and laying it on the table. “The facts are these. There has been a
conspiracy entered into for the purpose of depriving the stockholders
of the railroad known as the Nevada Short Line of their property under
a form of law. That purpose has apparently succeeded, but I have
here”--taking a packet of papers from his pocket--“documentary evidence
inculpating various and sundry persons who figure as the conspirators.
Three of these persons are here in this room. In another room, namely,
in Judge Walsh’s chambers in the Federal Building, there is waiting
another and quite informal gathering: it is composed of the leading
members of the Bar Association of the Timanyoni District, and it is
presided over by Judge Walsh. It is assembled to prevent, if possible,
one of the greatest scandals that has ever threatened the fair name of
the courts of this State.”
“I object!” shouted Hunniwell, struggling to his feet again; and this
time Sprague pushed him back into his chair without ceremony.
“To this statement of fact,” the self-appointed chairman continued,
quite as if there had been no interruption, “we will add a demand and
impose an alternative. The demand is that the railroad be turned over
to its rightful owners at once. If it is not complied with, you, Judge
Watson, and you, Mr. Dimmock, and you, Mr. Hunniwell”--indicating
each in turn with a squarely pointed forefinger--“may choose your
alternative: which is to go with me to Judge Walsh’s chambers, where I
shall lay before the gentlemen there assembled this packet of evidence.”
“It’s a bluff!” yelled the attorney for the defence. “Do you think
we’re going to be taken in by any such flim-flam as that? We’ll call
your bluff, you damned amateur! You don’t dare to show up that evidence
here!”
Sprague looked down with a good-natured grin upon the red-headed
lawyer. Then he dropped the packet of papers on the table in front of
Hunniwell.
“I’ll stay with you,” he said quietly. “Read for yourself. Those are
only copies, however. The originals are locked up in Judge Walsh’s
safe.”
Hunniwell ran through the papers hurriedly and the color came and
went in his florid face. Dimmock was staring straight ahead of him at
nothing, and his shapely fingers were beating a nervous tattoo on the
arm of his chair. The judge had sunk into a shapeless heap in the easy
chair he had chosen and his face was ashen.
At the end of his hasty examination of the papers, Hunniwell looked up,
and Stillings, who sat opposite, saw defeat in his eyes.
“If I could speak to Mr. Dimmock and Judge Watson in private--” he
suggested; and Sprague nodded. There was a small ante-room at the right
of the larger directors’ room, and the three withdrew, the attorney
lending the judge a much-needed arm.
Almost immediately the conferees returned, and Hunniwell acted as
spokesman.
“You’ve turned the trick, Mr. Sprague, for this one time,” he said
briefly, “but only because one man--a sick man--cannot stand the
pressure--which is doubtless what you figured on. Judge Watson will
rescind his order at once, and the road will be turned over to its
former management--on one condition; that you surrender the original
papers which you say are locked up in Judge Walsh’s safe.”
“No,” said Sprague instantly. “The condition does not stand. Stillings,
get Judge Walsh on the ’phone, will you?”
That was enough. Hunniwell quickly withdrew the condition; or, rather,
he modified it, lawyer-wise.
“Never mind,” he cut in hastily. “We’ll waive that, with this
proviso--that you’ll put the papers into Mr. Kinzie’s hands, to be
destroyed in the presence of such witnesses as we each may choose,
after we shall have proved that we have acted in good faith. Do you
agree to that?”
Sprague nodded, and Starbuck stepped aside and opened the door leading
out through the banker’s office. At the upper end of the table, Maxwell
and Stillings and the gray-faced bank president were all trying to
shake hands with Sprague at one and the same moment; and when Hunniwell
had led the tremulous judge away, Dimmock walked the length of the
table and took his turn. Stillings, being Western-bred, anticipated
violence; but instead of falling upon the big-bodied ex-athlete,
Dimmock, too, held out his hand.
“Mr. Sprague, you’ve outgeneraled us,” he said, with more frankness
than his hard-lined face and austere manner promised, even as a
possibility. “Diana tells me that you are wedded to your Government
position, and if that is so, you are simply throwing yourself away.
Come to New York, and we’ll put you in the way of doing something worth
while.” Then he added, with the charming smile he seemed to be able to
summon at will: “You played a finer game than I thought you would; in
fact, I thought I had trumped your ace to-day at the luncheon-table.”
“You did--mighty nearly,” laughed the big one. And then to Stillings:
“Robert, will you go over to Judge Walsh’s chambers and tell the
gentlemen who are waiting there--well, tell them what is necessary.
You’ll know how.”
But Dimmock was not to be so easily turned aside.
“I say you played it fine,” he repeated, still amiable. “You knew that,
under the circumstances, the--er--sentimental circumstances, we may
call them--you couldn’t afford to go before that larger committee with
your evidence, Mr. Sprague.”
Sprague’s mellow laugh rang in the empty room.
“Just now I am the prisoner at the bar, Mr. Dimmock, and I’m not
obliged to incriminate myself,” he retorted jokingly. And at that the
three who remained went out through the banker’s office together. On
the sidewalk Dimmock paused for one other word; the word which had been
at the bottom of his friendly approach to Sprague.
“Diana knows nothing of this?” he said.
“Nothing more than you have told her,” said Sprague.
“And that is less than nothing,” was the prompt return. After which
they separated, Dimmock going up the street toward Hunniwell’s hotel,
Maxwell hurrying off to the telegraph office to wire the good news to
Ford, and Sprague sauntering slowly back to the Hotel Topaz, wondering
if, by any hook or crook of good fortune, he should be lucky enough to
find Miss Diana Carswell disengaged and willing to accord him an hour
or so of an afternoon which was still young.
It was in the evening of the same day, after Maxwell had been
reinstalled in his office by order of the court, and the summarily
discharged staff had been reinstated, that the superintendent turned
upon Sprague, who was sitting, as his evening custom was, in the
easiest of the office chairs, puffing at a black cigar, and with his
gaze fixed upon the disused gas chandelier marking the exact centre of
the ceiling.
“How did you do it, Calvin?” came the abrupt demand from Maxwell’s
corner. “Did you really have any evidence against Miss Diana’s
step-father and her uncle?”
The big-bodied man from Washington chuckled softly.
“Oh, yes; I had the evidence. There was a hitch between Watson and
Dimmock, and they were both of them injudicious enough to send notes
back and forth; notes which, by the help of two good friends of yours
and mine, were intercepted, carefully copied, the originals preserved,
and the copies forwarded. It was a little off-color, but when you are
fighting the devil you can’t always stop to pick your weapons. Watson
was to have a Federal judgeship, and Big Money was to see that he got
it. The hitch came in reference to Watson’s leaving town. He was afraid
to go; afraid of public sentiment; and Dimmock was holding him on the
rack. I don’t know whether the evidence of the letters would have held
in an ordinary court, but I do know that I had Judge Walsh on my side.”
Maxwell whirled around in his chair.
“Sprague, did those letters incriminate Dimmock and Miss Diana’s uncle?”
“Oh, don’t let’s say ‘incriminate’; let’s use the milder word,
‘inculpate’. Yes, I guess they did, Dick.”
“Now I’ve got you!” snapped the square-shouldered one at the desk. “You
would never--never in this wide world--have let that evidence get out.
You know you wouldn’t!”
The big man was grinning affably. “You’re only half right,” he
rejoined. “Up to luncheon-time to-day I meant to do it; I had it
framed up so that the uncle, who is really the high spellbinder of the
entire push, could slip out and the whole load would come down on Mr.
Dimmock’s shoulders. But that luncheon play queered me, and I had to
think quick to invent a new way out. It worked, and that’s all there is
to it; all but one little item--Miss Diana let me drive her out to Lake
Topaz this afternoon, and I stole your car to do it.”
“No; there is one other little item,” said Maxwell, rising and closing
his desk upon the evening’s work. “I wired Ford, as you know, and I
gave you the credit that belonged to you--which you may not know. Our
New York crowd is properly grateful, and they promptly wired Kinzie. I
don’t know how you’re fixed, Calvin, but I guess this won’t come amiss
if you’re going to try to marry Diana Carswell,” and he handed Sprague
a slip of paper which bore Banker Kinzie’s promise to pay ten thousand
dollars to the order of one Calvin Sprague.
Sprague took the draft, glanced at the figure of it, and handed it back
with another of his deep-chested laughs.
“Where on top of earth did you get the idea that I needed money, Dick?”
he asked. “Why, Lord love you! didn’t you know that my California
uncle, Uncle William, died five years ago and left me more money than
I know what to do with? It’s the solemn fact, and I’m working on the
Government job purely and simply because I don’t know how to loaf
comfortably--never did. Of course, I can’t quite match up with the
Carswell millions; but if that were the only thing in the way----”
“What is the other thing?” demanded Maxwell, in mock solicitude.
Sprague had risen and was stretching his arms over his head and yawning
sleepily.
“If you’d see me step on the scales, you wouldn’t ask. I’m such a whale
of a man, Dick! And, say: did you notice her at table to-day? ‘Pretty,’
you’d say, but that isn’t the word; it’s ‘dainty’, dainty in every look
and move and touch. Imagine a girl like that saying, ‘Yes, honey,’ to a
great big overgrown stale foot-ball artist like me! Let’s go over to
the house and smoke a bedtime. Nobody loves me, and I’m going out in
the garden to eat----”
“That is what makes you so frightfully fat--you eat too many
of the fuzzy kind,” laughed the snappy little superintendent
unsympathetically. And then he flicked the switch of the office lights
and they went out together into the calm September night.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Changes have been made to make spelling consistent across this ebook,
as follows:
--“Wire Devil” has added a hyphen on page 133;
--A hyphen has been added to “wrecking train” on page 53;
--“Up stairs” has been converted into one word on page 352;
--A hyphen was added to “payrolls” on page 30;
--Hyphens have been added to the word “hillside” on pages 319 and 321;
--The hyphen in “cut-out” has been removed on page 312;
--A hyphen has been added to “midday” on page 273;
--The word “mine-owners” has had the hyphen deleted on page 86;
--A hyphen has been inserted in “notebook” on page 54;
--A hyphen has been inserted in “Quick step” on page 128;
--A hyphen has been added to the word “trainload” on page 374;
--The hyphen in “bed-time” has been removed on page 406;
--The hyphen in “east-bound” has been removed on pages 90 and 336;
--A hyphen has been added to “carload” on page 301;
--The hyphen has been removed in “break-neck” on page 111;
--The hyphen has been removed in “main-line” on pages 16, 113 and 351;
--The hyphen has been removed in “rear-platform” on page 276;
--The hyphen has been removed in “high-line” on page 203;
--A hyphen has been added to “real estate” on page 223;
--The hyphen has been removed in “one-o’clock” on page 387;
--The hyphen has been removed in “fast-mail” on page 13;
--The hyphen has been removed in “kentucky-colonel” on page 370;
--Hyphens have been removed in “rank-and-file” on page 383;
--The hyphen has been removed in “second-section” on page 197;
--A hyphen has been added to “motive power” on page 228;
--The hyphen has been removed in “safety-switches” on pages
177 and 181;
--A hyphen has been added to “street crossing” on page 162;
--The hyphen has been removed in “managing-editor” on page 282;
--A hyphen has been added to “scraper teams” on page 346;
--The hyphen in “shop-track” has been removed on page 249;
--The hyphen in “Big-Nine” has been removed on page 249;
--The hyphen in “telegraph-office” has been removed on page 402;
--A hyphen has been added to “early morning” on page 263;
--The hyphen in “desk-end” has been removed on page 366;
--A hyphen has been added to “yard limits” on page 327;
--The hyphen in “hall-door” has been removed on page 102;
--The hyphen in “west-end” has been removed on page 124;
--The hyphen in “summing-up” has been removed on page 370;
--The hyphen in “false-alarm” has been removed on page 29;
--The hyphen in “off-time” has been removed on page 124;
--The hyphen in “make-shift” has been removed on page 317;
--The hyphen in “cow-punch” has been removed on page 320;
transcriber notes that this list, while extensive, may not cover all
inconsistent hyphenation in this e-book.
Spelling of “reconnoissance” on page 314 corrected to “reconnaissance”.
The variant spelling “focussed” has been retained.
Where illustrations occurred in the body of a paragraph, they have been
moved to avoid interrupting the text’s flow.