Helped tremendously by the moratorium, the sagging market had ceased
sagging, and some stocks were even beginning to recover. This was true
for practically every line save those lines in which Francis owned and
which Regan was bearing. He continued bearing and making them
reluctantly fall, and he noted with joy the huge blocks of Tampico
Petroleum which were being dumped obviously by no other person than
Francis.
“Now’s the time,” Regan informed his bear conspirators. “Play her coming
and going. It’s a double ruff. Remember the list I gave you. Sell these,
and sell short. For them there is no bottom. As for all the rest, buy
and buy now, and deliver all that you sold. You can’t lose, you see, and
by continuing to hammer the list you’ll make a double killing.”
“How about yourself?” one of his bear crowd queried.
“I’ve nothing to buy,” came the answer. “That will show you how square I
have been in my tip, and how confident I am. I haven’t sold a share
outside the list, so I have nothing to deliver. I am still selling short
and hammering down the list, and the list only. There’s my killing, and
you can share in it by as much as you continue to sell short.”
* * * * *
“There you are!” Bascom, in despair in his private office, cried to
Francis at ten-thirty. “Here’s the whole market rising, except your
lines. Regan’s out for blood. I never dreamed he could show such
strength. We can’t stand this. We’re finished. We’re smashed now——you,
me, all of us——everything.”
Never had Francis been cooler. Since all was lost, why worry?—was his
attitude; and, a mere layman in the game, he caught a glimpse of
possibilities that were veiled to Bascom who too thoroughly knew too
much about the game.
“Take it easy,” Francis counseled, his new vision assuming form and
substance with each tick of a second. “Let’s have a smoke and talk it
over for a few minutes.”
Bascom made a gesture of infinite impatience.
“But wait,” Francis urged. “Stop! Look! Listen! I’m finished, you say?”
His broker nodded.
“You’re finished?”
Again the nod.
“Which means that we’re busted, flat busted,” Francis went on to the
exposition of his new idea. “Now it is perfectly clear, then, to your
mind and mine, that a man can never be worse than a complete, perfect,
hundred-percent., entire, total bust.”
“We’re wasting valuable time,” Bascom protested as he nodded
affirmation.
“Not if we’re busted as completely as you’ve agreed we are,” smiled
Francis. “Being thoroughly busted, time, sales, purchases, nothing can
be of any value to us. Values have ceased, don’t you see.”
“Go on, what is it?” Bascom said, with the momentarily assumed patience
of abject despair. “I’m busted higher than a kite now, and, as you say,
they can’t bust me any higher.”
“Now you get the idea!” Francis jubilated. “You’re a member of the
Exchange. Then go ahead, sell or buy, do anything your and my merry
hearts decide. We can’t lose. Anything from zero always leaves zero.
We’ve shot all we’ve got, and more. Let’s shoot what we haven’t got.”
Bascom still struggled feebly to protest, but Francis beat him down with
a final:
“Remember, anything from zero leaves zero.”
And for the next hour, as in a nightmare, no longer a free agent, Bascom
yielded to Francis’ will in the maddest stock adventure of his life.
“Oh, well,” Francis laughed at half-past eleven, “we might as well quit
now. But remember, we’re no worse off than we were an hour ago. We were
zero then. We’re zero now. You can hang up the auctioneer’s flag any
time now.”
Bascom, heavily and wearily taking down the receiver, was about to
transmit the orders that would stop the battle by acknowledgment of
unconditional defeat, when the door opened and through it came the
familiar ring of a pirate stave that made Francis flash his hand out in
peremptory stoppage of his broker’s arm.
“Stop!” Francis cried. “Listen!”
And they listened to the song preceding the singer:
“Back to back against the mainmast,
Held at bay the entire crew.”
As Henry swaggered in, carrying a huge and different suit-case, Francis
joined with him in the stave.
“What’s doing?” Bascom queried of Charley Tippery, who, still in evening
dress, looked very jaded and worn from his exertions.
From his breast pocket he drew and passed over three certified checks
that totaled eighteen hundred thousand dollars. Bascom shook his head
sadly.
“Too late,” he said. “That’s only a drop in the bucket. Put them back in
your pocket. It would be only throwing them away.”
“But wait,” Charley Tippery cried, taking the suit-case from his singing
companion and proceeding to open it. “Maybe that will help.”
“That” consisted of a great mass of orderly bundles of gold bonds and
gilt edge securities.
“How much is it?” Bascom gasped, his courage springing up like
wild-fire.
But Francis, overcome by the sight of such plethora of ammunition,
ceased singing to gasp. And both he and Bascom gasped again when Henry
drew from his inside pocket a bundle of a dozen certified checks. They
could only stare at the prodigious sum, for each was written for a
million dollars.
“And plenty more where that came from,” Henry announced airily. “All you
have to do is say the word, Francis, and we’ll knock this bear gang to
smithereens. Now suppose you get busy. The rumors are around everywhere
that you’re gone and done for. Pitch in and show them, that’s all. Bust
every last one of them that jumped you. Shake ‘m down to their gold
watches and the fillings out of their teeth.”
“You found old Sir Henry’s treasure after all,” Francis congratulated.
“No,” Henry shook his head. “That represents part of the old Maya
treasure——about a third of it. We’ve got another third down with Enrico
Solano, and the last third’s safe right here in the Jewelers and
Traders’ National Bank.—Say, I’ve got news for you when you’re ready to
listen.”
And Francis was quickly ready. Bascom knew even better than he what was
to be done, and was already giving his orders to his staff over the
telephone—buying orders of such prodigious size that all of Regan’s
fortune would not enable him to deliver what he had sold short.
“Torres is dead,” Henry told him.
“Hurrah!” was Francis’ way of receiving it.
“Died like a rat in a trap. I saw his head sticking out. It wasn’t
pretty. And the Jefe’s dead. And ... and somebody else is dead——”
“Not Leoncia!” Francis cried out.
Henry shook his head.
“Some one of the Solanos——old Enrico?”
“No; your wife, Mrs. Morgan. Torres shot her, deliberately shot her. I
was beside her when she fell. Now hold on, I’ve got other news.
Leoncia’s right there in that other office, and she’s waiting for you to
come to her.—Can’t you wait till I’m through? I’ve got more news that
will give you the right steer before you go in to her. Why, hell’s
bells, if I were a certain Chinaman that I know, I’d make you pay me a
million for all the information I’m giving you for nothing.”
“Shoot——what is it?” Francis demanded impatiently.
“Good news, of course, unadulterated good news. Best news you ever
heard. I—now don’t laugh, or knock my block off——for the good news is
that I’ve got a sister.”
“What of it?” was Francis’ brusque response. “I always knew you had
sisters in England.”
“But you don’t get me,” Henry dragged on. “This is a perfectly brand new
sister, all grown up, and the most beautiful woman you ever laid eyes
on.”
“And what of it?” growled Francis. “That may be good news for you, but I
don’t see how it affects me.”
“Ah, now we’re coming to it,” Henry grinned. “You’re going to marry her.
I give you my full permission——”
“Not if she were ten times your sister, nor if she were ten times as
beautiful,” Francis broke in. “The woman doesn’t exist I’d marry.”
“Just the same, Francis boy, you’re going to marry this one. I know it.
I feel it in my bones. I’d bet on it.”
“I’ll bet you a thousand I don’t.”
“Aw, go on and make it a real bet,” Henry drawled.
“Any amount you want.”
“Done, then, for a thousand and fifty dollars.—Now go right into the
office there and take a look at her.”
“She’s with Leoncia?”
“Nope; she’s by herself.”
“I thought you said Leoncia was in there.”
“So I did, so I did. And so Leoncia _is_ in there. And she isn’t with
another soul, and she’s waiting to talk with you.”
By this time Francis was growing peevish.
“What are you stringing me for?” he demanded. “I can’t make head nor
tale of your foolery. One moment it’s your brand new sister in there,
and the next moment it’s your wife.”
“Who said I ever had a wife?” Henry came back.
“I give up!” Francis cried. “I’m going on in and see Leoncia. I’ll talk
with you later on when you’re back in your right mind.”
He started for the door, but was stopped by Henry.
“Just a second more, Francis, and I’m done,” he said. “I want to give
you that steer. I am not married. There is only one woman waiting for
you in there. That one woman is my sister. Also is she Leoncia.”
It required a dazed half minute for Francis to get it clearly into his
head. Again, and in a rush, he was starting for the door, when Henry
stopped him.
“Do I win?” queried Henry.
But Francis shook him off, dashed through the door, and slammed it after
him.
THE END.
CAHILL & CO., LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND DUBLIN
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Transcriber’s note:
1. Moved the ad page to the end.
2. Changed ‘broken’ to ‘broke’ on p. 53.
3. Changed ‘woman’ to ‘women on p. 64.
4. Added ‘of’ to p. 71.
5. Added ‘an’ to p. 148.
6. Changed ‘thy’ to ‘they’ on p. 181.
7. Changed ‘posses’ to ‘possess’ on p. 244.
8. Added ‘a’ to p. 284.
9. Silently corrected typographical errors.
10. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
11. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.