TRENT TAKES A HOLIDAY
AT a sporting goods store that afternoon he ran into Jerome Dangerfield
again. He had just bought a dozen balls when he saw the millionaire and
his two attendants. He was not minded to be observed of them, so slipped
into the little room where putters may be tried and drives be made into
nets. From where he was he could hear Dangerfield’s disagreeable,
rasping voice. His grievance, it seemed, was that other golfers were
able to get better balls than he. He badgered the clerk until the man
found spirit to observe: “If there was a ball that would make a dub play
good golf it would be worth a fortune to any one.”
Trent was able to see the look of anger the capitalist threw at him. And
this anger he saw reflected on the faces of the two attendants.
Decidedly any lone man pitting his courage and wit against the
Dangerfield entourage would need sympathy.
“Send me a half-gross up to Sunset Park Hotel,” he heard Dangerfield say
as he walked away, still frowning.
“I hope you don’t have many of that kind to wait on,” Trent said
sympathetically. He was always courteous to those with whom he had
dealings.
“He’s the limit,” said the clerk; “and from the way he looked at me I
guess the boss will hear of it. Seemed to think there was a ball that
would make him drive two hundred and fifty and hole a twenty-foot putt
and I was trying to hide it from him. You wouldn’t think it, but he’s
one of the richest men living. Gee, it makes me feel like a Socialist
when I think of it!”
The clerk wondered why it was a superb golfer, as he knew Trent to be,
was modest and courteous, while a man like Dangerfield was so
overbearing.
Before he went home Trent looked up Sunset Park in a golfer’s guide. It
was a little-known course among the Berkshires, with only nine holes to
its credit. The rates of the hotel were sufficiently high to make it
clear only the rich could play. It was probably one of these dreary
courses where a scratch player would be a rara avis, a course to which
elderly men, playing for their health, gravitated and made the lives of
caddies miserable.
It was a curious thing, Trent thought, that while this morning he knew
nothing of Dangerfield, by night he knew a great deal. An evening paper
told him why the millionaire was going to the Berkshires. There was to
be a wedding in high society and the bride was a niece of Mrs. Jerome
Dangerfield. The ceremony would take place at the Episcopal Church of
the Good Shepherd, and a bishop would unite the contracting parties. The
fancy dress ball to be held would be the most elaborate ever held
outside New York. A great pavilion was to be erected for the occasion in
the grounds of the bride’s magnificent home, and Newport would be for
the moment deserted. It was rumored that the jewels to be worn would
exceed in value anything that had ever been gathered together this side
the Atlantic, and so on, two columns long.
It explained very clearly why the Jerome Dangerfields were going to
Sunset Park. The collective value of the jewels appealed particularly to
Trent. He wondered if the Mount Aubyn ruby would shine out on that
festal night. And if so how would it be guarded? It would be less
difficult to disguise the detectives in fancy costume than in evening
dress. Of course the owner of such a world-famous gem might wear an
imitation as the Baroness von Eckstein had done. But if Clarke had
painted her aright this was an occasion when an ambitious woman would be
willing to take risks.
* * * * *
The proprietors of the Sunset Park Hotel were glad to accommodate Mr.
Anthony Trent with a bed and bathroom for a little over a hundred
dollars a week. It was a very select resort, they explained, attracting
such people as the Jerome Dangerfields and their friends.
The golf course was owned by the hotel and the first tee was on the lawn
a few yards from the front piazza. On the morning following his arrival,
Trent, golf clubs already allotted to a caddy, waited to see what kind
of golf was played. They were indifferently good but he betrayed little
attention until he saw Dangerfield coming. Immediately he went to the
tee but did not make his first shot until the millionaire was near
enough to see. Playing alone as was the capitalist--for few were yet on
the links--he had not to wait as he must have done had the other been
playing with a partner. The first green was distant one hundred and
sixty yards from the tee. A brook with sedgy reeds was a fine natural
hazard, and as the green was on an elevated plateau with deep grass
beyond, it was not an easy one to reach. Dangerfield dreaded it.
Dangerfield saw a tall, slim young man correctly clad in breeches and
stockings, using a mashie, drop his ball neatly on the green within
putting distance of the hole. Later he saw the hole done in two which
was one under par.
“Who is that man?” Dangerfield demanded of his caddie.
“Never seen him before,” the lad answered.
Dangerfield took his brassey and went straightway into the brook. He
saw, however, as he was ball hunting, this stranger make a wonderful
drive to the second--two hundred and fifty yards, the enthusiastic
caddie swore. Meanwhile the millionaire continued to press and slice and
pull and top his ball to such effect as to do the double round in one
hundred and forty-two. Nothing exasperated him so much as to find the
game mock his strength and desire. A power wherever money marts were, he
was here openly laughed at by caddies. He was discovering that rank on
the links is determined by skill at the game alone. What mattered it
that he was the great Jerome Dangerfield. What had he done the round in?
What was his handicap?
He particularly wanted to humble Stephen Goswell, president of the First
Agricultural Bank of New York City. Goswell was a year ahead of him at
the game and had the edge on him so far. Goswell could manage short
approaches occasionally, strokes that were beyond his own inflexible
wrists. Now this tall, dark stranger had such strokes to perfection. The
ball driven up into the air skimmed tree, wall or bunker and rolled up
to the pin sweetly. Dangerfield quickly made up his mind. He would
invite the stranger to play with him and then get hints which would
improve his game fifty per cent.
“Morning,” he said later at the “Nineteenth Hole” where the stranger was
taking a drink.
“Good morning,” said the stranger rather stiffly. “It is evident,”
thought Dangerfield, “he does not know who I am.”
“Going ’round again after lunch?” Dangerfield demanded.
“I think so,” the stranger responded.
“We might play together,” said Dangerfield. “I haven’t a partner.”
“I’m afraid that won’t make a good match,” Trent told him. “Surely there
is some one more your strength who would make a better match of it?”
“Huh!” grunted the other, “think I don’t play well enough, eh?”
“I know it,” said Trent composedly.
Dangerfield regarded him sourly.
“You’re not overburdened with modesty, young man.”
“I hope not,” the other retorted, “nothing handicaps a man more in life.
I happen to know golf, though, and my experience is that if I play with
a much inferior player I get careless and that’s bad for my game. I’m
perfectly frank about it. You know next to nothing about the game. In
your own line of work you could no doubt give me a big beating because
you know it and I don’t.”
“And what do you suppose my line of work is?” snapped the annoyed
mill-owner.
“I don’t know,” Trent commented. “Either a dentist or a theatrical
producer.” As he spoke up sauntered one of the two men with whom he had
seen Dangerfield in the subway.
“I’d like to hire some one to take the starch out of you,” Dangerfield
said as he rose to his feet.
“Quite easy,” Trent returned, “almost any professional could.”
He watched the two walk away and chuckled. He had attracted the
millionaire’s attention and he had rebuffed him. So far his programme
was being carried out on scheduled time. The attendant had not looked at
him with any special interest. It was unlikely in different clothes,
under other conditions and in a strange place he would recognize him.
He did not play again that day. Instead he paid attention to some
elderly ladies who knitted feverishly and were inclined to talk. He
learned a great deal of useful news. For example, that the Dangerfields
always had meals in their big private suite and rarely without guests
from nearby homes. That they quarreled constantly. That Mr. Dangerfield
never went to bed wholly sober. That he was given to sudden gusts of
temper and only last year had beaten a caddie and had been compelled to
settle the assault with a large money payment. That he was not above
pocketing a golf ball if he could do so without being observed. That he
had several times been seen to lift his ball out of an unfavorable lie
into one from which he could play with greater chance of making a good
stroke.
These petty meannesses Trent had already surmised. Dangerfield seemed to
him that sort of a man. He was more interested in the dinner parties.
But a man in such a position as he was had to be careful as to what
questions he asked. People had a knack of remembering them at
inopportune moments. Fortunately one of the ladies, who was a Miss
Northend of Lynn, came back to it. She was a furious knitter and knitted
best when her tongue wagged.
“Of course this hotel belongs to Mr. Dangerfield,” she babbled, “and
that explains why they have a palatial suite here and can entertain even
more readily than if they had a summer home, as their friends have. This
is a very fashionable section. The women dress here as if they were in
Newport. Every night Mr. Dangerfield goes down to the hotel safe and
brings something gorgeous in the jewelry way for his wife to wear.
There’s a private stairway he uses. I wandered into it once by mistake.”
“And sister was so flustered,” the other Miss Northend of Lynn told him,
“that when he accused her of spying on him she couldn’t say a word. It
really did look suspicious until he knew we were Northends and our
father was his counsel once when he controlled the Boston and Rangely
road.”
When these estimable maidens had finished, Anthony Trent knew all those
particulars he desired. It was not the first time amiable gossips had
aided him. But he played his part so well that Miss Fannie chided her
sister.
“He wasn’t a bit interested in the Dangerfield wealth,” she said. “All
a young man like that thinks of is golf.”
“Well,” said her sister, “I am interested and I’m frightened, too. When
I think of all that amount of precious stones in the hotel safe, I’m
positively alarmed. Every night she wears something new, her maid told
the girl who looks after our rooms.”