The Banker and the Bear

by Henry Kitchell Webste

  He let his arm relax, and Curtin tumbled in a heap on the floor.

  With an exclamation of impatience John lifted him, and half dragged, half led him down the aisle. The door of the outer office was open. When he reached the inner one, he kicked it open and thrust Curtin forward. The man went staggering across the room, until he stum- bled and fell upon the cracked old leather sofa which groaned under his sudden impact.

  Jack Dorlin had taken Dick by the shoulders and gently pulled her out of Curtin’s zigzag course ; then they stood quite still watching him as he lay there, with one hand fumbling at his throat.

  Dick knew that John Bagsbury was standing in the doorway. She could hear his loud, slow breathing, but she did not turn to look at him, for she guessed that the expression in his face was one that she would rather not be able to remember. He was looking at her and at Jack in a puzzled way, as though he suspected them of being merely a hallucination. Dick was the first to speak :

  “ I think he is fainting. Will you get some water, Jack ? “

  The sound of her voice brought John Bags- bury to himself again. “ I did not know you were in here,” he said simply. Then, as Jack Dorlin left the room, he added : “I’m glad you were. I was pretty mad. I was I was all right until I felt him in my hands, but that was too much for me.”

  Without reply she moved toward the sofa.

  “ What are you going to do ? “ he asked.

  “ To loosen his collar,” she replied laconically. “ Somebody’s got to do it.”

  “ I will,” he said, and with shaking hands he did.

  Curtin revived quickly when Jack Dorlin dashed the water in his face, and he sat up feebly and looked about the room. Dick turned away to the window, and in a moment Jack stepped to her side.

  “Why are all those people waiting out there ? “ she asked in an undertone.

  He glanced down into the street. There was, as on yesterday, a little knot of people standing about the door.

  “ Come here and look, Mr. Bagsbury,” said Jack, quietly.

  It was not the angry man of five minutes ago, nor the John Bagsbury who had just been talking to Dick, nothing but the Banker who spoke to Jack Dorlin, after a glance out of the window.

  “ I have some business to talk over with Mr. Curtin,” he said swiftly ; “ but I’ve no time for that just now. Will you look after him, Dorlin, until I’m at liberty again ? “

  Without waiting for Jack to reply, he strode out of the office and shut the door behind him.

  “ I suppose I’d better go,” said Dick.

  Jack was very close to her, standing between her and Curtin, and he spoke almost in a whisper : “ I suppose so. I wish you were my prisoner instead of “

  There is your chance, Curtin. You know it is less than a ten-foot drop from that open window to the sidewalk. Once out there, you are safe enough. It will hardly be worth while trying to prove anything against you in a court of law ; all you are afraid of is John Bagsbury. If you will be quick, he will not be able to get his hands on you again.

  He thought of all that. If he could have had one good drink of whiskey, he would have tried it ; but as it was, he only took a hesitating step toward the window, and Dick saw.

  “ Be careful, Jack ! “ she said.

  He turned quickly about and understood. “ Do you feel that breeze too much, Mr. Cur- tin ? Don’t move. I’ll close the window.”

  When he had closed and locked it, Dick was gone.

  “ Thank you,” said Curtin.

  The narrowness of his escape from such a blunder made Jack uncomfortable, but exceed- ingly alert. He sat in John’s chair, and for what seemed to him half the morning his eyes at least never wandered from the man on the sofa.

  It was really a little less than half an hour before John Bagsbury cameback into the room. He was still only the Banker, quick of speech and placid of mind.

  “ Now, I’m ready to talk with you, Mr. Curtin. No don’t go, Dorlin. We have arranged for what currency we need for the present, and there’ll be some experts here in a few minutes now, to see if they can do any- thing with the vaults.”

  “ Are they going to run us again to-day ? “ asked Jack.

  “ I don’t think so,” said the Banker, smiling. “Those people we saw were bringing their money back. They didn’t want it for more than one night.”

  He turned to Curtin. “ Mr. Sponley is doing a good morning’s work,” he said. “ He’s on the floor himself, and from the way it looks now he will beat Pickering inside of two hours. If he does that, of course they may run us again.”

  The Banker looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, then he continued : “ You have done a good many questionable things, Mr. Curtin, since you came here six months ago, and you have done one or two things in the last day or two that are unquestion- able. I am inclined to think that I can have you committed to prison for a considerable term of years. I think there is enough in what you told Hauxton Tuesday afternoon, and in your manipulating the time-locks yesterday, to ac- complish that. But I’m not sure that I want to. I should gain nothing, not even the per- sonal satisfaction for an injury. You’ve been acting on instructions, I suppose. I have still another hand to play with the man who gave you those instructions.”

  “ He’ll beat you,” said Curtin, sullenly.

  “ And I want you to act in my interest while I play it,” John went on evenly. “ That course can’t be less to your advantage than the one you’ve been following. I want you now to answer some questions. When will those vaults come open?”

  “I don’t “

  “ The truth ! “ thundered John, moving for- ward, and Curtin went white. “Tell me the truth, Mr. Curtin.”

  “At twelve o’clock.”

  “ That is true,” said John, “ I know. Now please tell me just how you came to do it.”

  “ Oh, damn you ! “ said Curtin, brokenly. “ Damn both of you ! You’ll tear me to pieces between you. He made me do it.”

  “ I know he did. I want you to tell me how.”

  Sullenly, brazenly, fearfully, shiftily, and with many intervals of feeble blasphemous ravings against the two strong men who had ground him between them, Curtin told the long story, and John listened with half his mind, while the other half was making plans. But at last some- thing caught his whole attention.

  “ Say that again,” he commanded. “ You tell me that Sponley laid violent hands on you, yesterday afternoon, in the bar-room of the Eagle Caf ? Was there a witness present ? “

  “ The barkeeper.”

  John sprang to his feet. “That’s what I want,” he said exultantly, and his jaws came together with a snap. “ Dorlin, will you order a carriage, quick ? We’ll have to cut it fine.”

  Then his strong lips bent in an ironical smile.

  “You’ll come with me, Mr. Curtin, to the nearest justice and swear out a warrant for Sponley’s arrest on a charge of assault and battery.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  A CORNER

  THE withered, leering, old Goddess of Luck must have grinned wide that morning. To smile knowingly over men’s hopes is her de- light; but to smile behind the back of a man who is smiling, is the double distillation of pleasure. Melville Sponley had never enjoyed living before as in those minutes, one or two less than ninety, while he played cautiously and allowed Pickering some small hope of win- ning, and postponed planting the last thrust in him until the hour he himself had set should have fully come. He had had fancies of this kind before, but never had he indulged one of them, and so this had the added delight of novelty.

  But while he waited, John Bagsbury, whom

  he thought to be no longer in the game, was

  taking a hand in this last dealing of the cards.

  When Sponley smiled over Pickering’s last des- perate rally, Jervis Curtin had already sworn out a warrant that was to confound him. And when, after an amused glance at the big clock, the Bear began to deliver the final attack, it was too late, for the carr
iage that had driven through the streets in such reckless hurry had already pulled up before the Board of Trade building.

  The men inside came tumbling out before it had fairly stopped; they crossed the sidewalk and the wide vestibule at a run and dashed upstairs, three steps at a stride, to the entrance to the floor.

  There they stopped and peered frowning into the crowd. One of them, it was John Bags- bury, began giving swift instructions to the other two, and they followed with their eyes the direction of his pointingfinger. In a moment they nodded comprehendingly, and as John turned away, they moved out on the floor.

  The old policeman who guards the entrance a landmark he is in that place where men come and go so quickly stepped in front of them, saying that visitors were not allowed on the floor. But they jerked their coats open impatiently so that he could see the stars that were pinned inside them, and then walked briskly over to the provision pit. They climbed the pair of steps outside the circle, and one waited on the rim, while the other wriggled his way through the dense press of men down toward the centre. He laid his hand on the Bear’s wide shoulder.

  “ You’re Melville Sponley, aren’t you ? “

  The Bear was making an entry on his card, and he paid no heed.

  The hand gripped his shoulder more tightly. “ Isn’t your name Melville Sponley ? “

  “That’s it,” he answered shortly, and he raised his hand to make another sale.

  Then, in a flash, for even John Bagsbury was a very little slower than he, the Bear knew what it meant. He wheeled suddenly upon his interrogator, and he did not need the glimpse he caught of the point of a star be- neath the coat to convince him that he had comprehended aright. He spoke directly into the man’s ear and so rapidly that the words blurred together. But the man understood.

  “ Do you want to earn a thousand dollars in the next five minutes ? Stand where you are and don’t speak to me or interfere with me till then. That’s all you’ll have to do.”

  He turned back toward Keyes and started to raise his arm, but again the detaining hand came down upon his shoulder.

  “ Do you want five ? “ he snapped.

  It might have saved him. If John Bagsbury had not been waiting for them over across the hall, it would in all probability have saved him. The detectives had known John less than half an hour, but in that time one can sometimes learn something of a man’s essential charac- teristics.

  The detective turned away uneasily and called to his fellow, “ Come down here, Ryan.”

  Until that moment the pit had been a scene of tumult ; in other words, its yelling, frenzied, chaotic self. But at that call the tempest died away into a mere buzzing curiosity. The men who a moment before had been oblivious to all save the price of lard, were now wondering what the man called Ryan was going to do, and they stood aside to make way for him. They would only have had to crowd a bit close and perhaps indulge in a little harmless rushing to give Sppnley the three or four minutes he needed to win his fight, but no one began it. Friends and enemies simply stood by and watched Ryan join his fellow close beside Sponley.

  “You’ll have to come along with us,” said the one who had first accosted him. “ You’re wanted for assault and battery.”

  “ Assault and battery ! “ echoed the Bear, looking at the two men in genuine surprise. “ You’ve got the wrong man.”

  He shook himself free and turned again upon Keyes, but in a second the detectives had his elbows pinned at his sides and were forcing him backward toward the rim of the pit.

  “ Show me your warrant.”

  “ When we get out of this crowd,” said Ryan.

  Sponley made no further attempt to resist. He turned and walked quietly out of the pit. “ Show me your warrant,” he repeated.

  He smiled as he read it, a dog’s smile that bared every tooth in his upper jaw.

  “ Curtin, by God ! “ he said softly. Then he turned briskly to the detectives. “ All right, I’ll go with you ; only be quick. I’m in a hurry.” But he stopped involuntarily as the sudden roar that went up from the pit told him that trading had begun again. He knew that hurry would avail him nothing. For the first time in his life, the Bear tasted the bitter- ness of defeat.

  He was beaten ; not, after all, by luck, and only secondarily by John Bagsbury. It was Nemesis that had overtaken him ; or, to phrase it more modernly, the reflex action of the very force that had contributed so largely to his former successes. Had it been the other way about, they might have arrested Keyes with- out materially affecting the outcome of the struggle, for Keyes was, from half-past nine to half-past one, simply a machine for buying or for selling, as the case might be. But Melville Sponley had always been a visible incarnation of success. The men who had faced him all these years in the pit knew that he had never been beaten, and they had cher- ished the superstition, which he held himself, that he could not be beaten. During years on the Board of Trade that place among all others where nothing should count but hard sense and telegraphic advices no rumor had been so potent in bearing down the market as the report that Sponley was selling short.

  In this duel he fought with Pickering, reason was on the Bull side ; the lard market was really narrow. Nearly all the traders who dabbled at all in provisions had sided with Sponley simply because he was Sponley. The small, visible supply of lard was an insignificant fact com- pared with that. So when the Bear, after read- ing the warrant, walked quietly away between the two detectives, there was blank dismay among his followers.

  Keyes was not the man to lose a golden moment like that one. He thrust his hands high in the air, his palms toward him, and every finger extended. His voice, as he shouted the new price, rang with defiant challenge for the men who had been giving his principal so ter- rible a drubbing. For a moment they made a show of resistance, and then their opposition melted away like a child’s fort of sand before the first rush of the tide.

  When the news came downstairs to Pickering, he was sitting on the table in Sievert’s private office. He said nothing to the head clerk, who congratulated him. He simply sat there open- mouthed, breathing fast, like a man who has just made a hundred-yard dash. He did not even wipe away the perspiration that gathered on his forehead and ran down into his eyes. He had not moved when John Bagsbury came into the room a few minutes later.

  “ Here you are,” said the Banker. “ Well, I guess this lets you out. It was cut pretty close, though.”

  “It was cut close,” Pickering answered. “I hope it may never be cut so damned close again. Are you going to wait, too ? “

  John nodded. There was no need of their discussing what they were waiting for, and neither man spoke again until it happened, which was about half an hour later.

  Everybody had expected it, though not so soon ; but none the less it seemed unreal, incredible, when from the gallery the secre- tary of the Board of Trade read the formal announcement,

  “All parties having accounts with Melville Sponley are instructed toclose out the same immediately.”

  The formula is as familiar as the alphabet, but containing that name, it came strangely, unpleasantly to the older men on the floor. They acted upon it, however.

  In Sievert’s office again it was John who broke the silence. “ That’s all,” he said, when the clerk told them. “We really didn’t have him till now, but I guess this settles it.”

  Pickering slipped down from the table and moved toward the door. “ Yes, this settles it. I’ve had enough for to-day.”

  He paused and came back to where John was standing. “ I haven’t thanked you yet, but I will sometime. You pulled me out of the hole.”

  “I don’t need to be thanked,” said John, brusquely. “ I was going on my own hook this morning. It was my innings.”

  He accompanied Pickering to the street, parted from him with a nod, and walked slowly back to the bank. He felt tired now that it was all over, but he was glad that he had a day’s work before him. He did not yet fully realize that the man he had fought so f
uriously was Melville Sponley, his friend, and he was half conscious of a wish to put off that realization for a while longer. Time would readjust things on some sort of basis, though there was an enemy where there had seemed to be a friend before. Anyway, the fight was over and well over. It had been a good fight. With that reflection the Banker turned into his office and attacked the pile of letters that lay on his desk; but even this habitual work which he did so swiftly and so easily could not prevent the sudden recur- rence every little while of an uneasy feel- ing that something in the scheme of things was fundamentally wrong. If he had been any one but John Bagsbury, he would have discovered that he had the blues.

  Our story is almost done, for with Pickering’s subsequent and highly succcessful manipulation of the lard market, we have no concern. What was once the great fact in John Bagsbury’s life, his friendship with Melville Sponley, is now nothing but a memory, and the test to show which of the two is the better man, the test that the Bear so long ago foresaw, is fully ac- complished.

  Yet there is a little more to tell.

  From very early that Thursday morning, before any one at the Bagsburys’ house was stirring, Harriet Sponley had lain in the white

  bed in Dick’s little white room, waiting. The delirium, which, all through the day before, had mercifully protected her, had gone away with the fever, and she remembered everything that had happened before she had started for the Bagsburys’ on Tuesday evening with perfect distinctness. But the interval of unconscious- ness gave her a curious feeling of detachment from the Harriet she remembered. She looked back to those days as one might look at a pic- ture : the excitement, the terror, the bitterness of those hours after she had learned what were her husband’s plans, she saw as clearly as possible ; but the memory brought no revival of those emotions in her now. They had belonged to somebody else. She would begin to be that somebody again by and by, perhaps, but that did not matter now. So she lay quietly, some- times dozing, sometimes broad awake, waiting for something. She did not try to guess what it would be.