CHAPTER III
JACK TELLS THE STORY
The appalling suicide of Hollings Harland, followed by thenon-appearance of Johnston Barker, precipitated one of the mostspectacular smashes Wall Street had seen since the day of the NorthernPacific corner. It began slowly, but as the day advanced and no news ofBarker was forthcoming it became a snowslide, for the rumor flew throughthe city that there had been a "welcher" in the pool and that thewelcher was its head--Barker himself.
For years the man had loomed large in the public eye. He was betweenfifty and sixty, small, wiry, made of iron and steel with a nervenothing could shake. Like so many of our big capitalists, he had begunlife in the mining camps of the far Northwest, had never married, andhad kept his doors shut on the world that tried to force his seclusion.Among his rivals he was famed for his daring, his ruthless courage andhis almost uncanny foresight. He was a financial genius, the making ofmoney, his life. But as one coup after another jostled the Street, thewiseacres wagged their heads and said "Some day!" It _looked_ now as ifthe day had come. But that such a man had double-crossed his associatesand cleaned them out of twenty millions seemed incredible.
It was especially hard to believe--for us I mean--as on the morning ofJanuary 15 he had been in the Whitney offices conferring with the chiefon business. His manner was as cool and non-committal as usual, his headfull of plans that stretched out into the future. Nothing in his wordsor actions suggested the gambler concentrated on his last and mosttremendous coup. Only as he left he made a remark, that afterward struckus as significant. It was in answer to a query of the chief's about theCopper Pool:
"There are developments ahead--maybe sensational. You'll see in a day ortwo."
It was the second day after the suicide and in the afternoon, having ajob to see to on the upper West Side, I decided to drop in on MollyBabbitts and have a word with her. I always drop in on Molly when Ihappen to be round her diggings. Three years ago, after the calamitywhich pretty nearly put a quietus on me for all time, Molly and Iclasped hands on a friendship pact that, God willing, will last till thegrass is growing over both of us. She's the brightest, biggest-hearted,bravest little being that walks, and once did me a good turn. But Ineedn't speak of that--it's a page I don't like to turn back. It'senough to say that whatever Molly asks me is done and always will be aslong as I've breath in my body.
As I swung up the long reach of Central Park West--she's a few blocks infrom there on Ninety-fifth Street--my thoughts, circling round theHarland affair, brought up on Miss Whitehall, whose offices are justbelow those of the dead man. I wondered if she'd been there and hopedshe hadn't, a nasty business for a woman to see. I'd met her severaltimes--before she started the Azalea Woods Estates scheme--at the houseof a friend near Longwood and been a good deal impressed as any manwould. She was one of the handsomest women I'd ever seen, dark and tall,twenty-five or -six years of age and a lady to her finger tips. I wasjust laying round in my head for an excuse to call on her when the villasite business loomed up and she and her mother whisked away to town.That was the last I saw of them, and my fell design of calling nevercame off--what was decent civility in the country, in the town lookedlike butting in. Bashful? Oh, probably. Maybe I'd have been bolder ifshe'd been less good-looking.
Molly was at home, and had to give me tea, and here were Soapy's cigarsand there were Soapy's cigarettes. Blessed little jolly soul, shewelcomes you as if you were Admiral Dewey returning from Manila Bay.Himself was at the Harland inquest and maybe he and the boys would bein, as the inquest was to be held at Harland's house on Riverside Drive.So as we chatted she made ready for them--on the chance. That's Mollytoo.
As she ran in and out of the kitchen she told me of a visit she'd paidthe day before to Miss Whitehall's office and let drop a fact that gaveme pause. While she was there a man had come with a note from some bankwhich, from her description, seemed to be protested. That was asurprise, but what was a greater was that Harland had been the endorsee.Out Longwood way there'd been a good deal of speculation as to how theWhitehalls had financed so pretentious a scheme. Men I knew there wereof the opinion there had been a silent partner. If it was Harland--whohad a finger in many pies--the enterprise was doomed. I sat back puffingone of Babbitts' cigars and pondering. Why the devil _hadn't_ I called?If it was true, I might have been of some help to them.
Before I had time to question her further, the hall door opened andBabbitts came in with a trail of three reporters at his heels. I knewthem all--Freddy Jaspar, of the _Sentinel_, who three years ago hadtried to fix the Hesketh murder on me and had taken twelve months to getover the agony of meeting me, Jones, of the _Clarion_, and BillYerrington, star reporter of a paper which, when it couldn't get itsheadlines big enough without crowding out the news, printed them inblood red.
They had come from the inquest and clamored for food and drink, crowdinground the table and keeping Molly, for all her preparations, swinginglike a pendulum between the kitchen and the dining-room. I was keen tohear what had happened, and as she whisked in with Jaspar's tea andBabbitts' coffee, a beer for Yerrington and the whiskey for Jones, theybegan on it.
There'd been a bunch of witnesses--the janitor, the elevator boy,Harland's stenographer who'd had hysterics, and Jerome, his head clerk,who'd identified the body and had revealed an odd fact not noticed atthe time. The front hall window of the eighteenth story--the windowHarland was supposed to have jumped from--had been closed when Jeromeran into the hall.
"Jerome's positive he opened it," said Babbitts. "He said he rememberedjerking it up and leaning out to look at the crowd on the street."
"How do they account for that?" I asked. "Harland couldn't have stood onthe sill and shut it behind him."
Jaspar explained:
"No--It wasn't that window. He went to the floor below, the seventeenth.The janitor, going up there an hour afterward, found the hall window onthe seventeenth floor wide open."
"That's an odd thing," I said--"going down one story."
"You can't apply the ordinary rules of behavior to men in Harland'sstate," said Jones. "They're way off the normal. I remember one of myfirst details was the suicide of a woman, who killed herself byswallowing a key when she had a gun handy. They get wild and act wild."
Yerrington, who was famous for injecting a sinister note into the mostcommonplace happenings, spoke up:
"The window's easily explained. What is queer is the length of time thatelapsed between his leaving the office and his fall to the street. ThatFranks girl, when she wasn't whooping like a siren in a fog, said it was6.05 when he went out. At twenty-five to seven the body fell--half anhour later." He looked at me with a dark glance. "What did he do duringthat time?"
"I'll tell you in two words," said Jaspar. "Stop and think for a moment.What was that man's mental state? He's ruined--he's played a big gameand lost. But life's been sweet to him--up till now it's given himeverything he asked for. There's a struggle between the knowledge thatdeath is the best way out and the desire to live."
"To express it in language more suited to our simple intellects," saidJones, "he's taken half an hour to make up his mind."
"Precisely."
"Where did he spend that half hour?" said Yerrington, in a deep,meaningful voice.
"Hi, you Yerrington," cried Babbitts, "this isn't a case for posing asBurns on the Trail. What's the matter with him spending it in theseventeenth floor hall?"
Molly, who was sitting at the head of the table in a mess of cups andsteaming pots, colored the picture.
"Pacing up and down, trying to get up his nerve. Oh, I can see himperfectly!"
"Strange," said Yerrington, looking somberly at the droplight, "that noone saw him pacing there."
"A great deal stranger if they had," cut in Jones, "considering therewas no one there to see. It was after six--the offices were empty."
They had the laugh on Yerrington who muttered balefully, dipping intohis glass.
"It fits in with the character of Harland," I sa
id, "the stuff in thepapers, all you hear about him. He was an intellect first--cool,resolute, hard as a stone. That kind of man doesn't act on impulse. AsMrs. Babbitts says, he probably paced up and down the empty corridorwith his vision ranging over the situation, arguing it out with himselfand deciding death was the best way. Then up with the window and out."
"Do you suppose Mr. Barker had any idea he was going to do it when heleft?" Molly asked.
Babbitts laughed.
"Ask us an easier one, Molly."
Jaspar answered her, looking musingly at the smoke of his cigarette.
"I guess Barker wasn't bothering much about anybody just then. His ownget-away was occupying _his_ thoughts."
"You're confident he's lit out?" said Jones.
"What else? Why, if he wasn't lying low in that back room, didn't hecome out when he heard Miss Franks' screams? Why hasn't he showed upsince? Where is he? That idea they've got in his office that he may havehad aphasia or been kidnapped is all tommyrot. They've got to saysomething and they say that. The time was ripe for his disappearance andthings worked out right for him to make it then and there. If he didn'tslip out while Miss Franks and Jerome were at the hall window, he did itafter they'd gone down. It was nearly an hour before the police went up.He could have taken his time, quietly descended the side stairs andpicked up his auto which was waiting in some place he'd designated."
"That's the dope," said Babbitts. "And it won't be many more 'sleeps,'as the Indians say, before that car is run to earth. You can't hide aman and a French limousine for long."
He was right. Johnston Barker's car was located the next day and thepublic knew that the head of the Copper Pool had disappeared by designand intention. His clerks and friends who had desperately suggested lossof memory, kidnapping, accident, were silenced. Their protesting voicesdied before evidence that was conclusive. Judge for yourself.
On the morning of January the eighteenth, Heney, the chauffeur, turnedup in the Newark court, telling a story that bore the stamp of truth. Atfive o'clock on the day of the suicide he had received a phone messagein the garage from Barker. This message instructed him to take thelimousine that evening at 8.15 to the corner of Twenty-second Street andNinth Avenue. There he was to wait for his employer, but not in anyordinary way. The directions were explicit and, in the light ofsubsequent events, illuminating. He was not to stop but to move aboutthe locality, watching for Barker. When he saw him he was to run alongthe curb, slowing down sufficiently for the older man to enter the car.
From there he was to proceed to the Jersey Ferry, cross and continue onto Elizabeth. The objective point in Elizabeth was the railway depot,but instead of going straight to it, the car was to stop at the foot ofthe embankment on the Pennsylvania side, where Barker would alight.Further instructions were that Heney was to mention the matter to noone, and if asked on the following day of Barker's whereabouts, deny allknowledge of it. Pay for his discretion was promised.
Heney said he was astonished, as he had been in Barker's employment twoyears and never piloted the magnate on any such mysterious enterprise.But he did what he was told, sure of his money and trusting in his boss.At the corner of the two streets he saw no one, looped the block, and onhis return made out a figure moving toward him that slowed up as he camein sight. He ran closer and by the light of a lamp recognized Barker;and skirted the curb as he'd been ordered. With a nod and glance at him,Barker opened the car door and entered.
The run to Elizabeth was made without incident. Heney stopped the car atthe Pennsylvania side of the culvert, above which the station lightsshone. Barker alighted and with a short "Good night" mounted the stepsto the depot.
On the way home, going at high speed, Heney, rounding a corner, ran intoa wagon and found himself face to face with a pair of angry farmers.They haled him before a magistrate to whom he gave a false name,representing himself as a chauffeur joy-riding in a borrowed car. Hetold this lie hoping to be able to hush the matter up the next day.
When he read of his boss' disappearance in the papers he was uneasy,knowing discovery could not be long postponed. The number of thecar--overlooked in the rush of bigger matters--was made public in theevening papers of the seventeenth. Then he knew the game was up,admitted his deception and the identity of his employer.
Inquiries at the Elizabeth depot confirmed his story. The Jersey Centraland Pennsylvania tracks run side by side through the station. Atnine-thirty on the night of January fifteenth the ticket agent of thePennsylvania Line remembered selling a Philadelphia ticket to a mananswering the description of Barker. He did not see this man board thetrain, being busy at the time in his office. None of the train officialshad any recollection of such a passenger, but as the coaches were full,the coming and going of people continuous, he might easily have beenoverlooked.
After this there was no more doubt as to Barker's flight. The papersannounced it to an amazed public, shaken to its core by the downfall ofone of its financial giants. The collapse of the Copper Pool wascomplete and Wall Street rocked in the last throes of panic. From thewreckage the voices of victims called down curses on the traitor, theman who had planned the ruin of his associates and got away with it.
They congregated in the Whitney office where the air was sulphurous withtheir fury. And from the Whitney office the Whitney detectives, JerryO'Mally at their head, slipped away to Philadelphia, with their noses tothe trail. With his picture on the front page of every paper in thecountry it would be hard for Barker to elude them, but he had threedays' start, and, as O'Mally summed it up, "It has only taken seven tomake the world."
The Black Eagle Mystery Page 3