The banker and the bear

The time-lock is not an old device, but it is already a necessity. Just as the invention of new and impenetrable armor for battle-ships has only produced new cannon or new projectiles which make necessary a still harder protective shell about the ship, so has the increasing ingenuity with which banks guard their treasure been met by a corresponding advance in audacity and skill by those whose trade it is to rob the banks. An old-fashioned safe would be to a bank as useless a toy as one of Gustavus Adolphus’s wooden cannon in a modern fort; and a safe cracker of the past generation would be as helpless as John Bagsbury’s daughter Martha in the presence of a great Harveyized-steel sphere with its electric apron burglar alarm, its half-dozen separate combinations, and its time-lock ticking away inside. The time-lock differs from other devices of the sort in this, that it is no respecter of persons; it makes no discrimination between Trojan and Tyrian, friend and enemy. It resides in a glass-covered box on the inner face of the door. You unlock the cover, turn the knob until the hand upon a dial points to a certain number, and push the door to, and it will not open again until that number of hours has elapsed.

It had occurred to Melville Sponley that vaults which could not be unlocked would be as disastrous to a bank as vaults which were empty; and Curtin, carrying out his employer’s instructions that afternoon, after John had gone away, had merely given the little knob in the glass box an extra twist.

That was no very difficult thing to do, nor, being done, to make a man afraid. Of course, they would know he had done it. He alone in the bank had the key to the box, save on occasions when he handed it over to Peters. And it was altogether likely that John Bagsbury would suspect him of having done it maliciously. But it would be impossible to prove such a suspicion as that; the excuse was entirely plausible. The bank, on account of the run that day, had closed nearly three hours later than usual, and the assistant cashier, forgetting to take that into account, wound up the spring just as he was in the habit of doing, so that instead of opening at nine, the bolt would not fall out of place until twelve. They could never prove that he meant to do it.

When Sponley had told him about it in the little room in the Eagle Café, the prospect of being able, with so small an act, to work John Bagsbury an injury, had pleased him. And even in doing it he enjoyed the feeling of guilty excitement that had come over him. He hated John, partly because of the various rascalities he had been practising upon the Banker in the past six months, partly because he did not dare hate Melville Sponley. His resentment of the insult the Bear had paid him at the Eagle bar was simply fuel to his eagerness to pass on the injury to John. The cream of the stratagem, what he licked his lips over as he rode home from the bank, was that there could be no proof, not a grain, that he had not merely made a very natural mistake.

But for all that he was afraid. For no assignable reason, at first, save that he was a coward; but soon his cowardice began suggesting reasons. He thought of a good many disquieting possibilities during the evening, and, later, in the restless hours while he slept or dozed, his dreams spun about them a tangle of frightful grotesques. Awake or asleep the Banker troubled him, pursuing him through his dreams in a hundred horrible shapes, and at his elbow when he waked out of them and lay, with the rigor of nightmare still in his muscles and the perspiration of fear on his skin, trying to console himself with the thought that there was nothing they could prove. There would be one unpleasant moment when the Banker would look at him, perhaps speak to him, but that would soon be over. If he could only brazen it out through that, all would go well.

Much as he dreaded the day that was coming, he welcomed the light that announced it. At a, for him, ridiculously early hour, he dressed and ordered his breakfast. He stormed because it was not ready; but when it was brought to him, he did not eat it, for in the interval he had got a morning paper, and had found there additional ground for his uneasiness.

There was, as he had expected, a detailed account of the run, and it made rather good reading, ending, as it did, with a highly colored description of the coming of reënforcements. But he found more than he had bargained for in another column, whose head-lines made him cold and sick and hollow at the stomach, a report of an interview with John Bagsbury, which began with these words:—

“The run on our bank to-day was not an accident. It was deliberately provoked in order to bear the lard market. That is not a guess. I am speaking from knowledge.”

John never took the trouble to be plausible. He did not arrange the truth to give it a lifelike appearance. When he made that statement, boldly, without argument or corroborative detail, to the half-dozen reporters who had gathered in his library, they believed him, and ninety per cent of the men who read the words in newspaper type next morning also believed.

Curtin read the first sentence, then his eye glanced swiftly down the column, looking for his own name; but there was small relief in the fact that he did not find it there. He was certain that John Bagsbury’s words were not a bluff. So, wondering how much the Banker knew, more than he had told the reporters, Curtin allowed his breakfast to grow cold and to be taken away untasted. It was too early to go to the bank, but there was nothing else to do, and he could not keep still, so he set out down town.

What followed is not pleasant, but it was inevitable. He could not get a seat in the elevated train, and the long jolting ride left him sick and giddy. He went directly to the bank, though it was far too early to go in, and after hesitating a while on the steps, he went away and wandered aimlessly about the streets. The people he passed stared at him, and he knew that his white face and uncertain walk gave them excuse enough. It would never do for John Bagsbury to see him looking like that. He needed something to stiffen him up for that morning’s work, so he turned into the nearest bar.

A man with an empty stomach and a weak head must exercise great discretion in drinking Scotch whiskey, and Curtin knew it. He would only take a very little. It would have been fortunate for him and for Melville Sponley if after he once started he had drunk himself to sleep, or to the police station. But he kept his promise to himself, he took only a little.

What wonderful stuff that liquid amber was! As he sipped it, he felt his sluggish blood stirring; it was making a man of him. The fears of the night were gone far back into his memory now; he could think of them and laugh. He was ready for whatever might happen at the bank. The moment of discovery would not disconcert him in the least. He took one more little drink, and then, with almost a swagger, he walked back to the bank. John Bagsbury might look at him now and be damned!

Melville Sponley read the report of the interview with John Bagsbury and accorded it ungrudging admiration. That direct way of saying things was characteristic of John, and when he did it, it was immensely effective. That was the reward, the Bear reflected, which sometimes comes to a man who never drives a hard bargain with the truth. This blurting out of the whole story was a good move. It was worthy of the very pretty fight the Banker had been making this past week.

The Bear could afford to look with ironical indulgence on John’s last desperate efforts to save himself, because he knew how futile they were. The Bear was in high feather. There was some credit in beating a combination like Pickering and Bagsbury. Bagsbury was, bar one, the best man in the city.

His eye fell upon the vacant place across the table, and he came back sharply to present realities. He had not seen Harriet since Tuesday afternoon, had heard nothing from her since the little note asking him to excuse her for not coming down to dinner. He had gone to the Bagsburys’ house twice on Wednesday, but neither time had she been able to see him.

He missed her, even in busy times like these. He wanted to talk over this last action with her before he went into it; not that he needed any help, but simply for the stimulating effect of her interest. He had thought a good many times in the last year that she was not her old self; that she had been losing her sure grasp of a situation and her quick eye for an opportunity; but he saw now how badly he had misjudged her. Her foresight in warning John when it was too late to do any harm, but so that it might help to straighten out the tangle afterward, delighted him, and assured him that she was still the Harriet of ten years ago. And how plucky she was! She had been too tired to come down to dinner, but she had nerved herself for that long ride down to the Bagsburys’ house to carry out the stratagem that had occurred to her. She must have been horribly fagged to have broken down that way, though. Perhaps it was just as well that she was spared the exciting days that were following her collapse. They could talk it all over afterward, anyway. And he was glad that it was his last fight.

He had meant to stop on his way to the office and find out what her condition was this morning; now he decided to telephone instead; but, just before he went out, he changed his mind once more. He would do neither. She might want to see him and ask a lot of questions, and it was better that he should keep entirely out of the way for a little longer. It would all be over by noon.

When Sponley reached his office at nine o’clock, he found Stewart and Ray waiting for him. He nodded to them cordially.

“We’re going to have great times this morning. This is going to be the last day of it. You’ll find cigars in my desk there. Help yourselves, will you?”

“We haven’t much time for a smoke before the fun begins, have we?” one of them asked.

Sponley had disappeared in a little closet, where he seemed to be rummaging about in search of something, and it was a minute or two before he answered. When he came out, he brought a shiny old alpaca coat and a crumpled felt hat.

“Yes, you will,” he answered; “all the time you want. I’m going to attend to the fun to-day myself.”

One would not have called his face heavy at that moment, and his laugh had an almost boyish ring. He slipped on the coat, and thrust his hands luxuriously into the sagging pockets.

“This old rig has been through many a fight, but never a one better than there’ll be to-day. By the Lord Harry, gentlemen, I wouldn’t miss it for fifty thousand dollars.”

He stowed away a little package of memorandum cards and a couple of hard pencils, and moved to leave the office. “I’m going up to the floor now,” he said.

“You’re wanted at the telephone, Mr. Sponley,” said his clerk, coming out of the cabinet.

It was Curtin who had called him up, and the moment the Bear recognized his voice he demanded,—

“Where are you?”

“At the bank,” the assistant cashier answered.

“Ring off right away then,” said Sponley. “I told you not to run that risk.”

“It’s all safe enough,” he could hear Curtin laugh, “they aren’t watching the ’phone just now. They’re all over by the vaults.”

“Have they found out anything?”

“No, they think it’ll come open in a minute.”

“All right,” said the Bear; “but don’t call me up again in any case. You wound it up till twelve, didn’t you?”

There was a moment’s pause, then came the short rattle of the ring for disconnection. Curtin must have seen some one coming and rung off. Sponley was glad the assistant cashier had so much discretion.

At twenty minutes after nine, when the Bear, with a word of greeting to the guard at the entrance, came out on the floor, it was, to the unaccustomed eyes and ears in the crowded gallery, already a bedlam. Traders and clerks were grouped about that big room, talking in every key of excitement, and little messenger boys, to whom nothing mattered until the bell rang, larked about, pelting one another with handfuls of sample grain, and making a gratuitous addition to the uproar. All the while, monotonous and incessant, the metallic chatter of scores of telegraph instruments made a long organ-point against the varying pitch of the voice of the crowd.

Sponley breathed a long sigh of complete contentment as the old air and the familiar noises greeted him. The pervasive, inarticulate sound was as perfectly intelligible to him as is the song of the locomotive to an old railroad engineer. He knew every cadence of it. He walked slowly across toward the provision pit, and before he had taken twenty paces he felt that every man in the great room knew of his presence and was wondering what it portended. His half-shut eyes that were everywhere, saw Keyes scribble a note and despatch a messenger boy with it on the run, and he smiled. That note did not contain pleasant news for Pickering.

This was his last day, the last of a multitude of days, and safe, as this one was, or precarious, he had enjoyed them all. He wished there were to be more of them. But he had promised Harriet and himself, and he was particular about such promises. He would enjoy the little that was left, however.

Then there came to him a notion, an ironical, whimsical notion that pleased him, and he stood still, smiling over it. He would set a period to this delectable experience. His opponent should have an hour and a half. He would begin now in three—two and three-quarters—minutes, and at eleven o’clock his bear’s hug should squeeze the last gasp out of Pickering. It was anything but hard business sense, but for this once he could afford the luxury of following a fancy, as pretty a fancy as that.

Then the big bell rang out half-past nine, and the trading began. It had been long since Sponley had taken the field in person, but not so long that men had forgotten that he was the best operator on the board. That he was, was due partly to his impassivity, partly to his quickness; but more than either, apparently, to his mere bulk, or at least to a certain oppression which seemed to emanate from it. Keyes was a good man, an old hand at the business, he knew every trick of it, but he felt as if Pickering’s defeat were already accomplished when he looked at Sponley standing there, at the other side of the pit.

None the less he held his ground gallantly; for the first three-quarters of an hour he never gave an inch. But it was a game of follow the leader by that time. It seemed that every trader on the floor was coming to the provision pit, to make a short sale and take a little share in Sponley’s certain victory. No one could stand for long against such a pressure as that, and the price began dropping, a notch at a time, at first, but faster afterwards and down, down, down it went, sliding.

At a quarter before eleven there came a check and then a smart rally of a point or two. Sponley glanced up at the big clock, and he smiled. He was going to hit it almost exactly. He had expected this turn, he knew just what it meant. Pickering was of the sort who die hard, and now, as he came so desperately near the extreme edge, he was gathering every ounce of fight into this last plunge. Without hurry and without discomposure, Sponley hammered the price back again, and the narrow margin was almost nothing.

Outside, in the street, a carriage with three men in it was driving up furiously, reckless of the shouts from the policeman at the corner. When it stopped before the Board of Trade building, Pickering was still fighting, but already half over the edge.

That was six minutes of eleven.