Part 4

So they left, and in a few minutes more our hero was in his automobile and speeding rapidly up town. He entered his club-house, and went to a private room, into which shortly after there came hobbling an aged, red-nosed, and gouty old aristocrat, swearing furiously and demanding, "What in the devil did you want me here for, anyhow?"

It was Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer.

"Well," said the son, after dutifully helping him to a chair, "what do you think of it?"

"That's not answering my question," growled the other. "But Lord, Robbie, I've had a day of it! Do you know I hold five thousand of T. & S.? And I've just been crazy all day, waiting--waiting--"

Humph!" said Robert, with a smile. "Waiting for what?"

"Why, haven't you got any?" cried the other. "Don't you know who's in that syndicate?"

"Yes," said Robbie; "it's the T. & S. gang, and Smith and Shark, I supposed."

"Yes," said the other, "just so; and they mean business, too, I can tell you. You'll see this stock up in the 200's to-morrow. Who do you suppose are those fools that are fighting them?"

"I don't suppose," said Robbie, "I know."

"And who are they?"

"There aren't any 'they.'"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean there's only one man."

"What! And who is it?"

"It's Robert van Rensselaer."

And the old gentleman leapt from his chair, in spite of his gout. "Good God, Robbie!" he cried. "You're mad!"

"No," said Robbie; "it's a fact."

"But you're ruined!"

"Oh, no, not quite, Governor. (Robbie always had called him Governor.) I've spent every cent I own, but not quite ruined; for I'm going to be the richest man in New York City to-morrow at about two minutes past eleven o'clock in the morning. I'm going to have every cent that the T. & S. people and Smith and Shark can beg or borrow, and the bank accounts of several hundred lambs besides, including my aged and beloved daddy!"

The aged and beloved daddy was gasping for breath. "You're lost, Robbie!" he cried. "It can't be! How can you do it without money?"

"I've just arranged a syndicate," laughed Robbie.

"But without money?"

"They don't know I've no money," said he, cheerfully. "But I'm going to get some more, just for safety, from you."

"Humph!" said Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer, laconically.

"In the first place," said the other man, "you're going to sell those shares to-morrow morning at ten o'clock; and in the second you're going to sell short on T. & S. all you find takers for; and about eleven o'clock you're going to see the sky fall down and hit the earth."

"What's going to cause it?"

"For one thing, your being there selling short. You old Wall Street rounders are like vultures about a carcass--people will only have to see you hobbling down town, and they'll know there's a smash-up coming; and if you whisper you're selling T. & S. it'll come right then."

"There's something in that," admitted the old gentleman, after some hesitation.

"But that's not the thing I want to see you about," laughed Robbie. "The main thing is still to come. It is that you're going to make me a present right away of a couple of million dollars."

Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer bounced slightly in his chair, and his eyes were very wide open.

"Two millions, at least," reiterated Robbie, seeing that he was speechless. "And _give_ it, not lend it. If I asked you to lend it, then I'd have to go into all kinds of explanations, and I couldn't ever make you see the thing as plainly as I do. All I say is that I've been a good boy and supported myself for thirteen years without ever striking my old daddy for a cent; and that now I want it and want it bad. You're going to die some day, and then you'll leave it all to me. And by that time it'll be of no use in the world to me; for if this stroke fails, it'll be too little, and if it succeeds, it won't be anything at all. And so I want you to give it to me now."

Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer took a long, long breath; then he sat forward and drew up to the table. "Robbie," he said, "tell me about this business. Tell me all."

"First I want the two millions."

"Confound you," observed the other. "Don't you know if you want 'em, you'll get 'em? But go on now, and tell me about the thing, and don't be a fool."

And so Robbie told him; and before the end of it the elder gentleman was rubbing his hands. Afterwards he hobbled out of the room and mailed a note to his brokers, ordering them to sell his T. & S. holdings at the opening price; also he wrote instructing his bankers that Mr. Robert van Rensselaer was to draw on his credit for three million dollars.

* * * * *

And in the meantime Mr. Robert van Rensselaer was still pacing up and down the room, his hands behind his back, and a very pleasant look upon his mellow countenance. He was at that moment, beyond question, the happiest and the contentedest man in New York: when all of a sudden there was a knock on the door, and an attendant entered.

"A note for you, sir," he said. "It's marked 'Urgent.'"

And our friend took it; he waited until the man had gone, and then he opened it, and read this:--

"MR. ROBERT VAN RENSSELAER:

"Dear Sir,--Will you kindly request our friend Mr. Green to call this evening upon a matter of the utmost possible urgency to him at the house of his old friend Mrs. Lynch?"

XXVII

It would not profit to produce the remarks of Robert van Rensselaer upon reading the note. Possibly the reader had imagined that he was through with Mrs. Lynch; certainly, at any rate, Mr. Van Rensselaer had imagined it. But one of the disadvantages about some of the pleasant things of life is this fact that, when we wish to forget them, they are not always willing to forget us.

Who had written the letter and what was the purpose of it was a problem which our hero pondered for many hours,--hours which he spent either in pacing up and down the room, or in sitting motionless in a chair, with hands clenched and eyes fixed upon vacancy.

When finally he came to a decision, it was evidently a desperate one, for his brow was black and his eyes shone. He strode out of the room, and a moment or so later was whirling up town in a cab. Before long he got out and walked, and when the cab had disappeared, he called another, and entering that drove to the residence of Mary Harrison.

She was clad in a pink silk gown, and her cheeks were bright with happiness; she was so altogether wonderful that Robert van Rensselaer's frown half melted, in spite of himself, as he walked into the room. The frown did not go so fast, however, that she failed to note it.

"What's the matter?" she cried.

And his frown came back again. "Mary," he said abruptly, "we've got to part."

The girl gave a start. "What do you mean?" she cried.

"I mean just what I say," he answered. "We've got to part." And then seeing the ghastly pallor that came over her, he drew her to him and went and sat down on the sofa. "Listen to me, Mary," he said more gently; "you're a good girl, and I have no fear to tell you the whole truth. I know that you have nothing to do with it; but I've gotten into serious trouble, and there is only one way in the world to save myself."

"What do you mean, Jim?" she panted. (Jim was the name she had been taught to call him.)

"Mary," said he, "you know that I'm a married man, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, "but what--"

"And that I'm a very rich man? Well, Mrs. Lynch has set to work to blackmail me."

The girl shrunk back. "You--what!" she panted.

"It's true," said he; "I've had to pay her several thousand dollars already."

"Good heavens!" cried the girl. "It can't be so!"

"It is," replied he. "And it means only one thing,--that we've got to part forever."

XXVIII

Mary Harrison was reeling like a drunken person; she clutched at a chair. "Jim," she gasped, "what's to become of me?"

"You know that I'll always see that you are taken care of," he began.

"I don't--I don't mean that," she cried. "But, oh--I love you--I can't do without you! Where in Heaven's name am I to go?" and she flung herself upon him with a passionate cry. "What am I to do?" she cried, again and again. "How can I bear it?"

He strove to calm her. "Listen," he whispered, "don't take it so hard. Perhaps you may forget me--please don't act like that."

She was shuddering convulsively. "No, no!" she cried. "It would kill me--it would!" And then suddenly she leapt to her feet, her eyes blazing. "I'll kill that woman!" she panted. "That's what I'll do!"

The man drew her to him again, striving to calm her. "No, no, Mary," he said. "That will only make it worse for me. If you love me, you must give me up. That is the only way."

She sat there, white and trembling, moaning to herself. She smoothed the beautiful hair back from her forehead, and sat staring in front of her with a dazed expression.

"Give you up!" she whispered hoarsely. "Give you up!"

Her companion felt extremely uncomfortable; naturally, a good-hearted man does not like to make a woman suffer, especially a woman whom he still loves. He had made up his mind, however, and he meant to carry it through. He let her lean on his bosom and sob away her grief.

"And can't I ever see you--even just a little bit?" she moaned.

"No," he said firmly. "Can you not see, Mary, that there is no place in the world where I could keep you that that woman could not track me to? She has found me out and tracked me here already and she could ruin me, Mary, drive me to kill myself."

The other shuddered. "No," she said, "you must not do that. You are right, and I must make the sacrifice. I will go--I can bear it, I guess. But oh, Jim, I never really loved any one but you, and I never shall."

"I shall never forget you," said he. "And I will give you all you need, Mary,--you won't have to worry about money." But the girl scarcely heard him; she was not thinking about money.

"And where will you go?" he asked finally.

"I don't know," said she. "I have no home. Where should I go? I suppose I'll go back where I came from--back to Albany."

Robert van Rensselaer looked at her; the name Albany brought back a sudden memory to him. "Well, I declare," he said, "you did not tell me you came from Albany." He hesitated a moment and then went on, "Perhaps, maybe, you know a girl there--But I don't know her name," he added, with a slight laugh.

"Then I'm afraid I couldn't tell you," said the other, answering his smile. "But I knew very few people there. I never knew any one at all until after my mother went away some years ago."

"Went away?" asked the other. "I thought you said she died."

"She must have died, for she was very ill," said the girl. "But I don't know what became of her--she never came back."

The man was gazing at her in surprise. "Never came back?" he echoed; and then he added, "What was your mother's name?"

"Helen," said she; and he sunk back.

"Ah, it was an awful thing," went on the girl, her voice trembling. "Poor, dear mother, how hard she worked to take care of me--and how good she was! She worked herself to death, Jim, that's the truth."

"What was the matter with her?"

"She had consumption," said the girl, and she saw him start. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing," said he, "that is--it's just a queer coincidence; but what was your father's name?"

"I never knew anything about my father," said the girl. "Mother never told me; but I always suspected that he had not married her--that is--"

She stopped again, for his manner was strange; then, however, she went on. "I think he was rich," she said, "and very handsome and good. She gave me a locket with his picture that she said only he would have the key to open; she had lost the one he gave her."

And again she stopped; a ghastly, ashen pallor had come over the face of Robert van Rensselaer; he leaned close to her, his eyes, his whole face, looming large with horror. His hand shook like an autumn leaf as he stretched it out to her. "A locket! a locket!" he gasped. "My God! Have you got it?"

"Yes," cried the girl, in astonishment, and she went to the bureau. She held it to him as he ran toward her, and he took one glance at it and staggered back like a man struck to the heart with a knife. He gave one wild, horrible cry, and clutched his hands to his head, and reeled, and would have fallen.

But Mary had sprung to him in terror. "Jim! Jim!" she cried, "what is it?" She would have caught him, but he shrunk from her touch as from a wild beast. "No! no!" he screamed, and crouched in the corner with eyes of dreadful fear. "No! go back!"

"But, Jim," cried the girl, "what is it? What is the matter?"

The man had sunk down on his knees, shaking convulsively. "O my God!" he was gasping, "O my God!"

Mary sprang to him again, and flung her arms about him. "Jim! Jim!" she cried hysterically, "you must tell me what it is--you must--you must! Do you know who my father was?"

"Yes," he gasped, writhing, "I know--I know!"

"And who was he? Who? Tell me!"

He choked and caught his breath again; but he could not say the words. As he felt the warmth of her breath and the pressure of her arms about him, it sent a sudden shudder through his frame, and he flung her away with a force that sent her reeling across the floor. Then he staggered to his feet, and with a moan he rushed to the door. He caught one glimpse of the girl's face, and then fled madly down the steps.

Outside his cab was waiting. He did not see it, and started away; but the driver shouted to him, and that brought him to his senses for an instant. He leaped in.

"Drive! drive!" he panted.

"Where to?" asked the man.

"Anywhere," he screamed. "Drive!"

And so they whirled away down the street, van Rensselaer crouching in a corner, writhing and twisting his hands together.

There was a thought that came over him every few seconds like a spasm and made him cry out. He could not bear it very long; he shouted to the driver to stop, and sprang out, and flung him some money. They were in a deserted portion of the park, and he turned and fled away into the darkness.

XXIX

And meanwhile Mary was left alone in the ghastly silence of the room, crouching in the corner like a hunted animal. Her face was ashen, and her eyes distended; in her quivering hands she clutched the locket.

She was staring at it and staring at it, in terror, powerless to move. She wished to open it; but ten minutes must have gone before she rose and groped her way across the room. She found a chisel and knelt down upon the floor, and worked in frenzied fear to force it. Her hands were like a drunkard's, and she cut herself again and again; but then suddenly the cover flew off, and she pounced upon it.

One glance she took; and then it fell to the ground from her helpless grasp, and she staggered backward, with a shuddering moan, against the wall. She swayed there an instant, and then like a flash she turned and fled across the room. She fumbled for an instant in a drawer of the desk; then a pistol shot rang out, and she sunk down in a quivering heap upon the floor, her brains spattered out upon the carpet.

XXX

Wall Street was crowded long before nine o'clock that Thursday morning with a jostling, shouting mob of men; the gallery of the exchange was packed; the curb outside was thronged. The London quotations were on every tongue, and suspense and terror on every face, in the very air. All knew that the crisis of the combat had come, that one way or other all would now soon be known.

Through this crowd Robert van Rensselaer pushed his way. Nobody heeded him, nobody knew him; his clothing was soiled and muddy, his hat broken and jammed down upon his head. His face was inflamed, his eyes blood-shot, and he reeled and groped about him as he walked. He was drunk.

He made his way up to his office, staggered in, and sunk into a chair. "Get me some whiskey," he panted to his secretary. "Hurry up!"

The latter was staring at him in amazement. "Some whiskey!" he shouted again. "Don't you hear? And shut the door, and don't let any one come in here. Quick!"

The man turned and vanished, and van Rensselaer sat in the chair, staring in front of him with his wild eyes. He had made his way down town like a man in a dream; one idea had possessed him and driven him--he muttered it to himself as he walked: "Wall Street! Wall Street! Ten o'clock!"

Now he turned suddenly and looked at the ticker, then rose and staggered to it and leaned there, swaying. He read the early reports, and then glanced at the clock. It was ten minutes to ten.

"Ah!" he panted. "Safe!"

The secretary returned, and the other seized the bottle he brought and drank from it. Then he said: "I wrote Jones and Co. yesterday to turn three millions over to my brokers. See that it's done. And tell the brokers to sell T. & S., and sell it just as fast as they can, until it's every cent gone. And then you come back here, and don't let any one into this room--not a soul, mind you, not a soul. Do you understand?"

"I understand," said the man, and went away, lost in wonder. The first thing he did was to order his own broker to cover some T. & S. of his own; the secretary had never seen van Rensselaer lose his nerve before.

And meanwhile van Rensselaer was kneading his hands and muttering, his eyes fixed upon the creeping clock, and the bottle of liquor on the table by his side. So the minutes passed by, and the hands passed the stroke of ten.

XXXI

It was worth going down into that seething crowd to see the floor of the exchange at that moment. A thousand men were swaying about one spot of it, and at the instant of ten they broke into a deafening chorus of yells.

Transatlantic and Suburban! Transatlantic and Suburban! There was no other stock thought of that day--there were many of the smaller firms that had closed their doors, not daring to do business on such a market. And those who hung over the ticker read nothing but T. & S.,--157-1/4--157-1/2--157-3/8,--and so on and on. The fluctuating of T. & S. was the swaying of two monsters that wrestled in a death embrace; and van Rensselaer, as he fed his eyes upon it, was himself a free man once more. Horror haunted him no longer; the excitement drove the fumes of the liquor from his brain, and he was drunk, but with the battle ecstasy. To him every figure meant a blow, as with a war-axe, at foes of his; he could fancy that this stroke was his father's, and that his own, and that Shrike's, and so on. He clenched his hands and muttered swiftly, as one watching a fight: "Give it to them! Down with them! Down with them!" And meanwhile the ticker raced on: T. & S. 100--157-1/2; T. & S. 500--157-5/8; T. & S. 3000--157-3/8; T. & S. 10,000--157-1/4; and so almost without a pause. Down below in the street shrieked a frantic mob; it was like looking into a huge well packed full of writhing bodies.

So half an hour crept by, and T. & S. still stood the onslaught; van Rensselaer had gotten help, but evidently so had the syndicate. It was as if Wall Street had divided into two armies, and vowed no quarter. And they fought on; the time crept along to 10.45; T. & S. was moving at last--it was 157-3/4, the highest mark of the day! Van Rensselaer took another great gulp of the liquor and pounded his bell.

"Listen to me," he said swiftly to the breathless clerk. "The crisis has come--go outside as fast as you can and tell somebody that the Arkansas legislature has doubled the freight rates on the T. & S. There'll be a dozen people doing the same. And then wait five minutes--not a second more, do you hear? and let it out that I am breaking T. & S., and that the Governor's with me, and Shrike, and the rest of them."

The man nodded and disappeared, and van Rensselaer turned once more to the ticker. There was a moment's pause, and he went to the window and stared out. Then it began again--T. & S. still holding. Van Rensselaer knew that the ticker was some minutes behind the market, and he cursed with impatience. Then he took a pencil and began figuring, as well as he could, with his trembling hands.

He had put twenty-seven million dollars into this thing; he had bought the margins of something like a million and three-quarters shares. That was more shares than were in existence, actually; but under Wall Street's systems of speculating that is a common enough state of affairs. The fact that impressed him was that every point that T. & S. went down he stood to win a million and three-quarters of dollars from the men he had been fighting. And if instead it went up, and stayed up the time limit, he owed the same sum instead. And then suddenly the ticker clicked again; it was five minutes of eleven, and T. & S. still holding,--157-5/8--157-3/8--157-1/2. He could bear the thing no more; he drained the bottle and sprang out of the door. In a few moments more he was on the street.

XXXII

There were thousands of men flying this way and that, wild-eyed and shrieking. Van Rensselaer caught a phrase here and there,--"freight rates--ruin them--the van Rensselaers--Shrike." And meanwhile he was hurrying on his way to the board-room. He was a member and was admitted to the bedlam, to the edge of that writhing, hysterical mass of men who were crushing each other, breathless in their efforts to reach the trading-post. Van Rensselaer gazed at the figure of the stock--it was 157! He heard the same exclamations here that he had heard outside,--"freight rates--the van Rensselaers,"--and all the rest; and then suddenly he saw near him a huge ox of a man, waving a paper in one hand and bellowing in a voice that rang above the whole uproar. It was one of van Rensselaer's own brokers, the best of them; and as van Rensselaer heard him his heart stood still. The moment had come!

"I offer twenty thousand three-day sellers! T. & S. twenty thousand!--one fifty-seven! one fifty-seven! Twenty thousand three-day sellers--one fifty-six and seven-eighths! one fifty-six and three-quarters!"

And then again the roar swelled up and drowned him. Men were screaming from a hundred places: "One thousand at one fifty-six and a half! Thirty-five hundred at one fifty-six! one fifty-six! one fifty-five and a half!"

And van Rensselaer, mad, drunk, and blind with passion, shook his hands in the air and screamed in frenzy, "Down! down with them! Down! Jump on them! Pound them! _Go on! go on!_" He knew now that it was victory; he could feel it in the air--the panic, the wild, raging, mad tornado that uproots all things on its way. It had begun--it had begun! There were no more takers--the enemy was retreating--the rout was on! And so he yelled and laughed in delirium; and the crowd, crushed tightly about the post, went mad likewise, with terror or joy, as the case might be. There were men there who were losing a million with every point--the millions that van Rensselaer was winning. And they saw defeat and ruin glaring at them with fiery eyes. So they raged and screamed for some one to buy T. & S.--to buy it at one fifty-six! to buy it at one fifty-five! to buy it at one fifty-three! And there was no longer any one to buy it at any price.

So it was that the hurricane burst, in all its fury; it was not a panic, it was chaos and destruction let loose. The stock was "turned" at last; its supporters beaten; and the public, the great terror-stricken public, plunged in to overwhelm it. The price went no longer by fractions, no longer even by points; it went by three points, by five points, by ten points. Its speed was regulated by nothing but the time it took electricity to spread the panic through the whole country, for messages to come in bidding brokers to sell at any price. And in the meantime, of course, there stood van Rensselaer's bull-voiced agent hammering it down by five and by ten points at a bound with his twenty thousand shares to sell.