"Is this a proposal?" cried the alarmed magician.
"I wouldn't dare till 1912; that's Leap Year."
"I'll be in Mount Athos before then. However, to business, Miss Mills! There's no time to lose. You haven't the letters here, of course? How's your memory?"
"I remember all that month as I do the multiplication table. I read and re-read all the letters of that period, because I wanted to discover why anyone would want to shoot poor Bob."
"Of course. What an ass I am! It's entirely your fault, Mollie, for making me play piquet when I should have been thinking. Well, Miss Mills?"
"There was absolutely nothing but routine for months before the rockfall...."
"Until one day before?"
"Yes," said Agnes, surprised and encouraged. "How did you guess that?"
"I had a feeling that somebody or other had been reading Macbeth. 'If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.' Or, scorning the Thane's hesitation, turning the page to 'There is a tide in the affairs of men'... something of that sort, don't you know?"
Agnes wetted her lips thoughtfully with her tongue.
"I seem to sense something. I've puzzled over this for ages."
"Well, who was working in Gallery 13?"
Agnes cocked her head, and nodded.
"You're on the trail, and I can't see how, or why. Gallery 13 was the lowest level. It was a pure experiment; it didn't follow the geological indications. It was a pet idea of Mr. Craig's."
"Ah! I might have known that too, but for Mollie."
"Johansen, a highly educated man, and a real friend of Bob's, was in charge of the drill. He was assisted by a Russian Jew named Lipsky, a steady clever worker, but full of Socialistic ideas, and liable to fits of drinking. These were the only two men at work. It was a tiny gallery, you understand?"
"But sometimes inspected?"
"The engineer would go his rounds, of course."
"Mr. Kuhn?"
"Yes, I imagine so."
"Clever man, Mr. Kuhn?"
"Yes, splendid. He always got on first-rate with Bob. They used to study minerology and geology together nearly every night."
"But he was harsh with the men?"
"Never, till this incident of the pumps fouling."
"Go on about poor Johansen!"
Agnes started again at the adjective, and controlled herself.
"That afternoon Johansen was killed as he came out of the gallery."
"A commonplace accident, for a dollar!"
"Quite. He was near the junction of Gallery 12 and the main shaft when a trolley, running down the incline, knocked him down and killed him outright. The wheels crushed his head in."
"Lipsky saw this?"
"Yes. He shouted a warning, but too late."
"Thank you. I am interested in the Remorse of Mr. Lipsky. Was his temper upset at all?"
"Yes, he became virulent against mine-owners. He was one of the ringleaders in the attacks on Mr. Kuhn. Mr. Kuhn, senior, arrived from New York, and adopted a policy of all-round conciliation. He carpeted the ringleaders, one by one, and dealt with them in various ways. Lipsky was impertinent, and Mr. Kuhn gave him his ticket to Mexico and a hundred dollars; anything to get such a firebrand out of the country."
"And did he go?"
"He wanted to stay. But his friends meant to go back to work and have no more trouble; so they packed him off. In fact, they rode him out of town, as they say."
"Only one other question. Why do you object so strongly to your mother's selling out? The price is a splendid one. Don't trouble to tell me about your father's dying wishes! You're not that sort of girl."
"No, that's only what I tell mother. It's Bob. He implores me in every letter to get her to hold on, no matter at what cost."
"Why?"
"He won't say. He says I must trust him."
"Well, I've advised your mother to sell. She had promised to abide by my decision. So if you want to stop her, get busy."
Agnes blanched. Then she saw something in the mystic's eyes that gave her second counsel.
"I'll stop her."
"She has my note by now. I feel sure that she has telephoned to Mr. Kuhn; also that she has mentioned my name."
"You must tell me some more."
"If you developed a very bad cough, would your mother hurry you to Palm Beach?"
"She might if I made a point of it."
These tablets will assist you in the production of a helpful cough. Depart in peace, and rely on me to put an entirely new face on things before Mrs. Mills gets ready to sign any papers."
"Good-bye, and thank you. But I expect a whole lot... from what I've seen."
"Oh! I'm not to be bribed by flattery."
She went out, exalted; and Simon Iff remarked that he must lose no time in settling this small matter.
"Mollie! mollior cuniculo cinaede! We must have Paul Powys at our unostentatious board. Invoke him by the Qabalistic number which constraineth him; it is Fulton 11,000."
She got the number. "Ah, Mr. Iff, so glad you called me; I was thinking of you only this morning," said the magnate genially, not having thought of Simon for a month. "Dinner? My dear man, I only wish I could; but I'm tied up with Sharp and McGregor. A business dinner, or I'd ask you to come along... Yes, I want to see you too; but I'm absolutely tied up all day. Haven't a minute; had no lunch yet, confound it, and I'm hungry. Won't you ring me up again soon?"
Iff smiled quietly. "Will you answer me one question, only one very little one? Have you by any odd chance anything very big on just now? Something so big that it would break you if you lost out... say to a combination of..."
Powys broke in. "Absolutely nothing at all like that. Dear me, no! (What's that?) Oh, how fortunate! Does that invitation hold, Mr. Iff? My secretary tells me Mr. Sharp has just rang through to call off the dinner."
"Of course," said Iff. "Delighted! Shall we say half-past six?"
"Well, there's absolutely nothing doing to-day in the Bank; dull as ditchwater. If you're not busy, might I run up now and play that game of chess you promised me?"
"Certainly. Come right round. I'll get the pieces out."
Twenty minutes later Paul Powys stepped from his limousine. He was a small man, well-knit, well-groomed, with a great white mustache and imperial. His hair was still plentiful, of pale ashen grey, and it was smoothed carefully upon his head. His eyes were set very deeply in his head, and were intensely vital. He reminded one a little of Henri de Rochefort, a miniature of that great Frenchman. The mouth was thin and very red, the nose unusually thin and long, with a decided angle, like Wellington's. His hat, gloves and cane proclaimed the dandy. His step was light, soft, and elastic, and he possessed the quality of personality in the highest degree, magnetizing the attention without doing anything whatever towards the attainment of that most desirable end.
He found Simon finishing the last sentence of a memorandom. Mollie was typing furiously; her hair, loose and tousled about her head, was like a comet of fiery serpents in the red glow of the afternoon sun as it streamed through the open casement, and cast her shadow upon the rich blue and amber of the Chinese carpet.
She pulled the paper from the machine. Simple Simon handed the sheets to his visitor. "Your move!"
He enjoyed one of the treats of his life. Paul Powys spread the sheets, and closed them again, like a lady flirting her fan. Then he folded them in three, and handed them to Simon. The whole action did not occupy thirty seconds. As he passed the paper to the magician, he said: "Of course, they have found gold. But that won't queer my deal, however much it may be."
"It isn't that at all," said Simon Iff. "They aren't thinking about that."
"You had better give me your theory - in detail, please."
Simon Iff knew that Powys could have quoted his memorandum textually from end to end, so he did not trouble to remind him of the facts.
"I saw two objectives in these operations from the first."
"
Somebody was trying to prevent access to Gallery 13, and trying to buy the mine. That meant they had found gold there in some unheard-of richness."
"Quite. I think young Kuhn must have come on the men just as they struck it, and made up his mind in a few minutes what to do. Johansen was certain to tell Craig of the strike; he had to be killed right there. Lipsky was a good tool. But he drank; old Kuhn saw at once when he arrived that he must be got out of the country and pensioned off. Caspar and Lipsky proceed to wreck the gallery and then the mine. The strikes and assaults are all intended to prevent the mine from re-opening, and to divert any suspicion from Kuhn. Note that he is careful to be assaulted even in his new job; argument, the ill-feeling against him has nothing to do with what happened in the mine."
"This is very probable, and very interesting," interrupted Powys.
"But, you are about to say, how does it concern me? Do you think I would waste a moment of your time?"
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Iff."
"I want to prove to you that the entire device, from the moment of Theophilus Kuhn's arrival at Glanders, was directed against you."
But Simon Iff had wasted several moments of Powys' time; he need not have said that at all, and he pulled himself up with a frown.
"They invent this Ransome idiocy not merely to keep the mine unworked until they can force Mrs. Mills into selling it; I agree with you that the mine is a trifle to such minds as yours and, indeed, Kuhn's; but to give a pretext for the pretended quarrel between Kuhn and Arnheim."
"I may tell you that their quarrel has cost them over fifty million, to my certain knowledge."
"I was sure Kuhn would do things well, on the grand scale. You have beaten him too often before."
"How are you sure of this?"
"Miss Madison here told me that Kuhn was called 'Pussy' on Wall Street. I saw him taking endless trouble and risk and loss; he would only do that for some great object; what object so great as you?
"His preoccupation with trifles proved a giant aim to be concealed; his advertized quarrel with Arnheim proved a closer alliance."
"I agree with you. I thank you very much. I will attend to the matter."
"Just one word more, if I may. I came into this in the interest of Mrs. Mills."
"Don't worry. He won't show anxiety to close the deal. The transfer would hardly be ready in less than three days. And - in three days - where would Theophilus Kuhn find four hundred thousand dollars?"
Simple Simon was taken aback for once in his life. The question was as if he were asked where a man on the seashore would find a pebble.
He shook hands quietly with Powys at the door. "Mollie, put your things on. I am going to buy you a new hat. I have had one of the most delightful experiences of my life. So much for my good temper, which bestows hats on blessed damozels. My bad temper, which makes mean me pay for them, is due to remorse for my egregious blunders in this very simple affair."
She fixed her passionate blue eyes adoringly upon his face.
"No!" cried the mystic, in prophetic frenzy, "you only betray your ignorance and your stupidity. Sit down, and let me lecture you upon my own base folly!"
She curled her snaky body into a cunning crook of the sofa, and, with her head thrown back, began to puff a cigarette.
"I sit upon the stool of penitence," he continued, doing so, with the music stool, faute de mieux.
"You noticed, of course, that I changed what in moments of paranoiac megalomania I insult Nature by calling my mind. I did not allow to Mrs. Mills her full measure of imbecility. I did not fully realize that she would instantly do the wrong and dangerous thing. So I let her see what was actually in my mind, or, to be more accurate, I made it possible for Theophilus to divine what was in my mind from her words or her manner.
"That telephone call from that female glossorhoeic reminded me that I was known all over New York, and that Theophilus probably knew already that Mrs. Mills had come to consult me. My more tragic error, indeed, is a fatal underestimation of the calibre and range of Theophilus. For, trying to correct my first mistake, I made a worse one. I tried to deceive him. I wrote a letter which I thought he might accept as indicative of my contempt for Mrs. Mills, and my lack of interest in her affairs. I gave him credit for less intelligence than a limpet's, a - a - a Simon Iff's! Put yourself in his place! 'So Mr. Simon Iff found nothing to interest him in that story? Really! Too bad!' He would then judge that I was lying to somebody. Who would that be? Who worth my while? Who but the quarry, himself? He would then - I mean, he will now - proceed to get after me. As he has the brains of the devil himself, and doesn't stick at murder - even his young hopeful Caspar shoots a man he never saw before merely to conceal his part in a game where no one had ever suspected him to be a player - the inference is that we are liable to be blown up by dynamite at any moment. My only hope is that he will think that letter of mine indicates permanent instead of temporary dementia."
Miss Mollie Madison absolutely declined to take alarm. She crossed her feet over the arm of the sofa, so that 'Cephas' might take note of the fact that she had the right divine to wear white boots - unpinched feet no larger than new-born kittens. And she lighted a third cigarette, not even deigning to reply.
"You are right. I will buy you six pairs of white kid boots."
She passed a hand negligently through her hair.
"Of course," he added hastily, "as you imply, the tops must be of green crushed morocco."
"Think, Cephas!"
From her eyes he understood that she did not wish him to make light of the expected duel.
"Our friend, as we should expect from a disciple of the Evangelist Luke, will be full of Human sympathy; the Christian Touch will be his long suit; his Middle Name will be Eleemosynaria. Then he will know that I am on to his little game; and I will bet you an emerald necklace to match your perfectly intoxicating Poiret - where, oh where are the Prohibitionists? - that he knows that Powys has been here, and what I said to him. But he will not know what Powys said to me, because Powys has always been a bit above his class. But he will be devilish well scared; he will imagine Powys as laying a trap for him, perhaps the more so as he may think Powys ignorant or careless of his own knowledge of the situation. We must hope that he has committed himself too far in this deal to withdraw. In fact, we may say that it is certain that he has done so, for Powys spoke of his ruin with entire assurance. Powys never guesses, or expects, or hopes. Indicative and Imperative are the only moods in his Defective Verbs. Mr. Theophilus Kuhn will therefore know himself bankrupt; there will be nothing left for him but revenge. The question is: Will he try to kill Powys, or will he try to kill me? We are to remember the necessity of this man's mind; his nature compels him to perpetual concealment of his purposes. Will he then try to gain access to Powys on some such pretext of converence, or offer to compromise, or some such obvious blind? He would know that he would stand not a chance in a million. With me the case is different. He knows that I am vowed to the service of humanity, and that, were he three hundred and thirty three times the liar, thief, and murderer that he is, I would see him if he came to me on the pretext that he needed my advice or aid in any spiritual distress or aspiration. Most people interested in occult subjects being potential or actual murderers, I therefore arrange for their reception in the following ingenious manner. Just look out of the window for a minute!"
Mollie obeyed. He drew the curtains behind her, and switched on three electric lamps, which shed a soft and cheerful glow in the apartment. He then made certain rearrangements in the room.
"Come and sit down by me, now, and we will play piquet until Mr. Kuhn favours us with a visit."
Mollie turned and came through the curtains. She walked, as she supposed, straight to him, and banged into a sheet of plate glass in a totally different part of the room.
"Theophilus will have to be a very bad shot in order to hit me," he laughed, came swiftly towards her, and led her gently to the sofa where he had been sitting. The bell rang
.
"Ah! but here is our friend the enemy!"
The Japanese boy entered with a visiting card.
"Sir," it read, "I am in extreme spiritual affliction, and I implore you to receive me, and to give me your counsel. T.K."
"Ask Mr. Kuhn to enter, and place a chair for him!" The boy obeyed. "See!" he whispered in the girl's small round ear, "so far we have read his mind aright."
Theophilus Kuhn came in, walking heavily. He was an extreme contrast to Powys. His large frame was clad in loose, untidy clothes, and supported an enormous head, slightly asymmetric like Verlaine's, with an immense domed forehead crowned with a thick mat of curly black hair. He was clean shaven; the mouth was large and prominent, the jaw aggressive, the nose fleshy, curved, and spatulate, the eyes glaucous and cold, with an indefinable expression of cunning and malice that inspired Miss Madison with horror and Simon Iff with sorrow. Even in the dim light, they showed a curious inequality which was somehow uncanny. His hands were large and strong, heavy with fat as the face itself. Simon Iff waited for him to speak. He fumbled long and clumsily with his black gloves before he got them off. Then he slowly drew a fountain pen and check-book from his pocket.
"I understand, Mr. Iff, that you are in need - temporary need, of course, purely temporary - of a little money. I am very happy to be able to accomodate you. I will make out the check for eight million dollars. I have had an excellent day on Wall Street. I have beaten Paul Powys. Yes, sir, we have had many battles, but he has come to his Waterloo. You can hardly imagine what this means to me. It gives me control of the whole wealth of this great country. I have America in my pocket. In five years Europe will be mine. Asia, Africa, the whole world shall bow before Theophilus Kuhn. Understand, Mr. Powys, you are in the presence of no ordinary man. I have wished many a time to kill you; now I let you go, because I have beaten you, beaten you to hell, you dog. I despise you for the toy you are! Aha! you thought to make yourself equal to me. And I let you think it - do you know why? I have waited for this day of your humiliation to tell you the great secret. You puppet! You Marionette! I made you. I am God! Now let me write you your check, Mr. Iff."
The Complete Simon Iff Page 30