A SURPRISING OFFER
Plucky and self-reliant as Dick Warner really was, he felt a good deal
better when he emerged from Consul Denniston's office than when he had
been trying to get by the barrier of clerks fifteen minutes earlier.
Then he had been a good many thousand miles from home, and not only
friendless in a strange and alien country, but possessed of a determined
and unscrupulous enemy as well. He had told only the truth about Hallo,
but he did not know everything, by any means, about the rich Hungarian
who had cheated his widowed mother.
He had not been very long in Semlin, however, without making the
discovery that here, in the old Hungarian town that faced the capital of
Servia across the river Save, Mike Hallo was a far more important person
than he had ever been in New York. The firm of Warner and Hallo had been
a good, sound one in New York, and both partners had been comfortably
well off. But in Semlin means that had not seemed very great in New York
made a man the equivalent of a millionaire in America. Hallo lived in
one of the finest houses of the city, and seemed to be looked up to and
respected.
"Gee!" Dick had said to himself. "They seem to think as much of him here
as people in New York do of J. P. Morgan or Andy Carnegie!"
Dick was boarding in Semlin. The extravagance of a hotel, he felt, was
not for him. He had a considerable sum of money, which he always carried
with him, in gold, wrapped in a belt, which never left him, but he knew
this money might have to last him a long time, and if he could help it
he was certainly not going to have to seek charity to get home. He
wanted to paddle his own canoe; that was his favorite motto.
Dick hadn't seen Mike Hallo, to speak to him, since he had come to
Semlin. He had seen him at a distance when Mike had been driving in an
open carriage, and Mike had seen him, too. Dick had caught the flush on
the sallow cheeks, and the look of hate that had sprung into his
father's partner's narrow, beady eyes. Oh, yes, Mike knew he was in
Semlin! And Dick did not underestimate the man's cleverness. It was just
as sure as it could be that Hallo understood very well why he had come
and what he hoped to do. Dick had tried to follow Mike's thoughts, too.
"He's a crook--he cheated my mother," Dick had said to himself. "And any
man who would do a thing like that has got a yellow streak in him a mile
wide. So it's a cinch he's afraid of me. He may think I can't do
anything to hurt him, and all that, but he won't take any chances if he
can help it, because he's a coward. He'll know he's in the wrong, even
if he thinks he's got the law fixed, so that he couldn't be pinched,
even if he went back to New York. But down at bottom, just because he
himself knows that he's in the wrong, he'll be afraid. And he'll hate
me, too, because he's done me an injury."
As a matter of fact, that was good reasoning, and showed that Dick had
it in him to become a good judge of human nature. A man's worst enemy is
always the one to whom he has done the greatest injury. It is much
easier to forgive someone who has done one an injury than to retain a
liking for the person one has hurt or cheated.
That morning, before he had gone to the consulate, the Semlin police had
visited Dick. First they had asked for his passport and when he couldn't
produce one, had told him that, as an English subject, he must leave the
town within twenty-four hours.
"You go tell Mike Hallo I'm not afraid of him, even if he gets the whole
Hungarian army after me!" Dick had said.
The policemen had only professed utter ignorance concerning Hallo, but
Dick had not been deceived. He had not lived in New York without coming
to the conclusion that a man with a great deal of money can command a
good many things not at the disposal of ordinary people, and he was
perfectly sure that it was Mike Hallo who was behind this sudden
activity of the police in Semlin.
"He's a dirty sneak," he said to himself. "But I've got to get busy and
call on Uncle Sam to help, or I'm apt to be chased out of here before I
get a good crack at Mike. Even if I'm not afraid of him and the whole
Hungarian army, it's a cinch that it wouldn't take more than a couple of
Hungarian cops to put me on a train and see that I stayed there."
So, if he had not been frightened, Dick had been a good deal worried
when he went to the consulate. His travels about Europe had shown him
that over here things were allowed that would have been impossible at
home, and that there is something more than a pretty line or two of
poetry about the verse that sings of the land of the free. There wasn't
much freedom, he had long since decided for himself, in countries like
Austria and Hungary. Those who had influence with officials, like the
police, or with the army, could do very much as they pleased, and those
who didn't had to toe the mark whenever anyone in uniform told them to
do so whether they liked it or no.
That was why he was able to leave the consulate with a light heart and a
song on his lips. He had found a friend, and it seemed to him that a
friend was a pretty good thing to have found here on the banks of the
Danube, four thousand miles and more from the apartment on Washington
Heights where his mother and his little sister, for whose sakes he had
made his adventurous journey, were waiting for him. About Consul
Denniston, busy as he was, and rather stern though his aspect had been
in the beginning, there was something that made Dick feel that he would
go through a good deal for the sake of anyone he had decided to
befriend. So in the street Dick snapped his fingers at Semlin and the
whole Austrian empire.
"That for Mike Hallo!" he said. "Well, I think I'll go and try to see
the old boy! Wonder if he'll see me? They can't hang me for trying!"
He knew where Hallo was to be found. His office was in the warehouse
that he owned. His trade was largely one with Russia and Roumania.
Barges laden with products of all sorts from the interior came consigned
to him, and were transshipped here at Semlin to the river steamers and
other vessels that went down the Danube toward the sea. And so his
warehouse was down by the river, whence an excellent view of the old,
mysterious looking city of Belgrade could be had. Dick knew something of
history, and he remembered that for centuries the high tide of the
Turkish invasion had come as far as this and stopped. Christian and Turk
in turn had held Belgrade and Semlin, and great battles had been fought
many and many a time on the ground that he now trod.
But he forgot about ancient history when finally he stood outside of
Hallo's warehouse. He went in boldly, not asking anyone for directions,
until he came to a boy of about his own age on guard outside his own
door. This boy took one look at him, and then, to his surprise, spoke to
him in English.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, very politely.
"I'd like to see Mr. Hallo," said Dick.
"Right in here," said the other boy. "He's not busy just now."
"He will be, when he sees me," said Dick, and walked in.
Hallo was sitting at a table, looking over some papers. At the sound of
Dick's entrance he looked up, and for just a moment Dick saw the same
look of mingled fear and hatred in his eyes that he had caught when he
had seen him driving. But then that look vanished, and Hallo, with an
obvious effort, greeted Dick with the bluff heartiness that Dick
remembered so well as his customary manner in the days before his
father's death.
"Well, well, Dick Warner! My old friend's son! I am glad to see you,
Dick! What brings you here, so far from New York?"
"Business, Mr. Hallo."
"You are starting young, Dick! May I ask what sort of business? And can
I help you, or is this just a friendly visit to a man who held you on
his knee when you were a baby back in New York?"
"Oh, cut that out, Mr. Hallo!" said Dick, disgusted. "You know mighty
well why I'm here. I want to know what you're going to do about the way
you cheated my mother. You told her the business in New York had failed,
and she believed you. Now are you going to do the right thing?"
"I don't understand, Dick," said Hallo. Plainly he was trying to be very
patient, and his whole manner was that of a kindly, genial man assailed
by a bad little boy, but determined not to lose his temper. "Your
father's estate was settled in the regular way. No one regretted his
death more than I. The way things went afterward proved how important he
was to the business. I lost a great deal of money in the failure, you
know."
"You didn't!" said Dick. "Oh, we've got the goods on you, Mike Hallo!
And I'll tell you something, too. Maybe there's nothing I can do to you
here. I don't know yet--not until I've hired a lawyer who knows all
about the sort of law you have here. But I know this much. You'll be
wanting to come back to America sometime--you'll have to, on account of
your business. And we've found out enough to fix it so that you'll be
arrested the minute you step off the steamer on to American soil!"
This was a pure bluff, but it might be true, at that. What Dick did know
was that Hallo had stolen money, and he was sure that, whether the law
would make it possible to cause his arrest or not, it ought to make that
not only possible, but easy. Beyond question, too, the statement had its
effect. Hallo's small eyes were getting smaller and narrower, and though
the smile was still on his face, he kept it there with an obvious
effort.
"You hurt me, Richard," he said. "I did all I could for your mother. I
tried in every possible way to cover up the mistakes your father made
before he died--"
"You said just now that if he had lived things would have been all
right! You don't want to mix up your stories that way, Mike! It won't
sound well when they get you into court and try you!" retorted Dick,
his temper quickly rising.
"I see that there is no use in talking to you," said Hallo, looking as
if he felt more sorry than angry. "I regret very much that your mother
is not so well off as she was once, but it is not my fault, and I am
afraid that I am too busy to talk any more to you about this matter
until you are in a better frame of mind. How long shall you be in
Semlin?"
"You ought to know," said Dick. "How long can I hold out against your
pull? If that goes back on you, you've still got the answer. Because I'm
going to stay here until you either have me run out of town or come
through with a check for the money you stole--and a check that I can get
certified at the bank, too, before I take the train."
Hallo tried to look bewildered, and as if he did not understand what
Dick meant, but the attempt was a poor one. His anger was rapidly
passing all bounds.
"So long!" said Dick. "I'll see you again, Mike. I'll give you a tip,
too. You'd better not try any monkey business with me, because Uncle
Sam's right on the job. I'm not very important, you know, back in New
York, but I'm an American! And I guess they'd just as soon send a
gun-boat or two up that big river after me if there wasn't any other way
of fixing things."
And on that word Dick turned and left the office. He had accomplished as
much and as little as he had expected. He had forced a show-down, so
that now matters between him and Hallo had come to a crisis. He had
never expected Hallo to yield, of course, until he was forced to do so.
In fact, he had done even better than he had hoped. He had expected to
have some difficulty in getting speech with the man at all.
The boy who had let him into Hallo's office was waiting for him outside.
"Quick!" he whispered. "I am a friend. Tell me where you live. Perhaps I
shall be able to help you--and you will need help!"