Part 19

“I have come, as an officer of Judge Watson’s court, to take over your railroad,” announced the cold-featured man calmly, and as he said it, the telephone buzzer under Maxwell’s desk went off as though a general fire-alarm had been sounded from the central office.

Maxwell reached for the telephone and put the receiver to his ear. It was Stillings who was at the other end of the wire, and he was frantically incoherent. But out of the attorney’s coruscating babblement the superintendent picked enough to enable him to surround the principal fact. In the face of all precedent, in defiance of all its legal rights, the Nevada Short Line had been practically declared bankrupt and a receiver had been appointed.

Notwithstanding his nerve, which was ordinarily very good, the snappy little superintendent’s hand trembled when he replaced the ear-piece on its hook and turned to his visitor.

“So you’ve got us at last, have you, Mr. Dimmock?” he said, constraining himself to speak calmly. “It was on the Hixon case, our attorney tells me.”

The visitor nodded blandly.

“You should have compromised that case, Mr. Maxwell--if you will allow me the privilege of criticising, after the fact. But we needn’t come to blows over the purely academic question. Judge Watson has appointed me receiver--temporary, of course--for the railroad property. I am here to take charge in the interest of all concerned, and I am assuming that you won’t put yourself in contempt of court by any ill-considered resistance. Here is the court order.” And he tossed a folded paper across to the desk.

For the moment Maxwell was speechless. Then he slowly straightened up and took a few packets of papers out of the desk pigeon-holes marked “R. Maxwell, Private,” putting them into his pocket. That done, he removed the desk and door keys from his pocket ring and laid them upon the desk.

“I think that is about as far as I have to go, personally,” he said, rising and reaching for his hat. “And, of course, I have nothing to ask for myself. But for the staff and the rank and file, Mr. Dimmock--I hope you’re not going to make a clean sweep. We have a mighty good working organization, and it will cause a great deal of hardship if you take the usual course of discharging and replacing all heads of departments.”

The new head of all departments smiled, and in the smile much of the cold hardness of his face disappeared.

“That is a matter with which I shall have very little to do, Mr. Maxwell,” he returned. “Mr. Carmody, lately in charge of the Transcontinental’s Pacific Division, will be my operating chief, and I am sure that you yourself, as a practical railroad man, would counsel me to give him a free hand.”

Maxwell took the additional bitter dose of the medicine of defeat like a man, but he made one more attempt--an attempt to save Calmaine’s head.

“My chief clerk,--the young man who admitted you here,--I hope you can provide for him, Mr. Dimmock. Apart from any personal relations, I have found him the most faithful, the most painstaking----”

The new receiver lifted a faultlessly manicured hand in genial protest.

“You know I couldn’t do that, Mr. Maxwell,” he objected. “Your young man has probably been much too close to you to make it possible or prudent. You are a rich man yourself, and you can very easily provide for your secretary, as I make no doubt you will. Must you go? Don’t be in a hurry. We needn’t make this a personal fight, I’m sure.”

The ex-superintendent looked at his watch and told a lie for the sake of keeping the peace.

“It is my luncheon hour,” he said. “If there are any routine matters upon which you may wish to consult me, you will find me over at the hotel.” And he went out with his hat pulled over his eyes and his blood boiling. To have stayed another minute would have been to risk an explosion.

It was a small but exceedingly fervent indignation meeting which gathered in Attorney Stillings’s office in the Kinzie Building a little after twelve o’clock on this day of cataclysms. When Maxwell entered, Stillings was trying to explain to Starbuck and Sprague and Editor Kendall--who had been hauled out of bed to lend his presence to the conference--just how it had come about.

As it appeared in the wrathful summing up, it had happened very easily; so easily as to present every indication of careful prearrangement. When the Hixon case had been called in court, Stillings had risen and asked for a further postponement, having, as it chanced, a very good excuse in the fact that the witness by whom he expected to prove that Hixon’s claim of a lost mining sale was a pure invention was absent. Instantly the Kentucky colonel counsel for the plaintiff had jumped up, not to protest against the further delay, but to introduce his colleague in the cause--the stranger whose name on the Hophra House register was Mr. Peter Hunniwell.

Before Stillings could get his breath, Hunniwell was on his feet, making an impassioned plea for justice. Rapidly rehearsing the course of the defendant railroad company, which he charged with maliciously striving to defeat the ends of justice, he summed up with a still more serious charge, namely, that the railroad was not only unwilling to pay the just claims upon it, but was unable to do so; was, in effect, practically bankrupt, as the thick packet of affidavits, which he here passed up to the judge, would sufficiently prove.

“After that,” Stillings went on, “it was _biff! bang!_ and the fight was over. Judge Watson merely glanced through the affidavits--which may or may not be purely faked--while Hunniwell, in a voice like a steam calliope, was demanding that the court appoint a receiver. It was so ridiculous, so absolutely beyond all precedent, that it didn’t seem worth while to try to call him down. When Hunniwell finally quit, the judge was looking over his spectacles at us in that mild, half-vacant way of his, and saying, ‘I think your point is very well taken. It is time that something was done to bring these defendant corporations to a sense of their responsibilities to the plain people. I shall appoint, as temporary receiver, Mr. C. F. Dimmock, the appointment to take effect this day at noon.’ At noon, mind you!” choked Stillings. “And it was at that moment half-past eleven!”

“Of course, you tried to break in,” said Maxwell.

“Sure! But I might as well have gone out on the court-house steps and shouted at the scenery! Watson told me, in the same half-absent way, that the receivership was only temporary, and that we should have ample opportunity to show cause, if we could, why the receiver should be discharged at the regular hearing, which he there and then set for the twelfth of the month, naming his chambers as the place. Before I could wedge in another word, court was adjourned and Watson was leaving the bench.”

Sprague was nodding slowly.

“Now we know the meaning of the Sunday track-laying, and the sudden influx of strangers--most of whom will doubtless turn out to be T-C. officials and employees--and the mysterious kidnapping of the Short Line’s attorney night before last,” he said. And then to Maxwell: “I suppose the thing is definitely done, and you have been properly kicked out of your office, Dick?”

Maxwell briefed the short interview with Dimmock for the benefit of the others.

“Dimmock and Carmody are in charge,” he concluded, “and before night they will have tried and executed everybody in the service whose head sticks up far enough to give them an excuse for cutting it off. They are going to make a clean sweep. Dimmock practically admitted it. By this time to-morrow the Nevada Short Line will be part and parcel of the Transcontinental System, with only T-C. men in charge.”

“Holy Smoke!” said Kendall, and the ejaculation from him meant more than the most frenzied outburst of the average man: and then again he said, “_Holy Smoke!_”

It was Starbuck, himself a small stockholder in the confiscated railroad, who first got his feet upon the solid earth again.

“I reckon we-all are just going to sit around and bite our thumbs and let these hold-ups put it all over us,” he said, in his slow drawl; adding, after the proper pause: “I don’t think!”

Maxwell sprang out of his chair.

“I must go to the commercial office and wire Ford!” he broke out. “He’ll know what to do, if there is anything that can be done. Stillings, you get in touch with our general counsel in Chicago. We’re an interstate road, and this thing can’t be settled in a Timanyoni county court!”

“Hold on,” said Stillings. “That is where we’re lame. We allowed ourselves to be sued in this cause, as we have in a good many others, under the old corporate name--The Red Butte Western. That, as you know, was a purely intrastate corporation. Our newer lines are only ‘extensions.’”

“Then we can’t carry it up to the Federal courts?” gasped Maxwell.

“We can try it, and, of course, we shall try it. But the presumptive facts are against us. What I am hoping is that our Pacific Southwestern backers will be able to help us make a killing and dump these pirates at the regular hearing.”

“Then you needn’t hope any more,” said Sprague quietly. “Apart from the fact that they’ve put the high kibosh on you to-day, the element of time comes in to cut the largest figure. For the stock-smashing purpose in this particular instance, a short receivership will prove as efficacious as a long one. You’ve had one experience with the steam-roller to-day, and you’ll have as many more of them as may seem necessary. It wouldn’t make any difference if you should import a train-load of eastern lawyers; the thing’s done, and it is going to stay done until it has accomplished the end in view--which is to transfer the stock control of the Short Line to the T-C. Your only chance is to strike back, and strike quickly--before the mischief is done in New York.”

“But how?” pleaded Stillings. “Tell us how!”

“By proving clearly, what I presume we all accept as the undoubted fact, that Judge Watson has been bribed.”

True to his calling, Stillings was the first to object to so sweeping a charge.

“Oh, hold on!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t go so far as that. That is a pretty serious charge, Sprague.”

“I know it is. But when I say bribery, it doesn’t necessarily mean the grosser form of buying with cash money. Let us say that Judge Watson has been ‘influenced.’ If you can’t make that charge and sustain it, you may as well call the incident closed.”

Maxwell was leaning against the door-jamb. His eyes were fiery and his breath was coming quickly.

“If you say there has been crooked work, Calvin, that settles it; I believe it. Now tell us what to do, and we’ll do it.”

Kendall’s lean, leathery jaw was set hard, and he was furtively watching the big expert. That a fierce struggle of some kind was going on behind the mask of the ruddy, half-boyish face, he made no doubt. And Sprague’s answer quickly confirmed the editor’s conclusion.

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Dick,” said the big man slowly.

“I do!” said Maxwell hotly. “I’m asking you to help us send a bunch of criminals--just low-down, ordinary thieving criminals--to jail! Sprague, if you can do it, and _won’t_ do it----”

There was a strained silence in the shabby little law office that seemed as if it would never be broken. Kendall turned his face away, and Starbuck slid noiselessly out of his chair and went to stand at the window with his back to the others. At length the reply to Maxwell’s demand came, wrung out, as it seemed, from the very heart of reluctance.

“It can be done. Every chain that was ever forged has its weak link. For reasons which are purely personal to me, I’d rather be shot than go into this thing with you. I’d refuse, if I could in common decency; and, in any event, I may fall down on you when it comes to the pinch. But I’ll go as far as I can. Will that do?”

“Say it!” snapped the ex-superintendent eagerly.

“All right. Stillings, you may come to my room in the hotel at two o’clock, and bring Mr. David Kinzie, our downstairs bank president, with you if you have to club him to do it. Kendall, I’m going to ask you to make just as little as possible of this railroad grab in your news columns for the present, taking my word for it that you shall have the biggest story of the year if we win out. Starbuck, you’ll come over to the hotel with me now, and I’ll give you your stunt. That’s all; the meeting’s adjourned.”

To say that the little inter-mountain city was stirred to the depths by the news which quickly spread from lip to lip is putting it mildly. In its beginnings, Brewster had been a railroad town in the strictest sense, owing its location and its phenomenal after-growth largely to the fostering policy of the railroad. Under Maxwell’s wise and just management the Nevada Short Line had identified itself very closely with the growth and prosperity of the entire inter-mountain region, and it had stood as a shining example of a “good” corporation. To have the popular management swept ruthlessly aside and the rule of another company, operating under the thin mask of a receivership, set up in its place, provoked a storm of indignant protest.

Moreover, many of the well-to-do citizens of the Timanyoni were stockholders in the Short Line, and upon these the blow fell as a disaster. Prominent among these local stockholders stood the owner of the Kinzie Building, Brewster’s one multi-millionaire and the president of the Brewster National Bank. At precisely two o’clock David Kinzie, gray and pale, and with his small ferret-like eyes peering shrewdly from under the rim of the soft, gray hat which he always wore, stepped into the Hotel Topaz elevator with Stillings. It had not been necessary for the attorney to bludgeon him to induce him to come to the conference with Sprague.

What went on behind the locked door of Room 403 after the two had been admitted was a secret that was not shared with any fourth party, though one of Editor Kendall’s young men promptly waylaid Stillings at the close of the conference.

“Tell Mr. Kendall he shall have the news, and have it first, when there is any,” was all the lawyer would say; but Connabel, the star reporter who had done the waylaying, died hard.

“Give me a hint, Mr. Stillings--just the barest shadow of a hint,” he begged. “Will the case be taken to the Federal courts?”

“Not for publication, Fred,” laughed the lawyer, who was evidently in better spirits. Then he added: “There’s a big story in this, my boy, and you shall have it when it’s ripe; I’ll promise you that--I’ll ask Kendall to detail you. And that is positively all you’ll get out of me now.”

Fifteen minutes after the lawyer and Mr. Kinzie had left Room 403 the door opened again, this time to admit Starbuck.

“Well?” said the big-bodied expert, when Maxwell’s brother-in-law had taken the chair recently vacated by the banker.

“The judge is sick, or playing sick,” was the answer. “Doc Mangum has just gone out to the house, and the servants have their orders to admit nobody.”

“What is the nature of his sickness? Does anybody know that?”

“Oh, yes; it’s heart trouble and too much altitude. He’s had it before.”

Sprague’s eyes narrowed and his big hands closed in a vice-like grip on the arms of his chair.

“Billy, does it occur to you that this is a most opportune time for him to be taken sick again? What do they do for patients with heart trouble in this country?”

“Order ’em down to a lower altitude,” said the mine owner.

“Exactly. And we shall find that this is what Doctor Mangum will advise in the present case. When he does so, Judge Watson will go.”

Starbuck was deftly rolling a cigarette of dry tobacco. “And then what?” he queried.

“Then the regular hearing, which is set for the twelfth of the month, can’t be held, and the temporary receivership will hold over until it is either confirmed or set aside by the higher courts. In the meantime the delay will have accomplished its purpose. The New York bank pool of the stock will be broken, the T-C. people will buy it in, and the nail will be driven and clinched.”

Starbuck winked gravely.

“You’re not going to let Judge Watson get out of town,” he predicted. “I can ride up the trail that far without falling off.”

“No,” said Sprague, “we are not going to let him get away until we are through with him. Did you make the other arrangement I spoke of?”

“I sure did. If anybody’s fool enough to let the cat out o’ the bag, we’ll get the cat. Tarbell’s on that part of the job.”

Sprague went to the wardrobe at the other end of the room and got out his hat and a light top-coat.

“Yes, we’ll get the cat, Billy. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we may get the kitten, too. If that should happen, your Uncle Calvin might fly the track. Let’s go. I have an appointment to meet Judge Walsh, of the United States District Court, at half-past three, and I’m going to ask you to borrow Maxwell’s car and drive me out to the judge’s house.”

Before nightfall of the Monday it became plainly evident that the new management of the Short Line had climbed fairly into the executive saddle and was making due preparations to stay there. As Maxwell had prophesied, Receiver Dimmock made a clean sweep, and before the first through train came in over the new routing a score of minor department heads had been let out and their places filled by T-C. men. Even the train-despatchers were discharged; and after dinner Maxwell held a “consolation” meeting in the hotel club-rooms with his fired staff, and listened patiently to the bad language which the wholesale hardship evoked.

To one and all of the losers he said the same thing, however; they were to sit tight and say nothing for the present. It was a long lane that had no turning, and the next turn in the Short Line lane might not be very far distant.

“Just one thing, Mr. Maxwell,” Connolly, the fat despatcher, put in, as the meeting was about to break up. “If you’ll tell us that Mr. Scientific Sprague is with us I guess we’ll all sleep better to-night.”

“He is,” said Maxwell. “That’s all for the present. Just sit tight and don’t talk. Go home and take your lay-off. If we win out, you’re all under pay, just the same as if you were on the job.”

It was late that night, after Maxwell had gone to his room, that the long-delayed word came from New York. Maxwell read the telegram from President Ford, and, late as it was, took it immediately to Sprague’s room, which was on the floor below. The expert got out of bed to admit him, and read the few type-written lines thoughtfully.

“He puts it up to you good and hard, doesn’t he?” was his comment. “But that is about what I expected. He is up to his neck in the fight to keep those lending bankers from dumping the majority stock and running around in circles. Go to the wire and tell him to keep a stiff upper lip; that you’re not dead yet. Also, you might add that Kinzie’s backing him with those bankers.”

“By Jove!” said Maxwell. “Was that what you wanted Kinzie for to-day?”

“It was one of the things. Get your message in so that Ford will have it in the morning. Good-night.”

With the opening of the second day the Brewster excitement had died down to some extent, and the new railroad routine was getting itself shaken into the working rut. On every hand it was evident that the coup had been carefully planned long in advance. Almost without a break the through service was established over the new routing, and a hard-and-fast law was laid down for the Short Line rank and file employees, the vast majority of whom were retained under the receivership. The law briefly exacted loyalty to the new management. There would be no more removals except for cause; but anything less than a hearty acceptance of the court order would be considered sufficient cause for prompt dismissal.

Copies of the receiver’s circulars and general orders found their way quickly to Maxwell, and the firm, strong hand of authority appeared in every line of them. How Sprague would go about it to break down the wall of possession which every hour was building higher and stronger, was a puzzle as yet unsolved; and it was not until the forenoon of the Wednesday that the various burrowings which the expert had set afoot began to yield results.

Tarbell brought the first of the results to the lobby of the Topaz at eleven o’clock on this third day in the shape of a note from Banker Kinzie. Hixon, the suing bauxite miner, had received his ten thousand dollars from somebody, and had deposited it in the bank.

Sprague passed the note to Maxwell, who came in just as Tarbell was leaving.

“That’s good news, in a way,” said the expert. “It tells us that the paymaster has begun to get busy. Any further word from Starbuck?”

“I saw him about half an hour ago. He says that Judge Watson’s condition remains the same, and Doctor Mangum makes no secret of the fact that he has ordered him to a lower altitude. I had another message from Ford this morning. He says we are dying by inches at the New York end, and the final smash may come at any minute.”

“We’ve got to have a little time,” was the quiet rejoinder. “The trap is baited and set, Dick, but we can’t very well spring it ourselves. Any word from Mr. Dimmock?”

“Not to me, no.”

Sprague’s smile was mirthless. “I haven’t escaped so easily,” he asserted. “Mr. Dimmock came over to my rooms this morning after breakfast and read me a carefully expurgated edition of the riot act. Translated into plain English, what he said was to the effect that my Government job wouldn’t be worth much to me if I meddled in this railroad jangle.”

“Then he knows you?”

“He knows of two or three things that I have done in the reasoning line, and--well, I’m inclined to think that he is a little nervous about something. He went so far as to hint that he had reason to believe that his mail had been tampered with.”

“What? He didn’t charge you with anything like that, did he?” demanded Maxwell, in generous indignation.

“Oh, no; not personally, of course. He merely intimated that, as an officer of the court, he wouldn’t stand for any interference.”

Maxwell was silent for a time. Then he said: “What are you waiting for, Calvin?--more evidence?”

“No; I’m waiting for the click of the trap, and a word from the man who is watching it.”

“Will the trap be sprung?”

“It will. Twice since yesterday there have been nibbles at the bait, and both times the nibbler has been afraid.”

“Watson, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“What is he afraid of?”

“A man with heart trouble is afraid of many things.”

Maxwell put an unlighted cigar in his mouth and began to chew on it absently.

“Dimmock’s daughter is here. Did you know that?”

The big-bodied chemistry expert was staring fixedly at the revolving street door which was whirling slowly to admit a group of passengers from the lately arrived Red Butte accommodation.

“I didn’t know that he had a daughter; or rather I do know that he hasn’t one. He was married only three or four years ago,” he returned half-absently.

“That’s where you’re off wrong,” retorted the railroad man. “He certainly has one, and she is here; she was at breakfast with him when I came down this morning. She is so distractingly pretty that I couldn’t believe she was the daughter of that hard-featured piece of financial machinery which is running our railroad. So I asked the head-waiter. He said she was Mr. Dimmock’s daughter.”

“It’s a mistake,” insisted Sprague. Then he changed the subject abruptly, rising and buttoning his coat. “I have an appointment that I’ve got to keep, and I may not get away for a couple of hours. Meet me here for a one o’clock luncheon. If I make the point I’m going to try to make, you’ll be needed.”