o’clock, and bring Mr. David Kinzie, our downstairs bank president,
with you if you have to club him to do it. Kendall, I’m going to ask
you to make just as little as possible of this railroad grab in your
news columns for the present, taking my word for it that you shall have
the biggest story of the year if we win out. Starbuck, you’ll come over
to the hotel with me now, and I’ll give you your stunt. That’s all; the
meeting’s adjourned.”
To say that the little inter-mountain city was stirred to the depths
by the news which quickly spread from lip to lip is putting it mildly.
In its beginnings, Brewster had been a railroad town in the strictest
sense, owing its location and its phenomenal after-growth largely to
the fostering policy of the railroad. Under Maxwell’s wise and just
management the Nevada Short Line had identified itself very closely
with the growth and prosperity of the entire inter-mountain region,
and it had stood as a shining example of a “good” corporation. To have
the popular management swept ruthlessly aside and the rule of another
company, operating under the thin mask of a receivership, set up in its
place, provoked a storm of indignant protest.
Moreover, many of the well-to-do citizens of the Timanyoni were
stockholders in the Short Line, and upon these the blow fell as a
disaster. Prominent among these local stockholders stood the owner
of the Kinzie Building, Brewster’s one multi-millionaire and the
president of the Brewster National Bank. At precisely two o’clock David
Kinzie, gray and pale, and with his small ferret-like eyes peering
shrewdly from under the rim of the soft, gray hat which he always wore,
stepped into the Hotel Topaz elevator with Stillings. It had not been
necessary for the attorney to bludgeon him to induce him to come to the
conference with Sprague.
What went on behind the locked door of Room 403 after the two had been
admitted was a secret that was not shared with any fourth party, though
one of Editor Kendall’s young men promptly waylaid Stillings at the
close of the conference.
“Tell Mr. Kendall he shall have the news, and have it first, when there
is any,” was all the lawyer would say; but Connabel, the star reporter
who had done the waylaying, died hard.
“Give me a hint, Mr. Stillings--just the barest shadow of a hint,” he
begged. “Will the case be taken to the Federal courts?”
“Not for publication, Fred,” laughed the lawyer, who was evidently in
better spirits. Then he added: “There’s a big story in this, my boy,
and you shall have it when it’s ripe; I’ll promise you that--I’ll ask
Kendall to detail you. And that is positively all you’ll get out of me
now.”
Fifteen minutes after the lawyer and Mr. Kinzie had left Room 403 the
door opened again, this time to admit Starbuck.
“Well?” said the big-bodied expert, when Maxwell’s brother-in-law had
taken the chair recently vacated by the banker.
“The judge is sick, or playing sick,” was the answer. “Doc Mangum has
just gone out to the house, and the servants have their orders to admit
nobody.”
“What is the nature of his sickness? Does anybody know that?”
“Oh, yes; it’s heart trouble and too much altitude. He’s had it before.”
Sprague’s eyes narrowed and his big hands closed in a vice-like grip on
the arms of his chair.
“Billy, does it occur to you that this is a most opportune time for him
to be taken sick again? What do they do for patients with heart trouble
in this country?”
“Order ’em down to a lower altitude,” said the mine owner.
“Exactly. And we shall find that this is what Doctor Mangum will advise
in the present case. When he does so, Judge Watson will go.”
Starbuck was deftly rolling a cigarette of dry tobacco. “And then
what?” he queried.
“Then the regular hearing, which is set for the twelfth of the month,
can’t be held, and the temporary receivership will hold over until it
is either confirmed or set aside by the higher courts. In the meantime
the delay will have accomplished its purpose. The New York bank pool of
the stock will be broken, the T-C. people will buy it in, and the nail
will be driven and clinched.”
Starbuck winked gravely.
“You’re not going to let Judge Watson get out of town,” he predicted.
“I can ride up the trail that far without falling off.”
“No,” said Sprague, “we are not going to let him get away until we are
through with him. Did you make the other arrangement I spoke of?”
“I sure did. If anybody’s fool enough to let the cat out o’ the bag,
we’ll get the cat. Tarbell’s on that part of the job.”
Sprague went to the wardrobe at the other end of the room and got out
his hat and a light top-coat.
“Yes, we’ll get the cat, Billy. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we
may get the kitten, too. If that should happen, your Uncle Calvin might
fly the track. Let’s go. I have an appointment to meet Judge Walsh, of
the United States District Court, at half-past three, and I’m going to
ask you to borrow Maxwell’s car and drive me out to the judge’s house.”
Before nightfall of the Monday it became plainly evident that the new
management of the Short Line had climbed fairly into the executive
saddle and was making due preparations to stay there. As Maxwell had
prophesied, Receiver Dimmock made a clean sweep, and before the first
through train came in over the new routing a score of minor department
heads had been let out and their places filled by T-C. men. Even the
train-despatchers were discharged; and after dinner Maxwell held a
“consolation” meeting in the hotel club-rooms with his fired staff, and
listened patiently to the bad language which the wholesale hardship
evoked.
To one and all of the losers he said the same thing, however; they were
to sit tight and say nothing for the present. It was a long lane that
had no turning, and the next turn in the Short Line lane might not be
very far distant.
“Just one thing, Mr. Maxwell,” Connolly, the fat despatcher, put in,
as the meeting was about to break up. “If you’ll tell us that Mr.
Scientific Sprague is with us I guess we’ll all sleep better to-night.”
“He is,” said Maxwell. “That’s all for the present. Just sit tight and
don’t talk. Go home and take your lay-off. If we win out, you’re all
under pay, just the same as if you were on the job.”
It was late that night, after Maxwell had gone to his room, that the
long-delayed word came from New York. Maxwell read the telegram from
President Ford, and, late as it was, took it immediately to Sprague’s
room, which was on the floor below. The expert got out of bed to admit
him, and read the few type-written lines thoughtfully.
“He puts it up to you good and hard, doesn’t he?” was his comment.
“But that is about what I expected. He is up to his neck in the fight
to keep those lending bankers from dumping the majority stock and
running around in circles. Go to the wire and tell him to keep a stiff
upper lip; that you’re not dead yet. Also, you might add that Kinzie’s
backing him with those bankers.”
“By Jove!” said Maxwell. “Was that what you wanted Kinzie for to-day?”
“It was one of the things. Get your message in so that Ford will have
it in the morning. Good-night.”
With the opening of the second day the Brewster excitement had died
down to some extent, and the new railroad routine was getting itself
shaken into the working rut. On every hand it was evident that the
coup had been carefully planned long in advance. Almost without a
break the through service was established over the new routing, and
a hard-and-fast law was laid down for the Short Line rank and file
employees, the vast majority of whom were retained under the
receivership. The law briefly exacted loyalty to the new management.
There would be no more removals except for cause; but anything less
than a hearty acceptance of the court order would be considered
sufficient cause for prompt dismissal.
Copies of the receiver’s circulars and general orders found their way
quickly to Maxwell, and the firm, strong hand of authority appeared in
every line of them. How Sprague would go about it to break down the
wall of possession which every hour was building higher and stronger,
was a puzzle as yet unsolved; and it was not until the forenoon of the
Wednesday that the various burrowings which the expert had set afoot
began to yield results.
Tarbell brought the first of the results to the lobby of the Topaz at
eleven o’clock on this third day in the shape of a note from Banker
Kinzie. Hixon, the suing bauxite miner, had received his ten thousand
dollars from somebody, and had deposited it in the bank.
Sprague passed the note to Maxwell, who came in just as Tarbell was
leaving.
“That’s good news, in a way,” said the expert. “It tells us that the
paymaster has begun to get busy. Any further word from Starbuck?”
“I saw him about half an hour ago. He says that Judge Watson’s
condition remains the same, and Doctor Mangum makes no secret of the
fact that he has ordered him to a lower altitude. I had another message
from Ford this morning. He says we are dying by inches at the New York
end, and the final smash may come at any minute.”
“We’ve got to have a little time,” was the quiet rejoinder. “The trap
is baited and set, Dick, but we can’t very well spring it ourselves.
Any word from Mr. Dimmock?”
“Not to me, no.”
Sprague’s smile was mirthless. “I haven’t escaped so easily,” he
asserted. “Mr. Dimmock came over to my rooms this morning after
breakfast and read me a carefully expurgated edition of the riot act.
Translated into plain English, what he said was to the effect that
my Government job wouldn’t be worth much to me if I meddled in this
railroad jangle.”
“Then he knows you?”
“He knows of two or three things that I have done in the reasoning
line, and--well, I’m inclined to think that he is a little nervous
about something. He went so far as to hint that he had reason to
believe that his mail had been tampered with.”
“What? He didn’t charge you with anything like that, did he?” demanded
Maxwell, in generous indignation.
“Oh, no; not personally, of course. He merely intimated that, as an
officer of the court, he wouldn’t stand for any interference.”
Maxwell was silent for a time. Then he said: “What are you waiting for,
Calvin?--more evidence?”
“No; I’m waiting for the click of the trap, and a word from the man who
is watching it.”
“Will the trap be sprung?”
“It will. Twice since yesterday there have been nibbles at the bait,
and both times the nibbler has been afraid.”
“Watson, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“What is he afraid of?”
“A man with heart trouble is afraid of many things.”
Maxwell put an unlighted cigar in his mouth and began to chew on it
absently.
“Dimmock’s daughter is here. Did you know that?”
The big-bodied chemistry expert was staring fixedly at the revolving
street door which was whirling slowly to admit a group of passengers
from the lately arrived Red Butte accommodation.
“I didn’t know that he had a daughter; or rather I do know that he
hasn’t one. He was married only three or four years ago,” he returned
half-absently.
“That’s where you’re off wrong,” retorted the railroad man. “He
certainly has one, and she is here; she was at breakfast with him
when I came down this morning. She is so distractingly pretty that
I couldn’t believe she was the daughter of that hard-featured piece
of financial machinery which is running our railroad. So I asked the
head-waiter. He said she was Mr. Dimmock’s daughter.”
“It’s a mistake,” insisted Sprague. Then he changed the subject
abruptly, rising and buttoning his coat. “I have an appointment that
I’ve got to keep, and I may not get away for a couple of hours. Meet me
here for a one o’clock luncheon. If I make the point I’m going to try
to make, you’ll be needed.”
When he was left alone, Maxwell did his best to kill time easily and
to possess his soul in patience. The inaction of the past two days had
been a keen agony, unrelieved by any glimpse into the mysterious depths
in which Sprague, after his usual fashion, was groping alone.
Was it possible that Sprague could reason out a way of escape for the
captured Short Line? For the hundredth time Maxwell went over the
well-intrenched position of the enemy, searching vainly for the weak
point in the lines which had been so swiftly and surely drawn about the
confiscated property. Every legal requirement had been astutely met,
and the law itself seemed to bar the way to any attempt at recovery.
True, Judge Watson had grossly misused the authority given him by his
high office, but the equity of his act could be questioned only in the
courts; questioned, and set aside, it might be, but too late to save
the bewildered and panic-stricken stockholders.
Lighting the dry cigar, Maxwell got up to stroll to the clerk’s
desk. The register lay open on the counter, and he absently read the
later signatures. Among them there was a woman’s name, written in a
firm, bold hand, and lacking the identifying “Miss” or “Mrs.” “Diana
Carswell” was the name, and in the place-column was written, “New York.”
Maxwell’s teeth met in the centre of the newly lighted cigar when he
saw the signature. He did not know Miss Carswell, truly, but all the
world knew of her, and the masculine half of it, at least, was wont
to wax eloquent over her beauty, her accomplishments, and her vast
wealth. Maxwell remembered vaguely of hearing that her father was
dead, and that the Carswell many-millions had been left to the mother
and daughter; also that Miss Carswell was the niece of a still larger
fortune--namely, that of the great captain of finance whom he and Ford
had all along credited with the planning of the raids made on the
Nevada Short Line.
Here was food for reflection, plenty of it. What was Miss Diana
Carswell doing in Brewster, which was as far apart from her world as if
it had been the smallest village on an alien planet? Curiously Maxwell
scanned the register for other names which might answer the query.
There were none. Miss Carswell was alone, or at least she was not
accompanied by any other New Yorkers. It was another mystery, and the
ex-superintendent was growing sensitive in his mystery nerve. Possibly
Sprague----
Sprague came in a few minutes before one o’clock, and there was a grim
set to his big jaw that Maxwell had seen there more than once on the
foot-ball field when the game was desperate.
“We’ll eat first,” was the incomer’s crisp dictum. “Shall we go in now?”
Together they went to the café, taking their accustomed table in the
far corner of the many-pillared room. At the serving of the bouillon,
Maxwell broke out.
“Up to a certain point, Calvin, I can blunder along in the dark with my
eyes shut, and do it more or less cheerfully. But past that point----”
“I know; it has been rather hard on you, Dick. But the suspense is
nearly over. At two o’clock we are due in Judge Walsh’s chambers in the
Federal Building, and you will then learn all you need to know--and
possibly a good bit more. You’ll have to forgive me for fogging you up
as I went along. I guess that is part of the detective slant in me; to
want to go my own way, and to go it alone. The minute I begin to talk
over the reasoning process with somebody else I begin to lose the keen
sense of values. Writer people have told me that the same thing is true
of plotting and novelling.”
Maxwell smiled grimly. “Speaking of novel plots, I hit upon the start
for a good one this forenoon--just after you went away. I was glancing
over the hotel register and I saw a name there that was full of all
sorts of mysteries and plotting suggestions.”
“Whose name?” queried the expert.
“I’m going to devil you for a while now, and let you find out for
yourself,” laughed the railroad man. “I don’t know the owner of the
name, and I don’t suppose you do; but I’ll bet a piebald pinto worth
fifty dollars that, when you see what I saw, you’ll sit up and take
notice and do a little stunt of wondering that will make mine look like
a cheap imitation.”
The big man grinned good-naturedly.
“Rub it in,” he said. “I don’t wonder that you are getting a bit
collar-sore. But don’t forget to eat. Two o’clock is the time, you
know. And, by the way, I hope you haven’t failed to keep in touch with
the various members of your staff--the men whom Dimmock was in such an
indecent hurry to discharge. We may need their help a little later.”
Maxwell told circumstantially what had been done, and from that the
table-talk slipped easily into a discussion of human loyalty in the
abstract, and so continued until the waiter brought the cigars. Sprague
was looking at his watch as they made their way among the well-filled
tables toward the door, and it was in the midst of a sentence pointing
to the need for haste to keep the two o’clock appointment that he found
Maxwell halting him.
Now it may say itself that a man may be a very Solon among reasoners
and a modern Vidocq in the fine art of unravelling mysteries, without
in the least approaching the type which is so aptly described by the
slang phrase, “Johnnie-on-the-spot.” When Sprague dropped his watch
back into its pocket he found himself halted beside a table at which
were seated the cold-featured, accurately groomed chief raider of
the captured railroad, and a young woman whose radiant beauty was
bedazzling more eyes than those of the interested on-lookers at the
surrounding tables.
Sprague looked, lost himself, and then came slowly back to earth in the
realization that Dimmock was speaking.
“Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell,” he was saying: “I wanted you to meet my
daughter. Diana, this is Mr. Richard Maxwell, whose wife is one of the
Fairbairn girls, you know, and Mr. Maxwell’s friend, Mr. Sprague, of
the Department of Agriculture.”
It was the young woman herself who broke in.
“Oh, yes; Mr. Sprague and I have met before; haven’t we, Mr. Sprague?”
with a mocking smile for Sprague’s benefit. And then: “We’ve been
missing you at Topaz Tepees. Have you been finding it too far to ride?”
What the athletic chemistry expert managed to stammer out in reply,
what he went on saying to Miss Carswell during the fraction of a minute
or so that Dimmock was holding Maxwell in talk, he could not remember a
single second after the swinging together of the glass doors which shut
them out of the dining-room. That was because the astounding discovery
was still crippling him to blot out all the intermediate details.
But one large fact stood clear in the confusing medley. Clutching
Maxwell’s arm he shoved him headlong into the near-by writing-room,
which was opportunely deserted.
“Richard, I’m out of it!” he gasped hoarsely. “Dimmock knew what card
to play, and he has played it. My Lord! Why didn’t I guess that the
Mrs. Carswell he married four years ago was Diana’s mother? I didn’t
guess it; it never entered my mind! I knew Diana was a niece of the
chief wrecker--the man we’ve been after all summer; I found that out
last week, and that was why I told you I couldn’t stay with you. And
now: oh, dammit, dammit, _dammit_!”
“Take it easy, old man,” said Maxwell soothingly; “and remember that as
yet I’m only groping around the edges. What is it that Dimmock has done
to you?”
“Heavens and earth! don’t you see? For Diana’s sake I’ve monkeyed and
schemed and side-stepped on this receivership business until I’ve got
it in shape to pull you out without pulling her uncle in. But to do
that, I’ve put Dimmock, her step-father, so deep in the hole that a
yoke of oxen couldn’t haul him out! He knows it, too; and that was the
reason for that bit of by-play just now at the luncheon-table. He was
saying to me in just so many words, ‘Now you know who you’re hitting;
go ahead, if you dare!’”
“And, naturally, since Miss Carswell is the one altogether lovely, you
don’t dare. I can’t blame you, Calvin. Drop it, and we’ll do the best
we can without you.”
Sprague was walking the floor of the little writing-room with his big
hands jammed deep in the pockets of his short business coat. Suddenly
he stopped and smacked a huge fist into a hollowed palm.
“By George, Dick, we’ll do it yet!” he broke out. “I’ll beat him at
his own game--come on!” And again seizing the railroad man’s arm, he
dragged him out of the hotel and almost flung him into the nearest
waiting taxicab.
The order to the cab-driver ran to the Brewster National Bank; and two
minutes later Sprague, with Maxwell at his heels, shouldered his way
through a group of waiting customers to the president’s room. Gray
old David Kinzie was at his desk, and he nodded toward a door in the
opposite wall of the business office leading to the isolated directors’
room. “Stillings and Hunniwell are in there,” he said, “and Starbuck
has gone after the culprit.”
“And the other man?” queried Sprague sharply.
“He didn’t want to come, but he will. He thinks it is a conference to
discuss the bank’s attitude, and he doesn’t want to commit himself. I
convinced him that he’d better come.”
Again Sprague led the way, pausing at the inner door, however, to
push Maxwell in ahead of him. The two lawyers were sitting opposite
each other at the far end of the long committee table which filled
the centre of the room; and their greetings to the new-comers were
wordless. Maxwell had scarcely taken the chair next to Stillings
when the door opened again, this time to admit a stoop-shouldered,
thin-haired man whose face was even grayer than Banker Kinzie’s. This
last arrival was Judge Watson, and when he saw Sprague and Maxwell
he would have withdrawn, only Starbuck was behind him to make it
impossible.
As before, the greetings were merely nodded; and a silence that could
be felt settled down upon the room. It was the judge who broke it first.
“I think I have made a mistake, gentlemen,” he began. “I was expecting
to meet Mr.--ah--er--a gentleman who is not here.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before the door was opened for
the third time, and Dimmock, closely followed by Kinzie, entered. Like
the judge, the receiver would have withdrawn when he saw the group
around the table; but again Starbuck intervened, this time to shut the
door and to stand with his back against it.
At the click of the latch, Sprague rose ponderously in his place at the
head of the table.
“Sit down, Mr. Dimmock,” he directed. “This is a little business
meeting preliminary to another and more important one, and our time is
exceedingly limited.”
The receiver looked sharply at the speaker. “My time is much more
limited than yours, Mr. Sprague,” he retorted crisply. “I shall have to
ask you to excuse me.”
“Certainly,” said Sprague suavely, “if you wish it. But in that case, I
must tell you that Mr. Starbuck, who is standing just behind you, has
been properly sworn in as a United States deputy marshal, and he will
promptly take you into custody on a charge of conspiracy.”
If the chemistry expert had suddenly rolled a bomb, with the fuse
lighted, down the length of the long table, the sensation could
scarcely have been greater or more startling. Dimmock took a backward
step and put up his hands as if to ward off a blow; and Hunniwell, the
imported attorney, sprang to his feet as if his chair had been suddenly
electrified.
“What’s this?” he stormed. “This is not a court of law! I demand that
that door be opened! We cannot be held in duress!”
“Sit down!” said Sprague shortly. “Mr. Dimmock is your client, and
you are here, not to defend him, but to advise him. As to the duress
you’re so much afraid of, I’ll say this: I am going to make one short
statement of facts. After you have heard it, if you and your client
wish to withdraw, the door will be opened.”
“I--I am ill,” said the judge weakly, and he made a motion to rise from
his chair. Kinzie grimly poured out a glass of water from the pitcher
on the table and gave it to him without comment, while Dimmock took the
chair Starbuck was offering him and sat down.