by Arthur Train
“But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm sure,” said Mr. Tutt. “It will make a new man of you in no time.”
“Healthiest spot in northern New York,” exclaimed Doc. “Within two miles of a lake-fishing, shooting, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal site for a mammoth summer hotel.”
Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Barrows' shoulders.
“Thank you a thousand times,” he said gratefully, “for the securities. I'll be glad to keep them for you in my vault.” His lips puckered in a stealthy smile which he tried hard to conceal.
“Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some time,” he added to himself.
“Oh, they're all yours to keep!” insisted Doc. “I want you to have them!” His voice trembled.
“Well, well!” answered Mr. Tutt. “Leave it that way; but if you ever should want them they'll be here waiting for you.”
“I'm no Indian giver!” replied Doc with dignity. “Give, give, give a thing-never take it back again.”
He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently embarrassed.
“Could-could you let me have the loan of seventy-five cents?” he asked shyly.
* * * * *
Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless bonds-those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain-would find their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual-a Jeremiah or a Habakkuk.
“Hello, Doc!” called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. “Hie spy! Come on out!”
“Oh, how d'ye do, captain!” responded Doc. “How are you? I was just interviewing my solicitor.”
“Sorry,” said Murtha. “The inspector wants to see you.”
Doc flinched.
“But they've just let me go!” he protested faintly.
“It's one of those old indictments-Chicago Water Front or something. Anyhow-Here! Hold on to yourself!”
He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of falling.
“Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!” For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing.
“Not in this state,” answered Murtha. New pity for this poor old wastrel took hold upon him. “What were you going to do?”
“I was going to retire, captain,” said Doc faintly. “My daughter's husband-he owned a farm up in Cayuga County-well, he died and I was planning to go up there and live with her.”
“And sting all the boobs?” grinned Murtha not unsympathetically. “How much money have you got?”
“Seventy-five cents.”
“How much is the ticket?”
“About nine dollars,” quavered Doc. “But I know a man down on Chatham Square who might buy a block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining Company; I could get the money that way.”
“What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?” asked Murtha sharply.
“It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you a secret, Murtha. There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter Louisa's cow pasture-she doesn't know anything about it-”
“Oh, hell!” exclaimed Murtha. “Come along to the station. I'll let you have the nine bones. And you can put me down for half a million of the underwriting.”
* * * * *
That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet slippers before the sea-coal fire in his library, sipping a hot toddy and rereading for the eleventh time the “Lives of the Chancellors” when Miranda, who had not yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her master's meager supper, pushed open the door and announced that a lady was calling.
“She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt,” grinned Miranda, swinging her dishrag, “'case you and she used to live tergidder when you was a young man.”
This scandalous announcement did not have the startling effect upon the respectable Mr. Tutt which might naturally have been anticipated, since he was quite used to Miranda's forms of expression.
“It must be Mrs. Effingham,” he remarked, closing the career of Lord Eldon and removing his feet from the fender.
“Dat's who it is!” answered Miranda. “She's downstairs waitin' to come up.”
“Well, let her come,” directed Mr. Tutt, wondering what his old boarding-house keeper could want of him, for he had not seen Mrs. Effingham for more than fifteen years, at which time she was well provided with husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, it required some mental adjustment on his part to recognize the withered little old lady in widow's weeds and rusty black with a gold star on her sleeve who so timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the room.
“I'm afraid you don't recognize me,” she said with a pitiful attempt at faded coquetry. “I don't blame you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older yourself. But a great deal has happened to me!”
“I should have recognized you anywhere,” he protested gallantly. “Do sit down, Mrs. Effingham won't you? I am delighted to see you. How would you like a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!”
He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from the teakettle standing on the hearth, while Miranda brought a sofa cushion and tucked it behind the old lady's back.
Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned back deliciously. She was very wrinkled and her hair under the bonnet was startlingly white in contrast with the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of beauty in her face.
“I've come to you, Mr. Tutt,” she explained apologetically, “because I always said that if I ever was in trouble you'd be the one to whom I should go to help me out.”
“What greater compliment could I receive?”
“Well, in those days I never thought that time would come,” she went on. “You remember my husband-Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little Jimmy-our eldest-he was only fourteen when you boarded with us-he was killed at the Front last July.” She paused and felt for her handkerchief, but could not find it. “I still keep the house; but do you know how old I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two older girls got married long ago and I'm all alone except for Jessie, the youngest-and I haven't told her anything about it.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. “What haven't you told her about?”
“My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl-she really ought to live out West somewhere, the doctor says-and Jim and I had saved up all these years so that after we were gone she would have something to live on. We saved twelve thousand dollars-and put it into Government bonds.”
“You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate,” remarked the lawyer. “I think you did exceedingly well.”
“Now comes the awful part of it all!” exclaimed Mrs. Effingham, clasping her hands. “I'm afraid it's gone-gone forever. I should have consulted you first before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board that I never thought.”
“Have you got rid of your bonds?”
“Yes-no-that is, the bank has them. You see I borrowed ten thousand dollars on them and gave it to Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company for me.”
Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most celebrated of Wall Street's near-financiers.
“Where on
earth did you meet Badger?” he demanded.
“Why, he boarded with me-for a long time,” she answered. “I've no complaint to make of Mr. Badger. He's a very handsome polite gentleman. And I don't feel altogether right about coming to you and saying anything that might be taken against him-but lately I've heard so many things-”
“Don't worry about Badger!” growled Mr. Tutt. “How did you come to invest in his oil stock?”
“I was there when he got the telegram telling how they had found oil on the property; it came one night at dinner. He was tickled to death. The stock had been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after the oil was discovered he said it would go right up to ten dollars. But he was real nice about it-he said anybody who had been living there in the house could share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A week later there came a photograph of the gusher and almost all of us decided to buy stock.”
At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the coal hod violently and uttered a smothered ejaculation.
“Of course I didn't have any ready money,” explained Mrs. Effingham, “but I had the bonds-they only paid two per cent and the oil stock was going to pay twenty-and so I took them down to the bank and borrowed ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign a note and pay five per cent interest. I was making the difference-fifteen hundred dollars every year.”
“What has it paid?” demanded Mr. Tutt ironically.
“Twenty per cent,” replied Mrs. Effingham. “I get Mr. Badger's check regularly every six months.”
“How many times have you got it?”
“Twice.”
“Well, why don't you like your investment?” inquired Mr. Tutt blandly. “I'd like something that would pay me twenty per cent a year!”
“Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, and one of the ladies-that old Mrs. Channing; you remember her, don't you-the one with the curls?-she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a bid on it at all-and when she spoke to Mr. Badger about it he became very angry and swore right in front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. Badger had been arrested once for something-and-and-Oh, I wish I hadn't given him the money, because if it's lost Jessie won't have anything to live on after I'm dead-and she's too sick to work. What do you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger would buy the stock back?”
Mr. Tutt smiled grimly.
“Not if I know him! Have you got your stock with you?”
She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled forth a flaring certificate-of the regulation kind, not even engraved-which evidenced that Sarah Maria Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred and thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company.
Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. It was signed ALFRED HAYNES BADGER, Pres., and he had an almost irresistible temptation to twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched him apprehensively. Then he handed the stock back to her and poured out another glass of toddy.
“Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?”
“Oh, yes!” she answered. “It's a lovely office. You can see 'way down the harbor-and over to New Jersey. It's real elegant.”
“Would you mind going there again? That is, are you on friendly terms with him?”
Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half formulated in his mind.
“Oh, we're perfectly friendly,” she smiled. “I generally go down there to get my check.”
“Whose check is it-his or the company's?”
“I really don't know,” she answered simply. “What difference would it make?”
“Oh, nothing-except that he might claim that he'd loaned you the money.”
“Loaned it? To me?”
“Why, yes. One hears of such things.”
“But it is my money!” she cried, stiffening.
“You paid that for the stock.”
She shook her head helplessly.
“I don't understand these things,” she murmured. “If Jim had been alive it wouldn't have happened. He was so careful.”
“Husbands have some uses occasionally.”
Suddenly she put her hands to her face.
“Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get the money back from him. If you don't something terrible will happen to Jessie!”
“I'll do my best,” he said gently, laying his hand on her fragile shoulder. “But I may not be able to do it-and anyhow I'll need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to-morrow morning and tell him that you are so much pleased with your investment that you would like to turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the money into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company.”
He rolled out the words with unction.
“But I don't!”
“Oh, yes, you do!” he assured her. “You want to do just what I tell you, don't you?”
“Of course,” she answered. “But I thought you didn't like Mr. Badger's oil company.”
“Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I want you to say just what I tell you.”
“Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt.”
“Then you must tell him about the note, and that first it will have to be paid off.”
“Yes.”
“And then you must hand him a letter which I will dictate to you now.”
She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement.
“You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I wouldn't want to do anything unfair!”
“Would you be honest with a burglar?”
“But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar!”
“No-he's only about a thousand times worse. He's a robber of widows and orphans. He isn't man enough to take a chance at housebreaking.”
“I don't know what you mean,” she sighed. “Where shall I write?”
Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her a pad and dipped a pen in the ink while she took off her gloves.
“Address the note to the bank,” he directed.
She did so.
“Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the securities I have on deposit with you, whenever he pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah Maria Ann Effingham.'“
“But I don't want him to have my securities!” she retorted.
“Oh, you won't mind! You'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your oil stock on any terms. Leave the certificate with me,” laughed Mr. Tutt, rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully. “And now as it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me escort you home.”
It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the first place he had felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, who turned out to be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her future. There was only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told himself-Arizona; and by the grace of God she should go there, Badger or no Badger!
As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that forced a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow's mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse. Yet such was the case, and there they all were! Could you blame people for being Bolsheviks? And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a Bolshevik as anyone could well be.
Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he slept at all, of mines from which poured myriads of pieces of yellow gold, of gushers spouting columns of blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and
of old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains of cars across bright green prairies studded with cacti in the shape of dollar signs. Old Doc Barrows was with him, and from time to time he would lean toward him and whisper “Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a secret! There's a vein of gold runs right through my daughter's cow pasture!”
When Willie next morning at half past eight reached the office he found the door already unlocked and Mr. Tutt busy at his desk, up to his elbows in a great mass of bonds and stock certificates.
“Gee!” he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenographer, when she made her appearance at a quarter past nine. “Just peek in the old man's door if you want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! I wonder if we'll all get a raise?”
But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not have justified even the modest advance of five dollars in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their employer was merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc Barrows' imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effingham arrived by appointment at ten o'clock he had them all arranged and labeled; and in a special bundle neatly tied with a piece of red tape were what on their face were securities worth upward of seventy thousand dollars. There were ten of the beautiful bonds of the Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad Company with their miniature locomotives and fields of wheat, and ten equally lovely bits of engraving belonging to the long-since defunct Bluff Creek and Iowa Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, and a variety of gorgeous chromos of Indians and buffaloes, and of factories and steamships spouting clouds of soft-coal smoke; and on the top of all was a pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obligations of the Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company-all of them fresh and crisp, with that faintly acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils nevertheless delights the banker's soul.
“Ah! Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham!” Mr. Tutt cried, waving her in when that lady was announced. “You are not the only millionaire, you see! In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities myself-only I didn't pay anything for them.”