AT THE KING'S COMMAND
Bivens's plan would have gone through without a hitch but for one
thing. He had overlooked the fact that the Kingdom of Mammon in America
has a king and that the present ruler is very much alive. This king has
never been officially crowned and his laws are unwritten, but his rule
is none the less real, and he is by far the most potent monarch Wall
Street has ever known. A man of few words, of iron will, of fiery
temper, of keen intellect, proud, ambitious, resourceful, bold,
successful, a giant in physique, and a giant in personality. He moves
among men with the conscious tread of royalty, thinks big thoughts and
does big deeds as quietly and effectively as small men do small ones,
and then moves on to greater tasks.
It happens that his majesty is an old time Wall Street banker with
inherited traditions about banks and the way their funds should be
handled. He had long held a pet aversion. The Van Dam Trust Company had
become an offense to his nostrils.
His own bank, hitherto the most powerful in America, is a private
concern which bears the royal name. It had long been the acknowledged
seat of the Empire of Mammon and within its unpretentious walls the
king has held his court for years, extending his sceptre of gold in
gracious favour to whom he likes, refusing admission to his presence
for those who might offend his fancy.
The Van Dam Trust Company had built a huge palace far up town and its
president had attempted to set up a court of his own. He had gathered
about him a following, among them an ex-president of the United States.
Gold had poured into the treasury of the great marble palace in a
constant stream until its deposits had reached the unprecedented sum of
$90,000,000, a sum greater than the royal bank itself could boast.
When the king heard the first rumour of the fact that the Van Dam Trust
was backing the schemes of the Allied Bankers in their sensational raid
on the market his big nostrils suddenly dilated.
At last he had them just where he wanted them. He signed the death
warrant of the bank and handed it to his executioner without a word of
comment. And then a most curious thing happened. The king summoned to
his presence a little dark swarthy man.
When Bivens received this order to appear at court he was dumfounded.
He had long worshipped and feared the king with due reverence and
always spoke his name with awe. To be actually called into his august
presence in such a crisis was an undreamed-of honour.
He was sure that his majesty had heard of his generous offer to help
the Van Dam Trust in its hour of trouble and meant to reward him with
promotion to high rank in the Empire.
He hastened into the royal presence with beating heart.
A court official conducted him into the king's private room where the
ruler sat alone, quietly smoking.
The sovereign glanced up with quick energy.
"Mr. Bivens, I believe?"
The little man bowed low.
"I hear that you are about to aid the Van Dam Trust with four millions
in cash?"
Bivens smiled with pride.
"My secretary will deliver the money to the bank within an hour."
The king suddenly wheeled in his big arm chair, raised his eyebrows and
fixed the little man with a stare that froze the blood in his veins.
When he spoke at length his tones were smooth as velvet.
"If I may give you a suggestion, Mr. Bivens, I would venture to say
that the Van Dam Trust Company is beyond aid. The larger interests of
the nation require the elimination of this institution and its
associates.
"I have heard good reports of you and I wish to save you from the
disaster about to befall the gentlemen who have been conducting the
present campaign in Wall Street. If your secretary will report to me at
once with the four millions you have set aside for the Van Dam Company
I shall be pleased to place your name on my executive council in the
big movement we begin to-day. The other gentlemen whom I have thus
honoured are now waiting for me in the adjoining room. They represent a
banking power that is resistless at the present moment.
"When the Van Dam Trust closes its doors to-day, a temporary panic will
follow. We will give the gentlemen who started this excitement a taste
of their own medicine, render a service to the nation, and,
incidentally of course, earn an honest dollar or two for ourselves. I
trust I have your hearty support in this programme?"
Bivens again bowed low.
"My hearty support and my profoundest gratitude!"
"I'll expect your secretary with your check for four millions within
thirty minutes."
The king waved a friendly gesture of dismissal and the little dark
figure tremblingly withdrew.
It was not until he had reached the seclusion of his own office that
the magnitude of the crisis through which he had passed fully dawned on
Bivens. One of the dreams of his life had been to touch elbows with
this mighty ruler at whose name he had often trembled. To-day he had
joined the magic circle of those about the throne. The place had been
bought at a fearful price. But the end would justify the means. No one
knew with clearer perception than he what the king meant by his
"suggestions." They were orders. He had been ordered to stab his
associates.
At first he had raged in silent fury, but as the king continued his
wonderful speech and revealed his generous intentions, his anger had
melted into glowing gratitude.
"After all, business means war!" he exclaimed, "a war in which dog eat
dog and devil take the hindmost becomes sooner or later the supreme
law."
It hurt to break his word--the pledge he had made the president of the
Van Dam Company--but it was unavoidable. Their death warrant had
already been signed. His money would only be sunk in the bottomless pit
the king had dug beneath them. He felt himself for the moment in the
grip of forces beyond human control, blind, inevitable, overwhelming.
The only thing for a sane man to do was to ride the storm and take care
of himself. He had found a place of safety. And such a place--at the
right hand of the king himself.
He had dreamed of making a paltry five millions when the raid on the
market had ended. Now his very soul stood blinded by the splendour of
the vision before him. Beyond a doubt in the holocaust which would
follow the day's work he would more than treble his entire fortune,
perhaps multiply it by four. He could see it all before it happened.
His slender hands trembled as he fumbled his beard and his bead eyes
became two scintillating points of light. The thirst for gold was now a
raging fever and his blood molten fire. The lust for gain had ceased to
be a human passion--it was the hunger of a beast.
Without a moment's hesitation he gave the cruel orders that sent his
associates hurling over the precipice. As the day progressed he stood
with one hand on the tape of his private ticker and the other holding
the receiver of the telephone which connected him with the floor of the
Stock Exchange. He received no word from friend or foe without. Only
the king's messenger could reach him. He paused not a moment for food
or drink, and at three o'clock when the market closed he stood with a
hundred yards of tape from the ticker coiled serpent like about his
legs, the wreck of empires of wealth beneath his feet, his heart still
beating a single wild cry--"more, more, more!"
What a day! In all the annals of man's inhumanity to his fellow-man
never were there more opportunities for generosity, for kindly deeds
and noble acts of kingly heroism. Never were so few recorded.
Martial war at least has for its justification the flag and the life of
a nation for which it stands the gleaming symbol in the sky, and in
real war they do not kill the wounded or fire on women and children.
Even the Turk does not fire on a hospital. But in this war which
maniacs waged for gold, they fired on women and children without mercy
and when night had fallen they searched the field, dragged out and
stabbed to death the wounded!
When the president of the Van Dam Trust Company failed to receive the
promised millions from Bivens he called his telephone and receiving no
answer sprang into his automobile and dashed down town to the little
main office.
When the clerk at the door informed him that Mr. Bivens could not be
seen by anyone, he turned quickly on his heel, drove back to the
palatial house of his bank, smiled sadly at the mob in front of its
huge pillars, ordered its bronze doors closed, walked around the corner
to his home, locked himself in his room and blew his brains out.