THE FOURTH DAY
The time-lock is not an old device, but it is already a necessity.
Just as the invention of new and impenetrable armor for battle-ships
has only produced new cannon or new projectiles which make necessary
a still harder protective shell about the ship, so has the increasing
ingenuity with which banks guard their treasure been met by a
corresponding advance in audacity and skill by those whose trade it is
to rob the banks. An old-fashioned safe would be to a bank as useless
a toy as one of Gustavus Adolphus’s wooden cannon in a modern fort;
and a safe cracker of the past generation would be as helpless as John
Bagsbury’s daughter Martha in the presence of a great Harveyized-steel
sphere with its electric apron burglar alarm, its half-dozen separate
combinations, and its time-lock ticking away inside. The time-lock
differs from other devices of the sort in this, that it is no
respecter of persons; it makes no discrimination between Trojan and
Tyrian, friend and enemy. It resides in a glass-covered box on the
inner face of the door. You unlock the cover, turn the knob until the
hand upon a dial points to a certain number, and push the door to, and
it will not open again until that number of hours has elapsed.
It had occurred to Melville Sponley that vaults which could not be
unlocked would be as disastrous to a bank as vaults which were empty;
and Curtin, carrying out his employer’s instructions that afternoon,
after John had gone away, had merely given the little knob in the glass
box an extra twist.
That was no very difficult thing to do, nor, being done, to make a man
afraid. Of course, they would know he had done it. He alone in the bank
had the key to the box, save on occasions when he handed it over to
Peters. And it was altogether likely that John Bagsbury would suspect
him of having done it maliciously. But it would be impossible to prove
such a suspicion as that; the excuse was entirely plausible. The bank,
on account of the run that day, had closed nearly three hours later
than usual, and the assistant cashier, forgetting to take that into
account, wound up the spring just as he was in the habit of doing, so
that instead of opening at nine, the bolt would not fall out of place
until twelve. They could never prove that he meant to do it.
When Sponley had told him about it in the little room in the Eagle
Café, the prospect of being able, with so small an act, to work John
Bagsbury an injury, had pleased him. And even in doing it he enjoyed
the feeling of guilty excitement that had come over him. He hated John,
partly because of the various rascalities he had been practising upon
the Banker in the past six months, partly because he did not dare hate
Melville Sponley. His resentment of the insult the Bear had paid him at
the Eagle bar was simply fuel to his eagerness to pass on the injury to
John. The cream of the stratagem, what he licked his lips over as he
rode home from the bank, was that there could be no proof, not a grain,
that he had not merely made a very natural mistake.
But for all that he was afraid. For no assignable reason, at first,
save that he was a coward; but soon his cowardice began suggesting
reasons. He thought of a good many disquieting possibilities during
the evening, and, later, in the restless hours while he slept or dozed,
his dreams spun about them a tangle of frightful grotesques. Awake or
asleep the Banker troubled him, pursuing him through his dreams in a
hundred horrible shapes, and at his elbow when he waked out of them
and lay, with the rigor of nightmare still in his muscles and the
perspiration of fear on his skin, trying to console himself with the
thought that there was nothing they could prove. There would be one
unpleasant moment when the Banker would look at him, perhaps speak
to him, but that would soon be over. If he could only brazen it out
through that, all would go well.
Much as he dreaded the day that was coming, he welcomed the light that
announced it. At a, for him, ridiculously early hour, he dressed and
ordered his breakfast. He stormed because it was not ready; but when it
was brought to him, he did not eat it, for in the interval he had got a
morning paper, and had found there additional ground for his uneasiness.
There was, as he had expected, a detailed account of the run, and it
made rather good reading, ending, as it did, with a highly colored
description of the coming of reënforcements. But he found more than he
had bargained for in another column, whose head-lines made him cold
and sick and hollow at the stomach, a report of an interview with John
Bagsbury, which began with these words:--
“The run on our bank to-day was not an accident. It was deliberately
provoked in order to bear the lard market. That is not a guess. I am
speaking from knowledge.”
John never took the trouble to be plausible. He did not arrange the
truth to give it a lifelike appearance. When he made that statement,
boldly, without argument or corroborative detail, to the half-dozen
reporters who had gathered in his library, they believed him, and
ninety per cent of the men who read the words in newspaper type next
morning also believed.
Curtin read the first sentence, then his eye glanced swiftly down the
column, looking for his own name; but there was small relief in the
fact that he did not find it there. He was certain that John Bagsbury’s
words were not a bluff. So, wondering how much the Banker knew, more
than he had told the reporters, Curtin allowed his breakfast to grow
cold and to be taken away untasted. It was too early to go to the bank,
but there was nothing else to do, and he could not keep still, so he
set out down town.
What followed is not pleasant, but it was inevitable. He could not get
a seat in the elevated train, and the long jolting ride left him sick
and giddy. He went directly to the bank, though it was far too early
to go in, and after hesitating a while on the steps, he went away and
wandered aimlessly about the streets. The people he passed stared at
him, and he knew that his white face and uncertain walk gave them
excuse enough. It would never do for John Bagsbury to see him looking
like that. He needed something to stiffen him up for that morning’s
work, so he turned into the nearest bar.
A man with an empty stomach and a weak head must exercise great
discretion in drinking Scotch whiskey, and Curtin knew it. He would
only take a very little. It would have been fortunate for him and for
Melville Sponley if after he once started he had drunk himself to
sleep, or to the police station. But he kept his promise to himself, he
took only a little.
What wonderful stuff that liquid amber was! As he sipped it, he felt
his sluggish blood stirring; it was making a man of him. The fears of
the night were gone far back into his memory now; he could think of
them and laugh. He was ready for whatever might happen at the bank. The
moment of discovery would not disconcert him in the least. He took one
more little drink, and then, with almost a swagger, he walked back to
the bank. John Bagsbury might look at him now and be damned!
* * * * *
Melville Sponley read the report of the interview with John Bagsbury
and accorded it ungrudging admiration. That direct way of saying things
was characteristic of John, and when he did it, it was immensely
effective. That was the reward, the Bear reflected, which sometimes
comes to a man who never drives a hard bargain with the truth. This
blurting out of the whole story was a good move. It was worthy of the
very pretty fight the Banker had been making this past week.
The Bear could afford to look with ironical indulgence on John’s last
desperate efforts to save himself, because he knew how futile they
were. The Bear was in high feather. There was some credit in beating
a combination like Pickering and Bagsbury. Bagsbury was, bar one, the
best man in the city.
His eye fell upon the vacant place across the table, and he came back
sharply to present realities. He had not seen Harriet since Tuesday
afternoon, had heard nothing from her since the little note asking
him to excuse her for not coming down to dinner. He had gone to the
Bagsburys’ house twice on Wednesday, but neither time had she been able
to see him.
He missed her, even in busy times like these. He wanted to talk over
this last action with her before he went into it; not that he needed
any help, but simply for the stimulating effect of her interest. He had
thought a good many times in the last year that she was not her old
self; that she had been losing her sure grasp of a situation and her
quick eye for an opportunity; but he saw now how badly he had misjudged
her. Her foresight in warning John when it was too late to do any harm,
but so that it might help to straighten out the tangle afterward,
delighted him, and assured him that she was still the Harriet of ten
years ago. And how plucky she was! She had been too tired to come
down to dinner, but she had nerved herself for that long ride down to
the Bagsburys’ house to carry out the stratagem that had occurred to
her. She must have been horribly fagged to have broken down that way,
though. Perhaps it was just as well that she was spared the exciting
days that were following her collapse. They could talk it all over
afterward, anyway. And he was glad that it was his last fight.
He had meant to stop on his way to the office and find out what her
condition was this morning; now he decided to telephone instead; but,
just before he went out, he changed his mind once more. He would do
neither. She might want to see him and ask a lot of questions, and it
was better that he should keep entirely out of the way for a little
longer. It would all be over by noon.
When Sponley reached his office at nine o’clock, he found Stewart and
Ray waiting for him. He nodded to them cordially.
“We’re going to have great times this morning. This is going to be the
last day of it. You’ll find cigars in my desk there. Help yourselves,
will you?”
“We haven’t much time for a smoke before the fun begins, have we?” one
of them asked.
Sponley had disappeared in a little closet, where he seemed to be
rummaging about in search of something, and it was a minute or two
before he answered. When he came out, he brought a shiny old alpaca
coat and a crumpled felt hat.
“Yes, you will,” he answered; “all the time you want. I’m going to
attend to the fun to-day myself.”
One would not have called his face heavy at that moment, and his laugh
had an almost boyish ring. He slipped on the coat, and thrust his hands
luxuriously into the sagging pockets.
“This old rig has been through many a fight, but never a one better
than there’ll be to-day. By the Lord Harry, gentlemen, I wouldn’t miss
it for fifty thousand dollars.”
He stowed away a little package of memorandum cards and a couple of
hard pencils, and moved to leave the office. “I’m going up to the floor
now,” he said.
“You’re wanted at the telephone, Mr. Sponley,” said his clerk, coming
out of the cabinet.
It was Curtin who had called him up, and the moment the Bear
recognized his voice he demanded,--
“Where are you?”
“At the bank,” the assistant cashier answered.
“Ring off right away then,” said Sponley. “I told you not to run that
risk.”
“It’s all safe enough,” he could hear Curtin laugh, “they aren’t
watching the ’phone just now. They’re all over by the vaults.”
“Have they found out anything?”
“No, they think it’ll come open in a minute.”
“All right,” said the Bear; “but don’t call me up again in any case.
You wound it up till twelve, didn’t you?”
There was a moment’s pause, then came the short rattle of the ring for
disconnection. Curtin must have seen some one coming and rung off.
Sponley was glad the assistant cashier had so much discretion.
At twenty minutes after nine, when the Bear, with a word of greeting
to the guard at the entrance, came out on the floor, it was, to the
unaccustomed eyes and ears in the crowded gallery, already a bedlam.
Traders and clerks were grouped about that big room, talking in every
key of excitement, and little messenger boys, to whom nothing mattered
until the bell rang, larked about, pelting one another with handfuls
of sample grain, and making a gratuitous addition to the uproar. All
the while, monotonous and incessant, the metallic chatter of scores of
telegraph instruments made a long organ-point against the varying pitch
of the voice of the crowd.
Sponley breathed a long sigh of complete contentment as the old air and
the familiar noises greeted him. The pervasive, inarticulate sound was
as perfectly intelligible to him as is the song of the locomotive to an
old railroad engineer. He knew every cadence of it. He walked slowly
across toward the provision pit, and before he had taken twenty paces
he felt that every man in the great room knew of his presence and was
wondering what it portended. His half-shut eyes that were everywhere,
saw Keyes scribble a note and despatch a messenger boy with it on
the run, and he smiled. That note did not contain pleasant news for
Pickering.
This was his last day, the last of a multitude of days, and safe, as
this one was, or precarious, he had enjoyed them all. He wished there
were to be more of them. But he had promised Harriet and himself, and
he was particular about such promises. He would enjoy the little that
was left, however.
Then there came to him a notion, an ironical, whimsical notion that
pleased him, and he stood still, smiling over it. He would set a period
to this delectable experience. His opponent should have an hour and a
half. He would begin now in three--two and three-quarters--minutes, and
at eleven o’clock his bear’s hug should squeeze the last gasp out of
Pickering. It was anything but hard business sense, but for this once
he could afford the luxury of following a fancy, as pretty a fancy as
that.
Then the big bell rang out half-past nine, and the trading began. It
had been long since Sponley had taken the field in person, but not
so long that men had forgotten that he was the best operator on the
board. That he was, was due partly to his impassivity, partly to his
quickness; but more than either, apparently, to his mere bulk, or at
least to a certain oppression which seemed to emanate from it. Keyes
was a good man, an old hand at the business, he knew every trick of it,
but he felt as if Pickering’s defeat were already accomplished when he
looked at Sponley standing there, at the other side of the pit.
None the less he held his ground gallantly; for the first
three-quarters of an hour he never gave an inch. But it was a game of
follow the leader by that time. It seemed that every trader on the
floor was coming to the provision pit, to make a short sale and take a
little share in Sponley’s certain victory. No one could stand for long
against such a pressure as that, and the price began dropping, a notch
at a time, at first, but faster afterwards and down, down, down it
went, sliding.
At a quarter before eleven there came a check and then a smart rally
of a point or two. Sponley glanced up at the big clock, and he smiled.
He was going to hit it almost exactly. He had expected this turn, he
knew just what it meant. Pickering was of the sort who die hard, and
now, as he came so desperately near the extreme edge, he was gathering
every ounce of fight into this last plunge. Without hurry and without
discomposure, Sponley hammered the price back again, and the narrow
margin was almost nothing.
Outside, in the street, a carriage with three men in it was driving
up furiously, reckless of the shouts from the policeman at the corner.
When it stopped before the Board of Trade building, Pickering was still
fighting, but already half over the edge.
That was six minutes of eleven.