Armstrong went to his hotel room and dropped into a chair. He felt
the need of being alone. He was glad that Dorothy was in Evansville,
ignorant of all this disaster. He wanted no sympathy, no loving
touch; he was in too bitter a mood.
The hours following his interview with Macgowan were the darkest of
his life. Now that it was all over, the reaction hit him hard. The
absolute and deliberate falseness of his most trusted friend was so
deadly and incredible that his brain was slow to waken. This
wormwood was a drug, numbing all his senses save that of inward
torture. Every thought of Macgowan was a new stab.
Financially he was little injured; the blow went deeper. He was
stripped of all interest in Consolidated. Everything to which he had
given his energy and thought was lifted out of his grasp. He was
left with nothing. To all that body of nearly sixteen thousand
investors whose confidence had so inflated his pride--he was now less
than nothing.
Dorothy's warning recurred to him, wrenched a wondering groan from
his spirit. How those clear, cool eyes of her had pierced to the
rotten heart of Macgowan! If he had only heeded it--if he had only
received it sooner! Armstrong dropped his face in his hands,
fighting desperately if unavailingly for a foothold on sanity, for a
clear brain. He could find no outstanding point, nothing on which to
build; tumult and chaos still engulfed him, and the will to do was
dead. He could think only of Lawrence Macgowan, and his soul was
plunged into a frightful despair.
Slowly he realized what he had lost; slowly he came to a
comprehension of how this astounding treachery had won the fight
against him. Now that everything was finished, he could by degrees
perceive what a frightful act of folly he had that morning committed.
With a perfectly clean conscience, with nothing whatever to
fear--why, why had he not made some semblance of a fight? His act in
signing those papers had been the act of a coward, a fool! He
shivered at thought of himself that morning, shivered at the
remembrance of what he had passed through.
Macgowan, with superb craft and diabolical certainty, had counted on
that very thing, of course; had delivered blow upon blow, each
following close upon the quivering impact of the other; had in fact
brought his whole campaign of treachery to a culmination, had won
everything, almost before Armstrong so much as knew himself in
danger. Oh, clever, infernally clever, Macgowan! How cunningly he
had planned, knowing that Armstrong would be stunned, rendered
incapable of fighting, at a loss to do anything! It was the voting
trust, of course, which had served as the final weapon--
Armstrong started suddenly. How far back did this duplicity extend?
How long had Macgowan been concerting his treachery around his
control of the voting trust?
This thought electrified him, sent his brain reaching out at last.
The terrible conviction grew upon him that he had been duped from the
start, tricked and played as a pawn from the very outset of his
career in New York! All this while, he had been building up a
business system in order that Macgowan, sitting back and watching,
might grab it when the time came.
And the time had come. Consolidated had slipped from his grasp.
Macgowan had set that brain of his to making his own fortune.
Armstrong sat staring before him, fingers twisting and gripping, his
face seamed with drawn lines. All the cheerful, genial youth of him
was crying out in agony of its hurt from a friend's hand; all the man
of him was wrenched by the realization that another would reap where
he had sowed, that he was in a moment robbed and despoiled of an
institution to which he had dedicated his future life. The same
stern self-repression which that morning had kept him from gripping
Macgowan by the throat, now held him motionless, his body relaxed,
his brain at work.
Another man would have cursed. Reese Armstrong thought.
One thing after another--petty and hitherto unregarded details uprose
before his mind's eye in damning surety. How Macgowan had done this,
had done that; how, for example, that voting trust had been renewed.
Little things, yet all combining to show that Macgowan had planned
his coup long ago. His confidence in Armstrong had been sincere; he
had believed that Consolidated would succeed. Therefore he had laid
his schemes, looking to the time when he might seize Consolidated.
And now he had gripped his prey. But--why?
That pretended distrust of Findlater and the other men! Armstrong
flinched at the recollection. Even now, Macgowan and Findlater were
chortling together over their easy conquest. All the time they had
been playing a deep and crafty game, those two.
But--to what end?
Armstrong stiffened, as the truth smashed him squarely between the
eyes. They had driven him out, they had shorn him of his power in
Consolidated, they had bludgeoned his chief men and his sales
organization--why? So that they could loot, of course. They had let
him put Consolidated squarely on its feet. Now they would reap the
benefit, careless of what later happened, careless whether
Consolidated blew up, so long as they could loot--loot!
And what would they loot? Not Consolidated alone. Not one solitary
financial concern. This institution stood not by itself, but in it
were bound up the faith and backing of sixteen thousand people. The
company would be looted, and these investors would be looted. And
these people had thought that their money would be handled
conservatively, not juggled and played with!
A shiver passed through Armstrong's body. Then his wide eyes came
back to normal; his tensed muscles relaxed. A long breath came into
his lungs. He had found the thing he needed, the mental spur, the
point of departure.
Macgowan had not waged his treacherous fight for the control of
Consolidated Securities alone; not alone had he won the fat corporate
funds, the subsidiary companies, the money-making powers. This
crafty lawyer, who had not invested a single cent, had also captured
sixteen thousand people, men and women--and they would be milled,
robbed, looted to the very limit!
Armstrong had fought hard to gain the trust of these people. He had
expended untold energy and money to win their faith. He had felt
them behind him, the thrust of their will and faith driving him
onward with assured confidence. And now, now! They would see in the
newspapers that he was out of Consolidated. Within a few short weeks
or months they would find themselves helpless, prostrate, unable to
prevent the looting. Their very faith in Consolidated would be used
to rob them.
It was not what they would think of him that so stung Armstrong, that
stirred him into life and action, that wakened the numbed spirit in
him. It was the thought of what would happen to them. He knew well
what would happen, with Macgowan's smoothly accurate hand at the
wheel. He saw Macgowan in a new light, now. Their fate would be as
his own--betrayed before they knew it. And who would fight for them?
A slow, bitter smile curled Armstrong's lips.
"Who will fight for them? Who can fight for them? One man, who
failed to put up a fight for himself. One poor dupe, smashed like a
rotten reed, wrecked largely by his own folly! But, by the lord,
I'll do it! My own hand is lost. I can't win back what I've thrown
away. But I can fight for the people who trusted me."
Then, for an instant, he faltered.
Again a memory of the little things, the tricks and sly snares, rose
up to jeer at him. He recalled now how insistently Macgowan had
prevented his bringing Robert Dorns into the affair of that Seattle
letter--with good reason! Dorns would have discovered the truth,
would have spoiled all the culminative effect of Macgowan's carefully
planned surprise blow. And how smoothly had Macgowan averted that
danger, only to go to Washington and start his campaign?
So, Armstrong faltered. How could he fight, after all? He was
alone, powerless, stripped of all connection with Consolidated. He
had even agreed to sell his stock to Macgowan; unless he broke this
agreement, he had nothing to fight with. A struggle now would mean
battle to the death, without quarter; a battle of lies and deceit and
powerfully entrenched men against one man who had nothing at his
back. Nothing? Ah! This one man had behind him the faith of
sixteen thousand people. Was that a little thing? "If ye have faith
as a grain of mustard seed ... nothing shall be impossible!"
Suddenly Armstrong rose to his feet, laughed almost happily, and
glanced at his watch. He crossed the room to the wall telephone.
Three minutes later he had declared war.