A STRAIGHT TIP
Nan received the announcement of Bivens's failure to settle Woodman's
suit with a grim resolution to win now, at all hazards. The sensational
reports of Stuart's action against the big financiers had given her
quick mind the cue to a new line of stratagem. She began cautiously.
"You are not going to give up a thing I've set my heart on merely
because old Woodman's a fool, are you?" she asked her husband, with a
touch of scorn. "Jim Stuart is the best friend you ever had. He has
become one of the most famous men in America. He would lend distinction
to our house. I want him at our next entertainment."
"The thing that puzzles me," Bivens broke in, "is why the devil he will
not come to the house. When I meet him down town he's always friendly."
Nan's lips quivered with a queer little smile.
"Will he succeed in this action against these men?"
"No."
"Why?"
"He can't get the facts."
"If he could get them and did succeed, what would happen?"
"He'd shake the foundations of the financial world."
"You could get the facts, couldn't you, dear?"
Nan spoke in the softest tones.
"I have them already."
"Why not give them to him?"
"I had thought of that--but it's dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"It might bring on a panic."
"What have you to lose by it?"
"Nothing, if I'm wise."
"I've never known anybody to call you a fool."
"A panic's a dangerous thing to monkey with."
"Nonsense!" Nan cried with enthusiasm. "I'll back you to win when the
test comes."
Bivens smiled with pride.
"Yes. I could win, I think, having a little inside information about
what may happen."
"Why don't you do it, then?"
"It's dangerous," Bivens repeated, thoughtfully.
"It couldn't injure Stuart?" his wife asked cautiously.
"No. It couldn't hurt him. On the other hand, I might make him the
unconscious instrument of a great personal vengeance, double my fortune
and possibly land Jim in the White House."
"You must do it, dear!" his wife cried, trembling with suppressed
excitement. Bivens hesitated and shook his head.
"It's playing with dynamite."
"It's worth the risk to double your fortune--do it for my sake!"
Nan leaned close and pressed her husband's hand while her dark eyes
found their way into his heart. The hard mouth smiled as he took her
flushed face in his hands and kissed her.
"I'll do it," he said with firm accent.
"I know you'll win--you never fail!" she cried, "You'll not lose a
moment?"
"No. I'll 'phone him at once."
Bivens called Stuart and made an appointment to meet him at the
Algonquin Club for dinner two days later.
"Why two days' delay?" Nan asked petulantly.
"It will require that time to prepare the papers. Don't worry. I'll put
the thing through now."
When Stuart sat down with Bivens in one of the magnificent private
dining rooms of his millionaire club two days later, he was struck with
the perfection of the financier's dress, and the easy elegance of his
manners.
"Nan has surely done wonders with some pretty crude material!" he
mused.
As the meal progressed the lawyer's imagination continued to picture
the process of training through which she had put Bivens to develop
from the poor white Southerner, the polished little man of the gilded
world he now saw. No flight of his fancy could imagine the real humour
of it all. He recalled Nan's diary with grim amusement.
While Bivens had really been wax in her skillful hands since the day of
her marriage, the one task she found hard was her desperate and
determined effort to make him a well-groomed man. She was finally
compelled to write out instructions for his daily conduct and enforce
them with all sorts of threats and blandishments. She pasted this
programme in Bivens's hat, at last, and he was in mortal terror lest
some one should lift the inside band and read them. They were minute
and painfully insistent on the excessive use of soap and water. They
required that he wash and scrub two and three times daily. Not only did
they prescribe tooth brushes and mouth washes, with all sorts of pastes
and powders, but that he should follow it with an invention of the
devil for torturing the gums known as "dental floss." To get even with
the man who invented the thing Bivens bought him out and stopped its
manufacture--only to find the scoundrel had invented a new one and had
it on the market three weeks later.
In the midst of this agony of breaking him to the copious use of water,
Bivens found a doctor who boldly declared that excessive bathing was
ruinous to the health--that water was made for fish and air for man.
The little millionaire made him chief of the staff of his household
doctors, but Nan refused to admit him when she learned his views.
Bivens secretly built him a hospital, endowed it, and gave a fund to
found a magazine to proclaim his gospel.
It took two years to thoroughly break him so that she could always be
sure that his nails were trimmed and his clothes in perfect style. He
had long since ceased to struggle and had found much happiness of late
years in vying with her in the perfection of his personal appearance
until he had come to fit into the great establishments, which he had
built at her suggestion, as though to the manor born.
When the dinner was finished Bivens dismissed the waiter, lighted one
of his huge cigars and drew from a morocco case which he had placed
beside his chair a type-written manuscript. He turned its leaves
thoughtfully a moment and handed them to Stuart.
"There's a document, Jim, that cost me ten thousand dollars to prepare;
for whose suppression a million dollars would be paid and no questions
asked."
"And you give it to me?" the District Attorney asked, with a smile.
"I give it to you."
"But why this generosity on your part, Cal?"
The sarcasm which the lawyer threw into the playful banter of his tone
was not lost on the financier. The mask of his cunning, dark visage was
not slipped for a moment as he slowly replied:
"I have anticipated that question. I answer it fully and frankly. There
is enough dynamite in that document to blow up half of Wall Street and
land somebody in the White House."
"And many in the morgue?"
"And some in the penitentiary. I've watched your work the past nine
years with genuine pride, Jim. You've said a lot of hard things about
rich malefactors, but you've never touched me."
"No, I think you're too shrewd to be caught in that class, Cal."
"I pride myself that I am. It's only the clumsy fool who gets tangled
in the criminal law. But a lot of them have done it--big fellows whose
names fill the world with noise. I've taken the pains to put into that
type-written document the names, the dates, the places, the deeds, the
names of the witnesses and all the essential facts. Do what you please
with it. If you do what I think you will, some men who are wearing
purple and fine linen will be wearing stripes before another year and
you will be the biggest man in New York."
"And your motive?"
"Does it matter?"
"It vitally affects the credibility of this story."
"You must know my motive?"
"I prefer to be sure of it before taking so important and daring an
action as you suggest."
Bivens rose and stood before his friend with his smooth hands folded
behind his back.
"You believe me, Jim, when I say that my pride in your career is
genuine?"
"I've never doubted it," was the quick answer.
"Then two suggestions will be enough. Perhaps I wish to get even with
some men who have done me a dirty trick or two, and perhaps,
incidentally, in the excitement which will follow this exposure of
fraud and crime, I may make an honest penny--is that enough?"
"Quite."
"And you'll make the attack at once?"
Stuart glanced rapidly through the first page of the document and his
eyes began to dance with excitement.
"The only favour I ask," Bivens added, "is twenty-four hours' notice
before you act."
"I'll let you know."
Stuart rose quickly, placed the document in his inside pocket and
hurried home.