Part 5

“That is not always to be taken as praise--but I thank you. There will be some telegrams come for me. Will you kindly see that they are held? Good morning!” And he left the room.

An hour later cablegrams and telegrams by the dozen began to come in for Robison, care Richards & Tuttle. But Robison did not return to the office until after the close of the stock-market.

“Any messages?” he asked Richards.

“Not over a hundred!” answered the broker, smilingly. He felt less suspicious after the telegrams began to arrive; they were tools he understood.

“I used the Triple Three,” explained Robison, opening telegram after telegram; the cables he seemed to leave for the last. The telegrams were, as Richards later ascertained, from San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Vancouver, and other points west of the Rockies. Each contained but one word, but always the word ended in “less,” such, for example, as Headless, Toothless, Tailless, Nerveless. All were signed in the same way, to wit: Three-Three-Three.

“No Beaver! I'm just as glad,” Robison mused aloud and took up the cablegrams. They were from London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and Amsterdam. They were in code, but he seemed to have the key by heart. The very last one made him thoughtful.

He handed the cablegram absently to Richards and said, “The Lion after all--and artificial at that!” He seemed to be lost in thought, oblivious of his whereabouts, as Richards read:

Robison, care Richtut:

Mogulgar wind Lloyd Vast Nigger Shaw twice home urban sweet Edward.

“Code, hey?”

“Lion! Oh! Code, did you say? No. Code is too risky. Plain reading! Of course I have more practice than you. Give it to one of your office-boys to decipher. If he succeeds give him fifty dollars and charge it to my account. But what I can't tell is the politics of it. Is it collusion, philanthropy, or fear? Is it wise? After all, the unusual is not necessarily dangerous. I shall double my money within four days and you will make the commissions in a perfectly simple, legitimate way; and you will think I am a pretty sane lunatic; and you will respect me for having such sources of information; and if I can induce Mrs. Le--my friend to take it, I'll make a million for her in a month, and you will get the benefits accruing from having the market named after you--a Richards & Tuttle market, the papers will call it. Thank you very much for your kindness. I'll be down to-morrow before the opening. Good day, sir!”

And Mr. Robison left the office with a calm, confident look in his face. Richards gazed after him, a look of perplexity on his own face. Presently he shook his head. It meant that he gave up efforts to solve the puzzle, but that he would wait until commissions began.

IV

From Richards & Tuttle's office Robison went to the nearest Western Union office and gave a letter to the manager.

“Send this at once! City editor, _Evening World_, Park Row. No answer. How much?”

The manager told him. Robison paid him and then went to the Postal-Telegraph office and sent a message to the city editor, _Evening Journal_. Inside of each envelope was a letter. Both read alike, as follows:

_Dear Sir,--Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good turn. In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big piece of news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things looked pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his name. He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving Bank. Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being good to me. Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and promoter, is going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be held for one hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to him, because he will be sure to pay._

_Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, but it will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance relaxes, as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy yan! Don't print anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of Garrettson, his home, art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, and corporations controlled by him, and so on. Keep this letter for reference, and just before you throw it into the waste-basket remember this: It costs you nothing; it commits you to nothing, involves no expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no fool joke. Remember my writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I shall send you if I possibly can, so that you alone publish the news._

_Grateful Friend._

The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but each made a mental note--in case! Also they did not “tip off” anybody. They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson, because if they acted on every freak missive they received half the city would not sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great Garrettson.

At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied by an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed “From J. B. R., for Richards & Tuttle,” went to the Broad Street entrance of the New York Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or so it seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: “There he is!”

The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing but hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so disappointed that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, “Who, sir?”

“Nobody!” answered Mr. Robison, shortly. “Go back to the office and tell Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me--the clerk with the ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here.”

The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers.

“Here is Mr. Manley,” the office-boy told Mr. Robison.

“Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office.”

The office-boy put the five-dollar bill in his pocket, said “Thank you” in a voice celestial, and hurried away before the crazy Frenchman with the Cape Cod voice discovered the size of the tip. To Manley, the clerk, Mr. Robison said:

“Look across the street--W. H. Garrettson & Co. You can see Mr. Garrettson by the window. See him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, just you stay here and watch him; and if you see him do anything unusual or if anything happens in Garrettson's office that you think strange, run to our office and let me know. I'll be waiting for you. Don't be afraid to say so if you think something unusual is going on, because I tell you now that Mr. Garrettson never does anything unusual.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now what would you call unusual?”

“What would you?”

“If a bareheaded man came out of the office, stood at the head of the steps and threw an egg into the middle of the street, I'd call it unusual.”

“So would I.”

“Especially if I went up to the smashed egg and found the insides were of ink. It might be red ink or black.”

“That would be queer!”

“Exactly. You watch. Go to lunch at twelve-thirty and be back at one. Remember! Watch closely, and if anything unusual happens look carefully and then come and tell me. Here's ten dollars for you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“It's only a beginning,” smiled Mr. Robison, promisingly.

Manley, the clerk, put the money in his pocket and began to think he might be able to buy the motorboat next spring if this business kept up.

Between what Sweeney, the office-boy, suspected aloud and what Manley, the clerk, confirmed the office force of Richards & Tuttle discussed Mr. Robison with the zest of the deciding baseball game.

Richards had confided to his intimates some of his experiences, and Amos Kidder, the _Evening Planet_ man, was as interested in the mystery as if he had not been the man who first let loose the flood of surmise by introducing Robison to the brokers.

Nothing happened on Tuesday more exciting than keeping tally on the telegrams and cables received by Mr. Robison, which amounted to thirty-seven in all. The object of so much conjecture--and hero of the office-boy's improvised dime novel--spent the day in an arm-chair looking at the blackboard, making elaborate calculations that convinced other customers he must be a “chart fiend.” At three o'clock sharp he went home.

He stopped long enough to send by messenger-boy a letter to the city editor of the _Evening World_ and another to the city editor of the _Evening Journal._ They bore the same message and said:

_Refer to my letter of yesterday. To-night W. H. Garrettson goes to the opera to see “The Jewels of the Madonna.” He will leave the Metropolitan in his automobile. In it will be his wife, his daughter, and his friend, Harry Willett. And he will not arrive at his house--Lexington Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street. Somewhere between the Opera House and his residence he will vanish! It will be the most mysterious kidnapping on record. Follow the Garrettson motor and have your reporters watch carefully._

_Grateful Friend._

Whatever the city editors may have intended to do in the matter is of no consequence, because at seven o'clock messages were received as follows:

_Kidnapping of W. H. G. postponed. Will keep you posted._

_Grateful Friend._

V

At nine-forty-five on Wednesday morning Mr. James B. Robison entered the office of Richards & Tuttle, sought the senior partner, and said:

“I shall both buy and sell Con. Steel--or possibly sell first and buy later. The order clerk knows about my printed slips. The orders will go to you first. If at any time you are worried about margin, remember to tell me at once, because, as you know, I have not yet used half of my letter of credit; and, besides, the cables are working. I'd like to see Amos Kidder.”

“He's in his office.”

“Would you mind having some one telephone to him? Thank you.”

Mr. Robison promptly left the office, followed by his faithful attendant Sweeney, the office-boy. They took their stand just north of the Broad Street entrance of the Stock Exchange.

It was not long before Amos Kidder, of the _Evening Planet_, who had received the message, found Mr. Robison in the act of gazing unblinkingly toward the Subtreasury.

“Good morning, Mr. Robison.”

Mr. Robison started as if he had been rudely awakened out of a profound reverie.

“Oh! Kidder! How d'ye do? Ah, yes! Ah--I'd like you to dine with me and a few friends--interesting people. You will--don't be offended!--you will learn why all newspaper articles on the stock-market arouse mirth among the people who pull the wires. What do you say?”

“I say,” replied Kidder, with a good-natured smile, “just this: When and where?” His smile ceased. Mr. Robison had turned his back on his friend. Kidder heard a nasal mumble and made out:

“Here in eight minutes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I shall learn if the Lion ate the man or if it's a case of another day.”

“Mr. Robison, I don't understand--”

“I beg your pardon. I was thinking of the old man who was seen in a front seat at the circus every day. They asked him what he found so interesting, and he said that some day the lion would eat the man and he wanted to be a spectator. Well, one day he was sick. That day the lion ate the lion-tamer. Well, I am here waiting to see Garrettson come out of the cage.”

“Garrettson?”

“The great W. H. Garrettson! I am planning a campaign in Con. Steel. Garrettson's health is important. I must consider the state of his liver as carefully as the condition of the iron trade, because it is not only a question of the dividend rate, but of the price per share--not alone an investment, but a speculation. You can't lose all your mills and furnaces in one minute and you can't destroy all your customers overnight; but Garrettson can die in a second!”

“Of course that contingency has been provided for. His firm would undoubtedly be on the job.”

“So would the undertaker. As a matter of fact everything to-day depends upon the character of Garrettson's life. Have you ever stopped to think of how much depends upon the character of his death?”

“All deaths are alike. You talk like a novelist unaware of the resources of a firm like Garrettson's.”

“And you talk like a plain ass or a bank president, my boy. Is there no difference to the stock-market between the death of Garrettson by pneumonia and his death by lynching at the hands of a thousand indignant fellow-citizens? Stop and think.”

“Oh, well, that will never happen.”

“I cannot swear that it will, but you cannot guarantee that it never will. Stranger things have come to pass. By Jingo! it's three minutes to ten! Would it not be curious if something had happened?”

“How do you mean?”

“I have studied the great Garrettson and his habits, that I may, in my operations in Con. Steel, know on what to bank and against what to guard. He leaves his Lexington Avenue house every morning at nine and arrives at his office not later than nine-fifty. He is like the clock. All his life he has come down-town in his coupé, driven by a coachman who has been in his employ thirty years. In this age of novelties that old-fashioned coupé suggests a stability and solid respectability comparable to _Founded 1732!_ on a firm's letter-head. However, just as the wireless has introduced a new element into maritime life, so has the automobile changed the character of street traffic. Do you remember the case of James M. Barrier, the famous sculptor, smashed in his taxicab on his way to his studio? You remember the insurance advertisements, and how he carried a two-hundred-and-seventeen-thou-sand-dollar accident policy? Well, it's ten o'clock. In one minute, if Garrettson is not here, I shall sell short one thousand shares of Con. Steel. For each delay of one minute, one thousand shares.”

Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed.

“You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your operation is of the kind that sounds wise.”

“How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five or ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, boy, rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall need another boy besides you, for a few minutes only.”

Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand shares of Con. Steel “at the market.”

“There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair,” observed Kidder, pleasantly. “In assuming that disaster has overtaken Garrettson--”

“I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What the nature of it is I know not--nor whether it is capitalizable, sight unseen. Here, boy!” Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison sent the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of Steel. Watch in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the north. Kidder also looked up Nassau Street, expecting and--such, alas, is human nature!--hoping to see Garrettson's familiar coupé.

“Here, boy!” And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares.

At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder:

“Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder.”

“He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping--”

“Well, that's a story! Any deviation from the normal is, even though it may not be tragedy. The delay may mean--”

“Nothing whatever,” finished Kidder, a trifle exultingly. “There comes Garrettson's carriage. I guess you'd better cover!”

And the _Planet_ man laughed.

“Kidder, you'll never be rich! Of course I shall not cover until I know the reason for the delay. Make haste! I ought to take a good look at his face. I want to see how he looks and notice how he walks up the steps to the office. One glimpse of Harriman getting off the train once put a cool quarter of a million in my pocket.”

“Stocks went up when he died. People sold them thinking--”

“When you know a man is dying and you know that the rabble doesn't know it, you don't always sell stocks short, Kidder,” anticipated Robison, with a gentle smile.

“Hello!” said Kidder, and ran forward.

Robison followed. The coupé had stopped before the door of the banking firm's offices. The herculean private policeman in gray had hastened to open the door of the chief's carriage and had staggered back as if horrified by what he had seen.

“Murdered!” thought the newspaper man in a flash. “What a story!”

The policeman turned an alarmed face toward the coachman and asked:

“Where's Mr. Garrettson?”

“What!” Lyman, the coachman, who had been in Garrettson's employ thirty-odd years, turned livid. He stared blankly at the big man in the gray uniform.

“He isn't here!” said Allcock, the policeman. Kidder and Robison heard him.

The coachman looked into the coupé.

“Good God!” he muttered.

“Are you sure he was inside?” asked Allcock. “Sure? Of course! There's the newspapers. Look at the cigar-ashes on the floor.”

“Did you see him get in?” persisted the policeman. “Of course I saw him! I heard him call to the footman, who was going back to the house without leaving the newspapers.”

“And you didn't stop anywhere?”

“No. I was delayed a little at Twelfth Street and Fourth Avenue, and again--”

“Are you sure he didn't jump off?”

“What would he be jumping off for?” queried the old coachman, irritably. “And wouldn't I have heard the door slam? I can't account for it! My God! Where's Mr. Garrettson? Where is he? Where is he?” He repeated himself like one distraught.

“Could he have jumped out without your knowing it?” queried Kidder.

“Shut up, Jim. That's a reporter!” the policeman warned the coachman. “Wait here and I'll tell Mr. Jenkins.”

The private policeman rushed into the bank, and rushed out, followed by William P. Jenkins, junior partner of W. H. Garrettson & Company.

“What is all this about?” Mr. Jenkins, who had been speaking in a sharp voice to the coachman, caught sight of Kidder. Nothing concerning Mr. Garrettson's whereabouts could be discussed by or before newspaper men.

“Come with me, James,” Mr. Jenkins said, peremptorily, to the old coachman.

“Get on the job!” whispered Robison to Kidder. “Don't be bluffed. You've got enough to raise the dickens if printed. It's the scoop of a lifetime!”

Amos Kidder nodded eagerly. He had ceased to think of Robison's eccentricities and was occupied with the disappearance of the great financier. He followed Jenkins and the coachman into the office, but all efforts to listen to their colloquy were in vain. He could see perturbation plainly printed on the face of Mr. Jenkins, for all that Garrettson's junior partner was one of the master bluffers of Wall Street and a consummate artist at poker. The newspaper man was, moreover, fortunate enough to overhear Mr. Jenkins's private secretary say: “Mrs. Garrettson says Mr. Garrettson left the house about nine-twenty in the carriage, as usual. The butler saw him get in; the footman helped him into the cab. She wanted to know what had happened. I said, 'Nothing that I know of.'”

Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and hastened back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the coachman--a man above suspicion--was carried on by the other partners.

Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin:

_W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family from boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. He was smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily newspapers. These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the coupé when it reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, where the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are unable to say where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. Garrettson is equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as usual. The butler saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes this remarkable is that Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and not once in forty years has he failed to reach his office before ten o'clock. His disappearance from the coupé is not thought to be a joke; but, on the other hand, there is no reason to apprehend a tragedy. “It is mysterious--that's all,” remarked a prominent Wall Street man; “and mysteries are not always profitable in the stock-market!”_

“How long,” inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth, “will it be before the _Evening Planet_, with your account of the non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?”

“Well,” said Kidder, looking a trifle important, “if it had been any one else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!”

“As quickly as that?”

“Well, maybe seven minutes--but that,” said Kidder, impressively, “would be slow work for the _Evening Planet!_”

“Amazing!” murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. “And did you make it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of--”

“I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad daylight in the city of New York--taken out of his own cab and carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!”

“No, it can't,” agreed Robison. “Nevertheless, it has been done.”

“How could--”

“Kidder, the taxicab has introduced a new and easily utilizable possibility into criminal affairs, against which the police cannot yet protect the public. I can see one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen different ways in which Mr. Garrettson could have been abducted from his own carriage, put into a taxi, and carried away. Suppose there are six taxis. Three are in front to prevent the coachman from passing them. The coachman is also compelled to regulate his speed according as they desire. Then put one taxi on each side and one behind. These taxis not only escort the cab; they pocket it and keep out help. At one of the many halts the cab door is opened and Garrettson induced to enter one of the side taxis while the coachman is occupied taking care of his horses because one of the taxis in front threatens to back, which will crush the prancing beasts. Do you suppose the coachman, especially if he is elderly and somewhat deaf, as all old people are, could hear a cry for help with six taxis making all the noise they can, muffler cutouts going, or backfiring, or--”

“Do you think that is--”

“I think nothing! I cited it as one of fourteen--indeed, twenty--possible ways,” said Robison, quietly.

“It's funny--I mean it is a curious coincidence that on the one day you had sold Steel short--”

“My young friend,” interrupted Robison, gravely, “I sold after Garrettson was late! Wisdom is always accused of unfairness. A man whose mind enables him to win steadily at cards is invariably suspected of marking them. I had planned to buy Con. Steel provided Garrettson's health, state of mind, and trade conditions satisfied me! Instead I sold a little because of his delay. Why, man, we did that in London once--Cecil Rhodes and I--when Barney Barnato, at the height of the Kaffir craze, suddenly decided--”

“Wait till I get a piece of paper,” said Amos Kidder. He saw a big story. But Robison said: