Not for nothing had Regan been named by his associates, The Wolf of Wall
Street! While usually no more than a conservative, large-scale player,
ever so often, like a periodical drinker, he had to go on a rampage of
wild and daring stock-gambling. At least five times in his long career
had he knocked the bottom out of the market or lifted the roof off, and
each time to the tune of a personal gain of millions. He never went on a
small rampage, and he never went too often.
He would let years of quiescence slip by, until suspicion of him was
lulled asleep and his world deemed that the Wolf was at last grown old
and peaceable. And then, like a thunderbolt, he would strike at the men
and interests he wished to destroy. But, though the blow always fell
like a thunderbolt, not like a thunderbolt was it in its inception. Long
months, and even years, were spent in deviously preparing for the day
and painstakingly maturing the plans and conditions for the battle.
Thus had it been in the outlining and working up of the impending
Waterloo for Francis Morgan. Revenge lay back of it, but it was revenge
against a dead man. Not Francis, but Francis’ father, was the one he
struck against, although he struck through the living into the heart of
the grave to accomplish it. Eight years he had waited and sought his
chance ere old R.H.M.——Richard Henry Morgan——had died. But no chance had
he found. He was, truly, the Wolf of Wall Street, but never by any luck
had he found an opportunity against the Lion—for to his death R.H.M. had
been known as the Lion of Wall Street.
So, from father to son, always under a show of fair appearance, Regan
had carried the feud over. Yet Regan’s very foundation on which he built
for revenge was meretricious and wrongly conceived. True, eight years
before R.H.M.’s death, he had tried to double-cross him and failed; but
he never dreamed that R.H.M. had guessed. Yet R.H.M. had not only
guessed but had ascertained beyond any shadow of doubt, and had promptly
and cleverly double-crossed his treacherous associate. Thus, had Regan
known that R.H.M. knew of his perfidy, Regan would have taken his
medicine without thought of revenge. As it was, believing that R.H.M.
was as bad as himself, believing that R.H.M., out of meanness as mean as
his own, without provocation or suspicion, had done this foul thing to
him, he saw no way to balance the account save by ruining him, or, in
lieu of him, by ruining his son.
And Regan had taken his time. At first Francis had left the financial
game alone, content with letting his money remain safely in the safe
investments into which it had been put by his father. Not until Francis
had become for the first time active in undertaking Tampico Petroleum to
the tune of millions of investment, with an assured many millions of
ultimate returns, had Regan had the ghost of a chance to destroy him.
But, the chance given, Regan had not wasted time, though his slow and
thorough campaign had required many months to develop. Ere he was done,
he came very close to knowing every share of whatever stock Francis
carried on margin or owned outright.
It had really taken two years and more for Regan to prepare. In some of
the corporations in which Francis owned heavily, Regan was himself a
director and no inconsiderable arbiter of destiny. In Frisco
Consolidated he was president. In New York, Vermont and Connecticut he
was vice-president. From controlling one director in Northwestern
Electric, he had played kitchen politics until he controlled the
two-thirds majority. And so with all the rest, either directly, or
indirectly through corporation and banking ramifications, he had his
hand in the secret springs and levers of the financial and business
mechanism which gave strength to Francis’ fortune.
Yet no one of these was more than a bagatelle compared with the biggest
thing of all——Tampico Petroleum. In this, beyond a paltry twenty
thousand shares bought on the open market, Regan owned nothing,
controlled nothing, though the time was growing ripe for him to sell and
deal and juggle in inordinate quantities. Tampico Petroleum was
practically Francis’ private preserve. A number of his friends were, for
them, deeply involved, Mrs. Carruthers even gravely so. She worried him,
and was not even above pestering him over the telephone. There were
others, like Johnny Pathmore, who never bothered him at all, and who,
when they met, talked carelessly and optimistically about the condition
of the market and financial things in general. All of which was harder
to bear than Mrs. Carruthers’ perpetual nervousness.
Northwestern Electric, thanks to Regan’s machinations, had actually
dropped thirty points and remained there. Those on the outside who
thought they knew, regarded it as positively shaky. Then there was the
little, old, solid-as-the-rock-of-Gibraltar Frisco Consolidated. The
nastiest of rumors were afloat, and the talk of a receivership was
growing emphatic. Montana Lode was still sickly under Mulhaney’s
unflattering and unmodified report, and Weston, the great expert sent
out by the English investors, had failed to report anything reassuring.
For six months, Imperial Tungsten, earning nothing, had been put to
disastrous expense in the great strike which seemed only just begun. Nor
did anybody, save the several labor leaders who knew, dream that it was
Regan’s gold that was at the bottom of the affair.
The secrecy and the deadliness of the attack was what unnerved Bascom.
All properties in which Francis was interested were being pressed down
as if by a slow-moving glacier. There was nothing spectacular about the
movement, merely a steady persistent decline that made Francis’ large
fortune shrink horribly. And, along with what he owned outright, what he
held on margin suffered even greater shrinkage.
Then had come rumors of war. Ambassadors were receiving their passports
right and left, and half the world seemed mobilizing. This was the
moment, with the market shaken and panicky, and with the world powers
delaying in declaring moratoriums, that Regan selected to strike. The
time was ripe for a bear raid, and with him were associated half a dozen
other big bears who tacitly accepted his leadership. But even they did
not know the full extent of his plans, nor guess at the specific
direction of them. They were in the raid for what they could make, and
thought he was in it for the same reason, in their simple directness of
pecuniary vision catching no glimpse of Francis Morgan nor of his
ghostly father at whom the big blow was being struck.
Regan’s rumor factory began working overtime, and the first to drop and
the fastest to drop in the dropping market were the stocks of Francis,
which had already done considerable dropping ere the bear market began.
Yet Regan was careful to bring no pressure on Tampico Petroleum. Proudly
it held up its head in the midst of the general slump, and eagerly Regan
waited for the moment of desperation when Francis would be forced to
dump it on the market to cover his shrunken margins in other lines.
* * * * *
“Lord! Lord!”
Bascom held the side of his face in the palm of one hand and grimaced as
if he had a jumping toothache.
“Lord! Lord!” he reiterated. “The market’s gone to smash and Tampico Pet
along with it. How she slumped! Who’d have dreamed it!”
Francis, puffing steadily away at a cigarette and quite oblivious that
it was unlighted, sat with Bascom in the latter’s private office.
“It looks like a fire-sale,” he vouchsafed.
“That won’t last longer than this time to-morrow morning——then you’ll be
sold out, and me with you,” his broker simplified, with a swift glance
at the clock.
It marked twelve, as Francis’ swiftly automatic glance verified.
“Dump in the rest of Tampico Pet,” he said wearily. “That ought to hold
back until to-morrow.”
“Then what to-morrow?” his broker demanded, “with the bottom out and
everybody including the office boys selling short.”
Francis shrugged his shoulders. “You know I’ve mortgaged the house,
Dreamwold, and the Adirondack Camp to the limit.”
“Have you any friends?”
“At such a time!” Francis countered bitterly.
“Well, it’s the very time,” Bascom retorted. “Look here, Morgan. I know
the set you ran with at college. There’s Johnny Pathmore——”
“And he’s up to his eyes already. When I smash he smashes. And Dave
Donaldson will have to readjust his life to about one hundred and sixty
a month. And as for Chris Westhouse, he’ll have to take to the movies
for a livelihood. He always was good at theatricals, and I happen to
know he’s got the ideal ‘film’ face.”
“There’s Charley Tippery,” Bascom suggested, though it was patent that
he was hopeless about it.
“Yes,” Francis agreed with equal hopelessness. “There’s only one thing
the matter with him——his father still lives.”
“The old cuss never took a flyer in his life,” Bascom supplemented.
“There’s never a time he can’t put his hand on millions. And he still
lives, worse luck.”
“Charley could get him to do it, and would, except the one thing that’s
the matter with me.”
“No securities left?” his broker queried.
Francis nodded.
“Catch the old man parting with a dollar without due security.”
* * * * *
Nevertheless, a few minutes later, hoping to find Charley Tippery in his
office during the noon hour, Francis was sending in his card. Of all
jewelers and gem merchants in New York, the Tippery establishment was
the greatest. Not only that. It was esteemed the greatest in the world.
More of the elder Tippery’s money was invested in the great Diamond
Corner, than even those in the know of most things knew of this
particular thing.
The interview was as Francis had forecast. The old man still held tight
reins on practically everything, and the son had little hope of winning
his assistance.
“I know him,” he told Francis. “And though I’m going to wrestle with
him, don’t pin an iota of faith on the outcome. I’ll go to the mat with
him, but that will be about all. The worst of it is that he has the
ready cash, to say nothing of oodles and oodles of safe securities and
United States bonds. But you see, Grandfather Tippery, when he was young
and struggling and founding the business, once loaned a friend a
thousand. He never got it back, and he never got over it. Nor did Father
Tippery ever get over it either. The experience seared both of them.
Why, father wouldn’t lend a penny on the North Pole unless he got the
Pole for security after having had it expertly appraised. And you
haven’t any security, you see. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll wrestle with
the old man to-night after dinner. That’s his most amiable mood of the
day,. And I’ll hustle around on my own and see what I can do. Oh, I know
a few hundred thousand won’t mean anything, and I’ll do my darnedest for
something big. Whatever happens, I’ll be at your house at nine
to-morrow——”
“Which will be my busy day,” Francis smiled wanly, as they shook hands.
“I’ll be out of the house by eight.”
“And I’ll be there by eight then,” Charley Tippery responded, again
wringing his hand heartily. “And in the meantime I’ll get busy. There
are ideas already beginning to sprout....”
* * * * *
Another interview Francis had that afternoon. Arrived back at his
broker’s office, Bascom told him that Regan had called up and wanted to
see Francis, saying that he had some interesting information for him.
“I’ll run around right away,” Francis said, reaching for his hat, while
his face lighted up with hope. “He was an old friend of father’s, and if
anybody could pull me through, he could.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Bascom shook his head, and paused reluctantly a
moment before making confession. “I called him up just before you
returned from Panama. I was very frank. I told him of your absence and
of your perilous situation here, and——oh, yes, flatly and flat
out——asked him if I could rely on him in case of need. And he baffled.
You know anybody can baffle when asked a favor. That was all right. But
I thought I sensed more ... no, I won’t dare to say enmity; but I will
say that I was impressed ... how shall I say?—well, that he struck me as
being particularly and peculiarly cold-blooded and non-committal.”
“Nonsense,” Francis laughed. “He was too good a friend of my father’s.”
“Ever heard of the Conmopolitan Railways Merger?” Bascom queried with
significant irrelevance.
Francis nodded promptly, then said:
“But that was before my time. I merely have heard of it, that’s all.
Shoot. Tell me about it. Give me the weight of your mind.”
“Too long a story, but take this one word of advice. If you see Regan,
don’t put your cards on the table. Let him play first, and, if he
offers, let him offer without solicitation from you. Of course, I may be
all wrong, but it won’t damage you to hold up your hand and get his play
first.”
At the end of another half hour, Francis was closeted with Regan, and
the stress of his peril was such that he controlled his natural
impulses, remembering Bascom’s instruction, and was quite fairly
nonchalant about the state of his affairs. He even bluffed.
“In pretty deep, eh?” was Regan’s beginning.
“Oh, not so deep that my back-teeth are awash yet,” Francis replied
airily. “I can still breathe, and it will be a long time before I begin
swallowing.”
Regan did not immediately reply. Instead, pregnantly, he ran over the
last few yards of the ticker tape.
“You’re dumping Tampico Pet pretty heavily, just the same.”
“And they’re snapping it up,” Francis came back, and for the first time,
in a maze of wonderment, he considered the possibility of Bascom’s
intuition being right. “Sure, I’ve got _them_ swallowing.”
“Just the same, you’ll note that Tampico Pet is tumbling at the same
time it’s being snapped up, which is a very curious phenomenon,” Regan
urged.
“In a bear market all sorts of curious phenomena occur,” Francis bluffed
with a mature show of wisdom. “And when they’ve swallowed enough of my
dumpings they’ll be ripe to roll on a barrel. Somebody will pay
something to get my dumpings out of their system. I fancy they’ll pay
through the nose before I’m done with them.”
“But you’re all in, boy. I’ve been watching your fight, even before your
return. Tampico Pet is your last.”
Francis shook his head.
“I’d scarcely say that,” he lied. “I’ve got assets my market enemies
never dream of. I’m luring them on, that’s all, just luring them on. Of
course, Regan, I’m telling you this in confidence. You were my father’s
friend. Mine is going to be some clean up, and, if you’ll take my tip,
in this short market you start buying. You’ll be sure to settle with the
sellers long in the end.”
“What are your other assets?”
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s what they’re going to find out when they’re full up with my
stuff.”
“It’s a bluff!” Regan admired explosively. “You’ve got the old man’s
nerve, all right. But you’ve got to show me it isn’t bluff.”
Regan waited, and Francis was suddenly inspired.
“It is,” he muttered. “You’ve named it. I’m drowning over my back-teeth
now, and they’re the highest out of the wash. But I won’t drown if you
will help me. All you’ve got to do is to remember my father and put out
your hand to save his son. If you’ll back me up, we’ll make them all
sick....”
And right there the Wolf of Wall Street showed his teeth. He pointed to
Richard Henry Morgan’s picture.
“Why do you think I kept that hanging on the wall all these years?” he
demanded.
Francis nodded as if the one accepted explanation was their tried and
ancient friendship.
“Guess again,” Regan sneered grimly.
Francis shook his head in perplexity.
“So I shouldn’t ever forget him,” the Wolf went on. “And never a waking
moment have I forgotten him.——Remember the Conmopolitan Railways Merger?
Well, old R.H.M. double-crossed me in that deal. And it was some
double-cross, believe me. But he was too cunning ever to let me get a
come-back on him. So there his picture has hung, and here I’ve sat and
waited. And now the time has come.”
“You mean?” Francis queried quietly.
“Just that,” Regan snarled. “I’ve waited and worked for this day, and
the day has come. I’ve got the whelp where I want him at any rate.” He
glanced up maliciously at the picture. “And if that don’t make the old
gent turn in his grave....”
Francis rose to his feet and regarded his enemy curiously.
“No,” he said, as if in soliloquy, “it isn’t worth it.”
“What isn’t worth what?” the other demanded with swift suspicion.
“Beating you up,” was the cool answer. “I could kill you with my hands
in five minutes. You’re no Wolf. You’re just mere yellow dog, the part
of you that isn’t plain skunk. They told me to expect this of you; but I
didn’t believe, and I came to see. They were right. You were all that
they said. Well, I must get along out of this. It smells like a den of
foxes. It stinks.”
He paused with his hand on the door knob and looked back. He had not
succeeded in making Regan lose his temper.
“And what are you going to do about it?” the latter jeered.
“If you’ll permit me to get my broker on your ‘phone maybe you’ll
learn,” Francis replied.
“Go to it, my laddy buck,” Regan conceded, then, with a wave of
suspicion, “—I’ll get him for you myself.”
And, having ascertained that Bascom was really at the other end of the
line, he turned the receiver over to Francis.
“You were right,” the latter assured Bascom. “Regan’s all you said and
worse. Go right on with your plan of campaign. We’ve got him where we
want him, though the old fox won’t believe it for a moment. He thinks
he’s going to strip me, clean me out.” Francis paused to think up the
strongest way of carrying on his bluff, then continued. “I’ll tell you
something you don’t know. He’s the one who manœuvred the raid from the
beginning. So now you know who we’re going to bury.”
And, after a little more of similar talk, he hung up.
“You see,” he explained, again from the door, “you were so crafty that
we couldn’t make out who it was. Why hell, Regan, we were prepared to
give a walloping to some unknown that had several times your strength.
And now that it’s you, it’s easy. We were prepared to strain. But with
you it will be a walk-over. To-morrow, around this time, there’s going
to be a funeral right here in your office and you’re not going to be one
of the mourners. You’re going to be the corpse——and a not-nice looking
financial corpse you’ll be when we get done with you.”
“The dead spit of R.H.M.,” the Wolf grinned. “Lord, how he could pull
off a bluff!”
“It’s a pity he didn’t bury you and save me all the trouble,” was
Francis’ parting shot.
“And all the expense,” Regan flung after him. “It’s going to be pretty
expensive for you, and there isn’t going to be any funeral from this
place.”
* * * * *
“Well, to-morrow’s the day,” Francis delivered to Bascom, as they parted
that evening. “This time to-morrow I’ll be a perfectly nice scalped and
skinned and sun-dried and smoke-cured specimen for Regan’s private
collection. But who’d have believed the old skunk had it in for me! I
never harmed him. On the contrary, I always considered him father’s best
friend.——If Charley Tippery could only come through with some of the
Tippery surplus coin....”
“Or if the United States would only declare a moratorium,” Bascom hoped
equally hopelessly.
And Regan, at that moment, was saying to his assembled agents and
rumor-factory specialists:
“Sell! Sell! Sell all you’ve got and then sell short. I see no bottom to
this market!”
And Francis, on his way up town, buying the last extra, scanned the
five-inch-lettered headline:
“I SEE NO BOTTOM TO THIS MARKET.—THOMAS REGAN.”
But Francis was not at his house at eight next morning to meet Charley
Tippery. It had been a night in which official Washington had not slept,
and the night-wires had carried the news out over the land that the
United States, though not at war, had declared its moratorium. Wakened
out of his bed at seven by Bascom in person, who brought the news,
Francis had accompanied him down town. The moratorium had given them
hope, and there was much to do.
Charles Tippery, however, was not the first to arrive at the Riverside
Drive palace. A few minutes before eight, Parker was very much disturbed
and perturbed when Henry and Leoncia, much the worse for sunburn and
travel-stain, brushed past the second butler who had opened the door.
“It’s no use you’re coming in this way,” Parker assured them. “Mr.
Morgan is not at home.”
“Where’s he gone?” Henry demanded, shifting the suit-case he carried to
the other hand. “We’ve got to see him _pronto_, and I’ll have you know
that _pronto_ means quick. And who in hell are you?”
“I am Mr. Morgan’s confidential valet,” Parker answered solemnly. “And
who are you?”
“My name’s Morgan,” Henry answered shortly, looking about in quest of
something, striding to the library, glancing in, and discovering the
telephones. “Where’s Francis? With what number can I call him up?”
“Mr. Morgan left express instructions that nobody was to telephone him
except on important business.”
“Well, my business is important. What’s the number?”
“Mr. Morgan is very busy to-day,” Parker reiterated stubbornly.
“He’s in a pretty bad way, eh?” Henry quizzed.
The valet’s face remained expressionless.
“Looks as though he was going to be cleaned out to-day, eh?”
Parker’s face betrayed neither emotion nor intelligence.
“For a second time I tell you he is very busy——” he began.
“Hell’s bells!” Henry interrupted. “It’s no secret. The market’s got him
where the hair is short. Everybody knows that. A lot of it was in the
morning papers. Now come across, Mr. Confidential Valet. I want his
number. I’ve got important business with him myself.”
But Parker remained obdurate.
“What’s his lawyer’s name? Or the name of his agent? Or of any of his
representatives?”
Parker shook his head.
“If you will tell me the nature of your business with him,” the valet
essayed.
Henry dropped the suit-case and made as if about to leap upon the other
and shake Francis’ number out of him. But Leoncia intervened.
“Tell him,” she said.
“Tell him!” Henry shouted, accepting her suggestion. “I’ll do better
than that. I’ll show him.—Here, come on, you.” He strode into the
library, swung the suit-case on the reading table, and began opening it.
“Listen to me, Mr. Confidential Valet. Our business is the real
business. We’re going to save Francis Morgan. We’re going to pull him
out of the hole. We’ve got millions for him, right here inside of this
thing——”
Parker, who had been looking on with cold, disapproving eyes, recoiled
in alarm at the last words. Either the strange callers were lunatics, or
cunning criminals. Even at that moment, while they held him here with
their talk of millions, confederates might be ransacking the upper parts
of the house. As for the suit-case, for all he knew it might be filled
with dynamite.
“Here!”
With a quick reach Henry had caught him by the collar as he turned to
flee. With his other hand, Henry lifted the cover, exposing a bushel of
uncut gems. Parker showed plainly that he was overcome, although Henry
failed to guess the nature of his agitation.
“Thought I’d convince you,” Henry exulted. “Now be a good dog and give
me his number.”
“Be seated, sir ... and madame,” Parker murmured, with polite bows and a
successful effort to control himself. “Be seated, please. I have left
the private number in Mr. Morgan’s bedroom, which he gave to me this
morning when I helped him dress. I shall be gone but a moment to get it.
In the meantime please be seated.”
Once outside the library, Parker became a most active, clear-thinking
person. Stationing the second footman at the front door, he placed the
first one to watch at the library door. Several other servants he sent
scouting into the upper regions on the chance of surprising possible
confederates at their nefarious work. Himself he addressed, via the
butler’s telephone, to the nearest police station.
“Yes, sir,” he repeated to the desk sergeant. “They are either a couple
of lunatics or criminals. Send a patrol wagon at once, please, sir. Even
now I do not know what horrible crimes are being committed under this
roof ...”
In the meantime, in response at the front door, the second footman, with
visible relief, admitted Charley Tippery, clad in evening dress at that
early hour, as a known and tried friend of the master. The first butler,
with similar relief, to which he added sundry winks and warnings,
admitted him into the library.
Expecting he knew not what nor whom, Charley Tippery advanced across the
large room to the strange man and woman. Unlike Parker, their sunburn
and travel-stain caught his eye, not as insignia suspicious, but as
tokens worthy of wider consideration than average New York accords its
more or less average visitors. Leoncia’s beauty was like a blow between
the eyes, and he knew she was a lady. Henry’s bronze, brazed upon
features unmistakably reminiscent of Francis and of R.H.M., drew his
admiration and respect.
“Good morning,” he addressed Henry, although he subtly embraced Leoncia
with his greeting. “Friends of Francis?”
“Oh, sir,” Leoncia cried out. “We are more than friends. We are here to
save him. I have read the morning papers. If only it weren’t for the
stupidity of the servants ...”
And Charley Tippery was immediately unaware of any slightest doubt. He
extended his hand to Henry.
“I am Charley Tippery,” he said.
“And my name’s Morgan, Henry Morgan,” Henry met him warmly, like a
drowning man clutching at a life preserver. “And this is Miss Solano—the
Senorita Solano—Mr. Tippery. In fact, Miss Solano is my sister.”
“I came on the same errand,” Charley Tippery announced, introductions
over. “The saving of Francis, as I understand it, must consist of hard
cash or of securities indisputably negotiable. I have brought with me
what I have hustled all night to get, and what I am confident is not
sufficient——”
“How much have you brought?” Henry asked bluntly.
“Eighteen hundred thousand—what have you brought?”
“Piffle,” said Henry, pointing to the open suit-case, unaware that he
talked to a three-generations’ gem expert.
A quick examination of a dozen of the gems picked at random, and an even
quicker eye-estimate of the quantity, put wonder and excitement into
Charley Tippery’s face.
“They’re worth millions! millions!” he exclaimed. “What are you going to
do with them?”
“Negotiate them, so as to help Francis out,” Henry answered. “They’re
security for any amount, aren’t they?”
“Close up the suit-case,” Charley Tippery cried, “while I telephone!—I
want to catch my father before he leaves the house,” he explained over
his shoulder, while waiting for his switch. “It’s only five minutes’ run
from here.”
Just as he concluded the brief words with his father, Parker, followed
by a police lieutenant and two policemen, entered.
“There’s the gang, lieutenant—arrest them,” Parker said.—“Oh, sir, I beg
your pardon, Mr. Tippery. Not you, of course.—Only the other two,
lieutenant. I don’t know what the charge will be—crazy, anyway, if not
worse, which is more likely.”
“How do you do, Mr. Tippery,” the lieutenant greeted familiarly.
“You’ll arrest nobody, Lieutenant Burns,” Charley Tippery smiled to him.
“You can send the wagon back to the station. I’ll square it with the
Inspector. For you’re coming along with me, and this suit-case, and
these suspicious characters, to my house. You’ll have to be
bodyguard—oh, not for me, but for this suit-case. There are millions in
it, cold millions, hard millions, beautiful millions. When I open it
before my father, you’ll see a sight given to few men in this world to
see.—And now, come on everybody. We’re wasting time.”
He made a grab at the suit-case simultaneously with Henry, and, as both
their hands clutched it, Lieutenant Burns sprang to interfere.
“I fancy I’ll carry it until it’s negotiated,” Henry asserted.
“Surely, surely,” Charley Tippery conceded, “as long as we don’t lose
any more precious time. It will take time to do the negotiating. Come
on! Hustle!”