Chapter VIII
The two young men and McKenna descended by the elevator into the lobby of the hotel. The news of the Clearing-house’s drastic action against the Atlantic Trust was already in the scare-heads of the evening papers, though Majendie’s resignation was still unknown. The halls were crowded with a fleet of newspapers, spread out, fluttering feverishly. Everywhere was a suppressed murmur and nervous tension, which occasionally exploded in exclamations when acquaintances met. The news was indeed staggering to the little man of the Street; the great Atlantic Trust with its hundreds of millions of deposits was on the verge of collapse and this at the end of a period of depression and alarm!
As they proceeded toward the carriage entrance, Gunther stopped to speak to one of the clerks at the desk, who, with a frightened face, came out to seek his advice. McKenna profited by the moment to say to Beecher:
“By the way, if you’re a friend of Miss Charters’, find out if she has any money invested in Wall Street, and who she’s dealing through.”
“Does it mean a panic?” said Beecher, surprised. “Do you mean she ought to get out?”
“Too late,” said McKenna. “Find out what I asked you. I’m in a hurry. Say good-night to Mr. Gunther for me. And, say, if you’re so interested in this case, get him to put you wise to Majendie and Mrs. Bloodgood.”
He gave a quick nod, and mingled in the crowd about the north entrance. Beecher watched him with a feeling of disillusionment. The detective had expressed no opinion, had brought to bear on the problem none of the instantaneous analysis which he had expected; in fact, had deliberately avoided even a discussion of the natural probabilities. Had this complete reticence been associated with an individuality of impressive oddity, he would have perhaps regarded it with respect. As it was, he was conscious only of being defrauded as though some one were tearing away a precious illusion.
“There’s a poor devil; got all his money tied up in the Atlantic Trust,” said Gunther, joining him and passing out to the waiting automobile.
“The Atlantic Trust can’t fail,” said Beecher, amazed. “Things aren’t as bad as that.”
“Don’t know. Lots of queer things have been worked lately. Anyhow, what’s bound to happen is—I should say—a receivership and closed doors to-morrow.”
“But that means panic.”
“Sure.”
Beecher was silent a while. He thought of Majendie of the night before, correct, restrained, prodigal of small courtesies.
“By Jove, how game he was!” he said aloud. “I should hate to think there was anything crooked in him.”
They had reached Forty-second Street in their smooth and rapid flight. There, newsboys were shrieking the latest extra, dodging under the heads of horses, swinging on the steps of surface-cars, bumping their shrill way through the crowd, with their hysterical instinct for heightening the effect of a sensation.
Gunther stopped the automobile and bought a handful of papers which a dozen urchins fought to press into his hands. On every sheet, front page, accompanied by sudden scare-heads, was the photograph of Bernard L. Majendie, whose resignation had been demanded and accepted.
The two scanned the pages for additional details. Some papers hinted at criminal actions—the district attorney had been suddenly summoned to town. Scattered through the sheets were photographs entitled, “Majendie’s Palace on Fifth Avenue.” “$100,000 Yacht of Deposed President.” “Newport Estate of Millionaire.”
“Is he a crook after all?” said Beecher, flinging down the extra.
“No, he is not a crook,” said Gunther quietly, repeating the words with slow emphasis. “He is a speculator, a great speculator, and he has been made the victim of greater speculators who covet his territory. Then, there is this to be said: I doubt if at the present moment any great public corporation would face an investigation without alarm.”
“What do you mean?” said Beecher, with his thoughts still wandering back to the handsome, stoic features of the Majendie of the night before.
Gunther began to speak, and, as he became serious and animated, Beecher followed him with surprise, noting the vigor and vitality that transformed the young idler.
“The present era we are passing through,” said Gunther, “is probably America at its worst. We see only the gorgeous façades of things: the skyscraper, the industries that have developed into little kingdoms. We only try to comprehend statistics, and we are satisfied that we have bounded into greatness. As a matter of fact, the true test of the industrial greatness of a country is honesty. Dishonesty and graft are economic weakness—waste. A railroad that is spending a million a year to fight off hold-up state laws is by so much handicapped in its function of promoting commerce by low freight rates. A corporation that secures its franchise by bribing aldermen has taught them to blackmail in the future. It is difficult to say where the responsibility began—whether capital corrupted politics, or whether, in our unscientific political system, corruption was not inevitable.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“At this time, when our political history is one of business development, we are over-burdened with useless offices. Aldermen and legislators who receive on an average less than a thousand a year—often less than it costs to be elected—are suddenly intrusted with the responsibilities of laws and franchises involving millions. When you ask yourself how a man is to continue a political career, support a family, and fight a costly fight for reelection on a thousand a year, the wonder is that any remain honest. We have not the slightest conception of values in America; the worst paid professions are those the vigor of the nation depends on most—the minister, the teacher, and the legislator. There are ministers living on five hundred a year, teachers on six hundred, legislators on less, while the carpenter or plumber who doesn’t make at least $5 a day is unorganized.” Then, perceiving that he had wandered from his subject, he added: “You see, Ted, this state of affairs results: politics becomes the business of business. Industry is at the mercy of the legislator, and the legislator knows it. He may restrict the field of business of insurance companies, prohibit others from operating in his state, add or detract from the wealth of individuals by tariffs, force the adoption of certain building material on contractors, regulate rates of railroads and force them to adopt certain life-preserving devices; can create rival franchises or tax out of existence corporations that refuse to pay its blackmail.
“That is why there are, back in the secret life of every great business, ledgers it is not good the public should see. That is one reason why business goes into politics, nominates its men, and assists them—in order to protect itself against strikes and blackmail. The great political alliance of business is almost always expressed by the railroad which is the natural agent. All this is known; every newspaper that will shriek out horrified editorials next week knows this; but when the Atlantic Trust is caught in a business depression, and is unable to get ready money from influences it has antagonized, the public will learn only that one institution has secretly contributed to a political party, maintained a huge fund for lobbying purposes, made loans on securities that were speculative, and transgressed the letter of the law. The public will be indignant, and Majendie will be disgraced.”
“But, Bruce,” said Beecher, who was thinking of the analysis that had been made, “if we are so riddled with corruption, where is it all going to end?”
“The end will come in the opening of another phase of national life. We will become honest through the purifying process of another generation. Honesty, you see, has this one great advantage over corruption—it is the goal of corruption. Those who acquire, wish to retain, to resist those who in turn wish to graft from them. Stealing was an attribute of distinction, until men came to live together. The next generation will purify and reorganize.”
“I didn’t know you’d gone into things so deeply,” said Beecher, impressed.
“I’ve worked like a pup since I started to amuse myself,” said Gunther, with a laugh.
The automobile drew up before the glittering doors of Lazare’s, and a gilded footman, recognizing it, flashed obsequiously to their door.
“Say, let’s cut this out,” said Gunther, frowning. “I’m out of the mood now. Let’s run off for a chop and a baked potato somewhere. I’m tired of this.”
“Too late,” said Beecher, laughing and pointing to an upper window where a feminine arm was waving frantically. “We’re caught.” Then, suddenly he remembered the hint of McKenna’s, and added: “I say, what’s the story about Majendie and Mrs. Bloodgood? I’m not up on the gossip, you know.”
Gunther signaled impatiently to the flunky to close the door, and related, what every one knew, the attachment of the financier and the wife of the owner of the New York Star.
“Of course, every one believes what he chooses in such matters,” he said. “Personally, knowing Majendie, I believe it’s purely platonic—such things do happen. He has a sort of old-fashioned chivalry, you know. Bloodgood is a hard old nut, leads his own life—chorus girls’ friend and all that—thirty years older than his wife—parents got her into it—and I shouldn’t be surprised if he took advantage of the situation to touch up Majendie through the Atlantic Trust for a good-sized loan. The rumor was that Mrs. Bloodgood was to get a divorce. If so, it may have been held up by this rotten business. One thing’s clear: she’s crazy about Majendie, and doesn’t care who sees it—poor devil. Well, let’s get out.”
They entered Lazare’s, saluted by a sudden storm of clatter, music, and shrill laughter. Lazare himself, seeing Gunther, came up hurriedly, anxiety in his olive face, while several employees hovered near, with eager ears. Gunther exchanged again a few words on the financial situation, and led the way into the elevator.
“McKenna’s a great one,” he said. “Rather puzzled you, didn’t he? There’s no show about him—he’s direct. You’ll see the way he works. It’ll be a revelation.”
Beecher did not answer.
The disclosure of the relations of Majendie and Mrs. Bloodgood had suddenly recalled the suspicion that had come to him the night before, while following the agitation of Nan Charters; and he was asking himself, in a bewildered manner, if Mrs. Bloodgood, desperate, perhaps on the verge of a separation, had not in an uncontrollable moment taken the ring. Gunther continued in praise of McKenna:
“It’s the organization that’s wonderful. It’s like a spider-web, and McKenna sits in the center and pulls the threads. What the public never gets is this—that half of the work’s done before McKenna’s on the case. He knows to-day where every forger is living, every cracksman. He’s got his informers in every saloon, in every cheap hotel, where thugs congregate. If a bank’s robbed, nine times out of ten he can tell in a day who’s done the job, because he knows who’s disappeared from his regular haunts. A detective agency is a great news bureau that never prints its news.”
“I guess the case is more complicated than I thought,” said Beecher, struck by the new lead. “It begins to look as though a whole lot of persons might have taken the ring.”
“Thinking of Mrs. B?” said Gunther quickly.
“Yes,” said Beecher meditatively. They were in the corridor leading to the private dining-rooms. He put his hand out and checked his companion.
“I say, who’s Madame Fornez?”
“Opera squealer,” said Gunther irreverently; “Carmen and all that sort of thing. Bob Holliday’s daffy about her. Come on; let’s face the music.”
He nodded to the attendant waiting with extended ears, who now sprang forward to open the door on the flaring room and the dazzling white of the richly covered table set for five.
Holliday and two women in décolleté instantly burst into exclamations of reproach.
“Sorry; couldn’t be helped—business,” said Gunther, without taking the pains for a more elaborate apology. Then, sure of his explanation, he added: “You probably missed it. Poor old Majendie’s up the spout. Forced resignation. There’ll be the devil to pay to-morrow.”
The reproaches ceased, succeeded by a rush of excited questions. Holliday, a tall, scoured blond, who had been drumming at the piano, was so disturbed by the news that he forgot his duties as a host.
“Allons, Bobbie,” said Mme. Fornez, turning her great Spanish eyes on Beecher with an expression of approval, “introduce your nice-looking friend.”
Beecher, amid laughter, was presented. Mme. Fornez, who, from pride perhaps, chose to retain the freedom of the peasant, tapped him familiarly on the arm and said: “I like you. You don’t look so clean and stupid as most of your dollar men. You will sit by my side. I select you. Monsieur Gunthère, Bobbie—enough of your old panics and your stocks; you have two charming ladies present, that’s all you need to know. Bobbie, obey me at once!”
Beecher was giving his hand to Mrs. Craig Fontaine, a young widow, slight, with quick eyes, and almost masculine vitality, and an extraordinary elegance of dress and carriage, whom Gunther called Louise. She was scarcely twenty-six, possessed of a large fortune from her husband, who had been killed in a steeplechase three years before. Her position in society was unquestioned, and, being of a singular temperament, she did as she pleased. She was seen everywhere with young Gunther, and gossip had already arranged their marriage—an eventuality which she alone, who ambitiously desired it, knew to be impossible.
Beecher, who was particularly sensitive to the air of distinction that always surrounded her, even when most unbending, took her hand with a little extra gallantry, saying:
“I changed my mind on your account only, Louise, and I expect you to reward me.”
Between the two, from his college days, had been a sort of confidential intimacy which Beecher had the knack of cultivating.
Holliday having ordered the dinner, Mme. Fornez took special delight in countermanding everything that could be countermanded, substituting other wines and abolishing the soup, scolding her escort all the while with a calculated tyranny which Mrs. Fontaine admired with a slight smiling tribute of her lips, as the clever advertisement of a professional woman that Mr. Holliday’s fetch and carry attentions were entirely on her own sufferance.
“How have you escaped being married?” said Mrs. Fontaine in a bantering tone to Beecher, after Mme. Fornez had relinquished him for a moment.
“Because I fly like a coward,” he said, pleased at the compliment implied.
“Seriously, Teddy, you’ve been back in civilization two months and you are not yet caught?”
“I am not the marrying kind,” he said, with conviction.
“What’s he say—your Teddy?” said Mme. Fornez, turning, with a laugh.
Beecher repeated his statement.
“Allons donc, you!” She broke into a ripple of laughter. “What do you say, Madame Fontaine?”
Mrs. Fontaine’s reply was a tolerant, amused smile, and, leaning over, she pinched his ear.
Beecher furiously defended himself.
“Yes, that’s what all you women say. You think you can catch any man. It irritates you to think any man can resist you.”
“Ah, no, no,” said Mme. Fornez energetically. “There are lots of men who can’t be married. I don’t say that, but what I say is this: a woman knows, the moment she meets one of you, if he is the kind that marries. A clever woman knows if she can marry him, but all women know if he is the marrying kind the moment they look in his eye. Is it not so, Madame Fontaine?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Fontaine calmly, with a glance around the table.
“Nonsense,” said Beecher valiantly; “women are as easily fooled as men.”
Mme. Fornez, drawing back her head, surveyed him critically.
“Teddy, you will marry the first pretty woman who makes up her mind to marry you,” she said, tapping the table, amid laughter. “I see it; I know it.”
“I say, how do you see it?” said Holliday, who was what might be called “un faux Anglais.”
“It is in the eye; it responds or it does not respond,” said Mme. Fornez, who shrugged her shoulders in Holliday’s direction, and said: “You, you will never marry unless—unless there is one big panic. Teddy, here, has the responsive eye. I saw it at once when I said he was a nice boy. Oh, you needn’t be furious and blush,” she added, pulling his other ear. “It is quite right. I like you. You shall play with me. You are much nicer than Bobbie, who is all collar and cuffs.”
“And Mr. Gunther?” said Beecher, to cover his confusion.
Mme. Fornez looked at him with the same critical estimation.
“Ah, Monsieur Gunthère is very interesting,” she said. “What do you think, Madame Fontaine?”
She asked the question with a little of that malice which women can not help showing toward one another. But Mrs. Fontaine, with the perfect control that never left her, answered at once:
“Bruce will marry, but he is not the marrying kind. He will marry when he pleases and how he pleases, not the least sentimentally, a woman, a young girl, who will raise up a family of children—a son to succeed him, as he will succeed his father.”
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” said Mme. Fornez excitedly. “He can not be caught; any woman would know that.”
Gunther smiled without embarrassment.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Yes, any woman would know it,” repeated Mrs. Fontaine, looking at him with a little smile. “The reason is, as Madame Fornez says, in the eyes—they don’t respond. It’s more than that, they make no distinction. They look at a woman as they do at a man. He is quite to be congratulated.”
“Ah, la pauvre femme,” said Mme. Fornez—who was very romantic—in a whisper, pressing Beecher’s arm. Then aloud, taking pity, “Allons, mes enfants, we are getting too serious. Bobbie, jump up and play us something lively.”
The dinner continued gaily. They reached the theater in the middle of the second act of the operetta, and deranged the whole orchestra in the five minutes necessary for Mme. Fornez to be sure that she was properly recognized. Then, having carried off Elsie Ware, a dainty prima donna with the wiles and figure of a child, they proceeded to the party at Lindabury’s studio, Mme. Fornez complimenting Elsie Ware on the quality of her voice, which was insignificant, and saying nothing of her acting, which was distinguished for its charm and natural gaiety.
Beecher, squeezed in between Louise Fontaine and Mme. Fornez, slightly bewildered by the fragrance of soft, filmy wraps, immensely flattered by the favor he had won, nevertheless was wondering to himself whether among the gay party he was approaching would be the laughing eyes and rebellious ashen hair of Nan Charters, whom he intended to treat en ennemi, and whom he particularly wished to witness his triumphant entry at the side of the celebrated Emma Fornez.