daybreak. But hear me, Kilgariff. I’m a gambler, as you know, not in
one way, but in all ways. And I know how to be a good loser. I’ve drawn
a very bad hand this time, but I’ve called the game; and if I’m hanged
for it, I shall not whine about my luck. Whenever I die, and however I
die, I’ll die game. So you can’t intimidate me. But before I die, there
are certain things I want to tell you—for the sake of the others. For
although I have no moral principles and don’t profess any, there are
some things I want to tell you about—”
“Go on. Tell me about my brother.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about first. Besides, you know most
of the story.”
“Never mind that. I want to hear it all from your lips. Much of it I
never understood. Tell it all and quickly.”
“Well, your brother’s a fool, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Otherwise—never mind that. Tell me the whole story. How
far was my brother a sharer in your guilt? How far did he consent to
my wrecking? Why did he join you for my destruction, after all I had
done for him?”
“It’s very hard to say. Opinions differ, and standards of morality—”
“Damn opinions and standards!—especially yours. I want the facts—all
of them, to the last detail. Go on, and don’t waste time.”
“Well, your brother is a fool, as I said before, though in the end he
did ‘make his jack’ and win a pot of money. But that was good luck—not
good play.”
“Don’t fall into reflections,” interrupted Kilgariff, seeing that
Campbell was in a reminiscent mood. “We’ve no time for that sort of
thing. Go on with the facts.”
“Well, you see your brother was that sort of man about whom people say
that he was ‘more sinned against than sinning.’ He always wanted to do
right, and if he could have got a good steady job as a millionaire, I
don’t know anybody who would have been more scrupulously upright than
he. You see, he really thought he had principles—moral character and
that sort of thing—when he hadn’t anything of the kind. Many people
deceive themselves in that way. I never did. I was born of as good a
family as yours, or any other. I was raised in the most honourable
traditions, and as a young man I was reckoned a pattern of high-minded
conduct. I knew all the time that I had no moral character, no
principles. Or rather, I gradually became conscious of that fact.”
Kilgariff was exceedingly impatient of this autobiography, but he
thought the shortest way to the man’s facts was to let him talk on in
his own way. So he forebore to interrupt, and Campbell continued:—
“I would have killed any man who called me a liar, but I never
hesitated to lie when lying seemed to me of advantage. I was scrupulous
in paying my debts and discharging every social duty, but I knew myself
well enough to know that if an opportunity came to me to rob any man
without being found out, I would do it and not hesitate or repent over
it. Like the great majority of men, I was honest only as a matter of
policy. I had no moral character. Most people haven’t any, but they go
on thinking they have and pretending about it until they completely
deceive themselves. They refuse to take the old sage’s advice to ‘know
thyself.’ I took it. I early learned to know myself.
“But if I had no principles, I at least had sentiments. One of those
sentiments was pride in my family. When I saw clearly that I was
going to be an adventurer, a gambler, a swindler, a man living by his
wits, I did not shrink from that, but I shuddered at the thought of
disgracing the name I bore. So I decided not to bear that name, but to
choose another. At first I thought of calling myself ‘George Washington
Bib’—just for the humour of the thing. The sudden slump from the
resonance of ‘George Washington’ to the monosyllabic inconsequence
of ‘Bib’ struck me as funny. But I reflected that while I had never
heard of anybody named Bib, there might be people by that name. Still
further, it occurred to me that anybody on being introduced to George
Washington Bib would be sure to remember the name, and in the career I
had marked out for myself that might be inconvenient. So I made up my
mind to call myself Campbell. There are so many families of that name,
and they are so prolific, that the mere name means nothing—not even
a probability of kinship. But you’re not interested in all this. You
want to hear about your brother.”
“Yes,” answered Kilgariff.
“Well, your brother was highly respectable, as you know. He was
comfortably rich at the first, and after he lost most of his money he
struggled hard to keep up the pretence of being still comfortably rich.
He did the thing very cleverly, and it let him into several pretty good
things in Wall Street. But it let him into a good many very bad things
also, and in his over-anxiety to become really rich again, he went into
the bad things headforemost and blindfold. I was posing as a lawyer
then, you know, and cutting a large swath. I really had no regular
practice of any consequence, but I kept two large suites of offices and
any number of clerks, as a blind, and I managed every now and then to
find out things that I could turn to account—”
“Blackmail, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose you’d call it that, but always with a weather eye on
the law. You see, when an active lawyer finds out that a big banker
has been doing things he oughtn’t, the big banker is apt to conclude
that he needs the services of precisely that particular lawyer as
private counsel. There are big fees in the business sometimes, but
it’s risky and uncertain. So I had my ups and downs. I was in one
of the very worst of my downs when this bank affair fell in. I had
been a bank examiner at one time, and had twice examined the affairs
of this bank. I knew that its deposits were enormous and its assets
sufficient, if properly handled, to pay out everything and leave a
large surplus, besides something for the receiver. So I decided to
become in effect, though not in fact, the receiver. I owned a judge.
He owed me money which he couldn’t pay, and that money was owing on
account of things which he couldn’t on any consideration allow to
be inquired into in ‘proceedings.’ Moreover, I knew a lot of other
things which in themselves made me his master. Still again, his term
was nearly at an end, and I had the political influence necessary to
secure or defeat his renomination and re-election, as I might choose.
In short, I owned him body and soul. So, when it fell to him to appoint
a receiver for this bank, he naturally sent for me in consultation.
His idea was to appoint me to the receivership, but I saw clearly
that that would not do. It would raise a row, for I was pretty well
known to the big financiers, many of whom had been obliged to employ
me by way of silencing me at one time or another. But more important
than that was the fact that the plans I had formed for the handling of
the bank’s affairs involved a good deal of risk to the receiver. The
bank had a great many investments that must be closed out in order to
put the institution on its feet again, and there are various ways of
closing out such investments. It was my idea that they should be so
closed out as to leave the bank just barely solvent and able to pay its
depositors, you understand—”
“Yes—and that you and your pals should pocket the surplus.”
“Precisely. I didn’t imagine you had so good a head for business.”
“Never mind my head. Consider your own neck, and go on with the story.”
“Now won’t you understand,” said the adventurer, “that I’m not thinking
about my neck? I’ve staked that as my ’ante’ in this game, and I never
ask the ante back. Well, I showed my judge that it wouldn’t do at all
to make me receiver, but I told him I would find him the right man.
Your brother had already occurred to me as available. He was in extreme
financial difficulties at that time. He was in arrears in his club
dues, and his tailor’s bills, and even to his servants. He had sold out
every bond and every share of stock he owned, and still his debts were
sorely pressing him. He lived at a fine though small place just out
of town, where he and his wife and daughters entertained sumptuously.
For even to his wife and daughters he kept up the pretence of being
comfortably rich, so that they had no hesitation in giving orders at
the caterers’ and the florists’ and directing that the bills be sent to
him.
“I knew his condition. I knew that he was passing sleepless nights in
dreadful apprehension of the quickly coming time when the florists and
the caterers would surely refuse to fill the orders of his wife and
daughters on the ground that he owed them and didn’t pay.
“One day I sent for him to dine with me in a private room at an
expensive hotel. I vaguely suggested to him that his fortune was made;
that within a few days I should be able to put him in position to
twiddle his fingers at the florists and the caterers. But I gave him no
details. I gave him limitless champagne instead, and, as my digestion
resented champagne at that time, I excused myself from drinking more
than a very small share of the enticing beverage. We decided to play
poker, after dinner, just for amusement. The chips were valued high—a
dollar for a white chip, two and a half for a red, and five dollars for
a blue.
“For a time your brother had marvellous ‘luck.’ He won enough of my
paper promises to pay to make him feel already quite independent of
the caterers and the florists, and to convince him that at poker I was
exceedingly easy prey to a man who ‘really understood the game,’ as he
conceitedly thought he did. Well, we played on till morning; and when
sunrise came, he had given me his I O U’s for more money than he had
ever owned in his life.”
“That is to say, you had made him drunk on champagne, and then had
cheated him without limit?”
“Well, yes, that’s about it. Anyhow, I owned him. After he had got over
the headache and the champagne, he came to me at my office to see what
could be done by way of compromise. I told him that I had no money and
no resources except my wits; I frankly confessed that but for certain
cash payments he had made early in the game, I could not have paid for
the hotel room and tipped the waiters to the tune that waiters set when
they are privy to a game of that kind.
“‘But it’s all right,’ I assured him. ‘Don’t bother about the I O U’s.
They’ll keep. They are debts of honour, of course, but they needn’t
be paid till it is convenient to pay them; and when you go into the
position that I’ve secured for you, it will be not only convenient, but
exceedingly easy.’
“Then I told him about the receivership and my purpose to have him
appointed. I explained that in the mere matter of commissions it would
give him a princely income, to say nothing of perquisites. I didn’t
explain what ‘perquisites’ in such a case meant. That was because I had
no moral character. He didn’t ask. That was because he thought he had a
moral character and wished to spare it affront.
“It was easily arranged that the judge I owned should appoint as
receiver the man I owned. But I didn’t own my man completely, as yet.
He owed me more money, as a debt of honour, than he could pay at that
time; but once in the receivership, he could quickly pay off all that,
and then I shouldn’t own him at all. Indeed, he might have repudiated
the I O U’s as illegal gambling debts; he might have refused to pay
them at all. But I wasn’t afraid of that. Your brother fondly imagined
that he was a man of honour, of high moral principle, and so I knew
that in order to keep up that pretence with himself he would stand by
his debts of honour. But I foresaw that he might presently discharge
them all, out of the proceeds of the receivership, and send me adrift.
I must get a stronger grip on him. So I told my judge to send for him
and say certain things to him.
“‘You must setup a house,’ the judge told him, ‘in a fashionable
quarter of the town, by way of maintaining your position. You see, it
won’t do for me to put anybody in charge of those many millions who
isn’t recognised as himself a man of independent wealth. You must have
a good house and enlarge your establishment. The receivership will
abundantly recoup you in the end, but from the beginning we must keep
up appearances.’
“Your brother came to me in great distress of mind to tell me what
the judge had required of him. He frankly told me he hadn’t the money
necessary to make a first payment on the lease of a town house, to
furnish it suitably, and to establish himself in it. I pretended to
be worried over the matter, and I took twenty-four hours in which to
think about it. Then I sent for your brother again and told him I saw a
way out; that certain clients of mine had money to invest on bond and
mortgage, and had placed it in my hands; that by a little stretching of
my authority I could let him have the amount he needed, as a mortgage
loan on his place in the country. I saw his face fall when I suggested
this, as I had expected to see it fall. Presently he explained that in
order to give a mortgage on his country place, which really stood in
his wife’s name and had in fact come to her as a dowry, he must get
her to execute the papers. That would be very awkward, he explained,
as he had never thought it necessary to bother his womankind about his
affairs. To ask his wife to execute a mortgage would necessitate a
statement to her of his financial position, and a whole lot more of
that sort, which I had expected. I told him I thought I could arrange
the matter; that my clients had placed their affairs completely in
my hands; that all they wanted was the prompt payment of interest
and adequate security for their invested money; that the profits of
the receivership would be ample to secure all this; and that any
arrangement I might make would never be questioned by my clients. I
told him that the mortgage security was after all only a matter of
form in a case where the other security was so ample, and that the
whole thing was in my hands. So I suggested that he should—as a mere
matter of form—execute the mortgage, himself signing his wife’s name
in her stead. I would take care of the document, not even recording
it, and the loan could be paid off presently, with nobody the wiser.
Your brother fell into the trap. He executed the mortgage, signing his
wife’s name to it, and he was at once made receiver of the bank.
“From that hour, of course, he was my property. No negro slave in all
the South was ever more completely owned, or more absolutely under the
control of his master.
“I had only to reveal the facts at any moment in order to send him to
jail. He had committed a felony—he, the highly respectable receiver of
a savings bank, and a man regarded as a leader in social and even in
religious movements of every kind. I held complete proofs of his felony
in my own hands. He must do my bidding or go to State’s prison.
“My first order to him was to put me into the bank as counsel to the
receiver, at a good salary, and also as expert accountant, at another
good salary. The bank could afford all this and vastly more. Its
assets were easily three times its liabilities—if properly handled,
and I knew how to handle them. I meant no harm to your brother.
On the contrary, I meant to make him rich and let him retire from
the completed receivership with the commendation of the court for
the masterly manner in which he had so handled the affairs of the
institution as to make good every dollar of its deposits with interest,
and to deliver it into the hands of its trustees again in a perfectly
solvent condition. You see, the assets were ample for that, and to
provide for my future besides. The only trouble before had been bad
management and a deficient knowledge of the art of bookkeeping on the
part of the respectable old galoots who had been in control of the
bank. They might easily have straightened out everything without any
court proceedings at all, if they had known how. Their violations of
the law had been purely technical—such as occur in every bank every
day—and these things can always be arranged on a good basis of assets,
if the people in charge only know how.
“Now, when I began operations in the bank, your brother was inclined
to object to some of the things I did. I had only to remind him of the
mortgage papers in order to reduce him to subjection. He still thought
he had a moral character, and so when I proposed to sell out the bank’s
securities at ten or twenty or fifty per cent less than their value,
and take a commission of five or ten or forty per cent for ourselves
from the buyers, he raised grave moral objections. But he was in no
position to insist upon them, and besides he was largely profiting by
the transactions. Meanwhile, I was slowly getting the bank’s affairs
into shape—very slowly, for there were the salaries of him and myself
to be considered. Then came the revolt of the chief bookkeeper, and
his complaint that we were robbing the bank. I tried hard to square
him, but he wouldn’t square. That fellow really had a moral character,
and, worse still, he couldn’t be scared. I showed him that as he had
already permitted false entries in the bank’s books, he must himself
be involved in any exposure that might be made. He answered that he
knew that, and was prepared to explain matters in court and ‘take
the consequences.’ Then your brother got scared half to death, and
consulted you. If he had waited for forty-eight hours, I should have
had that bookkeeper in jail, and your brother would have got credit
for extreme vigilance. But when he sent for you, all was up. You came
into the bank and practically took your brother’s place and function.
But you neglected to provide yourself with legal authority to be in the
bank at all. Another thing you didn’t reckon upon was my foresight.
I had taken pains to win several of the clerks and bookkeepers to my
side. I had ‘let them in,’ so that when you angrily dismissed me, I
still had daily and hourly information of what was going on. You found
out that the bank’s securities had been sold for less than they were
worth, and you set to work to repair the wrong. You couldn’t cancel the
sales that had been made, but you could and did pay your own money into
the bank to make good what you regarded as the defalcations. That made
it easy for me. I went to my judge—the one I owned—and laid before
him the fact that you were handling the bank’s assets without a shadow
of legal authority; that you had dismissed me—the receiver’s counsel
and expert accountant—upon discovering that I knew of defalcations,
and all the rest of it. You know that part of the story, for you
suffered from it. To save your brother, you had sacrificed large sums
of money. When that failed and you found that either he or you must go
to prison for these defalcations, you decided to sacrifice your liberty
and your reputation in order to save him and his wife and daughters.
You refused to defend yourself. I thought your plan was to get a stay,
give bail, and skip it. But you had the disadvantage of having a
moral character, so you stood your hand and were sent to prison. Your
brother, having no moral character, let you do this thing and pretended
great grief over your dishonesty and perfidy. But he had learned the
business by that time, and so he got away with the swag, and with the
reputation of a man of truly Roman virtue who suffered acutely over
the misbehaviour of his ‘black sheep’ brother. What a farce it all is
anyhow—life, I mean—if one tries to take it seriously! Let me have a
little brandy, please! I’m growing very faint.”
The brandy did its appointed work of stimulation, and presently
Campbell resumed:—
“I don’t in the least understand why you should care for your brother,
but, as you do, it may gratify you to know that he is leading a quiet
life of luxury in the country on the Hudson. He is a comfortably
rich man; for he kept the money he got out of the bank and invested
it prudently—a thing I never could do when I had money. He highly
disapproved of me, of course; but when I quitted the Southern army and
went North—”
“When you deserted, you mean.”
“Yes, if you look at it in that way—he used his influence to get me my
present commission. That was cheaper than supporting me, which he must
otherwise have done, for I had lost and squandered everything. That
brings me to what I really want to talk to you about. I have a daughter
somewhere in the South, if she is still alive. She was captured a few
months ago during an effort on the part of—well, never mind whom—to
smuggle her through the lines into the South, where she has some
relatives, though I don’t believe she knows who they are. It doesn’t
matter. They say I’ve persecuted the girl—and I suppose in a way I
have.
“Never mind that. I’m sinking fast now and haven’t any time for
explanations. I have some papers here that may mean everything to her
after she comes of age. She has been taught that she is only seventeen
years old. In fact, she is nineteen, and she must have these papers
when she is twenty-one. I sent for you to ask you to find her and
deliver them. You really have a moral character, and so you won’t trade
on this matter. With your wide acquaintance, you’ll know how to find
the girl. Her name is Evelyn Byrd.”
If a shell had exploded in the room, Kilgariff would not have been
so startled as he was by this announcement. But he had no time for
questions. He had heard picket-firing for several minutes past, and
his practised ear told him with certainty that the rattle of the
musketry was steadily drawing nearer. He knew what that meant. The
Federals were advancing in adequate force for the recapture of the
position and the destruction of Major Irby’s little handful of men.
A few minutes before Campbell made his startling announcement, a note
had come to Kilgariff from Major Irby, saying:—
“Enemy advancing in considerable force, but I can hold place for an
hour or more if absolutely necessary. You needn’t hurry. Only cut it as
short as you can.”
But just at the moment of the mention of Evelyn Byrd’s name, the voices
of two rifled cannon were heard near at hand, and Kilgariff knew the
guns for his own. Instantly he sprang up, and, taking the papers from
Campbell’s hand, passed out of the house without a word of farewell,
leaped upon his horse, and galloped to the little hill where his guns
had been posted.
It was in the gray of early dawn, and even considerable bodies of
troops could not be seen except at short distances. But the enemy was
pressing Major Irby hard, apparently bent upon capturing his force.
Both his flanks were threatened, while his centre was specially hard
pressed.
[Illustration: _TAKING THE PAPERS FROM CAMPBELL’S HAND, PASSED OUT OF
THE HOUSE WITHOUT A WORD OF FAREWELL._]
No sooner had Kilgariff reported that his mission was finished, and
that he was himself with the guns, than Irby gave some rapid commands,
threw his whole force upon the enemy with great impetuosity, and then,
while the recoil before his charge lasted, swung his little band about
and made good its escape at a gallop.
XIV
IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT
OWEN KILGARIFF was now beset with perplexities. So long as he should
continue to serve with Early in the valley, he must retain the rank
of captain which that commander had forced upon him, and this he was
determined not to do. He knew that Early had reported upon his case,
and that very certainly a commission would come to him in regular
form from Richmond. He foresaw that its coming would greatly increase
his embarrassment. He could not decline it except officially through
General Early, to whom, of course, he could give no satisfactory reason
for his erratic course.
Then, too, he was puzzled about the papers that Campbell had given him.
These clearly belonged to Evelyn, and his first impulse was to send
them to her and let her do what she would with them. But he remembered
that Campbell’s injunction had been, or seemed to be, to deliver the
documents into her hands only when she attained the age of twenty-one
years. Not knowing what might be in the papers, Kilgariff could not
know what or how much of harm might come to her from their premature
delivery.
It is true that he had given no promise to Campbell, and as for the
wishes of the adventurer, Kilgariff was in no way bound to respect
them, and certainly he was not disposed to do so. His sole concern in
the matter was for Evelyn’s welfare, and he could not make up his mind
what his course of conduct ought to be with respect to that. He needed
counsel very sorely, and there was only one man in all the South of
whom he could freely ask counsel. That man was Arthur Brent, who might
be still at Petersburg, or might have gone back to his laboratory work
at Wyanoke.