Chapter XIII
When he had gone into the brisk air of the street, his mental vision returned with the crispness of the night. He was astonished at what he had said and done.
“But I am not in love—not in the least,” he repeated. “Then what was it?”
He was quite perplexed at perceiving the astonishing difference her presence and her absence made in his attitude. He repeated to himself quite seriously with a little wonder that, if he were in danger of falling in love, he would be a prey to that disturbing emotion now, absent as well as present.
“I am perfectly calm,” he said, flourishing his cane. “Not in the least excited. It’s very queer.”
All the same, he returned to the interview, and recalled the incidents without illusion. He comprehended now what he had not comprehended then, the full significance of his offer of friendship—in fact, that it was not an approach to friendship but to something very different, and the relations which had now been established between them were those of confidence and intimacy that lay on the borderline of great emotions.
“It’s very odd,” he said, “I wish to be honest and open with her, and yet I said what I don’t feel—suggested what I have not the least thought of. I’ll be hanged if I understand it, unless she has the power to make me believe in emotions that don’t exist,—Emma Fornez was right, she is the type that provokes you. I must be very careful.”
But one thing he did not perceive—that the city no longer oppressed him with its bleak struggle and serried poverty, that he swung lightly over the crisp pavements, breathing the alert and joyous air, that in him the joy of living awakened, as the myriad lights awoke the city of the night, the city rising from the fatigue of labor with its avid zest for pleasure and excitement.
“What is the clue McKenna’s got hold of?” he thought eagerly, as the massive, cheery windows of the club came into view across the stirring, care-fleeing homeward rush of the Avenue.
The moment he entered the crowded anteroom, the tragic day returned with redoubled gloom. The death of Majendie oppressed every voice—nothing else was discussed. He found himself caught up in the crowd at the bar, listening with a strange sense of irony to those who touched in haphazard the event which he knew so profoundly. The wildest rumors were current. Majendie had shot himself after the discovery of an enormous shortage in the funds of the Atlantic Trust. The Atlantic Trust had been looted, the effect on Wall Street had been to confirm the wildest rumors, the market would plunge down to-morrow, the awful loss of the day would be surpassed; it was the panic of ’93 over again. The inevitable mysterious informant in the crowd arrived with a new rumor: Majendie had tried to escape, had been prevented by detectives, who had been shadowing him for days, and had then gone in and shot himself just as the warrant for his arrest arrived. Another gave this version; Majendie had not shot himself, he had been murdered.
Every one exclaimed at this.
“That’s the story in the Associated Press offices,” continued the informant obstinately. “A man whose whole fortune was locked up in the Atlantic—a small depositor—got into the house on some pretext, and shot him—crazy, of course. It’s not been verified, but that’s the story.”
“Tell you what I heard,” said another, in a low voice, to a group that eddied about him. “It’s true he was shot, but he wasn’t shot in his own home. He was shot last night in his box at the opera by a man who is as well known as old Fontaine. The old story, of course, trespassing in married quarters. The whole thing was kept dark—got him out of the box after the crowd went out, and took him home, where he died at midnight. Heard the names in the case, but pledged not to repeat them.”
Each rumor received a momentary credence, in the excitement of the moment. Some one defending the personal friend, insisted on melancholia and despondency, citing the example of an uncle who had taken his life after the disgrace of his son. No one spoke the name of Mrs. Bloodgood, waiting the moment of confidences à trois. In the stupefaction of the moment, even the personal losses, which had been tremendous, were momentarily forgotten. Gradually inquiries began to be made as to the extent of the panic. Then at once a division was apparent. There was already the party of the shorts, eager and vociferous, staking their last chance of recouping on a still wider spread of the devastating drop, which they now as ardently desired as though a thousand homes would not suffer for every point acquired.
Beecher separated himself from these enthusiasts of failure, and passed into the front room, where he was signaled by Gunther, who was in one of the numerous small groups. He found a chair and joined the party, in which were Fontaine, Lynch, and Steve Plunkett. The conversation, which was controversial, continued without interruption.
“Don’t be an ass, Ed,” said Lynch, with irritation; “nothing can stop the market.”
“The Atlantic Trust is as solvent as Gunther & Co.,” insisted Fontaine, with a nervous, emphatic gesture. “Every depositor will be paid in full.”
“It’ll be in the hands of a receiver before the week’s over—bet you five to three.”
“Possibly; but then—”
“Moreover, what of the public? What’s the public going to do when it hears Majendie’s committed suicide? What’ll it think? It’ll think the whole blamed institution is rotten to the core—looted!”
“Sure,” said Plunkett, and he added savagely, his glance lost in the distance: “Damn it, if I’d known the news an hour earlier, I could have made fifty thousand.”
“Why, look at the situation,” continued Bo Lynch, excited by his own images. “The Clearing-house closed against the Associated Trust and all its allies; runs on banks all over the country; Slade forced to the wall, out of it in a couple of days, perhaps—God knows, another suicide, maybe; two failures up into the hundreds of millions—everything in the country thrown on the market! Look at the sales to-day; they’ll be doubled to-morrow. Nothing can hold out against it. The country’ll go crazy! I tell you, ’93 was nothing to it.”
Gunther rose.
“What do you think, Bruce?” said Plunkett anxiously.
“Don’t know a thing about it,” said Gunther brusquely. “Neither does Eddie or Bo. If you want to gamble, gamble.”
He nodded to Beecher, and they moved out together.
“Let’s cut out of this den of lunatics,” he said. “My machine’s here; supposing we run down to McKenna’s and get him off for a quiet chop. I’ve already telephoned.”
“He’s got some news?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what it is. Jump in.”
“What about Garraboy?”
“Rumor is, he’s in heavy. McKenna’s looking that up, too.”
“I say, Bruce, what do you really think about the situation?” said Beecher, forced to contain his curiosity. “Are we going to the bow-wows?”
“If you ask what I think,” said Gunther meditatively, “I think it’s the devil to pay. Far as I can see, a lot depends on John G. Slade. There’s no doubt there’s a crowd after his scalp.”
“Will they get it?”
“Looks so; but he’s got nine lives, they say.”
“Where the deuce are we going?” said Beecher, suddenly aware of the swift flight through the now deserted regions of the lower city.
“Down to McKenna’s offices.”
“As late as this?”
“Guess these days keep him pretty busy.”
“Didn’t he say anything about his clue?”
“Said he’d traced the history of the stone.”
They soon came to a stop in one of the blocks on Broadway within a stone’s throw of old Trinity, and, descending, entered a dingy four-story building pinched in among the skyscrapers. At the second flight of worm-eaten stairs, Gunther pushed open a smoky glass door and entered a short antechamber inclosed in sanded glass with sliding pigeon-holes for observation. Their arrival being expected, they were immediately shown down a contracted hallway studded with doors, to an open room, comfortably furnished, with a fire burning in the grate.
“Join you in a moment, gentlemen,” said McKenna, nodding around the door of the adjoining room.
Gunther unceremoniously helped himself at the open box of cigars.
“Ted,” he said enthusiastically, “why the deuce do the novelists concoct their absurdly stalking detectives, who deduce everything at a glance, with their impossible logical processes? Don’t they see the real thing is so much bigger? It’s not the fake individual mind that’s wonderful; it’s the system—this system. A great agency like this is simply an expression of society itself—organized order against unorganized disorder. It’s an unending struggle, and the odds are all on one side. By George, what impresses me is the completeness with which society has organized itself—made use of all inventions, telephone, telegraph, the photograph, the press, everything turned on the criminal to run him down. For a hundred detectives employed here, there are a thousand allies, in every trade, in every depot, in every port, along every line of travel. When you think of the agencies that McKenna can stir up by a word, then you begin to realize the significance of the detective in the structure of society.”
McKenna, who had heard the last words, entered, vitally alert and physically excited by the joy of unusual labor.
“Now I’m with you,” he said, appropriating an easy-chair. “Let’s see where we’ll begin. Oh, Mr. Beecher, you wanted certain information about that broker Garraboy, didn’t you?”
“What have you found out?” said Beecher, with a conscious eagerness that struck both hearers.
“It just so happened I had a line on your man from another direction,” said McKenna. “Well, he’s hit the market right. What would have happened if this panic hadn’t come just right, is another question—a rather interesting question. However, Garraboy’s known to have been heavy on the short side, and, from all reports, stands to make a killing.”
“Then Miss Charters’ stocks are all right?”
“They’re all right—yes—now,” said McKenna carefully; “but my advice is to get hold of them—P.D.Q. Mr. Garraboy is somewhat of a gambler. Now, here’s a bit of history about a certain ruby that will interest you,” he continued, drawing out a memorandum. In his manner was a little amused self-satisfaction, as one who relished the mystification of the outsiders. “In the first place, your ruby ring is not worth fifteen thousand.”
“No?” said Beecher in amazement.
“It’s worth considerably more,” said the detective, with a grin. “Its last sale was at the price of thirty-two thousand dollars.”
“What!” said both young men in chorus.
“Just that.”
“But then, why should Mrs. Kildair value it at fifteen?” exclaimed Beecher.
“That’s rather an interesting point,” said McKenna, “and we’ll touch on that later. The stone is as well known in the trade as John L. Sullivan to you and me. It was first sold in New Amsterdam in the year 1852 to a firm of Parisian jewelers. From them it was bought for a well-known, rather frisky lady called La Panthère by a Count d’Ussac, who ruined himself. La Panthère was killed later by a South American lover and her effects sold at auction. The ruby was bought by the firm of Gaspard Frères, and set in a necklace which was sold to the Princess de Grandliev. At the fall of the Second Empire, the necklace was broken up and this particular stone went over to England, where it was set in a ring and sold to a young dandy, the Earl of Westmorley, who was killed steeplechasing. A woman named Clara Hauk, an adventuress, had the ring in her possession, and successfully defeated the efforts of the family to regain it. She got into bad water in the ’80’s and sold it to a South African, who carried it off to the Transvaal with him. It reappeared in the offices of Gaspard Frères in 1891 on the finger of a young Austrian woman who sold it for twenty-two thousand dollars and disappeared without giving her name. An Italian, the Marchese di Rubino, bought it for a wedding present to his daughter, who kept it until 1900, when she pledged it to pay the gambling debts of her husband. It was then brought to this country by the wife of a Western rancher, who sold it five years later to Sontag & Co. The last sale known was just two months ago.”
“Two months?” said Beecher, craning forward.
“The price, as I said, was thirty-two thousand, and the purchaser was a certain gentleman very much before the public now—John G. Slade.”
This announcement was so entirely unexpected that it left the two young men staring at each other, absolutely incapable of speech.
“But then,” said Gunther, the first to recover, “the ring was given her by Slade!”
“At a cost of thirty-two thousand,” said the detective in a quick, businesslike tone.
“You are sure?”
“As positive as any one can be. There are only three other rings—”
“That’s why she wanted to keep it quiet!” exclaimed Beecher, rousing himself from his stupor. The whole machination of Mrs. Kildair became comprehensible to him on the instant. “Now I see!”
“Precisely,” said McKenna. “Of course there is a chance that Slade did not give her the ring; that I’ll know tomorrow.”
“How?”
“Make an inquiry—for a supposed purchaser, of course; find out if the ring is still at Slade’s.”
“It’s useless,” said Beecher firmly. “I know that McKenna’s right. This explains everything,” he continued, turning to the detective. “That’s why she acted so strangely “—he checked himself. “I saw Mrs. Kildair—took lunch with her—to-day—”
“Did you find out whom she employed?” said McKenna quietly.
Beecher opened his lips to answer in the affirmative, and stopped abruptly. For the first time, he realized that Mrs. Kildair had taken back the address. He rose nervously, frowning at the stupidity he would be forced to disclose.
“By Jove, I am an ass!” he said, dropping his glance; and he related the scene in which Mrs. Kildair had first given him the address and then taken it away.
“It’s not important, Mr. Beecher,” said the detective pensively, his mind working behind the recital. “She didn’t give you the right address.”
“How do you know?” said Beecher, turning.
“Because she recovered the paper as soon as she found out you were employing me,” he answered; but his mind was still out of the room. He took out a pencil and began tapping his memorandum with quick, nervous jots. “Her mind worked pretty quick,” he said.
“Why do you want to know her detectives?” asked Gunther.
“You see, the case is complicated,” said McKenna, rousing himself. “I won’t go into her relations with Slade just now, but it’s quite evident to any one they were such that Mrs. Kildair prefers to lose the ring rather than to have it discovered how it came to her. See?”
“I see,” said Gunther.
Beecher, silent, was turning over in his mind all the incidents of Slade’s and Mrs. Kildair’s conduct, striving to reach some explanation but the natural one that forced itself on him.
“That’s why,” continued McKenna, “I’d like to know, first, if the detectives are straight—can be depended upon; second, if they were told to make a search; and, third, if they were told not to find the ring.”
“But why not?”
“Because, Mr. Gunther, whoever took that ring the second time didn’t take it on impulse or without a plan; whoever took it probably—I don’t say certainly—knew enough of its history to know that Slade gave it to Mrs. Kildair, and reckoned on the fact that she would not dare to make it public. See?”
The corners of his eyes contracted suddenly, as though through the movement of propelling forward the quick, decisive glance.
“Then you think,” said Beecher slowly, “that she is—”
“Look here, Mr. Beecher,” said the detective quickly, “there is one thing no human being can ever say offhand; what says the Bible—the way of a man with a maid—well, make that woman in general. You don’t know, and I don’t know, what the situation is right there, and we may never know. All the same, we’re now started on solid ground; it may lead to something, and it may not, but what I want to know before we get much further is who and how many there that night knew or guessed Slade gave her the ring.”
“Of course,” said Gunther. “But how—”
“By patience and by running down every alley till we find it is an alley,” said McKenna. “That’s one thing to keep in mind, and let’s put it this way. Was there any one there that night who had to have money quick, and who knew that the fact of Slade’s giving the ring would tie Mrs. Kildair’s hands? Now, if that condition existed, we’re on a strong motive.”
“You don’t consider that the only lead,” said Beecher, convinced as he was of the probability of Mr. Majendie’s participation.
“Lord, no. Here’s one other point to work on, Mr. Beecher. What’s the situation today between Slade and Mrs. Kildair? Has there been any quarrel—say within the last ten days?”
“I don’t think so; and yet—” Beecher stopped, remembering Mrs. Kildair’s curious request for him to outstay the promoter. “What if there was?”
“Slade’s a remarkable character,” said McKenna, smiling. “Just how remarkable a few people will learn shortly. If he had quarreled or she’s been trying to trick him—just like him to take the ring the second time.”
“By George!” said Gunther. “Why not?”
“That’s only something to be kept in the background,” said McKenna, rising.
He turned to Beecher, considering him profoundly.
“Sorry you told Mrs. Kildair I was on the case,” he said.
Beecher blushed at the memory of the way in which he had been brought to disclose the information, and the confusion all at once revealed to the detective the probable means she had taken.
At this moment the door opened and a voice called him.
“Telephone, sir—personal.”
When the detective had left, Beecher and Gunther looked at each other in amazement in which a curious doubt was beginning to form.
“Why the deuce should Slade give her the ring, Ted?” said Gunther abruptly.
“I don’t know,” Beecher answered, perplexed. “I know what you think—that’s natural; but I don’t believe it. She’s deeper than that—that is, I think so.”
But he ended perplexed, contracting his eyebrows, nervously jerking at a button on his coat.
McKenna reentered, and on his face was a smile of anticipation and mischief.
“Some one called me up just then,” he said shortly; “some one I’ve been expecting to call me up. Guess who?”
“Slade,” said Gunther, startled.
“Mrs. Kildair,” said Beecher.
“Mrs. Kildair is right,” said McKenna. “I’m going up to see her tonight.” And he added meditatively, “It ought to be quite an interesting little chat.”