THE MELTING OF MILLIONS
IT would have been worse than useless to have tried to jump into the
breach just before the car started. At the least, Tom Halstead would
have been made a prisoner by these desperate plotters.
Free, though he could not immediately aid Mr. Delavan, the young
skipper could at least carry word of what he had seen. He could rouse
Eben Moddridge to action, or, anyway, to the putting up of money that
would put other and more capable men in action.
Yet the boy felt like grinding his teeth in chagrin and bitter
disappointment as he saw that swift touring car glide swiftly off the
grounds to the road.
He had started to run after the car, hoping to overtake it before it
got fully under speed, and to catch on in some way behind. But almost
at once he saw that there was nothing to catch hold of at the rear, and
immediately afterwards the car shot ahead at a speed of forty miles an
hour.
“Whee! I hope the officers stop them, somewhere, for speeding,” thought
Halstead, with a half hopeful grin as he slowed down to a walk. It
would hardly do, however, to expect the car to be stopped for going
only forty miles an hour on Long Island.
As the young skipper stepped out, panting, through the gate, he
remembered the necessity of proceeding cautiously, lest he run afoul
of Justin Bolton, who could not be far away, and was on foot. That
scheming financier carried a revolver, and had shown himself not slow
to use it. After half an hour Halstead felt that the danger of meeting
Bolton was slight, and hurried on faster.
It was late in the evening when Tom Halstead entered the hotel grounds
at East Hampton. A short distance away he had halted long enough to
remove all excessive amounts of dust from clothing and shoes. In order
to appear neither excited nor in haste, he sauntered slowly enough
through the grounds, approached the veranda, stood there two or three
minutes, walked about a bit in the lobby—long enough to see that two
of the New York reporters were still on the scene—and at last escaped,
without attracting special notice, up the stairs. Now he hastened to
the door of Mr. Moddridge’s rooms, and knocked briskly.
“It’s Halstead, Mr. Moddridge,” he replied, in answer to a shaking
query from within. The door flew open like magic.
“Halstead? Where have you been all these hours?” came the peevish
question, as Eben Moddridge, in negligee attire and looking like a more
than ill man, faced the young skipper. “You——”
Tom went inside, closed the door, and led the nervous one to an inner
room. Here the motor boat boy poured out the whole story of what he had
been through.
“Why, your new boy, Butts, hasn’t been near me with a word of this,”
gasped Moddridge, presently.
“That must have been because he didn’t know you, of course,” evaded
Halstead, easily. “But now, Mr. Moddridge, it will be necessary to pull
all your wits together if you’re to save your friend and yourself. What
should be the first move?”
“Oh, dear,” cried the nervous one, pacing the floor, “I honestly don’t
know. I don’t see my way. Why did Delavan ever allow himself to get
into such a dreadful mess? If he had followed my advice——”
“If your advice is any good, sir,” put in Tom, crisply, “it ought to be
useful, just now, in finding out the way to extricate Mr. Delavan from
his present troubles. Now, what ought to be the first step?”
With most men Halstead would have thought himself presuming to go so
far. But the case was tremendously pressing, and it took more than a
little to get Eben Moddridge started.
By slow degrees Moddridge pulled himself together. He wouldn’t hear to
calling in the reporters and making the whole story public as far as it
was known.
“The public would regard it all as a cock-and-bull invention, gotten
up to hide Delavan’s supposed flight,” the nervous one rather sensibly
declared. “And, if we were to drag Bolton’s name in, Bolton would be
very likely to give us the trouble of proving the whole story, mostly
on your unsupported word, Halstead, with a little corroboration, of
course, from your very eccentric new steward—Butts, did you call him?
Besides, if Frank Delavan were here, I think he would prefer to scheme
secretly to punish Justin Bolton, instead of going after him openly.”
“Who is this Bolton?” asked Tom Halstead.
“A man whom Delavan helped to make the start of his fortune. But Bolton
is unscrupulous and dangerous; Frank had to drop him years ago.”
The idea of sending for detectives Eben Moddridge also declined to
entertain.
“No matter how secretly we may think we hire detectives,” he objected,
“it is pretty sure to leak out. The Wall Street public would take that
as a sensational feature, and P. & Y. would drop lower than ever in the
market. No, no, Halstead; we won’t think of hiring detectives until we
have tried other means. Now, what remains to be done!”
Tom Halstead pondered before he answered:
“Bolton’s intention seems to be to take Mr. Delavan off Long Island on
that racing launch. It will probably be at some point within twenty
or thirty miles of here, either east or west. If we could put enough
men on watch, we could find out when that launch attempts to put out
to sea. But you object to using detectives. I wonder if there are any
other men we could trust, instead of using detectives? Say,” proposed
the young skipper, suddenly, “you both trust your broker, Coggswell,
don’t you?”
“Very thoroughly,” admitted Moddridge, pausing in his nervous walk to
stare hard at the young skipper.
“Then why not get hold of Coggswell, at his home to-night, over the
telephone? Ask him to send out some of his clerks whom he knows to be
reliable. He might even send out a few other young men that he could
vouch for?”
“But what good would they be?” asked Eben Moddridge.
“I can take the map of this coast, sir, and lay out stations for these
young men, so that there’ll be one or two of ’em every few miles east
and west of here. I can give them perfect descriptions of the racing
launch. They can be provided with marine glasses. Just the instant that
any one of them spots the racing launch he can telephone me. Then,
whether the launch has Mr. Delavan aboard, and is putting out to sea,
or is going after him, I can do my best to follow in the ‘Rocket.’
Since you are opposed to hiring detectives, Mr. Moddridge, that’s the
best thing I can see that is left to do.”
After some further talk the nervous financier agreed to this. He called
up Broker Coggswell by ’phone, at the latter’s home in New York. Mr.
Coggswell agreed to send down twenty capable and honest young men by
the earliest train in the morning.
That being all that could be done for the present, Captain Tom Halstead
returned to the “Rocket.” Joe Dawson and Hank Butts were both up,
waiting for him. For the next hour, sitting on the deck house of the
boat, in the dark, still watches of the night, talking in whispers,
the boys discussed all the latest phases of the puzzling affair. Then
Tom turned in below, Joe doing likewise, leaving Butts on deck for the
first watch.
“He can be wholly depended upon, can’t he, Tom?” Dawson asked.
“Who? Hank Butts? Joe, even though Hank has struggled into one of Jed’s
uniforms, he may still look like a Simple Simon, but don’t lose any
sleep worrying about Hank!”
Early in the morning the young skipper was astir again. Hiring a
bicycle he wheeled rapidly to the next railway station above East
Hampton. There the young men sent by Broker Coggswell left the train.
Their leader reported to Halstead with the whispered watchword provided
by the New York broker. Tom led them off in private, unfolded the map
he had brought with him, and assigned to each young man the station
he was to watch day and night. For this purpose the young men were
sent away in pairs. When the instructions had been given and fully
understood, Halstead leisurely pedaled back to East Hampton.
“Those young fellows all look bright,” he thought. “If they serve
faithfully, they may be able to give us the very warning that we shall
need.”
Eben Moddridge, who rarely slept more than two or three hours at a
time, was awake when the young skipper called on him. Moddridge had
arranged for a direct wire from his room to Coggswell’s office in New
York, and was feverishly awaiting the hour of nine, when the great
Stock Exchange would open for the day’s dealings in money.
“I feel as though my death sentence must come through this instrument,”
groaned the nervous financier, tapping the telephone.
At last the call came. Now Moddridge had abundant excuse for being
nervous. The day in New York opened with P. & Y. at 87.
“Two points lower,” sighed the nervous one, “and the bankers will begin
to call in the loans with which Frank and I have been buying Steel.”
Half an hour later P. & Y. touched 85.
“We’ve got to put up some money to the banks now,” stated Coggswell.
“But Steel has been doing a little. If you authorize me, I can sell out
some Steel and allied securities, and meet the first demand from the
banks on your account.”
“What shall I do?” shivered Moddridge, turning appealingly to the
“Rocket’s” skipper.
“Why, I don’t know a blessed thing about the game,” Tom admitted,
promptly. “But I should take Coggswell’s advice. He seems to have a
clear head.”
Eben Moddridge acted on the suggestion. But the New York newspapers
were printing columns about the disappearance of Delavan, and more
about the shakiness of P. & Y. stock. By noon the P. & Y. stock had
dropped to 81. Coggswell had closed out more of the Delavan-Moddridge
buyings in Steel, and thus had averted a crash for those interests.
“If Steel will only go up as P. & Y. goes down,” smiled Halstead
cheerily, “you will be able to keep even.”
“That is, one debt will wipe out the other, and leave Frank and myself
penniless,” replied Eben Moddridge, with a ghastly face.
The Stock Exchange closed for the day with P. & Y. at 76, that is, at
a selling price of seventy-six dollars per share, instead of a hundred
and two dollars per share as it had been forty-eight hours earlier. So
far, by sales of Steel and its allied securities, Broker Coggswell had
been able to keep the Delavan-Moddridge interests from going wholly to
smash.
“But there’s to-morrow to face,” almost shrieked the nervous financier.
“To-day millions of our money have literally melted away. If to-morrow
brings no change in our luck, we shall both be ruined!”
The only change of the next day was to carry P. & Y. as low as 71,
where it remained for the time being. Having between three and four
millions of dollars left in private funds, Moddridge, shaking like a
leaf, had ordered Coggswell to turn this last remnant of his fortune
into the joint Delavan-Moddridge interests. Thus again the banks had
been staved off for a little while.
“But the next drop in P. & Y. will eat up all our Steel investments,
and Frank and I won’t have another penny to turn in,” sobbed the
nervous one. “Then the banks will have to close us out to save
themselves. Frank Delavan and I will be beggars!”
Tottering to the bed in the adjoining room, Eben Moddridge threw
himself across it, sobbing hysterically.
Tom Halstead, however, gazed after the nervous financier with a new,
deeper feeling of respect.
“I don’t understand very much about this Wall Street game, and my
head is lined with a maze of figures,” the young skipper muttered
to himself. “But there’s a heap of the man in you, Moddridge. When
you might have saved a very decent fortune to yourself, you threw it
into the whirlpool to try to protect your absent friend. Yon may be
a nervous wreck, but hang me if you aren’t a whole lot of a man at
bottom!”