At this presaging of victory, John Steele’s conscience began to trouble him. He guessed why she appeared so changeable. Her father’s future and her own depended on the good-will of the young man stretched at her feet. She was anxious not to offend him, and yet her reluctance to remain alone with him, her absent-minded look, and the slight frown that now and then marred her brow, were hints that his attentions proved unwelcome. Steele surmised that any undue compliments or any too palpable indulgence in sentiment at this particular moment might prove disastrous to ultimate success. The resigned air with which she endeavoured to face a tete-a-tete not to her liking touched his pride, and also made him rather ashamed of himself for taking advantage of one who in the circumstances was helpless. He wondered if he could put this girl more at ease by telling her he had quite made up his mind to finance the mine, whether it proved all she said or the reverse. Yet she might regard this statement as merely an unblushing bid for her preference, for she knew that until he had examined the mine any such avowal would be made merely because he thought it would please her. While these thoughts ran through his mind, a silence had fallen between them, which, however, the girl appeared not to notice, for her eyes were fixed on the distant mountains. She was quite startled by the suddenness with which he sprang to his feet.
“Miss Fuller,” he cried, “I see you are anxious to be off towards the hills, and it is selfish of me to detain you here.”
He held out his hand to her and helped her up. She smiled very sweetly and said:
“I think it is time we were on our way again. We have further to go than you suspect, before we reach the regular camping-ground.”
He had reason to congratulate himself on his intuition, for during that journey she was kinder to him than she had ever been before, as if anxious to make up for her former coldness.
The sun had gone down ere they reached the halting-station for the night. They were now on an elevated plateau among the hills, and an impetuous torrent near by gave forth the only sound that broke the intense stillness. Tents were pitched, horses and mules tethered, and Jackson set out a dinner which their keen appetites made doubly memorable. Night came down, and the moon rose gloriously in the east. Time and place were ideal for a lovers’ meeting, but the adage which intimates that luck with gold does not run parallel with luck in love proved true in this instance. Immediately after partaking of the excellent coffee Jackson had brewed, the young woman rose and held out her hand, pleading fatigue.
“I must bid you ‘Good night,’” she said shortly.
“Oh! won’t you stay a little while and enjoy this unexampled moonlight? It seems as if I had never seen the moon before.”
The young woman smiled wanly, but shook her head.
“I’m really very tired,” she explained. “I have had a week of it at that awful hotel in the Gulch. It is fearfully noisy at night with drinking cowboys and miners, and so I have had scarcely any sleep for a long while. If I have proved a dull companion to-day, that is the reason, and I am sure you will excuse me now.”
“Miss Fuller, you could not be dull if you tried. I am sorry you should have had so much trouble on my account at that terrible station. I should have sent a man, but I could not guess the horrors of the place before seeing it. Pray forgive my selfishness.”
“Oh, that was really nothing. I am quite accustomed to the life; but, somehow, the first night in the mountains always leaves me stupid and drowsy.”
“To-morrow night, then,” he said very quietly, “we may perhaps view the moonlight together.”
“To-morrow night,” she murmured and was gone.
Steele threw himself into the canvas camp-chair, and, reclining, gazed on the moonlit plain below and listened to the roar of the torrent. Dreamily he fancied himself floating in the seventh heaven of bliss.
Next morning the camp was early astir, for a long day of mountaineering lay ahead. The party numbered seven, all told, there being three men of peaceable demeanour, but rough aspect, in charge of the pack-train. At no time during that day did Steele secure an opportunity of speaking with Alice Fuller alone. They could not ride together, as the mountain path was too narrow. After dinner, at the final camping-place, a wild spot in a profound valley, where John saw with dismay the moon would not be visible, the girl seemed loth to keep him company as had been the case the night before. She laughed somewhat harshly, he thought, when he complained that she must have known they could not see the moon.
“You can study its rays on the northern peaks,” she said. “Who would ever have expected a modern financier to yearn for the moon?”
“A modern financier is but a man, after all,” protested Steele.
“I have sometimes doubted it,” replied the girl cynically.
“Well, Miss Fuller, if you will sit down again, even in the absence of moonlight, I think I can remove your doubts.”
She stood there hesitating for a few moments, but it was too dark to see the expression on her face. Finally she sat down in the chair from which she had risen.
“I am seated,” she said; “but not to talk of moonlight, merely to tell you that I intend to go no farther. To-morrow morning we bid ‘Good-bye’ to each other. You go north, and I go south.”
“Oh, I say,” cried John reproachfully, “that’s contrary to contract. You promised to lead me to the mine.”
“I know I did; but it is always a woman’s privilege to change her mind. Perhaps you will understand I do not wish to influence you at all in the decision you may come to about the mine.”
“Would it make you abjure your cruel resolve if I informed you that I have quite determined to invest in the mine if it gives any show of success, which I am sure it will do from what you have told me about it?”
“The mine must plead its own cause,” she said, with an indifference that amazed him. “You have no real need of me as a guide, for the three men I engaged know the route as well as I do. They have been over it often enough. I am really very anxious about my father. He promised to telegraph me at Pickaxe Gulch, but has not done so. I sent a despatch the day before you arrived, but no reply came, and it may be waiting for me now at the office there.”
“Why not send back one of the men?”
“Because of my own anxiety. I fear the telegram may call me to his side. I think you will understand now why I have been distraught while in your company.”
“Miss Fuller, believe me, I am very sorry to hear that this worry has been hanging over you. If I had known, I should have proposed our remaining at Pickaxe Gulch until you had heard from your father. I fear my own conduct and conversation may have added to your discomfort.”
“Oh, no, no,” said the girl, quickly rising again.
“Will you accept this trifle from me?”
He spoke hurriedly, and took from his waistcoat pocket something that she knew to be a ring, for even in the dim light it sparkled as if fire were playing from its facets.
“I’d rather not,” she replied, stepping back.
“It will bind you to nothing—nothing at all. It is simply to keep me in your memory until we next meet.”
“Oh, I shall never forget you!” she cried, in a tone of bitterness that startled him.
“It is a mere trinket,” he urged, “and I bought it for you before I left civilisation. If you do not accept it, I shall throw it into the darkness of the valley yonder.”
“That would be foolish, even for you.”
“Why, Miss Fuller, such a remark has a very dubious sound. What do you mean by it? Do you think I am foolish?”
“Oh, I don’t think anything at all of either you or your folly. I tell you I merely want to get away.”
“Won’t you take the ring with you?”
She stood for a long time with head bowed.
“I don’t suppose it makes any difference one way or the other,” she said at last.
“Of course it doesn’t. I told you it wouldn’t.”
“Very well, I shall take the ring, if you will accept a much cheaper and more significant present from me in the morning.”
“I shall accept gratefully anything you like to give me, Miss Fuller, in the morning or at any future time.”
“I wonder,” was all her comment, as she took the ring and instantly disappeared.
Somehow this night held none of the glamour that distinguished the previous evening. The depth of the profound shadows surrounding him was merely emphasised by the touch of cold moonlight on the hilltops far away. John wondered if the exhilarating effect of the atmosphere had departed, leaving him sober again. He felt strangely depressed, and although he immediately entered his tent and flung himself, dressed as he was, upon his canvas cot, he found it difficult to sleep. It was after midnight before he dozed off, and then his slumber was troubled and uneasy. Towards morning, however, a kind of stupor descended upon him, leaving him dreamless and lost to the world. This was broken by a sharp and angry voice, whose meaning did not at first reach his consciousness; but the sentence lingered in his awakening mind and at last became clear to him, as an image comes out during the gradual development of a photographic plate.
“I tell you I will not leave until I bid ‘good-bye’ to Mr. Steele.”
It was Alice Fuller’s voice, and in an instant the young man was on his feet and out of the tent. Day had just dawned, gray and chill, but already the camp was astir and the young woman in her saddle.
“Did you call me?” he cried.
“No,” she answered; but he seemed to detect a tremor of fear in her voice.
“I thought I heard you say you wished to bid ‘goodbye’ to me!”
“You must have been dreaming. But I do wish to bid you ‘good-bye.’”
Two of the muleteers stood near, and the old attendant, mounted, had already started slowly on his way. John sprang to her side, and as he came to a stand by the horse, she stooped and slipped a small box into his coat pocket.
“Good-bye! good-bye!” she cried somewhat boisterously, with an exclamation that seemed to be half sob and half laugh. “Go back to your tent at once and brush your hair. It’s enough to frighten anyone,” and now she laughed with unnecessary vehemence, the near mountains echoing the peal with a strange mocking cadence that sent a chill up the spine of one listener.
“What does this mean?” he asked himself.
The man at the bridle turned the horse’s head towards the distant railway, and the other smote the steed on the flank.
“Let go my horse!” commanded Miss Fuller savagely. The man slouched away. She touched the animal with her heel and galloped off, while Steele stood in a daze watching her. Only once she looked back, then made a quick motion to the pocket of her jacket and disappeared round the ledge of rock. Jack remembered the packet she had dropped into his pocket, and imagining her gesture might have reference to that, walked to his tent to examine the present so surreptitiously given him, remembering that she had said the night before it would prove more significant than the ring she had so reluctantly accepted. It was a little, square parcel, tied in a bit of newspaper with a red string. He whisked this off, and held in his hand a box of white metal. Opening the box he saw within it a simple cake of soap!
Steele held this on his open palm, gazing at it like one hypnotised.
“My God!” he groaned at last, “soap—Amalgamated Soap! Peter Berrington and Nicholson! Trapped, as I am a fool and a sinner! These muleteers are the real chiefs of this expedition. They saw Alice Fuller weakening; but she weakened too late, and now they have sent her away. What’s the object of all this? It is too fantastic to imagine that Nicholson supposes he can exact all I possess as ransom. Even the Black Hills are not the mountains of Greece. What is it, then? Murder? That’s equally incredible, and yet possible. Here am I unarmed, rifles in the boxes, no one with me but a cowardly nigger. Walked right into the trap with my eyes open, like a gaping idiot! Well, John Steele, you deserve all you will get! Let’s discover what it is.”
He strode out of the tent. The negro was preparing breakfast. The three men stood in a group together, talking, but they looked round and became silent as he approached.
“I have changed my mind,” said Steele; “we’re going back to the railway.”
“Oh, no, we’re not,” said one of the men, stepping forward, and taking a revolver from his hip pocket; “we’re going on to the mine.”
“Is there a mine?” asked Steele, with a sneering laugh.
“Oh, there’s a mine all right enough, and they’re waiting for you there.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out about twelve o’clock to-day.”
“See here, boys,” said Steele persuasively, “I’ll make you three the richest men in this part of the country if you’ll accompany me safely back to the railway.”
“We’ve heard that kind of talk before,” replied the man, “and have had enough of it. You tell that to the boss of the gang at the mine; and whatever he says, we’ll agree to.”
“Yes, but at the mine—How many are there, by the way?”
“You’ll see when you reach the spot.”
“Well, even if there’s one more, he divides the loot with you. You can make better terms with me now than you can at the mine.”
“Chuck it, stranger. There ain’t no use giving us any more taffy. You’re going on to the mine.”
“All right,” said Steele, turning on his heel. “I’ll have breakfast first. Is the coffee ready, Jackson?”
“Yes, sir.”
The prisoner sat down at the collapsible table and enjoyed a hearty meal.
At noon they reached the mine, and a dozen, gaunt, wild-eyed men, who were sitting round, stood up when the riders came into sight. They gave no cheer when they saw the captive, nor did their attitude of listless, bored indifference change a particle as Steele stopped his horse and dismounted.
“Here’s the goods,” said the leader of the muleteers, and the boss of the mining gang nodded, but made no reply.
“Good day, gentlemen,” began Steele, a smile coming to his lips in spite of the seriousness of the crisis, as he thought that this sombre, silent gang in the midst of the mountains bore a comical resemblance to the gnomes in Rip Van Winkle when that jovial inebriate appeared amongst them. “I take it, sir, that you are leader here, and I think there has been some mistake. During today’s journey I have been forced to travel to this mine against my will. You seem to have been expecting me. Now, what’s up?”
“You’ll be, in about ten minutes,” replied the boss. “Dakota Bill, where’s your rope?”
“Here it is,” said Bill, stepping forward and exhibiting a slip-noose at the end of about thirty feet of stout line.
“Now, stranger, if you’ve got any messages to leave your friends, we’ll give you ten minutes to write or say them.”
“I’ve no messages, thank you, but I am disturbed by a lively curiosity to know what all this means.”
“Oh, of course you’ve no suspicion about what it means, have you?”
“No, I have not.”
“You never saw your mine before, did you?”
“It isn’t my mine.”
“I knew you’d say that. Well, now, we’ve been left here for four months without a markee of pay. For the last month we would have starved if it hadn’t been for Dakota Bill’s good work with a rifle; but even the game has fled from this accursed place and now we are starving. You’re the man responsible, and you know it. We’ve sworn to hang you, and we’re going to hang you.”
“My dear sir, your statement is definite and concise, without being as illuminating as I should like. A mistake has been made, of which I am the innocent victim. You are the victims, too, for that matter; because, after all, it is not a mistake, but a conspiracy. I can see, however, that nothing I may say will mitigate the situation in the slightest degree. I shall, therefore, not indulge in useless declamation. Three things are fixed. I am the owner of this mine. I have cheated you out of your pay for four months, therefore I am to be hanged. There comes into my mind at this moment something I have read somewhere about hangings at Newgate prison in England. They drop a man, then all concerned go at once to enjoy what is called the ‘hanging breakfast.’ The gruesomeness of such a proceeding fastened the item in my mind. Let’s have a ‘hanging lunch.’”
“Stranger, as I understand your remarks, the person turned off didn’t attend that breakfast.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Very well, stranger, we’ll look after the lunch when you’re strung up.”
“But, excuse me, the victim had a hearty breakfast before he was hanged. Now, I beg to point out to you that I drank my coffee just about daybreak this morning, and since then I’ve travelled over the worst set of mountains it has ever been my privilege to encounter. I’m as hungry as a bear. I therefore insist on your lunching with me, and I shall give you a meal such as you wouldn’t better at the Millionaire’s Club. Before I left home, six manufacturers of portable stoves insisted on my accepting one each, in the hope of getting an unsolicited testimonial. I shall leave the stoves with you, and trust you will recommend them to your friends. I don’t need them where I’m going.”
“No,” said one of the party, “they’d melt there.”
“Now, Jackson,” cried Steele enthusiastically, “set up the whole six stoves. You’ve got to cook dinner for the party. But, meanwhile, open some of those boxes of new sardines with the trimmings on, which they’ve just sent across to us from Brittany. A little caviare also may be a novelty in this district. I think we’ve plates enough to go round. If not, use saucers or the tins. Gentlemen, I take it you don’t need an appetiser, but what will you drink before we begin?”
“I admit, stranger, you’re a mighty plausible cuss, and we expected that; but you don’t palaver this crowd. There’s no drinking till after the ceremony.”
For the first time there was a murmur of disapproval at this, but the leader held up his hand.
“See here, you fellows,” he said, “we’ve got to deal with a pretty slippery customer. You know what them city men are. Now, there’s no drinking till after the performance; you hear me. I’d string him up this moment, only we’d scare his cook white, and then we’d have to eat things raw.”
Jackson handed round sardines and other tempting extras, while Steele put the collapsible table on its legs and opened various boxes, from one of which he took out a case of champagne, and another of Scotch whisky. Then, getting a large pitcher which had been intended as the water-holder of his tent, he poured two bottles of Scotch whisky into it, followed by bottle after bottle of champagne until the jug was full. Meanwhile the busy negro had got the six stoves ablaze, and the appetising smell that came from the utensils over the fires made the starving miners oblivious to everything else. The first course was devoured in silence.
“Although you may not care to consume intoxicating liquors, and I quite agree with you that it is best to keep sober, I hope you have no objection to temperance drinks. Who’ll have some cider?”
“Cider?” said the leader. “Have you got any?”
“Here’s a pitcher full.”
“That’s all right. Pour it out. I wish you had brought beer instead. We’d risk beer.”
“Oh, well, you can risk the cider. I’m sorry I haven’t any beer,” and, hungry as he was, the young man himself poured out full glasses to each.
“By jiminy crickets!” cried the leader, “that’s the best cider I ever tasted.”
“It’s the very best cider made in this country,” said Steele earnestly, “and thank goodness, I’ve got plenty of it.”
As course after course was served, and bumper after bumper was drunk, the geniality of the crowd rose and rose, until Steele at last saw he could possibly make terms with them, but he resolved not to chance that. He determined to leave them so drunk that none could move; then he would depart at his leisure. Under the exhilarating effects of the mixture he poured out, all objections to intoxicating liquor fled from the jovial assemblage, and Jackson now opened whisky bottle after whisky bottle. The miners were laughing, singing, weeping on one another’s necks, utterly oblivious of mine owners, lack of pay, lynching, or anything else, when Steele and Jackson mounted their horses, the coloured cook leading one of the mules laden with provisions ample for a week’s journey.
When Steele reached Pickaxe Gulch, he thought he never should be so glad to see a pair of rails again. He felt like throwing his arms round the neck of the station-master, but instead asked that rough diamond if there were any news.
“No, not much,” replied the station-master, “except that Peter Berrington, the billionaire, is dead.”
“Thank God!” fervently ejaculated Steele, to the astonishment of the station-master.
“Yes,” said the official, “he’s gone where his money won’t do him no good. Found dead in his chair in his office in New York, two days ago. There’s the paper, if you want to read about it.”
Steele went in and possessed himself of the paper.
“By Jove!” he muttered, as he gazed at the big, black headlines. “He or his system sent a man to death when he ought to have been preparing for death himself. That’s as it should be. Thank goodness the shadow has lifted!”
John Steele forgot the words of Shakespeare:=
````"The evil that men do lives after them."=
JOHN STEELE’S friends were amazed to find him back in town almost within a week after he had left with such lavish preparations for a long stay in the wilderness. It was difficult for him to offer an adequate explanation, and it grew to be most annoying, once he had constructed his excuses, to be compelled to repeat them to every friend he met, and listen without cursing to the inane advice given by people who didn’t in the least know what they were talking about.
“What! back already?” cried Philip Manson, who had offered to place a private car at his disposal if he would keep close to the railway. Manson held that camping out in a private car was the right way to do it, and that a canvas tent was a delusion and a snare. “Back already?” exclaimed the general manager. “Why, John, you look as haggard as if you’d been through a panic in the wheat market. Didn’t the Black Hills agree with you?”
“No,” said John shortly and truthfully; “threatened to develop throat trouble,” and he tapped his neck significantly.
“How long were you in the mountains?”
“Five days.”
“Oh, well, I told you how it would be before you left. That’s what comes of sleeping in a cot-bed, over damp ground, under thin canvas. You should have taken both my advice and my private car then you could have carried all the comforts of town with you.”
Now that the immediate tension of the crisis had relaxed, John Steele found himself very close to a mental and physical collapse. It was true that the great Peter Berrington was dead, but the elation which that startling piece of news had first caused subsided long before he reached the city. Men die, but systems remain. Had the shadow of Peter Berrington been lifted, after all, even though Peter himself was now a shadow? The grotesque uncertainty of the situation was making rags of John Steele’s nerves. Even as he walked through the crowded streets he had to fight down an impulse to shriek aloud, raising his hands to heaven and crying: “In God’s name, if you’re going to do anything, do it now, and let’s have it over!”
It was not that he shrank from ruin, or even from death, both of which he had faced within the past year. It was the uncertainty of when and how the blow was to fall. He began to fear that something worse than either ruin or death would overtake him. In the privacy of his own room he would sometimes march up and down with set teeth and clenched fists, saying to himself: “You must quit thinking of this, or you’ll go mad,” and yet with all his strength of mind he could not stop his planning to circumvent the unseen danger which threatened him.
The fantastic nature of the peril that surrounded him was such that if it were made public, he would be laughed at from one end of the country to the other. In a busy, practical, work-a-day world, it was incredible that a group of men, only one of whom he had ever seen, and that most casually, should sit in a sky-scraper in New York and actually plan the murder of a young man in Chicago; for this group of men were churchgoers, Sunday-school teachers, philanthropists who had founded colleges; bestowers of charity on a scale of munificence hitherto unexampled. And yet more potent than all these things was the fact that they were hard-headed business men, the most successful business men in the world, intent on their own affairs, and naturally far removed from any thought of revenge, for the simple reason that revenge is not business, and there is no money in it. It was quite true that this same group, in early days, had been accused of burning rival factories, of inciting riots, and of many other crimes against the peace and security of the commonwealth, but these things had never been legally proven or brought home to the group by irrefutable evidence. Where investigation had followed crime, and the inquiry was not quashed, it had always been shown that the rash acts were the work of over-zealous employees exceeding their instructions. The hands of the financial group in the tall building on Broadway were clean. No band of Quakers were more set against violence than these mild-mannered men in New York. If John Steele had told the story of the attempted lynching among the Black Hills, the incredulous public would have looked upon the affair as a practical joke played by humourous mountaineers on a tenderfoot from the East. No one knew better than John Steele that to connect Dakota Bill of the Black Hills with Nicholson of New York was an impossibility. He was certain the miners knew nothing of Nicholson; that they held a genuine lynching grievance against the owner of the mine, whoever he was, and that they were acting quite naturally according to their instincts when this supposed owner had fallen into their hands.
Alice Fuller, who led him so easily into the trap, as the tame animal in the stockyards leads its fellows to the slaughter-pen—she, of course, knew for whom she was acting, but John doubted if this knowledge led by any followable clue to Nicholson. When he thought of the handsome girl, he shuddered; and, for ten thousand reasons, that episode must never become public. To be hoodwinked by a pretty woman was merely to join the procession of fools that extended from the time of Adam to the year 1905.
It was difficult for Steele to cease his thoughts of the Amalgamated Soap combination, for the papers continued full of Peter Berrington and the financial upheaval which his sudden death was certain to cause. The imagination of the world was touched by the fact that this tremendous power which Peter Berrington had wielded in ever-increasing force for nearly half a century now lapsed into the hands of a girl, Constance Berrington, aged twenty-four, the only child of the billionaire. The newspapers printed column after column about this young lady, who appeared to be even more of a recluse than her father was. They published portraits of her, no two alike—pictures ranging from the most beautiful woman in Christendom to the most gaunt and ugly hag; which seemed to indicate that photographs of Miss Constance were unobtainable, and that the artists drew on their imagination as well as on their Whatman pads. She avoided society, was never seen at such resorts as Newport or Lenox; she took no part in the festivities of a great city, and believed that the door of a theatre was the gate of hell. Gossip said she was haunted by a fear of being married for her money, and so at this early age had become a man-hater. It was also alleged that she kept a conscience, a possession with which her father had never been credited even by the wildest imaginative writer. She was going to devote her life and her billions as far as possible to the undoing of the harm which her parent had accomplished.
“She is fanatically religious,” proclaimed one newspaper.
“She is a plain, commonplace girl,” said another, “whose father has bequeathed her his cash, but not his brains.”
When John Steele found he could not cease thinking over his paralysing situation, which had entirely emasculated his initiative and wrecked his business career; when he feared lunacy awaited him, he resolved to meet this girl, and persuade her, if he could, to stop the huge, golden Juggernaut which threatened to crush the life or reason out or him. Yet it seemed cowardly for a grown man to make such an appeal to a young girl who was an entire stranger to him, and who, if he actually succeeded in reaching her presence, would most likely consider herself insulted that such crimes as he placed before her without the slightest proof, should be attributed to her father. Thus the interview would doubtless end with his being turned out of the house by the servants. Then again, even if she believed him—and the chances were only as one in ten thousand—did she possess the actual as well as the nominal power to stop the persecution? Was she like the Czar of Russia, helplessly at the head of an organisation over whose movements the supposed chief had no control?
Yet, after all, Steele had not gone so far towards insanity as to be in any error regarding the real mover in the conspiracies of which he was the victim. Nicholson was the man; there could be no doubt of that. Twice Steele had beaten Nicholson to the ground. In the great wheat deal he had exposed his treachery and dishonesty; had publicly shown him to be an unscrupulous scoundrel; had prevented him from making millions in a single coup, which was all prepared and certain to succeed had not Steele disarranged the machinery. He had humiliated the man personally, wounding his pride and crushing his self-esteem. Was it possible, then, ever to make terms with one naturally so embittered? Steele braced himself and resolved to try. Twice he had defeated him, and there remained in John’s hand the powerful weapon of publicity. After all, could Amalgamated Soap risk such an exposure as it was in Steele’s power to cast forth to the eager Press of the country? Was it so certain that the public would not believe the story he might tell regarding Amalgamated Soap? Even though Nicholson was imbued with malice, his colleagues would be more reasonable, more amenable to persuasion. They would undoubtedly try to induce this angry man to refrain from tempting the avalanche. He resolved to propose a treaty of peace with Nicholson. Then came the doubt. Should Nicholson agree to such a pact, would he keep it? Would he merely use it as a sedative to lull his intended victim into false security? Such an outcome was very likely; still, a frank talk with Nicholson could do no harm, and Steele had not the slightest intention of being lulled into security by anything Nicholson might say. Recalling to his mind the stony countenance of that human sphinx, Steele could not delude himself that any appeal to conscience or any plea for mercy would have the least chance of success. Nicholson was as unemotional as the Pyramids; Steele could make no bargain with such a man unless he had something to offer. Therefore he did not go impetuously to New York and fling himself at the feet of Nemesis, the divinity of chastisement and vengeance. He set about the preparation of the goods he would trade with, this white Indian. It gratified him to think that after all these months of doubt and uncertainty he could at last come to a definite decision about anything.
There were no women in John Steele’s office. His confidential stenographer was a quiet man, a little older than himself, named Henry Russell. Steele touched an electric button on his desk, and Russell came in, notebook in hand.
“Sit down, Russell. If I remember rightly, you were connected with a newspaper in your early days?”
“In a very humble capacity, sir; I was merely a reporter.”
“Oh, don’t say ‘merely.’ A reporter is ever so much more important than an editorial writer. Have you ever attempted a novel?”
“No, sir.”
“Still, you know something of literary form and the way a book is put together, I suppose?”
“I know nothing about the writing of books, sir. I think I have a fair knowledge of how a sentence should read.”
“Well, that’s the main thing. Still, as a reporter you must have seen a good deal of the seamy side of life, and later you have had to do with important business affairs, ever since you came into my employ.”
“That is very true, Mr. Steele.”
“Don’t you think you could concoct the plot of a novel? A novel of every-day business life, let us say, like one of those that have been so successful lately—a book pulsating with the greed of gold, and all that sort of thing, you know? Unscrupulous men, and perhaps an adventuress here and there, of perfectly stunning beauty. For instance, someone resembling that girl who came in to see me a fortnight ago.”
“Y es, I remember her. She was good looking.”
“An amazing beauty, I thought her,” said Steele, thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets and marching up and down the room. “Well, couldn’t such a belle of the markets as that inspire you towards the writing of a great work of fiction?”
Russell shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Steele.”
“There’s nothing much doing just now,” continued the promenading man. “At this present moment I intended to be off on my vacation, but I found the mountains too exciting—er—too dull I mean—and so you see I am back among you earlier than I expected. Now, Russell, between ourselves, there is nothing more absurd than for a successful business man to attempt the writing of a novel. Yet I’m the sort of person who cannot remain idle, and there is nothing in sight to do for a month or two. I’m going to while away the time by composing a business novel, and I want you to assist me. I’ll dictate the thing straight off to you, and you must invent the names and kick the sentences into shape.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“And remember, Russell, of all the confidential transactions you’ve been called upon to perform, this is the one in which I demand the utmost secrecy. I should be the laughing stock of the town if it once got out that I were plunging into fiction instead of into wheat.”
“I’ll never breathe a whisper of it, sir.”
“I am sure you won’t, and that is why I trust you. Now, we’ll just lock the doors and refuse ourselves to all comers. If a novel is to be a success nowadays, when people have so much to read and so little time for reading, it must be as sensational as possible, and I think I can do the trick. Anyhow, if it fails, there’s no great harm done, and for a time we two will court that seclusion with which, I read in the papers, all true literary men surround themselves.”
The two men worked together day after day, until the first draft of the history was completed and typed; then they revised this copy very thoroughly, and Steele directed that duplicates should be made, with blanks left for all proper names. He professed himself dissatisfied with the titles they had invented, and said that while the final manuscript was being prepared, he would concoct more suitable appellations for his main characters, and insert them with his own hand. This final revision was accomplished by John Steele alone, when he inserted the real names; then with his own hand he wrote the following letter to Stoliker, editor of the Daily Blade:
My dear Stoliker:
If the accompanying manuscript ever comes into your possession, I want you first of all to remember that on a certain night I brought to you a most remarkable article regarding the wheat situation in this country, the truth of which you quite legitimately doubted. After-events proved the accuracy of my statement, and you were thus enabled to score a great triumph for your paper. Believe me, then, when I tell you that every word here typed is true; for when you read the accompanying pages, I shall not be by your side to use arguments in favour of its publication. I shall either have disappeared, or, more probably, I shall be dead. In either case, this manuscript, every name in which is real, will give you a clue to the disaster which has overtaken me. In the meantime I remain, Your friend,
John Steele.
This letter and the manuscript he wrapped up into a parcel, which he securely sealed. On the outside he wrote instructions that in the case of his death or disappearance the package was to be handed intact to Stoliker, of the Daily Blade. The other package, with a duplicate of the letter to Stoliker, was placed in the vault of a depository, supposed to be the greatest strong-room in the city, which, he afterwards learned with some amusement, belonged to Amalgamated Soap. The thin key and the code word which opened this receptacle he placed in a sealed envelope which he left in the hands of his legal advisers, with instructions to forward the envelope to Stoliker in case of his death or disappearance.
All this accomplished to his satisfaction, he took the Limited to New York, and entered the tall building on Broadway which was body to the brain that directed the activities of Amalgamated Soap. Asking that his card should be taken to Mr. Nicholson, and replying to an inquiry that he had no appointment, he was taken into a small but richly furnished waiting-room, which he saw to be one of many on the eleventh floor, and there he rested for nearly half an hour before a messenger entered and announced that Mr. Nicholson would be pleased to see him.
Nicholson’s room was large and sumptuous, with several windows opening on Broadway. The two financiers, big and little, met on the plane of ordinary politeness, without any effusion of mutual regard on the one hand, or evidence of mutual distrust on the other.
“I have called,” said Steele, “to see if we can come to any workable arrangement.”
“In what line of activity?” asked Nicholson.
“In a line of passivity rather than of activity,” explained Steele, with a smile. “When I was a youngster, and engaged in a fight, it was etiquette that as soon as the under boy hollered ‘Enough!’ the fellow on top ceased pummelling him. I have come all the way from Chicago to cry ‘Enough!’”
Nicholson’s eyebrows raised very slightly.
“I fear I do not understand you, Mr. Steele.”
“Oh, yes, you do. It will save time and talk, if we take certain things for granted. When we first met, I was so unfortunate as to find myself opposed to you. I admit frankly that I entirely underestimated your genius and your power. Since then, on one occasion you came within an ace of ruining me. On a second and more recent occasion you came within an ace of causing my death. Now, I have called at the captain’s office to settle. In the language of the wild and woolly West, my hands are up, and you have the drop on me. What are your terms?”
For a few moments Nicholson regarded his visitor with an expression in which mild surprise was mingled with equally mild anxiety. When at last he spoke, his voice was perceptibly lowered, as if he addressed an invalid in a sick-room.
“You are not looking very well, Mr. Steele?”
“No, nor feeling well, either, Mr. Nicholson.”
“I am sorry to hear it. What is the trouble?”
“Amalgamated Soap, I should say,” said John, with a dreary laugh. “Excellent for the complexion, but mighty bad for the nerves.”
“I shall make no pretence of misunderstanding your meaning, Mr. Steele,” Nicholson went on with the patient enunciation one uses towards an unreasonable child. “You are hinting that in revenge for fancied opposition on your part, either I personally or the company with which I am associated, or both, have entered into a conspiracy, first to rob, and secondly to murder you. I hesitate to speak so bluntly, but, as you quite sensibly remark, we should be frank with each other.”
“Your bluntness is more than compensated for by your accuracy, Mr. Nicholson. What you describe is exactly what you have done. Mere accident saved me from ruin in the Consolidated Beet Sugar formation. Less than a month ago I was led across the plains by one of your minions—a most charming, beautiful, and fascinating young woman—into a death-trap, from which I escaped largely through my own ingenuity. Now, I have written down a rather vivid and strictly accurate account of these doings. I have put in your name, and that of Amalgamated Soap, and my own, and there are three copies of this narrative in existence, two of them with a slow match attached which you can very easily light.”
“Meaning that this interesting account will appear in print, Mr. Steele?”