Amos Kidder dined with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel,
the Regina.
“Americans,” explained the host, “always flock to the newest hotel on
the theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest
thing is necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary
plumbing; it is an art! I am here not because of the journalistic,
Sunday-special character of the filtered air and automatic temperature
adjusters of this hotel, but because I discovered it had the best
chef of all New York here. The food,” he finished, with an air of
overpraising, “is almost as good as in my own house. Have you any
favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?”
“No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order,” replied
the newspaper man.
“Thank you, Kidder--thank you!” said Mr. Robison, with an air of such
profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. “I was hoping you would
leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!”
And he beckoned to the _maître d'hôtel_, who immediately hastened to the
table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. “You
may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine,” said Robison, simply.
“Dewey at Manila!” thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His
Wall Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him
to all sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never
eaten so unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and
the heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man
who said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things
in a remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the
coffee:
“I'd like to ask you two questions--just two.”
“That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to
ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'”
“O king, live forever!” said Kidder, saluting. “Thanks. Shoot ahead.”
“Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the
chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?” Kidder was
looking at Robison with a steady gaze.
“There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have
invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my
boy!” And Robison nodded.
“Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious,” said Kidder, with an
accusing tone of voice he could not quite control.
“So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious.”
“And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International
Cribbage Board--”
“But not exactly criminal, eh?”
“No; but--”
“Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose
you call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the
inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the
mind of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than
on the possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to
tell you that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I
sha'n't! But that I go about my business scientifically you yourself
have seen. At least you are witness that I have won.”
“Yes; but--”
“What's the second question?”
“There isn't a second if you won't answer the first,” said Kidder, with
the forced amiability of the foiled.
“I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose
we imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now
let us wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here
is an incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of
a panic--short-lived though it was--that caused mental anguish to
his friends, relatives, and associates; and yet that great genius of
finance, Wall Street's demigod, says nothing.”
“He says he was in his library.”
“We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What
compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to
lie?”
“I don't know.”
“You ought to; there is only one thing.”
“Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?”
“No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he
protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something
else. It's fear!”
“Of the alleged kidnappers?”
“No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear--” He paused.
“What?” eagerly asked the newspaper man.
“Ridicule!”
Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr.
Robison. He discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his
philosophical eyes.
“It's too much for me,” finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the
frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on.
Robison smiled forgivingly, and said:
“You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual
things in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known
principles to well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most
unusually. Now what do you gather from the Garrettson episode?”
“Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be
a most unusual succession of coincidences.”
“Your voice,” said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, “exudes
suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an
instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It
puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids'
millennium--or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and--”
“And newspaper men--what?” Kidder prompted, pleasantly. “Don't mind me.
I enjoy it.”
“Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a
letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave
me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is
an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are
an irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours
about me?”
“I did not have it. I have it now, however.”
“If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and
my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left
his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive
at his office. We have the evidence of his coachman--a man above
suspicion--of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for you
heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home.
We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming
circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to
allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares--led, I
am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed
up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson
there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or
suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of
the obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity
I found out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling
himself W. H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It
wasn't Garrettson, though.”
“How do you know?”
“It was clearly a ruse--having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip
that would--”
“Very ingenious; but--”
“At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners,
and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to
say the least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but
Garrettson, Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his
highly inconvenient disappearance.”
“Yes, yes; but--”
“Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form
a syndicate of intelligent men!” He made a motion with his hand as if
waving away the necessity of further elucidation.
“Friend Robison,” said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's
manner, “you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than
his silences. _Continuez, s'il vous plaît._”
“Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate
accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their
object.”
“A band of robbers?”
“No; an aggregation of philosophers.”
“None the less crooks.”
“No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class
of wealth which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the
plunderers, themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the
syndicate a confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that
would make success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street
contribute to the fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's
life was a bull factor, and his death a bear card. But they had
old-fashioned, unphilosophical scruples against murder. Moreover, the
sensational disappearance of Garrettson would serve even better than his
death. Problem: How to kidnap Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make
Garrettson kidnap himself? Simplicity itself!”
“It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you
with admiration. And so--”
“The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con.
Steel and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H.
Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand
shares, studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for
millions! They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The
rest is obvious, even to you--isn't it?” Mr. Robison gazed benignantly
at his guest.
“No; it isn't obvious to me--or to any one else,” retorted Kidder,
sharply.
“You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you
ask me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an
obvious way?”
“Insult ahead.”
“Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter
of collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house--an
impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic
attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture.
He tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr.
Garrettson. The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The
stranger says to the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning.
Tell Mr. Garrettson he will see me at once or not at all. Give him this
paper and show him this sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives
Mr. Garrettson the paper, which is apparently the first page of
the _Knickerbocker History of New York_. The memorandum informs Mr.
Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the MSS. of this history,
Cooper's “Spy,” Poe's “Goldbug,” three love-letters of George Washington
to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed letters of Thomas
Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence whose autograph
is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the stranger!”
“The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving's _Knickerbocker
History_ is a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to
make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken
into the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of
which the stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation,
particularly since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger
has prepared himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a
lunatic, for he wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and
five fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue
and haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic
are quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting
outside as usual.
“As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is
the usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man
running from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with
a horsewhip; also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This
attracts the coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street
from the Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the
coachman has turned his head away from his master's house on the left to
the horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé
slam--a rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and
prepares to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always
the office. While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has
come out of the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done
every day for thirty years.
“Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to
the house--a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery,
a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns
round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him
say, 'Beg pardon--here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand
papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W.
H. Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives
away, sure that his master is within. His customary route has been
studied and it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage
arrive at the office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because
he was in the library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has
in readiness an exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse,
and even of the coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do
come out, Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is
driven away--but not to his office! And there you are.”
“Do you really think that is what happened?”
“It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.”
“It is very fine--only it cannot happen.”
“Why not?”
“The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.”
“If you knew the history of our old New York families you would
recall the episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English
and stiff-necked, one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park,
thinking he carried his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed
in the carriage by the footman before the old lady had gotten in--and
usually the old lady got in first and the lap-robe followed.”
“But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the
cigar-ashes were there on the floor!”
“The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of
making Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled
newspapers clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered
seeing Garrettson get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of
memory.”
“Oh, well--”
“Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here,
let me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist,
better known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted
compatriots like you, has to say about this. I copied it:
“_Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and
under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of
us realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in
connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals
of any actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a
memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought,
accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past
life. When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has
suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'_”
_“The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a
misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience,
but one by which we are led to make a false judgment--and this because
the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably
fully justified._
_“A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in
regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation
in fact.”_
“But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he
wouldn't notice a different coachman?” Kidder looked incredulous in
advance of the answer.
“He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he
wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing
unusual, nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops
introspective misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of
course the coachman drove to some place or other and left the great
financier a prisoner in the cab.”
“How?”
“By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside,
so that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a
matter of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you
know.”
“I don't.”
“I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that,
since there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate
continued to be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it
impossible for Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the
private stable whither he was taken, carriage and all, except by going
through a lot of cobwebs and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged
from the coal-chute a photographer could take pictures of him--no hero
of a thrilling escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump,
full of dirt and soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed!
A quickly developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two
would, of course, make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of
the most gigantic of his promotions--the Intercontinental Railway
Consolidation. Indeed, Garrettson can use the break in prices and the
recovery of the market to increase his prestige by pointing out how
important not only his life is, but, indeed, his physical presence.”
“But the syndicate--”
“It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson
stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well,
my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of
Bohême. Come on!”
Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making
dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked
a great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally
knew.
One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson
in the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and
his face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself
of cobwebs and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why
Garrettson had not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful
forenoon--and why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for
his misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter:
_Sir,--We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall
Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain
morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the
house. We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon
by what you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was
formed to reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still
operating successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read
it by taking the first two letters of each word--except only the first
word, which is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to
tell you this because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended
it should be, and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You
might compare notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you
for your benevolence, we remain,_
_Respectfully,_
_The Plunder Recovery Syndicate._
Kidder showed this letter to Richards. “Let us see,” said Richards,
“whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the
office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator.”
He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked!
“Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street,”
said Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover
the obvious.
“Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it
really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram.
Possibly Robison himself faked it.”
“Why don't you find out?” suggested the broker. “I will,” said Kidder,
and he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable
companies had any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison
in the brokers' office.
“They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality,” said
Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation.
“Yes, yes,” acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; “but what astonishes me is
the syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next.”
“I wonder,” echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the
market was going up or down.
Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he
knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch,
Boon & Shaw “had lost a few pieces”--but not for publication. Such
things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss. Kidder
knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might again
cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself Robison.