THE DEN OF THE WOLF
The street had changed its appearance in the two or three hours since
I had made my way from the Exchange through the pallid, panic-stricken
mob. There were still thousands of people between the corner of
Montgomery Street and Leidesdorff, and the little alley itself was
packed full of shouting, struggling traders. The thousands were broken
into hundreds of groups, and men were noisily buying and selling, or
discussing the chances of the market when the “big Board” should open
once more. But there was an air of confidence, almost of buoyancy, in
place of the gloom and terror that had lowered over the street at noon.
Plainly the panic was over, and men were inspirited by a belief that
“stocks were going up.”
I made a few dispositions accordingly. Taking Doddridge Knapp's hint, I
engaged another broker as a relief to Eppner, a short fat man, with the
baldest head I ever saw, a black beard and a hook-nose, whose remarkable
activity and scattering charges had attracted my attention in the
morning session.
Wallbridge was his name, I found, and he proved to be as intelligent as
I could wish--a merry little man, with a joke for all things, and a flow
of words that was almost overwhelming.
“Omega? Yes,” chuckled the stout little broker, after he had assured
himself of my financial standing. “But you ought to have bought this
morning, if that's what you want. It was hell popping and the roof
giving 'way all at once.” The little man had an abundant stock of
profanity which he used unconsciously and with such original variations
that one almost forgot the blasphemy of it while listening to him. “You
ought to have been there,” he continued, “and watched the boys shell 'em
out!”
“Yes, I heard you had lively times.”
“Boiling,” he said, with coruscating additions in the way of speech and
gesture. “If it hadn't been for Decker and some fellow we haven't had a
chance to make out yet the bottom of the market would have been resting
on the roof of the lower regions.” The little man's remark was slightly
more direct and forcible, but this will do for a revised version.
“Decker!” I exclaimed, pricking up my ears. “I thought he had quit the
market.”
As I had never heard of Mr. Decker before that moment this was not
exactly the truth, but I thought it would serve me better.
“Decker out of it!” gasped Wallbridge, his bald head positively
glistening at the absurdity of the idea. “He'll be out of it when he's
carried out.”
“I meant out of Omega. Is he getting up a deal?”
The little broker looked vexed, as though it crossed his mind that he
had said too much.
“Oh, no. Guess not. Don't think he is,” he said rapidly. “Just wanted
to save the market, I guess. If Omega had gone five points lower, there
would have been the sickest times in the Street that we've seen since
the Bank of California closed and the shop across the way,”--pointing
his thumb at the Exchange,--“had to be shut up. But maybe it wasn't
Decker, you know. That's just what was rumored on the Street, you know.”
I suspected that my little broker knew more than he was willing to tell,
but I forbore to press him further; and giving him the order to buy all
the Omega stock he could pick up under fifty, I made my way to Eppner.
The blue-black eyes of that impassive agent snapped with a glow of
interest when I gave him my order to sell the other purchases of the
morning and buy Omega, but faded into a dull stare when I lingered for
conversation.
I was not to be abashed.
“I wonder who was picking up Omega this morning?” I said.
“Oh, some of the shorts getting ready to fill contracts,” he replied in
his dry, uninterested tones.
“I heard that Decker was in the market for the stock,” I said.
The blue-black eyes gave a flash of genuine surprise.
“Decker!” he exclaimed. Then his eyes fell, and he paused a moment
before replying in his high inflexible voice. “He might be.”
“Is he after Omega, or is he just bracing up the market?”
“Excuse me,” said Eppner with the cold reflection of an apologetic tone,
“but we never advise customers. Are you walking over to the Exchange?”
In the Exchange all was excitement, and the first call brought a roar of
struggling brokers. I could make nothing of the clamor, but my nearest
neighbor shouted in my ear:
“A strong market!”
“It looks that way,” I shouted back. It certainly was strong in noise.
I made out at last that prices were being held to the figures of the
morning's session, and in some cases were forced above them.
The excitement grew as the call approached Omega. There was an electric
tension in the air that told of the anxious hopes and fears that
centered in the coming struggle. The stock was called at last, and I
looked for a roar that would shake the building and a scene of riot on
the floor that would surpass anything I had witnessed yet.
It failed to come. There was almost a pause in the proceedings.
I caught a glimpse of Doddridge Knapp across the room, looking on with a
grim smile on the wolf jaws and an apparently impassive interest in the
scene. I marveled at his coolness when his fortune, perhaps, turned on
the events of the next five minutes. He gave no sign, nor once looked in
my direction.
The clamor on the floor began and swelled in volume, and a breath of
visible relief passed over the anxious assembly.
Wallbridge and Eppner made a dive at once for a yelling broker, and
a cold chill ran down my back. I saw then that I had set my brokers
bidding against each other for the same stock.
“Great Mammon!” I thought. “If Doddridge Knapp ever finds it out, what a
circus there will be!”
“She's going up!” said my neighbor with a shout of joy. He owned none of
the stock, but like the rest of the populace he was a bull on principle.
I nodded with a dubious attempt to imitate his signs of satisfaction.
Forty-five--forty-seven--fifty-five--it was going up by leaps. I blessed
the forethought that had suggested to me to put a limit on Wallbridge
and stop the competition between my agents at fifty. The contest grew
warmer. I could follow with difficulty the course of the proceedings,
but I knew that Omega was bounding upward.
The call closed amid animation; but the excitement was nothing compared
to the scene that had followed the fall in the morning. Omega stood at
eighty asked, and seventy-eight bid, and the ship of the stock gamblers
was again sailing on an even keel. Some hundreds had been washed
overboard, but there were thousands left, and nobody foresaw the day
when the market would take the fashion of a storm-swept hulk, with only
a chance survivor clinging here and there to the wreckage and exchanging
tales of the magnificence that once existed.
The session was over at last, and Wallbridge and Eppner handed me their
memoranda of purchases.
“You couldn't pick Omega off the bushes this afternoon, Mr. Wilton,”
said Wallbridge, wiping his bald head vigorously. “There's fools at all
times, and some of 'em were here and ready to drop what they had; but
not many. I gathered in six hundred for you, but I had to fight for it.”
I thanked the merry broker, and gave him a check for his balance.
Eppner had done some better with a wider margin, but all told I had
added but three thousand one hundred shares to my list. I wondered how
much of this had been sold to me by my employer. Plainly, if Doddridge
Knapp was needing Omega stock he would have to pay for it.
There was no one to be seen as I reached Room 15. The connecting door
was closed and locked, and no sound came from behind it. I turned
to arrange the books, to keep from a bad habit of thinking over the
inexplicable. But there was nothing exciting enough, in the statutes
or reports of court decisions or text-books, to cover up the questions
against which I had been beating in vain ever since I had entered this
accursed city.
An hour passed, and no Doddridge Knapp. It was long past office hours.
The sun had disappeared in the bank of fog that was rolling up from the
ocean and coming in wisps and streamers over the hills, and the light
was fast failing.
Just as I was considering whether my duty to my employer constrained
me to wait longer, I caught sight of an envelope that had been slipped
under the door. I wondered, as I hastily opened it and brought its
inclosure to the failing light, how it could have got there. It was
in cipher, but it yielded to the key with which Doddridge Knapp had
provided me. I made it out to be this:
“Come to my house to-night.
Bring your contracts with you.
Knapp.”
I was thrown into some perplexity by this order. For a little I
suspected a trap, but on second thought this seemed unlikely. The office
furnished as convenient a place for homicidal diversions as he could
wish, if these were in his intention, and possibly a visit to Doddridge
Knapp in his own house would give me a better clue to his habits and
purposes, and a better chance of bringing home to him his awful crime,
than a month together on the Street.
The clocks were pointing past eight when I mounted the steps that led
to Doddridge Knapp's door. Doddridge Knapp's house fronted upper Pine
Street much as Doddridge Knapp himself fronted lower Pine Street. There
was a calmly aggressive look about it that was typical of the owner. It
defied the elements with easy strength, as Doddridge Knapp defied the
storms of the market. I had the fancy that even if the directory had not
given me its position I might have picked it out from its neighbors by
its individuality, its impression of reserve force.
I had something of trepidation, after all, as I rang the bell, for I
was far from being sure that Doddridge Knapp was above carrying out his
desperate purposes in his own house, and I wondered whether I should
ever come out again, once I was behind those massive doors. I had taken
the precaution to find a smaller revolver, “suitable for an evening
call,” as I assured myself, but it did not look to be much of a
protection in case the house held a dozen ruffians of the Terrill brand.
However, I must risk it. I gave my name to the servant who opened the
door.
“This way,” he said quietly.
I had hardly time as I passed to note the large hall, the handsome
staircase, and the wide parlors that hung rich with drapery, but in
darkness. I was led beyond and behind them, and in a moment was ushered
into a small, plainly-furnished room; and at a desk covered with papers
sat Doddridge Knapp, the picture of the Wolf in his den.
“Sit down, Wilton,” said he with grim affability, giving his hand. “You
won't mind if an old man doesn't get up.”
I made some conventional reply.
“Sorry to disappoint you this afternoon, and take up your evening,” he
said; “but I found some business that needed more immediate attention.
There was a little matter that had to be looked after in person.” And
the Wolf's fangs showed in a cruel smile, which assured me that the
“little matter” had terminated unhappily for the other man.
I airily professed myself happy to be at his service at any time.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “but let's see your memoranda. Did you do well this
afternoon?”
“No-o,” I returned apologetically. “Not so well as I wished.”
He took the papers and looked over them carefully.
“Thirty-one hundred,” he said reflectively. “Those sales were all right.
Well, I was afraid you couldn't get above three thousand. I didn't get
more than two thousand in the other Boards and on the Street.”
“That was the best I could do,” I said modestly. “They average at
sixty-five. Omega got away from us this afternoon like a runaway horse.”
“Yes, yes,” said the King of the Street, studying his papers with drawn
brows. “That's all right. I'll have to wait a bit before going further.”
I bowed as became one who had no idea of the plans ahead.
“And now,” said Doddridge Knapp, turning on me a keen and lowering gaze,
“I'd like to know what call you have to be spying on me?”
I opened my eyes wide in wonder.
“Spying? I don't understand.”
“No?” said he, with something between a growl and a snarl. “Well, maybe
you don't understand that, either!” And he tossed me a bit of paper.
I felt sure that I did not. My ignorance grew into amazement as I read.
The slip bore the words:
“I have bought Crown Diamond. What's the limit?
Wilton.”
“I certainly don't understand,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“The man who wrote it ought to know,” growled Doddridge Knapp, with his
eyes flashing and the yellow-gray mustache standing out like bristles.
The fangs of the Wolf were in sight.
“Well, you'll have to look somewhere else for him,” I said firmly. “I
never saw the note, and never bought a share of Crown Diamond.”
Doddridge Knapp bent forward, and looked for an instant as though he
would leap upon me. His eye was the eye of a wild beast in anger. If
I had written that note I should have gone through the window without
stopping for explanations. As I had not written it I sat there coolly
and looked him in the face with an easy conscience.
“Well, well,” he said at last, relaxing his gaze, “I almost believe
you.”
“There's no use going any further, Mr. Knapp, unless you believe me
altogether.”
“I see you understand what I was going to say,” he said quietly. “But if
you didn't send that, who did?”
“Well, if I were to make a guess, I should say it was the man who wrote
this.”
I tossed him in turn the note I had received in the afternoon, bidding
me sell everything.
The King of the Street looked at it carefully, and his brows drew lower
and lower as its import dawned on him. The look of angry perplexity
deepened on his face.
“Where did you get this?”
I detailed the circumstances.
The anger that flashed in his eyes was more eloquent than the outbreak
of curses I expected to hear.
“Um!” he said at last with a grim smile. “It's lucky, after all, that
you had something besides cotton in that skull of yours, Wilton.”
“A fool might have been caught by it,” I said modestly.
“There looks to be trouble ahead,” he said, “There's a rascally gang
in the market these days.” And the King of the Street sighed over
the dishonesty that had corrupted the stock gamblers' trade. I smiled
inwardly, but signified my agreement with my employer.
“Well, who wrote them?” he asked almost fiercely. “They seem to come
from the same hand.”
“Maybe you'd better ask that fellow who had his eye at your keyhole when
I left the office this noon.”
“Who was that?” The Wolf gave a startled look. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“He was a well-made, quick, lithe fellow, with an eye that reminded me
of a snake. I gave chase to him, but couldn't overhaul him. He squirmed
away in the crowd, I guess.”
The last part of my tale was unheard. At the description of the
snake-eyed man, Doddridge Knapp sank back in his chair, the flash of
anger died out of his eyes, and his mind was far away.
Was it terror, or anxiety, or wonder, that swept in shadow across
his face? The mask that never gave up a thought or purpose before the
changing fortunes of the market was not likely to fail its owner here. I
could make nothing out of the page before me, except that the vision of
Terrill had startled him.
“Why didn't you tell me?” he said at last, in a steady voice.
“I didn't suppose it was worth coming back for, after I got into the
street. And, besides, you were busy.”
“Yes, yes, you were right: you are not to come--of course, of course.”
The King of the Street looked at me curiously, and then said smoothly:
“But this isn't business.” And he plunged into the papers once more.
“There were over nine thousand shares sold this afternoon, and I got
only five thousand of them.”
“I suppose Decker picked the others up,” I said.
The King of the Street did me the honor to look at me in amazement.
“Decker!” he roared. “How did you--” Then he paused and his voice
dropped to its ordinary tone. “I reckon you're right. What gave you the
idea?”
I frankly detailed my conversation with Wallbridge. As I went on, I
fancied that the bushy brows drew down and a little anxiety showed
beneath them.
I had hardly finished my account when there was a knock at the door, and
the servant appeared.
“Mrs. Knapp's compliments, and she would like to see Mr. Wilton when you
are done,” he said.
I could with difficulty repress an exclamation, and my heart climbed
into my throat. I was ready to face the Wolf in his den, but here was
a different matter. I recalled that Mrs. Knapp was a more intimate
acquaintance of Henry Wilton's than Doddridge Knapp had been, and I saw
Niagara ahead of my skiff.
“Yes, yes; quite likely,” said my employer, referring to my story
of Wallbridge. “I heard something of the kind from my men. I'll know
to-morrow for certain, I expect. I forgot to tell you that the ladies
would want to see you. They have missed you lately.” And the Wolf
motioned me to the door where the servant waited.
Here was a predicament. I was missed and wanted--and by the ladies. My
heart dropped back from my throat, and I felt it throbbing in the lowest
recesses of my boot-heels as I rose and followed my guide.