"Armstrong has just suspended me."
"Armstrong!" cried Fosdick. "Why, you're crazy, man! He's got no more
authority over you than he has over me."
"He sent for me just now," said Westervelt, "and when I came in he
looked savagely at me and said, 'Mr. Westervelt, you will take a
vacation until further notice. I put it in that way to keep the scandal
from becoming public. You can say you have become suddenly ill. You
will leave the offices at once, and not return until I send for you.'"
Fosdick was listening like a man watching the fantastic procession of a
dream which not even the wild imagination of a sleeper could credit.
"You're crazy, Bill," he repeated.
"I laughed at him," continued Westervelt. "And then he said--it seems
to me I must really be crazy--but, no, he said it--'We have reason to
believe that the books are in wild, in criminal disorder,' he said. 'I
have telegraphed for Brownell. He will be here in the morning to take
charge.'"
Fosdick bounded to his feet. "Brownell! Why, he's Armstrong's old
side-partner in Chicago. Brownell!" Fosdick's face grew purple, and he
jerked at his collar and swung his head and rolled his eyes and mouthed
as if he were about to have a stroke. Then he rushed to his bell and
leaned upon the button. Waller came into the room, terror in his face.
"Armstrong!" cried Fosdick. "Bring him here--instantly!"
But it was full ten minutes before Waller could find and bring him. In
that time Fosdick's mind asserted itself, beat his passion into its
kennel where it could be kept barred in or released, as events might
determine. "Caution--caution!" he said to Westervelt. "Let _me_ do all
the talking."
The young president entered deliberately, with impassive countenance.
He looked calmly at Westervelt, then at Fosdick.
"I suppose you know what I want to see you about, Horace," Fosdick
began. "Sit down. There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding
between you and Westervelt--eh?"
Armstrong simply sat, the upper part of his big frame resting by the
elbows upon the arms of his chair, a position which gave him an air of
impenetrable stolidity and immovable solidity.
When Fosdick saw that Armstrong was determined to hold his guard, he
went on, "It won't do for you two to quarrel. At any price we must have
peace, must face the world, united and loyal. I want to make peace
between you two. Westervelt has told me his side of the story. Now,
you tell me yours."
"I suspended him, pending a private investigation--that's all," said
Armstrong. And his lips closed as if that were all he purposed to say.
Fosdick's eyes gleamed dangerously. "You know, you have no authority to
suspend the comptroller?" he said quietly.
"That's true."
"Then he is not suspended."
"Yes, he is," said Armstrong. "And on my way down here I looked in at
his department and told them he was ill and wouldn't be back to-day."
Westervelt started up. "How dare you!" he shrilled in the undignified
fury of the old.
"Bill, Bill!" warned Fosdick. Then to Armstrong, "The way to settle it
is for Bill to go home for to-day. In the morning, he will return to
his work as usual."
"Brownell will be here, will be in charge," said Armstrong. "If
Westervelt returns, I'll have him put out."
"Will you permit me to ask the why of all this?" inquired Fosdick.
"The man's been up to some queer business," replied Armstrong. "The
books have got to be straightened out, and it looks as if he'd have to
disgorge some pretty big sums."
Westervelt groaned and fell heavily back into his chair. "That I should
live to hear such insults to me!" he cried, and the tears rolled down
his cheeks. Armstrong simply looked at him.
"You are mistaken, terribly mistaken, Horace," said Fosdick smoothly.
"You have been woefully misled." He did not know what to do. He dared
not break with Westervelt, the chief stay of his power over the staff of
the O.A.D.; yet neither did he dare, just then and over just that
matter, break with Armstrong.
"If Westervelt is innocent," replied Armstrong, "he ought to be laughing
at me--for, if he's innocent, I have ruined myself."
"I know you have no honor, no pride," cried Westervelt. "But have you
no sense of what honor and pride are? After all my years of service,
after building high my name in this community, to be insulted by an
adventurer like you! How do I know what you would cook up against me,
if you had control of the books? Fosdick, we'll have the board together
this afternoon, and suspend him!"
Fosdick saw the look in Armstrong's face at this. "No, no, Bill," he
said. "We must sleep on this. By morning a way out will be found."
"By morning!" exclaimed Westervelt. "I'll not see the sun go down with
a cloud shadowing my reputation."
"Leave me alone with my old friend for a few minutes, Horace," said
Fosdick.
"Certainly," agreed Armstrong, rising.
"I'll come up to see you presently," Fosdick called after him, as he was
closing the door. The two veterans were alone. Fosdick said, "That
young man is a very ugly customer, Westervelt. We must go slowly if we
are to get rid of him without scandal."
"All we've got to do is to throw him out," replied Westervelt. "What
reputable man or newspaper would listen to him? And if he has hold of
the books for a few weeks, a few days even, he can twist and turn them
so that he will at least be stronger than he is now. The stupendous
impudence of the man! Why did you ever let him get into the company?"
"Bad judgment," said Fosdick gloomily. "I had no idea he was so
short-sighted or so swollen with his own importance. I saw only his
ability. But we'll soon be rid of him."
"Can it be that he has gotten wind of our plans about him?" said
Westervelt uneasily.
Fosdick waved his hand. "Nobody knows them but you and I. Impossible.
I haven't even let Morris into that secret yet. Armstrong's quite sure
of his ground--and he must be kept sure. When he goes, it must be with
a brand on him that will make him as harmless a creature as there is in
the world."
"But the books--he must not get hold of the books," persisted
Westervelt.
"I'll see to that. Can you suggest any way to keep him quiet, except
pretending to give him his head at present?"
Westervelt reflected. Suddenly he cried out, "No, Josiah; I can't let
him--anyone--handle those books. They're my reputation."
"But you have got them into good shape for the legislative
investigation, haven't you?"
"Yes--certainly. But there are the private books!"
"Um," grunted Fosdick. "How many of them?"
"Three--beside the one I slipped into my pocket on my way down here.
They're too big to take away."
"They must be destroyed," said Fosdick. "Go now and get them. Have
them carried down here at once."
Westervelt hurried away. As he entered his office, he was astounded at
seeing Armstrong seated at a side desk, dictating to a stenographer. At
sight of Westervelt, Armstrong started up and went to meet him. "You
ought not to be lingering here, Mr. Westervelt," he said, so that all
the clerks could hear. "You owe it to yourself to take no such risk."
"I forgot a little matter," explained Westervelt confusedly. And he
went uncertainly into his private office, had his secretary put the
three ledgers and account books together and wrap them up. "Now," said
he, "take the package down to Mr. Fosdick's office. I'll go with you."
As they emerged into the outer room, he glanced furtively and nervously
at Armstrong; Armstrong seemed safely absorbed in his dictation. Just
as the two reached the hall door, Armstrong, without looking up, called,
"Oh, by the way, Mr. Westervelt--just a moment."
Westervelt jumped. "Go on with the books," said he in an undertone to
his secretary. "I'll come directly."
Armstrong was looking at the secretary now. "Just put down the package,
please," he said carelessly. "I wish to speak to the comptroller about
it."
The young man, all unsuspicious of what was below the smooth surface,
obediently put down the package. Armstrong drew Westervelt aside. "You
are taking those three books, and the one I see bulging in your pocket,
down to Mr. Fosdick, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Westervelt.
"Take my advice," said Armstrong. "Don't."
"It's merely a little matter I wish to go over with him--a few minutes,"
stammered Westervelt.
"I understand perfectly," said Armstrong. "But is it wise for you to
put yourself in _anybody's_ power? Don't hand all your weapons to a man
who could use them against you--and, as you well know, would do it if he
felt compelled. I could stop you from making off with those books. I'm
tempted to do it--curiously enough, for your own sake. _I_ don't need
them."
Westervelt was studying Armstrong's frank countenance in amazement. "He
expects me," he suggested uncertainly.
"Don't leave the books with him," repeated Armstrong. "Don't put
yourself in his power." He looked at Westervelt with an expression like
that of a man measuring a leap before taking it. "Take the books home,"
he went on boldly. "Fosdick has been cheating you for years. I will
come to see you at your house to-morrow morning." And he returned to
his dictation, leaving the old man hesitating in the doorway,
thoughtfully fumbling in his long white whiskers with slow, stealthy
fingers.
In the corridor, Westervelt said to his secretary, "I think I'll work
over the matter at home. I'm not so sick as they seem to imagine. Jump
into a cab and drive up to my house, and give the package to my wife.
Tell her to take care of it."
When Fosdick saw him empty-handed, he was instantly ablaze. "Has that
scoundrel----"
"No, no," explained his old friend, "I got the books, all right."
"Where are they?"
"I sent them uptown--up to my house."
"What the hell did you do that for?" cried Fosdick.
"I thought it best to have them where I could personally take care of
them," said Westervelt, his heart bounding with delight. For Fosdick's
unguarded tone had set flaming in him that suspicion which thoroughly
respectable men always have latent for each other, in circles where
respectability rests entirely upon deeds that in the less respectable or
on a less magnificent scale would seem quite the reverse of respectable.
They know how dear reputation is, how great sacrifices of friendship and
honor even the most honorable and generous men will make to safeguard
it.
"Well, well," said Fosdick, heaving but oily of surface, and not daring
to pursue the subject lest Westervelt should suspect him. "You sent
them by safe hands?"
"By my secretary, and to my wife," said Westervelt.
They kept up a rather strained conversation for half an hour, chiefly
devoted to abuse of Armstrong--Westervelt's abuse was curiously lacking
in heartiness, though Fosdick was too busy with his own thoughts to note
it. He suddenly interrupted himself to say: "Oh, I forgot. Excuse me a
moment." And he went into the next room. He was gone three quarters of
an hour. When he came back, he said, with not very convincing
carelessness, "While I was out there talking with Waller, it occurred to
me that, on the whole, the books'd be safer in my vaults. So I took the
liberty of sending him up to get them. Your wife knows him."
Westervelt smiled in such a way that his white hair and beard and
patriarchal features combined in an aspect of beautiful benevolence. "I
fear he won't get them, Josiah," said he, chuckling softly.
"Then you'd better telephone her," said Fosdick.
"I have, Josiah," said his old pal, with a glance at the telephone on
Fosdick's desk.
The veterans looked each at the other, Josiah reproachfully. "Billy,
you don't trust even me," he said sadly.
"I trust no one but the Lord, Josiah," replied Westervelt.
*XVI*
*HUGO SHOWS HIS METTLE*
Fosdick did not go up to parley with the insurgent until after lunch,
until he had thought out his game. He went prepared for peace, for a
truce, or for war. "Horace," he began, "there are many phases to an
enterprise as vast as this. You can't run it as you would a crossroads
grocery. You have got to use all sorts of men and measures, to adapt
yourself to them, to be broad and tolerant--and diplomatic. Above all,
diplomatic." And he went on for some time in this strain of commercial
commonplaces, feeling his way carefully. "Now, it may be true--I don't
know, but it may be true," he ended, "that Westervelt, in conducting his
part of the affairs, has taken wider latitude than perhaps might be
tolerated in a man of less strength and standing. We must consider only
results. On the other hand, it is just as well that we should know
precisely what his methods have been."
At this Armstrong's impassive face showed a gleam of interest. "That's
what _I_ thought," said he.
"But it wouldn't do--it wouldn't do at all, Horace, for us to let an
outsider like Brownell, at one jump, into the secrets of the company.
Why, there's no telling what he would do. He might blackmail us, or
sell us out to one of our rivals."
"What have you to propose?" said Armstrong, impatient of these puerile
preliminaries. Fosdick was as clever at trickery as is the cleverest;
but at its best the best trickery is puerile, once the onlooker, or even
the intended victim, is on the alert.
"We must give the accounts a thorough overhauling," answered Fosdick.
"But it must be done by our own people. I propose the ordinary
procedure for that sort of thing--different men doing different parts of
it piecemeal, and sending their reports to one central man who collates
them. In that way, only the one man knows what is going on or what is
found out."
"Who's the man?" asked Armstrong.
"It struck me that Hugo, being one of the fourth vice-presidents and so
in touch with the comptroller's department, would most naturally step
into Westervelt's place while he was away."
"Certainly," said Armstrong cordially. "Hugo's the very person."
Fosdick had not dismissed Westervelt's suggestion that Armstrong might
be countermining so summarily as he had led Westervelt to believe; he
did dismiss it now, however. "The young fool," he decided, "just wanted
to show his authority." To Armstrong he said, "You and Hugo can work
together."
"No, leave it to Hugo," said Armstrong. "I am content so long as it is
definitely understood that I am not responsible. Let the Executive
Committee meet and put Hugo formally in charge during Westervelt's
absence."
Fosdick went up to Westervelt's house to see him a few days later; to
his surprise the old bulwark of public and private virtue seemed
completely restored. And Fosdick, with a blindness which he never could
account for, was content with his explanation that he had been thinking
it over and had reached the conclusion that his interests were perfectly
secure, so long as he had the four books. Without a protest he
acquiesced in the appointment of Hugo. And so it came peacefully about
that Hugo, convinced that no one had ever undertaken quite so important
a task as this of his, set himself to investigating the whole financial
department of the O.A.D. That is to say, he issued the orders suggested
by his father, issued them to subordinates suggested by his father, and
brought to his father the reports they made to him.
On the third or fourth day of Westervelt's "illness," Fosdick caught a
cold which laid him up with a ferocious attack of the gout. Most of the
reports which the subordinates brought to Hugo he did not understand;
but he felt that it was his duty to examine them, and spent about three
of the four hours he gave to business each day in marching his eye
solemnly down the columns of figures and explanations. And thus it came
about that he discovered Armstrong's "crime"--twenty-five thousand
dollars, which had been paid to Horace Armstrong on his own order and
never accounted for; a few months later, a second item of the same size
and mystery; a few months later, a third; a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and
so on, until in all Armstrong had got from the company on his own order
no less than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for which he never
accounted. "A thief!" exclaimed Hugo. "I might have known! These
low-born fellows of no breeding, that rise by impudence and cunning,
always steal."
Hugo did not go to his father with his startling discovery of this
shameful raid on the sacred funds of the widows and orphans of the
O.A.D. "I'll not worry the governor when he's ill," he reasoned.
"Besides, he's far too gentle and easygoing with Armstrong. No, this is
a matter for me to attend to, myself. When it's all over, the
governor'll thank me. Anyhow, it's time I showed these people downtown
that I understand the game and can play it." And Hugo sent for
Armstrong.
Not to come to him at his office; but to call on him at his apartment on
the way downtown: "Dear Sir--Mr. Hugo Fosdick wishes you to call on him
at the above address at nine to-morrow morning"--this on his private
letter paper and signed by his secretary.
Hugo had taken an apartment in a fashionable bachelor flathouse a few
months after he became a fourth vice-president. He was not ready to get
married. There were only a few women--nine girls and two widows--in the
class he deemed eligible, that is, having the looks, the family, and the
large fortune, all of which would be indispensable to an aspirant for
his hand. And of these eleven, none had as yet shown a sufficient
degree of appreciation. Four treated him as they did the other men in
their set--with no distinguishing recognition of his superiority of mind
and body. Five were more appreciative, but they were, curiously and
unfortunately enough, the least pleasing in the three vital respects.
However, while he must put off marriage until he should find his
affinity, there was no reason why he should continue in the paternal
leading strings; so, he set up an establishment befitting his rank and
wealth. He took the large flat with its three almost huge general
rooms; and, of course he furnished it in that comfortless splendor in
which live those of the civilized and semicivilized world in whom
prosperity smothers all originality or desire for originality. For Hugo
was most careful to do everything and anything expected of his "set" by
the sly middle-class purveyors who think out the luxuries and fashions
by which they live off the vanities and conventionalities of the rich.
When Armstrong appeared, Hugo had been shaved and bathed and massaged
and manicured and perfumed and dressed; he was seated at a little
breakfast table drawn near the open fire in the dining room, two men
servants in attendance--a third had ushered Armstrong in. He was
arrayed in a gray silk house suit, with facings of a deeper gray, over
it a long grayish-purple silk and eiderdown robe. He was in the act of
lighting a cigarette at the cut glass and gold lamp which his butler was
holding respectfully.
"Ah--Armstrong!" he said, with that high-pitched voice and affected
accent which makes the person who uses it seem to say, "You will note
that I am a real aristocrat." Then to the butler, "I wish to be alone."
"Yes, sir," said the butler, with a bow. The other servant bowed also,
and they left the room.
"Well, what is it, Fosdick?" said Armstrong, seating himself.
Hugo frowned at that familiarity, aggravated by the curt tone. "I shall
not detain you long enough for you to be at the trouble of seating
yourself," said he.
Armstrong reflected on this an instant before he grasped what Hugo was
driving at. Then he smiled. "Go on--what is it?" he said, settling
himself.
"I directed you to come here," said Hugo, "because I wished to avoid
every possibility of scandal. I assume you understood, as soon as you
got my note?"
Armstrong looked at him quizzically. "And I came," said he, "because I
assumed you had some important, very private, message from your father.
I thought perhaps your father would be here."
"My father knows nothing of this," said Hugo. "I thought it more humane
to spare him the pain of discovering that a servant he regarded as
faithful had shamefully betrayed him."
"I might have known!" exclaimed Armstrong with good-natured disgust,
rising. "So you brought me here to discuss some trifle about your
servants. Some day, if I get the leisure, my young friend, I'll tell you
what I think of you. But not to-day. Good morning."
"Stop!" commanded Hugo. As Armstrong did not stop, he said, "I have
discovered your thefts from the company."
Armstrong wheeled, blanched. He looked hard at young Fosdick; then he
slowly returned to his chair. "I understand," he said, in a voice most
unlike his own.
"And I sent for you," continued Hugo triumphantly, "to tell you I will
permit you quietly to resign. You will write out your resignation at the
desk in the next room. I shall present it to the Board, and shall see
that it is accepted without scandal or question. Of course, so far as
you are able, you must make good your shortage. But I shall not be hard
on you. I appreciate that chaps like you are often tempted beyond their
powers of resistance."
By this time Armstrong was smiling so broadly that Hugo, absorbed though
he was in his own role of the philosophic gentleman, had to see it. He
broke off, reddened, rose and drew himself to his full height--and a
very elegant figure he was. Armstrong looked up at him from his
indolent lounge in the big chair. "Did you pose that before a cheval
glass, Hugo?" he said, in a pleasant, contemptuous tone.
"You will force me to the alternative," cried Hugo furiously.
Armstrong got up. "Go ahead, old man," he said. "Do whatever you
please. Better talk to your father first, though." He glanced round.
"You're very gorgeous here--too gorgeous for the hard-working, poor
people who pay for it. I'll have to interfere." He smiled at Hugo
again, but there was an unpleasant glitter in his eyes. "You are
suspended from the fourth vice-presidency," he went on tranquilly. "And
you will vacate these premises before noon to-day. See that you take
nothing with you that belongs to the O.A.D. If you do, I'll have you in
a police court. Be out before noon. Brownell will be up at that hour."
Hugo stood staring. This effrontery was unbelievable. Before he could
recover himself, Armstrong was gone. He sat down and slowly thought it
out. Yes, it was true, the flat had been taken nominally as an uptown
branch of the O.A.D. home office; much of the furniture had been paid
for by the company; several of the servants were on the pay roll as
clerks and laborers; yes, he had even let the O.A.D. pay grocery and
wine bills--was he not like his father--did not everything he did,
everything he ate and drank, contribute to the glory and stability of
the O.A.D.? He was but following the established usage among the powers
that deigned to guard the financial interests of the people. Perhaps,
he carried the system a little further, more frankly further, than some;
but logically, legitimately. Still, Armstrong was president, had
nominally the authority to make things unpleasant for him.
He looked at the clock--it was ten; no time to lose. He rushed into his
clothes, darted into his waiting brougham and drove home. The doctor
was with his father; he had to wait, pacing and fuming, until nearly
eleven before he could get admission. The old man, haggard and
miserable, was stretched on a sofa-bed before the fire in his sitting
room. "Well, what do you want?" he said sharply.
Hugo did not pause to choose words. "I found in the books," said he,
"where Armstrong had taken three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
us--from the company. I thought I'd not worry you with it. So I sent
for him to come to my rooms."
"What!" yelled Fosdick, getting his breath which had gone at the first
shock. "What the damnation! You sprung _my_ trap! You _fool_!"
"I ordered him to resign," Hugo hastened on. "And he refused, and
ordered me to vacate my rooms before noon--because the lease stands in
the name of the company. And he suspended me as vice-president."
"Good, good!" shouted Fosdick, his thin, wire-like hair, his gaunt face,
his whole lean body streaming fury. "Why has God cursed me with such a
son as this! How dare you! You wretched idiot! You have ruined us
all!"
Hugo cowered. Making full allowance for his father's physical pain and
violent temper, there was still that in the old man's face which
convinced Hugo he had made a frightful blunder. "I'll vacate," he said,
near to whimpering, "I'll do whatever you say."
"Give me that telephone!" ordered the old man.
Fosdick got the O.A.D. building and Armstrong's office. And soon
Armstrong's voice came over the wire. "Is that you, Armstrong--Horace--?
Yes, I recognize your voice. This is Fosdick. That fool boy of mine
has just told me what he did."
"Yes," came in Armstrong's noncommittal voice.
"I want to say you did perfectly right in ordering him to vacate."
"Thanks."
"He'll be out by the time you set. His resignation as vice-president is
on the way downtown. I'm sending him to apologize to you. I want to do
everything, anything to show my deep humiliation, my deep regret."
No answer from the other end of the wire.
"Are you there, Horace?"
"Yes."
"Have I made myself clear? Is there anything I can do?"
"Nothing. Is that all?"
"Can you come up here? It's impossible for me to leave my
bedroom--simply out of the question."
"I'm too busy this morning."
"This afternoon?"
"Not to-day. Good-by."
The ring-off sounded mockingly in the old man's ear. With an oath he
caught up the telephone apparatus and flung it at Hugo's head. "Ass!
Ass!" he shouted, shaking his cane at his son, who had barely dodged the
heavy instrument. "Vacate that apartment! Take the first steamer for
Europe! And don't you show up in town again until I give you leave.
Hide yourself! Ass! Ass!"
Hugo scudded like a swallow before a tempest. "Is there any depth," he
said when he felt at a safe distance, "_any_ depth to which father
wouldn't descend, for the sake of money--and drag us down with him?" He
admitted that perhaps he had not acted altogether discreetly. "I
oughtn't to have roused Armstrong's envy by letting him see my rooms."
Still, that could have been easily repaired. Certainly, it wasn't
necessary to grovel before an employee--"and a damned thief at that."
By the time he reached his apartments, he was quite restored to favor
with himself. He hurried the servants away, telephoned for a firm of
packers and movers to come at once. As he rang off, a call came for
him. He recognized the voice of Armstrong's secretary.
"Is that Mr. Hugo Fosdick? Well, Mr. Armstrong asks me to say that it
won't be necessary for you to give up those offices uptown to-day, that
you can keep them as long as you please."
"Aha!" thought Hugo, triumphant again. "He has come to his senses. I
knew it--I knew he would!" To the secretary he simply said, "Very
well," and rang up his father. It was nearly half an hour before he
could get him; the wire was busy. At his first word, the old man said,
"Ring off there! I don't want to hear or see you. You take that
steamer to-morrow!"
"Armstrong has weakened, father," cried Hugo.
"What!" answered the old man, not less savage, but instantly eager.
"He has just telephoned, practically apologizing, and asking me not to
disturb myself about the apartment. I knew he'd come down when he
thought it over."
A silence, then his father said in a milder tone: "Well--you keep away
from the office. Don't touch business, don't go near it, until I tell
you to. And don't come near me till I send for you. What else did
Armstrong say?"
"Just what I told you--nothing more. But when I see him, he'll
apologize, no doubt."
"See that you don't see him," snapped the old man. "Keep away from
anybody that knows anything of business. Keep to that crowd of
empty-heads you travel with. Do you understand?"
"Yes, father," said Hugo, in the respectful tone he never, in his most
supercilious mood, forgot to use toward the custodian and arbiter of his
prospects.
*XVII*
*VIOLETTE'S TAPESTRIES*
Armstrong would not have protested Raphael's favorite fling at the
financial district as "a wallow of dishonor"; and Boris's description of
him as reeking the slime of the wallow was no harsher than what he was
daily thinking about himself.
The newspapers were shrieking for a "real cleaning of the Augean stables
of finance"; the political figureheads of "the interests" were solemnly
and sonorously declaiming that there must be no repetition of former
fiascos and fizzles, when nobody had been punished, though everybody had
been caught black-handed. The prosecuting officers were protesting that
the plea of the guilty that they were "gentlemen" and "respectable"
would not again avail. So, Wall Street's wise knew that the struggle
between Fosdick and Atwater was near its crisis. Throughout the
"wallow" banks and trust companies, bond houses and bucket shops, all
the eminent respectabilities, were "hustling" to get weathertight.
Everyone appreciated that Fosdick and Atwater, prudent men, patron
saints of "stability," would be careful to confine the zone of war
strictly. But--what would they regard as the prudent and proper limits
of this release and use of public anger? Neither faction was afraid of
law, of serious criminal prosecution; however the authorities might be
compelled to side, they would not yield to popular clamor--beyond making
the usual bluff necessary to fool the public until it forgot. But these
exposures which had now become a regular part of the raids of the great
men on each other's preserves always tended to make the public shy for a
while; and the royalty, nobility, and gentry of the fashionable
hierarchy, had to meet the enormous expenses of their families, their
establishments, and their retinues of dependents, never less, ever more.
They could ill afford any cessation or marked slackening of the inflow
of wealth from the industrious and confiding, or covetous,
masses--covetous rather than confiding, since the passion of the average
man for gambling, for getting something for nothing, is an even larger
factor in the successful swindling operations of enthroned
respectability than is his desire for a safe, honest investment of his
surplus. Finally, the uneasy upper classes remembered that usually
these exposures resulted in the sacrifice of some of them; an unlucky
financier or group of financiers was loaded down with the blame for the
corruption and, amid the execration of the crowd and the noisy
denunciation of fellow financiers, was sent away into the wilderness,
disgraced so far as a man can be disgraced in the eyes of
money-worshipers when he still has his wealth. Rarely did the sacrifice
extend further than disgrace; still, that was no light matter, as it
meant lessened opportunities to share in the looting which was soon
resumed with increased energy and success. The disgraced financier had
to live on what he had acquired before his disgrace, instead of keeping
that intact, and paying his expenses, and adding to his fortune, too,
out of fresh loot.
Altogether, it was wise to get good and ready--to "dress" the shelves
and the back of the shop as well as the windows and front cases; to
destroy or hide suspicious books and memoranda; to shift confidential
clerks; to distribute vacations to Europe among employees, open and
secret, with dangerous information and a tendency toward hysterical and
loose talking under cross-examination; to retain all the able lawyers,
and all those related by blood, marriage, or business to legislators,
prosecuting officers, and powerful politicians; to confer discreetly as
to the exact facts of certain transactions, "so that we may not make any
blunders and apparent contradictions on the witness stand." And the
lawyers--how busy they were! The aristocrats of the legal profession
were as brisk as are their humbler fellows on the eve of a "tipped-off"
raid on a den of "swell crooks." In fact, the whole business had the
air of a very cheap and vulgar kind of crookedness; and the doings of
the great men were strange indeed, in view of their pose as leaders by
virtue of superiority in honest skill. An impartial observer might have
been led to wonder whether honest men had not been driven from
leadership because they would not stoop to the vilenesses by which
"success" was gained, and not because they were less in brain. As for
such conduct in men lauded as "bold," "brave," "courageous beyond the
power to quail"--it was simply inexplicable. The "dare-devil leaders"
were acting like a pack of shifty cowards engaged in robbing a safe and
just hearing the heavy, regular tread of a police patrol under the
windows.
Armstrong was too absorbed in the game for much analysis or theorizing;
still, his lip did curl at the spectacle--and in part his sneer was
self-contempt. "It's disgusting," said he to himself, "that to keep
alive among these scoundrels and guard the interests one is intrusted
with, one must do or tolerate so many despicable things." As that view
of the matter was the one which every man in the district was taking,
each to excuse himself to himself, there was not an uncomfortable
conscience or a shame-reddened cheek or a slinking eye. Once a man
becomes convinced that his highest duty is not to himself, but to his
fellow man, the rest is easy; the greater his "self-sacrifice" of
honesty, decency, and self-respect for the sake of the public good--for
country or religion or "stability" or "to keep the workingman's family
from starving"--the more sympathetic and enthusiastic is his conscience.
When the financial district was at the height of its activity in getting
weathertight for the approaching investigation, Fosdick shook off his
savage enemy, the gout, and got downtown again. He went direct from his
carriage to Armstrong's offices. He greeted his "man" as cordially as
if he had not just been completing the arrangements by which he expected
to make Armstrong himself the first conspicuous victim of the
investigation. And Armstrong received and returned the greeting with no
change in his usual phlegmatic manner to hint his feelings or his plans.
"About Hugo--" began Josiah.
Armstrong made a gesture of dismissal. "That's a closed incident. Any
news of the committee?"
Josiah accepted the finality of Armstrong's manner. "You show yourself a
man in ignoring the flappings and squawkings of that young cockatoo,"
said he cheerfully. "As for the committee-- What do you think of
Morris for counsel?"
"You've decided on him?" said Armstrong. His eyes wandered.
But Fosdick was not subtle, and thought nothing of that slight but, in
one so close, most significant sign of a concealing mind. "It's
settled," replied he. "Joe's an honorable man. Also, he's tied fast to
us, and at the same time the public can't charge that he's one of our
lawyers. I know, you and he--" There Fosdick stopped. He prided
himself on a most gentlemanly delicacy in family matters.
"He'll take orders?" said Armstrong, with no suggestion that he either
saw cause for "delicacy" or appreciated it.
"I suppose he would, if it were necessary. But, thank God, Horace, it
isn't. As I told him at my house last night, after the governor and I
had decided on him--I said to him: 'Joe, go ahead and make a reputation
for yourself. We fear nothing--we've got nothing to hide that the
public has a right to know. Tear the mask off those damned scoundrels
who are trying to seize the O.A.D. and change it from a great bulwark of
public safety into a feeder for their reckless gambling.'"
"And what did he say?" inquired Armstrong--a simple inquiry, with no
hint of the cynical amusement it veiled.
"He was moved to tears, almost," replied Fosdick, damp of eye himself at
the recollection. "And he said: 'Thank you, Mr. Fosdick, and you,
Governor Hartwell. I'll regard this commission as a sacred trust. I'll
be careful not to give encouragement to calumny or to make the public
uneasy and suspicious where there is no just reason for uneasiness and
suspicion; and at the same time I'll expose these men who have been
prostituting the name of financier.' You really ought to have heard
him."
An inarticulate sound came from behind the Westerner's armor of stolid
apathy.
"Horace, he's a noble fellow," continued Fosdick, assuming that his
"man" was sympathetic. "And he knows the law from cover to cover. He
has drawn some of our best statutes, and whenever I've got into a place
where it looked as if the howling of the mob was going to stop business,
I've always called on him to get up a statute that would make the mob
happy and not interfere with us, and he has never failed me. By the time
he's fifty, he'll be one of the strongest men in the country--the kind
of man the business interests 'd like to see in the White House. If it
weren't for that fool wife of his! Do you know her?"
"No," replied Armstrong.
Fosdick decided that "delicacy" was unnecessary, as Armstrong was out of
the Carlin family. "It's all very well," said he, "for a young fellow
to go crazy about a girl when he's courting. But to keep on being crazy
about her after they've got used to each other and settled down--it's
past me. It defeats the whole object of marriage, which is to steady a
man, to take woman off his mind, and give him peace for his work. In my
opinion, there's too much talk about love nowadays. It ain't decent--it
ain't _decent_! And it's setting the women crazy, with so much idle
time on their hands. Morris is stark mad about that wife of his, and
all he gets out of it is what a man usually gets when he makes a fool of
himself for a woman. She thinks of nothing but spending money, and she
keeps him poor. The faster he earns, the wilder she spends. I suppose
he thinks she cares for him--when working him is simply a business with
her."
If Fosdick had known what Mrs. Morris was about at that very hour, there
would have been even more energy in his denunciation of her. As soon as
her husband had got home the previous night, he had confided to her the
whole of his new and dazzling opportunity--not only all that his secret
employer expected him to make of it but all that he purposed to make of
it. She was not a discreet woman; so, it was fortunate for him that her
listening when he talked "shop," as she called his career, was a
pretense. She gathered only what was important to her--that he felt
sure of making a great deal out of the new venture.
He meant reputation; she assumed that he meant money. She began to
spend it the very next day. Even as Josiah Fosdick was denouncing her,
she was in an art store negotiating for a set of medieval tapestries for
her salon. As antiques, the tapestries were wonderful--wonderful, like
so large a part of the antiques that multimillionaires have brought over
for their houses and for the museums--wonderful as specimens of the
ingenuity of European handicraftsmen at forgery. As works of art, the
tapestries were atrocious; as household articles, they were
dangerous--filthy, dust- and germ-laden rags. But "everybody" was
getting antique tapestries; Mrs. Morris must have them. She was an
interesting and much-admired representative of the American woman who
goes in _seriously_ for art. To go in _seriously_ for art does not mean
to cultivate one's sense of the beautiful, to learn to discriminate with
candor among good, not so good, not so bad, and bad. It means to keep
in touch with the European dealers in things artistic, real and reputed;
to be the first to follow them when, a particular fad having been mined
to its last dollar, they and their subsidized critics and connoisseurs
come out excitedly for some new period or style or school. Mrs. Morris
was regarded as one of the first authorities in fashionable New York on
matters of art. Her house was enormously admired; she was known to
every dealer from Moscow to the tip of the Iberian peninsula; and
incredible were the masses of trash they had worked off upon her and,
through her recommendations, upon her friends.
Her "amazing artistic discernment"--so Sunnywall, the most fashionable
of the fashionable architects, described it--was the bulwark of her
social position. Whenever a voice lifted against the idle lives of
fashionable people, how conclusive to reply, "Look at Mrs. Joe
Morris--she's typical. She devotes her life to art. It's incalculable
what she has done toward interesting the American people in art." She
even had fame in a certain limited way. Her name was spoken with
respect from Maine to California in those small but conspicuous circles
where possession of more or less wealth and a great deal of empty time
has impelled the women to occupy themselves with books, pictures,
statuary, furniture they think they ought to like. To what fantastic
climaxes prosperity has brought the old American passion for
self-development! The men, to shrewd and shameless prostitution in the
market-places; the women, to the stupefying ignorance of the culture
that consists in the mindless repetitions of the slang and cant and
nonsense of intellectual fakirs.
Mrs. Morris told her husband about the new tapestries at dinner. That
was her regular time for imparting to him anything she knew he would be
"troublesome" about; and it was rapidly ruining his digestion. She
chose dinner because the presence of the servants made it impossible for
him to burst out until the fact that the thing was done and could not be
undone had time to batter down his wrath. Usually she spoke between
soup and fish--she spoke thus early that she might gain as much time as
possible. So often did she have these upsetting communications to make
that he got in the habit of dreading those two courses as a
transatlantic captain dreads the Devil's Hole; and on evenings when the
fish had come and gone with nothing upsetting from her, he had a sudden,
often exuberant rush of high spirits.
"I dropped in at Violette's to-day for another look at those
tapestries," she began.
At "Violette's" he paused in lifting the spoon to his lips; at
"tapestries" he pricked his ears--one of the greatest trials of his
wife's married life was that independent motion of his ears, "just like
one of the lower animals or something in a side show," she often
complained.
"And I simply couldn't resist," she ended, looking like a happy, spoiled
child. He dropped the spoon with a splash.
"Do be careful, Joe," she remonstrated sweetly. "We can't change the
dinner-cloth every night, and such frequent washing is _ruinous_. I had
them sent home, and you'll be entranced when you see them."
"Did you give Violette his original price?" he demanded, as his color,
having reached an apoplectic blue-red, began to pale toward the normal.
"He wouldn't come down a cent. And I don't blame him."
Morris glowered at the butler and the footman. They went about their
business as if quite unconscious of the work of peace they were
doing--and were expected by their mistress to do. Mrs. Morris talked on
and on, pretending to assume that he was as delighted with her purchase
as was she. She discoursed of these particular tapestries, of
tapestries in general, of the atmosphere they brought into a house--"the
suggestion, the very spirit of the old, beautiful life of the upper
classes in the Middle Ages." By the time dinner was over she had talked
herself so far away from the sordid things of life that the coarsest
nature would have shrunk from intruding them. But on that evening
Morris was angry through and through. When they left the dining room,
she said, "Now, come and look at them, dear."
"No," he said savagely. He threw open the door of his study. "Come in
here. I want to talk to you."
She hesitated. A glance at his fury-blanched face convinced her that,
if she made it necessary, he would seize her and thrust her in. As the
door closed on them with a bang, the butler said to the footman,
"Letty's done it once too often."
The footman tiptoed toward the door. The butler stopped him with, "You
couldn't hear bloody murder through that study door, and the keyhole's
no good."
"Why didn't he take her to her boudoir?" grumbled the footman.
She had indeed "done it once too often." As soon as Morris had the door
locked he blazed down at her--she fresh and innocent, with her fluffy
golden hair and sweet blue eyes and dimples on either side of her pretty
mouth. "Damn you!" he exclaimed through his set teeth. "You want to
ruin me, body and soul--you vampire!"
Two big slow tears drenched her eyes. "Oh, Joe!" she implored. "What
have I done! Don't be angry with me. It kills me!" And she caught her
breath like a child trying bravely not to cry and put out her rosy arms
toward him, her round, rosy shoulders and bosom rising and falling in a
rhythmic swell.
"Don't touch me!" he all but shouted. "That's part of your infernal
game. Oh, you think I'm a fool--and so I am--so I am! But not the kind
you imagine. It hasn't been your cleverness that has made me play the
idiot, but my own weakness." He caught her by the shoulders. "What is
it?" he cried furiously, shaking her. "What's the infernal spell I get
under whenever you touch me?"
"You love me," she pleaded, "as I love you."
"Love!" he jeered. "Well, call it that--no matter. Those tapestries
have got to go back--do you hear?"
"Yes--you needn't shout, dear. Certainly they'll go back."
"You say 'certainly,' but you've no intention of sending them back. You
think this'll blow over, that you'll wheedle me round as you have a
hundred times. But I tell you, _this_ time, what I say _goes_!"
"What's the trouble, Joe? You were never like this before."
He was gnawing at his thin gray mustache and was breathing heavily.
"When I married you I was a decent sort of fellow. I had a sense of
honor and a disposition to be honest. You--you've made me into a bawd.
I tell you, not the lowest creature that parades the streets of the
slums is viler than I. That's what you and love--love!--have done for
me. My wife and love! God, woman, what you have made me do to get
money for those greedy hands of yours! Now, listen to me. You evidently
didn't listen last night when I told you my plans. No matter. Here's
the point. I'm going to sell out once more--going to play the traitor
for as big stakes as ever tempted a man. Then, I'll make the career I
once dreamed of making, and you will be second to no woman in the land.
But, no more extravagance."
"I always knew you'd be rich and famous," she cried, clasping her hands
and looking the radiant child.
"Famous, but not rich. I'm not playing for money this time. And we're
not going to have much money hereafter. I've thought it all out. We're
going to move into a smaller house; all your junk is to be sold, and
what little money it'll bring we'll put by."
She seemed to be freezing. The baby look died out of her face. Her
eyes became hard, her mouth cruel. "I don't understand," she said.
"Yes, you do, madam," he retorted. "You need not waste time in scheming
or in working your schemes. I've thought it all out. You were driving
me straight to ruin; and, when you got me there, if I hadn't
conveniently died or blown my brains out, you'd have divorced me and
fastened on some one else. I think that, like me, you used to be decent.
You've been led on and on until you've come pretty near to losing all
human feeling. Well, it's to be a right about, this instant. I'm going
back--and you've got to go back with me."
There was a note in his voice, an expression in his eyes that disquieted
her; but she had ruled him so long, had softened him from the appearance
of strength into plastic weakness so often, that she saw before her
simply a harder task than usual, perhaps the hardest task she had yet
had.
"I'll be very busy the next few months," he went on. "You must go
away--to your mother--or abroad--anywhere, so that I shan't be tempted."
"I don't want to leave you!" she cried. "I want to stay and help you."
His smile was sardonic. "No! You shall go. I've an offer for this
house, as it stands. In fact, I've sold it."
She stared wildly. "Joe!" she screamed.
"I've sold it," he repeated.
"To whom?"
His eyes shifted, and he flushed. "To Trafford," he replied, with a
sullenness, a shamefacedness that would not have escaped her had she not
been internally in such a commotion that nothing from the outside could
impress her.
"But you couldn't get a tenth what the things are worth, selling that
way."
"I got a good price," said he, his eyes averted. "Never mind what it
was."
"Why, the Traffords would have no use for this house. They've got a
palace."
"He bought it," said Morris doggedly.
"I don't believe it."
"He bought it; and I want you to tell everybody we sold at a loss--a big
loss. You can say we're thinking of living in the country. Not a word
to anyone that'd indicate there's any mystery about the sale." This
without looking up.
She studied his face--the careworn but still handsome features, the bad
lines about the eyes and mouth, the splendid intellectuality of the
brow, a confused but on the whole disagreeable report upon the life and
character within. "I think I do understand," she said slowly. Then,
like a vicious jab, "At least, as much as I want to understand."
She strolled toward the door, sliding one soft, jeweled hand
reflectively over her bare shoulders. She paused before a statuette and
inspected it carefully, her hands behind her back, her fingers slowly
locking and unlocking. Presently she gave a queer little laugh and
said, "It wasn't the house, it was _you_ Trafford bought."