THE TELEGRAM
Bobby Rigby and Graydon Bansemer were bosom friends in Chicago;
they had been classmates at Yale. It had been a question of money
with Bobby from the beginning. According to his own admission, his
money was a source of great annoyance to him. He was not out of
debt but once, and then, before he fully realised it. So unusual
was the condition, that he could not sleep; the first thing he did
in the morning was to borrow right and left for fear another attack
of insomnia might interfere with his training for the football
eleven.
Robertson Ray Rigby, immortalised as Bobby, had gone in for athletics,
where he learned to think and act quickly. He was called one of the
lightest, but headiest quarterbacks in the East. No gridiron idol
ever escaped his "Jimmy," or "Toppy," or "Pop," or "Johnny." When
finally, he hung out his shingle in Chicago: "Robertson R. Rigby,
Attorney-at-Law," he lost his identity even among his classmates.
It was weeks before the fact became generally known that it was
Bobby who waited for clients behind the deceptive shingle.
The indulgent aunt who had supplied him with funds in college
was rich in business blocks and apartment buildings; and now, Mr.
Robertson R. Rigby was her man of affairs. When he went in for
business, the old push of the football field did not desert him.
He was very much alive and very vigorous, and it did not take him
long to "learn the signals."
With his aunt's unfaltering prosperity, his own ready wit and unbridled
versatility, he was not long in establishing himself safely in his
profession and in society. Everybody liked him, though no one took
him seriously except when they came to transact business with him.
Then, the wittiness of the drawing-room turned into shrewdness as
it crossed the office threshold.
The day after the Cable dinner, Bobby yawned and stretched through
his morning mail. He had slept but little the night before, and
all on account of a certain, or rather, uncertain Miss Clegg. That
petite and aggravating young woman had been especially exasperating
at the Cable dinner. Mr. Rigby, superbly confident of his standing
with her, encountered difficulties which put him very much out
of temper. For the first time, there was an apparent rift in her
constancy; never before had she shown such signs of fluctuating.
He could not understand it--in fact, he dared not understand it.
"She was a most annoying young person," said Mr. Rigby to himself
wrathfully, more than once after he went to bed that night. Anyhow,
he could not see what there was about Howard Medford for any girl
to countenance, much less to admire. Mr. Medford certainly had ruined
the Cable dinner-party for Mr. Rigby, and he was full of resentment.
"Miss Keating!" called Mr. Rigby for the third time; "may I interrupt
your conversation with Mr. Deever long enough to ask a question
that has been on my mind for twenty minutes?"
Mr. Deever was the raw, young gentleman who read law in the office
of Judge Smith, next door. Bobby maintained that if he read law at
all, it was at night, for he wap too busy with other occupations
during the day.
Miss Keating, startled, turned roundabout promptly.
"Yes, sir," at last, came from the pert, young woman near the
window.
"I guess I'll be going," said Mr. Deever resentfully, rising slowly
from the side of her desk on which he had been lounging.
"Wait a minute, Eddie," protested Miss Keating; "what's your hurry?"
and then, she almost snapped out: "What is it, Mr. Rigby?"
"I merely wanted to ask if you have sufficient time to let me
dictate a few, short letters that ought to go out to-day," said
Bobby, sarcastically; and then added with mock apology: "Don't move,
Mr. Deever; if you're not in Miss Keating's way, you're certainly
not in mine."
"A great josher!" that young woman was heard to comment, admiringly.
"You may wake up some morning to find that I'm not," said Bobby,
soberly. Whereupon, Miss Keating rose and strode to the other end
of the room and took her place beside Bobby's desk.
Bobby dictated half a dozen inconsequential letters before coming
to the one which troubled him most. For many minutes he stared
reflectively at the typewritten message from New York. Miss Keating
frowned severely and tapped her little foot somewhat impatiently on
the floor; but Bobby would not be hurried. His reflections were too
serious. This letter from New York had come with a force sufficient
to drive out even the indignant thoughts concerning one Miss Clegg.
For the life of him, Bobby Rigby could not immediately frame a
reply to the startling missive. Eddie Deever stirred restlessly on
the window ledge.
"Don't hurry, Eddie!" called Miss Keating, distinctly and insinuatingly.
"Oh, I guess I'll be going!" he called back, beginning to roll
a cigarette. "I have some reading to do to-day." Mr. Deever was
tall, awkward and homely, and a lot of other things that would have
discouraged a less self-satisfied "lady's man." Judge Smith said
he was hopeless, but that he might do better after he was twenty-one.
"What are you reading now, Eddie?" asked Miss Keating, complacently
eyeing Mr. Rigby. "Raffles?"
"Law, you idiot!" said Eddie, scornfully, going out of the door.
"Oh! Well, the law is never in a hurry, don't you know? It's like
justice--the slowest thing in town!" she called after him as his
footsteps died away.
"Ready?" said Bobby, resolutely. "Take this, please; and slowly
and carefully he proceeded to dictate:
"MR. DENIS HARBERT,
"NEW YORK,
"DEAR DENIS: I cannot tell you how much your letter surprised me.
What you say seems preposterous. There must be a mistake. It cannot
be this man. I know him quite well, and seems as straight as a
string and a gentleman, too. His son, you know as well as I. There
isn't a better fellow in the world! Mr. B. has a fairly good business
here; his transactions open and aboveboard. I'm sure I have never
heard a word said against him or his methods. You are mistaken,
that's all there is about it.
"You might investigate a little further and, assuring yourself, do
all in your power to check such stories as you relate. Of course,
I'll do as you suggest; but I'm positive I can find nothing
discreditable in his dealings here.
"Keep me posted on everything.
"As ever, yours,"
Miss Keating's anxiety was aroused. After a very long silence, she
took the reins into her own hands. "Is Mr. Briggs in trouble?" she
asked at a venture. Mr. Briggs was the only client she could think
of, whose name began with a B.
"Briggs? What Briggs?" asked Bobby, relighting his pipe for the
fourth time.
"Why, our Mr. Briggs," answered Miss Keating, curtly.
"I'm sure I don't know, Miss Keating. Has he been around lately?"
"I thought you were referring to him in that letter," she said
succinctly.
"Oh, dear me, no. Another party altogether, Miss Keating. Isn't
the typewriter in working order this morning?" he asked, eyeing her
machine innocently. She miffed and started to reply, but thought
better of it. Then she began pounding the keys briskly.
"It works like a charm," she shot back, genially.
The letter that caused Bobby such perturbation came in the morning
mail. His friend had laid bare some of the old stories concerning
James Bansemer, and cautioned him not to become involved in
transactions with the former New Yorker. Harbert's statements were
positive in character, and he seemed to know his case thoroughly
well. While the charges as they came to Rigby were general, Harbert
had said that he was quite ready to be specific.
All day long, the letter hung like a cloud over young Mr. Rigby.
He was to have lunched with Graydon, and was much relieved when
young Bansemer telephoned that he could not join him. Rigby found
himself in a very uncomfortable position. If the stories from
New York were true, even though he knew none of the inside facts,
Graydon's father was pretty much of a scalawag, to say the least.
He was not well acquainted with the lawyer, but he now recalled
that he never had liked the man. Bansemer had impressed him from the
beginning as heartless, designing, utterly unlike his clean-hearted
son.
Bobby loved Graydon Bansemer in the way that one man loves a true
friend. He was certain that the son knew nothing of those shady
transactions--if they really existed as Harbert painted them--but
an exposure of the father would be a blow from which he could not
recover.
It came at last to Rigby that he was not the only one in Chicago
who held the secret. Other members of the bar had been warned long
before the news came to him, and it was morally certain that if the
facts were as bad as intimated, the police also were in possession
of them.
At the same time, Rigby felt a certain moral responsibility involving
himself. Bansemer, at any time, might apply his methods to people
who were near and dear to him. The new intimacy with the Cables came
to Bobby's mind. And then, there were Clegg, Groll, the Semesons
and others who might easily fall into the snare if James Bansemer
set it for them.
Appreciating his responsibility in the matter, now that he was
prepared to hear the worst of James Bansemer, Rigby's heart stood
almost still. It meant that some day he might have to expose Graydon
Bansemer's father; it meant that he might have to cruelly hurt his
friend; it meant that he might lose a friendship that had been one
of his best treasures since the good, old college days. The mere
fact that he would be compelled to watch and mistrust James Bansemer
seemed like darkest treachery to Graydon, even though the son should
not become aware of the situation. Later, in the afternoon, Bobby
went, guiltily, into a telegraph office and sent away a carefully
worded dispatch. The answer came to him at the club, that evening,
while he played billiards with young Bansemer, who, even then was
eager to be off to keep the promised appointment with pretty Miss
Cable.
The telegram which he opened while Graydon impatiently chalked his
cue and waited for him to play was brief and convincing. It read:
"Watch him, by all means. He is not safe, my word for it. There is
no mistake."