quickly. Just now, the South African mines are not producing. Suppose
that a new source of supply should yield one to two hundred millions a
year? Or, five hundred, if it were distributed among all the civilized
countries? I’d be the last man to make gold as cheap as pig-iron, I can
assure you. But--”
The president’s face was livid. Dark rings had appeared, as by a stage
trick, suddenly under his eyes. Wrinkles showed about his nostrils, like
those seen in invalids after prolonged pain.
“Mr. Dawson, are you ill?” asked Grin-nell anxiously.
“No, no,” said the president, with a pale smile. “Your views are--er--I
mean no offence, Mr. Grinnell, but they show that a little knowledge is
a dangerous thing.”
“I have been studying this matter for some weeks, Mr. Dawson,” Grinnell
said, with a complacency that almost made the president shudder. There
was no telling what the young man might not do in his ignorance.
“Pray proceed,” said Mr. Dawson, with an effort.
“As I was saying, I have been depositing gradually--”
“Thirty-seven millions in two months!”
“I have not yet enough money to be classed among the really rich men
in this country. But I am young,” with a smile that set a-shivering the
gold-enwrapped soul of Mr. Richard Dawson. “I am keenly alive, I think,
to the obligations of really great wealth, and I trust to do as much
good in the world as I can. I mean to be a very rich man, Mr. Dawson.
Of course, I could live comfortably on the income of forty or fifty
millions; but I am going to do more than live comfortably. Man owes
certain duties to his fellow-men which are neglected too often. Why,”
enthusiastically, “the possession of unlimited wealth in worthy hands
would mean the realization of the beautiful dreams of those unselfish
men whom you, doubtless, call Utopians, and Socialists, and visionaries.
They are the men who believe that mankind, at heart, is good. They are
the men who will revolutionize the world!”
“Revolutions mean disaster,” said Mr. Dawson half angrily.
“Possibly disaster to a few individuals at first, but, in the end,
happiness to the community,” said the young man, with an inspired air.
“It is a question whether the price paid would not be disproportionate
to the good obtained.” Mr. Dawson spoke as though he would dissuade
the young man, but not too strongly, for fear his words might intensify
obstinacy. It was, unwittingly, a subtle admission that he thought
the young man did not lack the power to make his dream an actual
catastrophe.
“Whatever means the greatest good to the greatest number is necessarily
good,” retorted Grinnell, in a tone that permitted no contradiction. “A
revolution, Mr. Dawson, is achieved by three things: By time, which is
too slow; by blood, which is revolting; and by gold, Mr. Dawson, _BY
GOLD!_”
The young man was looking sternly at Mr. Dawson, who stared back so
fixedly as to be painful. On the president’s brow appeared a microscopic
dew; you would have said his brain was shedding tears of agony. He had
visioned, not the revolution of mankind, but his own ruin!
“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a curious, little indrawn gasp, “I
can only pray you to go slow. Don’t let your enthusiasm lead you to
precipitate an appalling crisis. You can do all the good you wish if
you consider carefully all sides of the question. But, as you value the
welfare of humanity, go slow, Mr. Grinnell. In God’s name, go slow.”
“Oh, yes!” said Grinnell. “I’m in no hurry. We will discuss these
matters from time to time. In the meanwhile,” he took from his
pocket-book another check--the same as he had taken out and replaced at
the beginning of the interview--“I’ll deposit this additional five and
one-half millions, making thirty-five in all, and--”
“Tell me, Mr. Grinnell,” interrupted Mr. Dawson, with a calmness
unpleasantly suggestive of desperation, “is your secret known to
others?”
“Which secret?”
“The source of your gold?” The intensity of Mr. Dawson’s _gaze_ had in
it something ominous.
“No one knows.”
“Ah!” The president drew in his breath sharply. He paused, growing
visibly calm, the while.
“If anything happened to you?” he said. He meant his voice to show
solicitude. It betrayed merely a strange and not kindly curiosity.
“My sister would know,” answered the young man. “I’ve provided for that,
of course. She would continue my plans, with which she is in sympathy,
though she does not know the extent of my resources.”
“H’m!”
“If I died suddenly, either from natural causes or as the result of
some accident or violence, she would devote her life to carrying out my
plans. She is really a remarkable woman. If she too should die suddenly,
Mr. Dawson,” looking unflinchingly at the bank president, “my secret
and my history would be given to the world. It would make interesting
reading; particularly to financiers, Mr. Dawson. I have written
full instructions. The average man could not be trusted with such an
opportunity to become enormously wealthy, but I have a friend who
is above the temptation of sudden riches, who would be my literary
executor”--with a faint smile, as at the hidden humour of the
phrase--“_He_ is a real socialist. He’d give you trouble, Mr. Dawson.
And if he dies, there are three others who would then know the means by
which I came to be one of your depositors.”
“And your deposits?”
“If I died before I carried out my plans, what need to worry about this
gold? If my sister died, she wouldn’t care what became of it either.
I fear, Mr. Dawson,” he finished, very slowly, “that the gold we left
behind us would do neither good nor harm to the world.” The president sat
down.
“Yours is a remarkable story, Mr. Grin-nell, which I am compelled to
believe. I must see you again.”
“Next Thursday?” with a smile.
“Very well. I thank you for your confidence. I beg that you will not
speak of your affairs to any one.”
“I’m not likely to. I didn’t expect, when I came here, to tell you as
much as I have. Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” and he walked briskly out of
the office.
The president gulped, as though swallowing a dry and obdurate morsel.
“We are undone!” he muttered.
He rose and stood by his desk, supporting himself as though the
office floor were unstable and staring unseeingly at a painting on the
wall--the portrait of his predecessor. He nodded toward the portrait and
muttered drunkenly: “Absolutely at the mercy of one man!”
He nodded again. Then he said to the portrait: “I must see Mellen!”
He blinked his eyes as at a strong light. Of a sudden he pulled himself
together, put on his hat, and hastily left the room.
He walked quickly up Wall Street to Broadway, turned southward, and
entered the huge home of the International Distributing Syndicate.
“Eighth floor!” he said to the elevator man. The sound of his own voice,
husky almost to inaudibleness, startled him.
“Eighth floor,” he repeated, very distinctly.
Walking straight to a door at the end of the hall, marked “Private,” he
entered. The burly man at the gate of a railing said: “Good-morning, Mr.
Dawson,” and obsequiously opened the gate. But Mr. Dawson made no reply;
whereat the burly man wondered, for Mr. Dawson was a polite man.
The president passed, unchallenged, through two rooms, in which clerks
worked at desks, and finally confronted the head of the syndicate, who
sat at a flat desk. Before him was a sheet on which he had been making
calculations with a lead-pencil.
“How do you do, Richard?” said the richest man in the world. He was a
middle-aged man, quiet-spoken, brown-eyed; a face quietly alert rather
than over-shrewd. His head was curiously shapen, broad above the ears
and tapering slightly, though noticeably, at the top. Phrenologists
spoke delightedly of the abnormal development of his bump of
acquisitiveness, because they knew who he was; and of the absence of the
other bumps, for the same irrefutable reason. But the very shape of it
conveyed an impression of an unusual brain within it, though, perhaps,
people who did not know who he was might not have been so susceptible to
the impression. Great leaders seldom look like their imagined portraits.
“William,” said the president of the Metropolitan National Bank, “we are
confronted by the greatest crisis in the history of the world!”
Consternation appeared on the face of the richest man in the world,
as though it had been flashed upon it by a stereopticon. It was not
pleasant to see. His photograph, taken at that moment, would have
impressed a stranger as being that of an amateur actor, inartistically
expressing dismay--it was so exaggeratedly frightened.
“What has happened, Richard?” he asked tremulously, rising from his
chair.
“William,” answered Mr. Dawson, as though he expected unbelief: “listen
calmly. Ruin stares us in the face--you, and me, and everybody!”
[Illustration: 0095]
“What have you done?” cried the richest man in the world.
“Listen. Calm yourself.”
“Are you--ill?”
“Oh, I’m not crazy! If I were, I’d tell you that a man is manufacturing
gold at this very minute. And yet, that is what I think.”
“What is the matter, Richard?” There was merely impatience now, in Mr.
Mellen’s voice.
“There is a man who has discovered an inexhaustible supply of gold. He
will not stop until he has a billion dollars. He is a Socialist--”
“What are you saying?”
“William, the man already has on deposit at the bank thirty-five
millions, and he’s been only two months at it. He has at least seven
millions on deposit at other banks in this city. We must do something,”
and Mr. Richard Dawson told his friend and associate the entire story of
Mr. George K. Grin-nell. The richest man in the world listened with his
very soul. There was danger of his being no longer the richest man in
the world.
“And now,” finished Dawson, “we must think, William. What are we to do?”
“It can’t be true!” frowned Mellen. Then into his eyes came a frightened
look. It passed and he said: “Absurd! It can’t be true.”
“It _is_ true. The gold comes from his house, his laboratory.”
“It’s some trick, a plot.” The richest man in the world had imagination,
and was partial to schemes. “We must prevent him from going too far,”
as though that were the first thing to do before satisfying a merely
personal curiosity.
“How?” The president was growing calm. If he was ruined, so was the rest
of the world. He did not care for the rest of the world, but the thought
braced him.
“Some legal action--”
“Out of the question. There is no ground. Besides, the less publicity
the better, William, we are in his power. But nobody knows it, not even
he. Therein lies our safety. In the meanwhile we must--” He paused.
“What?”
“It is, obviously, the only step we can take.” There was no one else, in
the room, but Mr. Dawson drew near and whispered into his friend’s ear.
His friend nodded from time to time.
“That,” said Mellen quietly, with a sort of convictionless acquiescence,
as Dawson concluded, “we must not do until we are certain that he
can swamp the world with gold!” He picked up the sheet full of
lead-pencilled figures and began to tear it into small bits.
“Confound him!” said the president angrily.
“Yes, Richard,” agreed Mellen, with at air that had a suggestion of
conscious guilt. He never swore. It was a sin. He was the richest man in
the world.
PART TWO: THE GOLD
On Thursday--the president, a keen psychologist, to reassure the
richest man in the world, had jocularly called it Consternation Day--Mr.
William Mellen and Mr. Richard Dawson entered the bank. They had ridden
from Mr. Mellen’s house in Mr. Mellen’s brougham. They had discussed
Mr. Grinnell at great and painful length many times in that week. In
the carriage, on the way downtown, they had talked of nothing else.
The president was certain that the mystery no longer was a mystery.
The burden of his argument had become that a condition, not a theory,
confronted them. The time for idle speculation had passed. It behooved
them to act. The lingering indecision of Mr. Mellen did not come from
inability to change his lifetime’s plans in the twinkling of an eye,
but from unwillingness to accept at second-hand the inevitableness of
something unspeakably disagreeable. All great business generals are
opportunists. But at times the greatest minds work femininely.
“The question of whether he makes his gold or not, or how he gets it,
now has merely an academic interest, William. The thing is, that he has
the gold.” Dawson said it in a playfully exaggerated pedagogical air,
yet ready to become deadly earnest in a twinkling.
“I don’t see it,” said Mellen seriously. “We must find the explanation.
What he can do, we can do.”
“We have tried.”
“We must succeed.”
“Your coachman says to himself: ‘If Mr. Mellen has made five hundred
millions of dollars in thirty years, what he can do, I can do. Do you
see him doing it? I tell you the man has the gold. He isn’t trying to
sell us any secret. All he asks is to be let alone. That is the alarming
thing.
“It must be a mine. Where else could so much gold come from?” Mellen’s
thoughts were on the source of the gold.
“My dear William, we can account for every ounce of gold produced in the
world. There is no mine capable of producing such a quantity secretly.”
“He may have hoarded it; accumulated it for months.”
“If a mine produced a thousand ounces a month We’d know it; and Grinnell
has deposited in our bank and others, as far as I have been able to
trace, at the rate of a million ounces a month. He is too young to have
hoarded it for years. He has no accomplices. That is certain. He visits
nobody, but stays home. His father did not leave it to him. He has not
unearthed any secret treasure, and, moreover, there never was or
could be a hidden treasure of such magnitude. Why, his gold must weigh
something like seventy-five tons! Nobody could have given it to him,
for nobody had it to give except our bank or the Commercial, and we
certainly didn’t. The Assay Office say Grinnel’s is not quite like any
of the other bullion that goes to the Assay Office. Its only impurity
is a little platinum, and it isn’t always present. We know, within a
negligible quantity, where almost every ounce of gold in the world is,
and who holds it. There is not a bank or a bullion dealer anywhere whose
supply is not known, approximately, to us. It’s my business to know.
There’s no mystery about that. The mystery is Grinnell’s gold supply.
He cannot store vast quantities in his house. Our men have been in every
room in it. Costello, disguised as a driver from the dealers from whom
Grinnell buys his chemical supplies, says there is no place for vaults.
The only alterations made in the house since Grinnell bought it, that he
can see, were to transform the basement into a metallurgical laboratory.
We can say almost certainly that the gold is melted in his electric
furnace. But all that we know positively is this: _NOTHING GOES IN,
AND GOLD COMES OUT!_ Grinnell is making it, I tell you.” The president
turned to his morning mail. Mellen stopped him.
“But that is impossible. You know it is.”
“It is a scientific impossibility; but it is also an actual fact.
Maybe it isn’t gold at all. But the Assay Office and chemists who have
analysed samples I secured from the Assay Office say it is. Where can he
get it? Not from a mine outside of New York, for we could easily trace
it, no matter how long ago it came. Not from a mine in Thirty-eighth
Street, or we’d know it. Not from sea-water. I even had the street torn
up in front of Grin-nell’s house under pretence of fixing the gas-main.
He can’t get it from the air. The whole thing is impossible. That’s why
I’m afraid.”
“If he makes it he must make it out of something,’’ said Mellen
controversially.
“Wilkins & Gross, the chemical people, say that last year Grinnell
bought large quantities of iridium, osmium, ruthenium, and other metals
of the platinum group. They understood that he had been experimenting
with an electrical furnace. Costello saw a gas-engine and a dynamo in
the laboratory, and a lot of electrical apparatus. That’s his specialty,
it seems. And the Columbia people say he is quite an authority on
radium. I tell you the man makes it; at least, to all intents and
purposes he does. Perhaps it’s radium rays applied to some base metal in
some way which he has discovered accidentally. Wait till you see him,”
and Mr. Dawson began composedly to rip the edges of the envelopes with a
long, sharp paper-cutter.
The richest man in the world walked up and down the office. Once his
lips moved. Dawson, who happened to look up from his work at that very
moment, asked him: “What did you say, William?”
“The government would be justified in stopping him.”
“If the world knew the secret of making gold what would be gained? He
has us in his power. No sense to blind your eyes to it.”
The face of the richest man in the world flushed. He said, with an
impressive, because calm, determination: “He must be stopped!” He
paused. Looking at his friend steadily, he repeated, very quietly--too
quietly: “At any cost!”
“If we can stop him by fair words, all right. No use to try anything
else. He has provided against everything!”
The richest man in the world stared at his friend; his head was bent
forward as if to listen better. At Dawson’s last words he resumed his
pacing. The pattern of the big Oriental rug consisted of ornate squares
surrounded by a profusion of arabesques. Mel-len, his gaze fixed on the
rug, stepped on alternate squares as he walked up and down the room. The
president began to read his mail. From time to time he looked up and saw
the richest man in the world striding up and down the room, carefully
stepping on alternate squares in the rug.
An office-boy entered.
“Mr. Grinnell is here, sir,” he announced.
The richest man in the world halted abruptly and waited, his eyes on the
door.
“Show him in at once. Ah, good-morning, Mr. Grinnell.” The president
rose and walked toward the young man with outstretched hand.
“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” said Grinnell cheerfully. He became aware of
Mr. Mellen, who was staring at him unblinkingly, and hesitated.
“Mr. Grinnell, let me introduce my friend, Mr. William Mellen.”
“How do you do, Mr. Mellen?” said Grinnell. Mr. Mellen shook hands and
Grinnell gazed attentively at the richest man in the world. After a
slight pause, he added deprecatingly, as if to explain his scrutiny;
“I have read so much about you, Mr. Mellen. I hope you will pardon my
rudeness.”
“I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Grinnell. I have heard a great deal
about you, lately.” Mellen said this almost impatiently. He was a man
whose business soul was dark and tortuous, like his methods. His speech
was habitually non-committal, and he had won more battles and more
millions by patience than by aggression. But now he was eager to plunge
into a cross-examination of the young man before him. Yet, he looked ill
at ease. Perhaps he feared to find that Dawson was not mistaken in his
wild surmises.
“Yes,” put in the bank president, with an ingratiating smile at the
young man, “I have taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Mellen about
you.” A slight frown appeared on Grinnell’s face. The president hastened
to add: “He is the only soul on earth to whom I have spoken. You see,
Mr. Grinnell, I was very anxious to bring you two together. Yours is an
extraordinary case; and Mr. Mellen is not only a director of this bank,
but I consider him, as a business man and financier, one of the--”
“Never mind all that, Dawson,” interrupted Mellen, with a curious
mixture of habitual smoothness and an unwonted sharpness, as if
deprecating flattery, and at the same time resenting the president’s
apologetic attitude. “Mr. Grinnell, I am sure you must realize that you
have created a condition which may become of national importance, since
it contains a dire menace to this country’s business.” He assumed,
toward the end of his speech, or his voice and manner did, that Mr.
Grinnell and he were in accord on that point.
Grinnell looked distinctly surprised. When he spoke, both his hearers
felt absolutely assured that he wished to gain time, to plan a defence.
“I certainly do not realize anything of the kind, Mr. Mellen.”
“Then, sir, it is high time you did,” returned Mellen. His face was
composed, but in the composure there was menace. Mr.
Dawson made haste to offset the effect which he feared Mr. Mellen’s
words might have on Mr. George K. Grinnell. He said, with flattering
deference; “As I explained to you, Mr. Grinnell, the money-market is a
delicate piece of mechanism. Unusual shocks produce unusual
disturbances; and all disturbances are highly detrimental to business.”
He smiled deprecatingly but forgivingly: the money-market was a
pampered child; no need to be too harsh.
“Yes, I know that. But what unusual shock have I given to the delicate
mechanism of the money-market?” Grinnell’s effort to conceal his
annoyance was apparent to the two capitalists.
“You have not yet, sir; but what assurance have I, have all business
men, that you will not?” The richest man in the world asked this with a
frown, as if Mr. Grinnell had not met him half-way and might as well now
throw off his mask and reveal himself frankly, as the criminal disturber
of the world’s business peace, to be dealt with accordingly.
“Assurance that I will not? Why should I disturb the money-market?
The money-market does not disturb me.” Grinnell said it not at all
jocularly, but very calmly, as if he meant it literally.
“But you will disturb it if you keep on,” said Mellen, drumming with his
finger-tips on the top of the president’s desk. He perceived this and
ceased with an abruptness that betokened remorse over the absence of
self-control. He was an introspective man.
“There is nothing unusual going on, is there? No stringency anywhere;
in fact, I gather from the newspapers that money rates are very low,”
Grinnell went on.
“Your deposits are, in some measure, responsible for it,” said Dawson,
with a placating smile.
“I am glad of it,” said the young man simply. “It is a good thing that
people should be able to borrow money cheaply, isn’t it?”
“Not too cheaply.” Mr. Dawson shook his head and smiled, as at a
favourite son who is in error, but is young.
“Oh, I know what you mean. It isn’t profitable for the banks with money
to lend; it makes the supply greater than the demand, and you get lower
interest rates on your loans; and then it is apt to be a sign that
business is slack, and people have no need to borrow. But just now,
unless all the newspapers lie, business is quite active in all lines
and--” Grinnell’s speech savoured slightly of the pedagogical, like
a school-boy enunciating obvious truths, but using his teacher’s
professional solemnity.
“That is not the point,” interrupted the richest man in the world.
“What is the point, then?” asked Grin-nell, with an air of forgiving
Mellen’s impoliteness.
“Do you propose to flood the world with gold?” Mr. Mellen’s voice rang
out rather unpleasantly.
“That,” said the young man slowly, “is a very remarkable question, Mr.
Mellen.”
“Mr. Grinnell”--Mr. Dawson spoke with a half-jocular voice--“I have told
Mr. Mellen of your extraordinary deposits, and he naturally wishes to
know if you are ever going to stop.”
“Yes, Mr. Dawson, I am going to stop at once. I shall transfer my
account to another bank. Will you be good enough to--”
“No, no, no! You misunderstand me.”
“Mr. Dawson, I have told you several times that if the fact that I was
one of your depositors disturbed you, you could rid yourself of your
suffering by telling me to seek some other bank. The reason why I
selected this one was because it was the richest and, I supposed, the
most ably managed in the country. Nothing but the fear of arousing a
curiosity I could not gratify made me deposit my gold gradually. If a
man deposited fifty or a hundred millions at once, and everybody
knew it, he could not live in peace in this country. The sensational
newspapers would hound him to death. You know what my views are, and
that I hope to do some good to my fellow-men in this world. But I see
that I was mistaken in my assumption that I could deposit some of my
funds with you. To prevent further--”