THE MONEY STORM BREAKS LOOSE
AS soon as the “Rocket” had fallen away from the mocking strangers and
was heading back at nearly full speed for the Long Island coast, Eben
Moddridge came almost totteringly on deck.
“Poor Frank Delavan wasn’t aboard that other boat,” he groaned.
“No,” answered Halstead, trying hard to keep his disapproval of the
other’s cowardice from sounding in his voice.
“Then, good heavens! We must get back to East Hampton without loss of a
moment,” cried the owner’s friend.
“Don’t you think we’ll do a lot better to hustle back to Cookson’s
Bay?” demanded the young skipper. “We all of us know, as well as we
need to, that Mr. Delavan was aboard that racing boat this morning,
so we must agree that Mr. Delavan was carried ashore while that other
craft had the island between us and them. We’re out to find Mr.
Delavan, aren’t we? If we are, sir, the trail starts from Cookson’s
Bay.”
“But there are other matters you don’t understand,” replied Moddridge,
nervously. “Both Delavan and I have interests at work in Wall Street.
Those interests involve many millions of dollars. While I was hoping
every minute to come up with Frank Delavan, the chase seemed to me to
be the main thing. But I should have been in East Hampton hours ago, to
answer frantic appeals for instructions that must have been coming in
over the long distance telephone.”
“Then do you instruct me, sir, to head for East Hampton, and leave Mr.
Delavan to take his chances in the hands of rascals?”
“Don’t—don’t put it in that way,” begged Mr. Moddridge, shivering.
“Unfortunately, sir, I don’t see any other way to put the question,”
young Halstead answered.
Eben Moddridge wavered, thinking it all over in an evident frenzy.
While he was thus pondering Captain Tom was heading straight in for
where he knew Cookson’s Inlet to be.
“It’s—it’s—bad either way,” Moddridge finally confessed. “If I delay
in reaching the telephone Frank and I may lose millions through some
unfortunate turn in Wall Street. And, on the other hand, if poor Frank
has vanished, perhaps never to turn up again, he and I may both be
ruined in the money world.”
“As between losing some millions, and all,” spoke Tom, as judicially as
he could, “I should say it would be better to risk some of the money
and keep on after Mr. Delavan himself.”
“If that’s the way it appears to you, then do so,” replied Eben
Moddridge, slowly, hesitatingly. “Oh, dear, I simply can’t think when I
am so nervous.”
“This is a funny sort of an associate to take into a big money
deal,” thought Halstead, wonderingly. The young skipper discovered,
later, that Moddridge was a power in Wall Street simply because he
had inherited more millions than he was capable of handling. He was
valuable when men wanted more money for financial operations than they
themselves controlled. Moddridge was in the present big Delavan deals
simply because Moddridge had discovered that he could always trust Mr.
Delavan.
So Tom headed for Cookson’s Bay, making that shallow little body of
water in less than an hour. Another hour was spent in lowering the port
boat and in rowing Moddridge both to the little island and to the main
shore. It was a sparsely settled region. Only one of the cottages
on the little island was occupied, and that only by a bachelor who
admitted that he had been asleep at the time when the two motor boats
had dodged about the island. He aided, however, in searching the other
two cottages, but no sign was found of Mr. Delavan or of his probable
captors. The search was continued on the main shore, with no better
results.
“Now, we simply must get back to East Hampton,” urged Moddridge, and
Halstead was reluctantly of the same opinion.
“If Frank can’t be found soon,” chattered the nervous one, as the
“Rocket” headed toward her pier at East Hampton, “and if the news
becomes public, then every stock he is heavily interested in will go
away down on the Stock Exchange.”
“Why?” asked Tom Halstead.
“Why, people will think there’s something queer about the
disappearance,” Moddridge explained. “Take the P. & Y. Railroad, for
instance. Its capital is eighty million dollars. Delavan owns fifteen
million of that himself. He’s the president, biggest stockholder,
and the virtual czar of that railroad. If Frank can’t be found, what
will folks be apt to think? Why, simply that he has been guilty of
criminally mismanaging the railroad, for his own profit, and that now
he has fled to some foreign country to hide away from the American
law. P. & Y. stock will take a fearful drop.”
“That won’t happen, all in a day, will it?” questioned Captain Tom.
“It might. It will be sure to happen within a very few days, if Frank
doesn’t show up again. Wall Street is the most sensitive place in the
world. Let a breath of suspicion blow against a certain stock, and
that stock drops and drops, until perhaps it goes down out of sight.
Everyone who has his whole fortune invested in that stock may be ruined
by the smash. If the P. & Y. stock goes down, it will knock Frank’s
deals and mine into a cocked hat.”
“Why?” asked Tom, wonderingly.
“Why?” repeated Eben Moddridge, shiveringly. “Why, I’ve told you that
Frank holds fifteen millions of P. & Y. stock. I hold five millions
myself. Frank told you, yesterday, that we were plunging in Steel and
other allied stocks that Mr. Gordon influences heavily. Steel and
those other stocks are going to work up and down, like a see-saw, for
the next few days. To raise the funds for our operations Frank and I
have been pledging our P. & Y. stock, which stands at 102. But suppose
Delavan can’t be found, and P. & Y. drops to forty—or even thirty?”
gasped Eben Moddridge. “What would happen then?”
“Well, what would happen?” questioned Tom Halstead, to whom the whole
vast Wall Street game was a great puzzle.
“Why, if P. & Y. tumbles like that,” continued Eben Moddridge, “the
great banking houses that have been advancing us money on P. & Y. stock
to play with Steel and allied stocks will be forced to call in their
loans in order to protect themselves. Frank Delavan and I are pledged
as heavily as we possibly can be. We couldn’t raise five million
dollars more between us. So, if the bottom drops out of the P. & Y.
stock Delavan and myself stand to be wiped off the board in all our
deals—ruined!”
The last word came from Moddridge in a sobbing gasp. He was clutching
at the rail as the “Rocket” moved in nearer to her pier.
“Halstead,” he continued soon, “as quickly as we land, I want you to
get a carriage and rush to the telephone office with me. I’m so excited
I feel as though I’d fall over in a faint. You must go with me—remain
with me until this fearful ordeal is over.”
Half a dozen well-dressed, alert-looking young men who stood on the
pier seemed to be greatly interested in the “Rocket” as that boat was
berthed. Jed was at the wheel as Captain Tom stood by the rail, ready
to leap ashore.
“Mr. Francis Delavan aboard?” hailed one of the young men, just as the
young skipper’s feet touched the pier.
“Why do you want to know?” Halstead cross-questioned.
“I’m from the New York ‘Herald’,” replied the young man. “I am here to
interview Mr. Delavan.”
“I’m from the ‘World’,” added another young man. Halstead at once
understood that this group was made up of reporters.
“Mr. Delavan didn’t go out with us this morning,” replied Captain Tom,
while Eben Moddridge surveyed the reporters, uneasily. Seeing a cab up
the road, Halstead signaled it vigorously.
“Where is Mr. Delavan?” demanded the “World” representative.
“That’s Mr. Delavan’s business. I can’t tell you,” replied Tom, a bit
stiffly.
“Is his friend, Mr. Moddridge, aboard? Is _that_ Mr. Moddridge?” asked
another of the reporters. The nervous man, under the concentrated gaze
of six reporters, became more nervous than ever.
“Gentlemen,” went on Halstead, hurriedly, drawing out his watch just
as the vehicle rolled down to the pier and stopped, “it’s twenty-five
minutes of three, and the Stock Exchange in New York closes at three
o’clock. That is Mr. Moddridge on board, but he is in a rush to reach
the telephone office, and he can’t lose even a second until he has
talked with New York.”
Halstead almost led the nervous one from the boat to the cab, helping
him inside, and getting in with him.
“Wait here, gentlemen, if you wish to talk with Mr. Moddridge,” coaxed
Tom. As the cab started one of the reporters bounded up onto the step,
from which he was adroitly yanked by Jed Prentiss. Then the driver
whipped his horses forward, and the reporters were distanced for the
time being.
Yet one of the press scribes, as he ran along in the vain effort to
overtake the cab, shouted:
“There’s a mysterious report in New York that everything is wrong with
the P. & Y., and that Delavan has absconded to some other country. Can
you say anything to that, Mr. Moddridge?”
If Moddridge could, he didn’t. Instead, his jaw dropped. He reeled to
one side as though about to fall from the seat. Tom hastily changed to
the same seat, supporting the worried man.
“So the news has already reached New York and Wall Street?” he asked,
faintly.
“If it has,” whispered Halstead, watching to see whether the driver was
trying to listen, “then it’s because the crowd back of the trouble
took pains to send word in early this morning. Mr. Moddridge, the news
must have been known hours ago, since reporters have had time to get
away out here from the city.”
“If——”
“Don’t try to say any more, Mr. Moddridge,” urged Halstead, again in a
whisper. “The driver may be trying to overhear.”
As they reached the telephone office, and got out, Tom hurriedly paid
the driver, then escorted Mr. Moddridge inside. The manager of the
office looked up to say, briskly:
“The wire in booth number two is waiting for you, Mr. Moddridge.”
“Come in the booth with me, Halstead,” begged Moddridge, shaking. “I
may need you, if my voice is too unsteady.”
So the young skipper followed his employer’s friend into the booth,
making sure that the door was tightly closed. Hardly had this been done
when three of the reporters, who had followed in another carriage,
entered the office. The manager, however, would not allow them near the
booth.
The telephone instrument was already directly connected with a broker’s
office in Wall Street, New York City. Immediately after he had rung
Moddridge asked:
“Is that you, Coggswell? How is everything going?”
Tom Halstead, standing close to the receiver, could hear the reply:
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Moddridge? Where on earth is Mr. Delavan?”
“He is not here just now.”
“Mr. Moddridge,” came the earnest voice from the other end of the wire,
“I hope you will be able to get hold of Mr. Delavan at the earliest
possible moment. P. & Y. has gone down, to-day, from 102 to 91.
There’ll be a further drop unless you can bring Delavan to the fore.”
Eben Moddridge groaned. Tom could see perspiration oozing out on the
nervous one’s face and neck.
“There are persistent rumors,” continued Broker Coggswell, “that
Delavan has secretly and systematically wrecked the P. & Y. Railroad,
and that the road’s finances are in a bad condition. The newspapers
have taken up the yarn, and there’s a bad flurry in all Delavan stocks.”
“The reporters are out here, trying to interview me,” admitted Mr.
Moddridge.
“Then,” begged the New York broker, “produce Delavan at the earliest
possible moment, and let the reporters interview him. It will do a lot
to steady your interests in Wall Street. Where is Mr. Delavan, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you that over the wire, Mr. Coggswell. I’ll write you
this afternoon.”
“Is it true that Delavan has fled, and is in hiding on account of
financial irregularities with the P. & Y. Railroad?”
“It’s wholly false, Coggswell,” cried Moddridge, hoarsely.
“Then hurry up and produce him, or the banks will call your loans, and
you’ll both go under in the crash, besides dragging a good many scores
of innocent people down with you.”
“Oh, I hope it won’t be as bad as that,” shivered Moddridge.
“If you and Delavan go under during the next few days,” warned Broker
Coggswell, “Wall Street is so shaky and suspicious that a good many
failures will result.”
“I’ll put Delavan in touch with you at the earliest possible moment,”
promised Eben Moddridge. “And now, as my watch tells me it’s ten
minutes to closing time on the Stock Exchange, I’ll wait right here for
the day’s final news.”
As soon as he had turned away from the instrument Moddridge looked out
through the glass door of the booth at the reporters hovering by the
street door.
“There’s a side door out of this place, Halstead,” whispered the
nervous one. “I don’t want to have to meet all those reporters again.
Slip into another booth and ’phone the Eagle House to have Delavan’s
car rushed down to the side door.”
Tom Halstead accomplished this, returning to the booth before Broker
Coggswell called up Mr. Moddridge.
It was a few minutes after three when that call came.
“You, Moddridge?” demanded the New York broker’s voice.
“Yes, Coggswell.”
“P. & Y. has broken down to 86. If it goes to 85 in the morning, either
you’ll have to put up extra collateral for your loans and Delavan’s, or
the bankers will call in your loans.”
“Good heavens!” shuddered Mr. Moddridge.
“But Delavan’s reappearance will stop all the wild rumors, and P. &
Y. ought to climb back up where it belongs. Be swift and active, Mr.
Moddridge, for you know how many millions are at stake. I shall be here
at my office for two hours yet for the situation looks black at this
end.”
“Brace up, sir, please do,” begged Tom, anxiously, as Eben Moddridge
turned away from the instrument and rose, his face haggard and ashen
gray, his knees tottering under him. “The reporters will see you. Think
what they may imagine if you look scared to death. A frightened face
may cost you millions at this time! Throw your head up and back. Laugh,
then keep smiling. That’s right; now come!”
Delavan’s automobile was waiting up the street a little way. As soon as
the clever chauffeur saw the pair appear at the side door, the machine
glided up to that side door, the nearer tonneau door open. Into it
stepped Moddridge and the young skipper, the latter closing the door.
The machine turned and was rolling away just as the reporters, suddenly
alert, hurried to the spot.
Arrived at the hotel, Eben Moddridge got to his room as quickly as
possible. There, all disguise dropping, he began to shake so that he
was forced to drop into a chair.
“Tell the clerk I want no cards; that I’m too busy to see any callers,”
directed the nervous one. “Tell him, on no account, to let anyone get
up here. Yet, Halstead, someone must see the reporters. Why can’t you
do it? Your nerve is all right. See them! Talk to them. But don’t let
them know we can’t find Delavan. Go! To the clerk, first, then the
reporters.”
Slipping downstairs, Captain Tom Halstead was able to fill both orders
at the same time, for the reporters were all at the clerk’s desk,
offering their cards. At sight of Halstead the six scribes bore down
upon him.
“You can’t see Mr. Moddridge for two or three hours, anyway,” Tom
assured the gentlemen of the press. “Every instant of his time is taken
up. If there’s anything I can properly tell you, I’ll do so.”
“Where’s Delavan?” the six chorused together.
“Why do you want to know that?” inquired Halstead, innocently.
“Why?” replied one of the reporters. “Because it is reported and
believed that Francis Delavan has wrecked the P. & Y. Railroad, that he
has sent the proceeds of his work out of the country, and that he has
followed the money. There’s another story to the effect that Delavan,
overcome with horror, has committed suicide by drowning himself in
nearby waters. There’s a big tumble in Wall Street, already, and the
money storm is breaking loose!”