took
- from you and from some of your fellow New-Yorkers we propose to return to
- the public at large. Mr. Amos F. Kidder will tell you his suspicions, if
- you ask him. In return you might tell him that we propose to capitalize
- time. We shall make a present of fifty years to the world by transmuting
- the recovered plunder into unspent time. Don't forget that we who were the
- Plunder Recoverers are now,</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>The Time Givers.</i>
- </p>
- <h3>
- THE END
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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