And, “only because your husband was such a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Cartwright,” Mr. Prindivale permitted the widow to write him a check for sixty thousand dollars. The price was fixed by a simple process of multiplication; two thousand shares at thirty dollars per share equals sixty thousand dollars—and sixty thousand dollars was all she had.
So Cyrus Prindivale was in actual cash some twenty thousand dollars richer as a result of his almost disastrous dream concerning the success of Monotrack Transit. But there was one thing which Mr. Prindivale did not know; Mrs. Clara Cartwright was a first cousin of Mr. Amos Clackworthy.
III.
On the nineteenth floor of the Great Lakes Building was a most elegantly furnished office suite of two rooms. The lettering on the corridor door informed one that it was occupied by the “Atlas Investment Company.” In the outer room a very pretty young woman was seated before a mahogany typewriter desk; she was reading a popular novel, but the drawer of the desk was conveniently open, ready to conceal this evidence of her lack of occupation; there was also a sheet of paper in the machine, for instant use. The fetching typist was none other than Mrs. George Bascom, wife of one of Mr. Amos Clackworthy’s lieutenants.
A draftsman’s board stood conspicuously in one corner; it held some half completed drawings, bearing the words, “Monotrack Transit Company.” Seated in front of the draftsman’s board was George Bascom, who, at the present moment, was using the point of his dividers to clean his ring, which, in truth, was about the only use he could make of them.
Within the inner room, the door of which was marked “private,” a tall, businesslike man with a superbly trimmed Vandyke beard was seated at his massive mahogany desk; it was, of course, Mr. Clackworthy.
The Early Bird, who had deserted his own desk in the outer office, was seated in the private office, and his eyes roved admiringly about.
“Some joint!” he ejaculated. “Yeah, I’ll say it’s some joint.”
“James,” remonstrated Mr. Clackworthy, “your idiomatic English is most refreshing—on occasions; but it becomes my duty to remind you that you are now the private secretary of a most conservative investment broker, and, as such, you must speak with more refinement.”
“Don’t worry th’ old think-box into a headache,” retorted The Early Bird. “I’ll can th’ lowbrow chatter when th’ lamb appears for shearin’. Huh! I’ll twist th’ old tongue around so’s this bird’ll lamp me and say: ‘Ha-vard, eh?’”
Mr. Clackworthy selected a fresh cigar.
“James,” he mused, “human nature is very contradictory. How often do we reject the truth and yet receive falsehood with childish credulity.”
“Th’ bottomless pit’s only knee-deep compared with your lingo,” mourned The Early Bird, not without admiration for Mr. Clackworthy’s rhetorical facility.
“Here is an example of my philosophy,” continued Mr. Clackworthy. “If I went to the Blackmere Hotel with seventeen trunks and a valet, and announced that I was a millionaire, no one would believe me; yet if I went to the same hotel with the same trappings and denied that I was a millionaire, every one would be quite convinced that I was.
“Well, James, that is the philosophy upon which our present little venture is founded. I do not think that it can fail.”
IV.
Mr. Cyrus Prindivale tilted back in his swivel-chair, and his heavy eyebrows over his beady little eyes contracted into a puzzled frown. Five separate and distinct times he digested the contents of the letter. Carefully he crinkled the edge of the heavy vellum parchment between his critical fingers, and caressed the unimpeachably engraved letters which announced “Atlas Investment Company, 1924-26, Great Lakes Building.” The letterhead was dignified, bespeaking taste and refinement.
“Never heard of ’em,” muttered Mr. Prindivale. “It may amount to something, though.” The letter read:
We are given to understand that you are the owner of two thousand shares of stock in the Monotrack Transit Company. We are delegated by a client of ours to purchase a controlling amount of this stock in order that he may acquire the plans and specifications which belong to the company. We are empowered to offer you the present market price of ten dollars per share. As you are well aware, the revival of the company is a financial impossibility, and our client has no other reason for acquiring this stock than to become the owner in fee simple of its drawings, which, he hopes, may be an asset at some future time.
“Humph!” grunted Mr. Prindivale. “They’re too darn emphatic about wanting ‘only the plans and specifications.’ There is, I suspect, a fox in the henhouse; this is well worth looking into.”
Being, himself, a man of devious methods it was natural that he should look with cautious suspicion on the all too positive frankness of others. With a frown he remembered that he was no longer the possessor of two thousand shares of Monotrack Transit, but, remembering the frantic expostulations of Mrs. Clara Cartwright upon her discovery that her sixty thousand dollars’ worth of elaborate certificates was utterly worthless, he anticipated no difficulty in buying it back for, say, ten dollars a share.
Mr. Prindivale pressed the button on his desk and summoned Dawes, the cashier, who was widely acquainted with many details of the city’s financial circle.
“Dawes,” said Mr. Prindivale, “just who are the Atlas Investment Company?”
Running his fingers through his thin hair, Dawes turned to the “A” compartment of his card-indexed mind, but shook his head.
“Name vaguely familiar, Mr. Prindivale, but I don’t seem to place them,” he replied regretfully. “However, I will find out.”
Dawes stepped to the telephone and called one of the downtown financial houses; a moment later he returned.
“Fisher & Fisher have just told me, Mr. Prindivale, that the Atlas people are an—an—exclusively small concern, soliciting no public business of any character; it is well understood that they are the private agents for a very reputable financier and that, in short, they confine their activities to handling the confidential matters of”—Mr. Dawes paused impressively—“of J. K.”
Mr. Prindivale started violently.
“Merciful Heaven!” he gasped. “J. K.!”
J. K., it must be explained, was a name to conjure with among financial circles; J. K. were the well-known initials of Mr. James K. Easterday, president of three big banks and financial power extraordinary. What he said was financial law.
It was not, to be sure, within Mr. Prindivale’s province to know, that the original Atlas Investment Company had, a few days before, removed their offices from the Great Lakes Building, and that Mr. Clackworthy had hurriedly leased them, neglecting to remove the neat gilt lettering from the door.
V.
As Mr. Prindivale opened the door of 1924 Great Lakes Building, the scene of luxuriant solidity was, somehow, just as he had pictured it. Mrs. George Bascom, her novel hurriedly consigned to the desk drawer as the caller’s shadow fell across the door’s glass panel, hurried her slim fingers over the typewriter keyboard.
Over in the corner George Bascom wrinkled his brow studiously over his draftsman’s board.
“I wish to see Mr. Clackworthy,” announced Mr. Prindivale.
“Busy just at this moment,” politely responded the pretty stenographer and nodded to a chair. The chair, it happened, through careful calculation, was within easy vision of the drafting board. As Mr. Prindivale strained his neck forward for a closer inspection of the drawings, Mr. Bascom glanced at him suspiciously and rudely draped a large piece of paper over the mass of lines and angles, but not before Mr. Prindivale’s sharp little eyes had seen the words “Monotrack Transit Company.”
“Ah!” breathed Mr. Prindivale. “Secrecy! I knew that something was on foot. Foxy old J. K.”
Inside the private office Mr. Clackworthy calmly smoked his cigar, and
marked time until the suburban banker should have waited a sufficient length of time. The master confidence man had adopted none of his long list of pseudonyms in this adventure, for he had carefully laid his plans strictly within legal bounds. Even his possession of the abandoned offices of the Atlas Investment Company and the use of that name on his letterheads were entirely according to law. With customary thoroughness for detail he had discovered that the genuine concern had neglected the little formality of registering with the secretary of state, thus leaving it open to use by others; and Mr. Clackworthy had spent the required incorporation fee of appropriating it, free of possible future embarrassing entanglements.
A moment later The Early Bird, hurrying in from the street with an armful of important-looking documents, paused at Mrs. Bascom’s desk. He sighed and mopped his brow.
“Say,” whispered Mrs. Bascom, making sure that it was loud enough to be heard across the room, “you’d better hurry up with those papers; Mr. Clackworthy’s in a big hurry for them—J. K. is in there with him and they want them quick.”
Hastily James Early grabbed up the documents and hurried into the inside office. Eagerly Mr. Prindivale leaned forward to catch a stray word or sentence that might filter through the heavy door, but, to his chagrin, it was sound proof.
“Well, Old Gimlet Eye’s out there waitin’,” he announced.
“Yes, I know.” said Mr. Clackworthy; “Mrs. Bascom pressed the buzzer a moment ago. How do you size him up?”
“As nervous as a Pennsylvania millionaire about to meet King George,” chuckled The Early Bird; “say, that guy—”
“Watch your English, James.”
“Well, as I was gonna say, if you keep that gink—that man, I mean—out there very long he’s gonna wear th’ seat out of his pants th’ way he’s squirming around in th’ chair.”
“That’s fine, James; now you may retire to the outer office while I complete my conference with—ah—J. K. Remember my instructions and follow them to the letter.”
The Early Bird bowed solemnly to the empty chair across from Mr. Clackworthy, grinned, and made for the door.
“I’ve got it down pat,” he said.
In the outer office, James went to his desk, which stood but a few feet from where Mr. Prindivale was seated. Slowly he began to sort over a stack of papers which were heaped in front of him.
Mr. Prindivale edged his chair a few inches closer.
“Have a cigar,” he invited; “fine tobacco, very fine; import ’em myself direct. You have a very nice office here.”
“Uh-huh,” muttered The Early Bird, ignoring the cigar.
“By the way,” probed Mr. Prindivale, “I thought I saw my old friend J. K.—fellow banker of mine, you know—come in just ahead of me, does he transact much business with this firm?”
The Early Bird frowned in apparent annoyance.
“Never heard of ’im,” he mumbled, impolitely taking a cigar from his own pocket and lighting it, but, at the same time, he averted his eyes.
“Never heard of J. K.?” scoffed Mr. Prindivale with entirely justified skepticism. “Ha! Ha! That is quite a joke—sort of in the class with the fellow down in Arkansas who, when the orator shouted: ‘Lincoln is dead,’ declared that he didn’t even know that Lincoln was sick.”
“Never heard of ’im,” repeated The Early Bird with ridiculous obstinacy.
“I see,” nodded Mr. Prindivale, “it’s a dark secret; oh, I’m on.”
“On to what?”
“I know J. K. mighty well—personal friend of mine.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted The Early Bird noncommittally, and his pencil beat a little tattoo on his desk. In accordance with this signal, George Bascom removed the improvised paper shield from the draftsman’s board.
“Bascom!” snapped James. “I don’t want any more work on that just now; hasn’t Mr. Clackworthy told you—”
Hastily Bascom restored the pushpins and Mr. Prindivale’s nostrils quivered.
“Something big on foot—something mighty big,” he thought, and he leaned back in his chair, contracted his eyes thoughtfully and sought to reason it out.
VI.
At the end of thirty minutes Mr. Clackworthy gave the button on his desk three swift jabs and The Early Bird appeared.
“I got ’im goin’,” chuckled James. “He tried to pump me for all he was worth about this J. K. stuff.”
“James, you chew tobacco on occasions, do you not?” queried Mr. Clackworthy.
“Chew!” repeated The Early Bird. “Now, ain’t that a question to ask a guy—with th’ little lamb outside waitin’ for th’ clippers. Gonna get me to sign th’ pledge?”
Mr. Clackworthy took from his desk a fresh plug of natural twist.
“James,” he chuckled, “you know that I abhor the vile habit, even in others; can’t touch it myself; but it now becomes necessary for me to ask you to masticate a generous portion of this plug of tobacco. Strew it around somewhere in the general vicinity of that seventy-five dollar cuspidor. No, I’m not jesting; it’s part of the stage setting.”
Quietly The Early Bird complied.
“That’s all, James,” said Mr. Clackworthy; “I will see Mr. Prindivale now.”
“Holy blue-eyed catfish!” muttered The Early Bird as he retired.
A moment later Mr. Prindivale entered, glancing swiftly about. The first thing that caught his eye was the dark tobacco stains which decorated the floor; he smiled in triumph.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Looks as if my old friend J. K. had been here.” J. K. Easterday’s careless way of chewing tobacco was notorious in moneyed circles.
“J. K. Who?” demanded Mr. Clackworthy.
“As if there were more than one J. K. Easterday,” said Mr. Prindivale, exceedingly pleased with himself at this masterful bit of deduction.
“J. K. Easterday has not been here,” declared Mr. Clackworthy with entirely truthful but perhaps unnecessary emphasis. “What would that big fellow be doing up here in my humble domain? You honor me.”
“Have it your way,” said Mr. Prindivale, plainly unconvinced.
“Mr. Prindivale,” began Mr. Clackworthy briskly, “I know that you are a busy man and I will not take your time by lengthy and needless explanations. My letter frankly explained the matter. You have two thousand shares of Monotrack Transit that you couldn’t sell for a scrap of paper. The last selling price was ten dollars a share. For the purpose stated in my letter to you, my client is willing to give you the last quoted market price. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. Did you bring the shares with you?”
“Tut! Tut!” remonstrated Mr. Prindivale craftily. “Not so fast; I’m too old a head to be rushed like that. Come, my dear sir; give me credit for a little intelligence. When I play stud poker I like to see a few of the cards on the table before I bet.”
“You are intimating—”
“Intimating nothing, Mr. Clackworthy; I know for a positive fact that you’ve got an ace up your sleeve.”
“I have stated the proposition just as it—”
“Just as it isn’t,” charged Mr. Prindivale belligerently. “I’ve got two thousand shares of Monotrack Transit; some one wants them—that somebody happens to be J. K.—and when old J.K. wants anything he pays the price for it—if he has to.”
“You are entirely misleading yourself, Mr. Prindivale,” declared Mr. Clackworthy with a frankness which the suburban banker little suspected. “J. K. Easterday has nothing to do with this matter.”
“Hasn’t, eh?” cried Mr. Prindivale exultantly, pointing his finger at a mass of papers which littered the big mahogany conference table. “Then maybe you can explain that.”
He gestured toward the exposed edge of one of the closely typewritten pages; there, penned in scrawling but entirely legibl
e characters, were the somewhat cryptic letters:
“OKEH JK.”
“Don’t tell me!” he shouted, now thoroughly excited by the importance of his discovery. “That’s J. K. Easterday’s O. K. mark—Okeh, the Indian mark of approval; there are only two men in America who write it that way, one is the President of the United States and the other is J. K. Easterday.”
“Bosh!” retorted Mr. Clackworthy; but, nevertheless, showing considerable chagrin. “I wrote that down there myself—you are jumping at conclusions.” Mr. Clackworthy was showing a most remarkable tenacity for the strict letter of truth.
“Lay the cards down on the table and I’ll talk turkey,” bantered Mr. Prindivale.
“Really, Mr. Prindivale, you are getting rather needlessly excited; I wish to play a game of golf this afternoon and I want to get this business over with. Suppose we say fifteen dollars a share.”
“It cost me more than that; I made up my mind that I’d hold onto that stock until I came out whole on it or let the paper rot.”
“Well, Mr. Prindivale, if you really feel that way about it, possibly we could pay you a price that would permit you to recover your original investment; you did not, I am reliably informed, pay the par value.”
“Ha!” exulted Mr. Prindivale. “I trapped you that time; so it’s worth something after all, eh? How much is it worth? Come across; remember you are not dealing with a grammar-school student, but a business man.”
Mr. Clackworthy stroked his Vandyke beard meditatively; at the same time his foot slid under the desk and touched the tip of the electric button which was secreted there. It connected with a faint-voiced alarm on The Early Bird’s desk, and James Early, in turn, touched a button which connected directly with the telephone on Mr. Clackworthy’s desk. The bell tinkled.
In the act of lifting the receiver from the book, Mr. Clackworthy turned to the suburban banker.
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 162