Part 5

It was a wild Saturday night at Jean Flavot's. The occasion of the celebration was the ending of the season on the sugar docks. For seven months in the year the Continental Refining Company was busy with sugar that poured in upon it from Cuba and Porto Rico and Santo Domingo and other lands to the south. Then there was a period of five months when there was no sugar from the outside and refiners turned their attention to the home-grown crop.

Those men who had worked together in the camaraderie of the docks for seven months this season, and perhaps for many a year before, were to-morrow to be dispersed. They would be scattered about at many places and would play their part in the handling of the raw sugar that came from the canefields of Louisiana and the beet lands of Colorado and Michigan. Most probably they would meet again on these same docks five months later. But assuredly there was every reason why they should end the season in one mad carouse.

Billy Gard was present. Through the weeks that had passed he had gradually tightened the net that revealed to the Government the conditions that existed on the sugar docks. But his case might still be strengthened, for he wanted the whole story from a man who participated in the irregularities, and in such a way that it might be introduced into court as evidence. This was the last opportunity and the special agent hoped that the story might be told to-night when the samplers were reckless over their liquor.

Jean Flavot brought whisky and beer when the big-fisted Hansen beat upon the table. Billy Gard stood upon his chair and drank to the time when they would all get together again under the cobwebs that decorated the ceiling of the little Frenchman. He led three lusty cheers for that time, for none was so abandoned on these occasions as the youngster who had saved the president's daughter. And Flavot and Billy interchanged a wink, for they had a secret between them. Both knew that the beverage that the special agent drank with such recklessness was nothing more than cold tea, and the little Frenchman delighted in seeing his favorite lead these American pigs, who knew no decency in drinking, on to complete inebriety.

But Gard had a secret from even Flavot which had to do with a grimy little man who sat at a nearby table and who had of late frequented the place--a seedy, long-haired, sallow man who worked always with pencil over the manuscript of a play he was writing. As a true genius he paid no attention to what went on around him, but always pored over his papers.

But this same man in Washington was a star stenographer at the Department of Justice, a dapper, one-time court reporter, the man who had handled the listening end of many a dictagraph when the ways were being greased between men in high places and the penitentiary at Atlanta.

"And you samplers," Gard was saying, "where can I meet you when another Saturday night comes?"

"Me at the Bayou Fouche mills," said Hansen.

"And the company sends me to Colorado for my lungs," said Tobin, the consumptive.

"And I keep time at the refinery," ventured "Fat" Cunningham.

"So everybody works," said the special agent. "Uncle Sam does not care if he lays good men off half the time, but the Continental people take care of the samplers."

"Good is the reason why they should," said the consumptive Tobin. "Don't we save them enough money in the way we take the samples?"

"How is that?" asked Gard.

"Look here, young fellow," said the gruff Hansen, "it seems to me that you are a good little asker of questions. Why are you so curious? Maybe you are a secret service man, eh?"

"Sure," said Gard. "I am Chief Wilkinson himself."

"Wilkinson, nothing," said Hansen. "His name is Wilkie."

"Wilkie, your eye," argued the special agent. "Don't you suppose I read detective stories? His name is Wilkinson."

But the sampler was sure of his facts and the apparent error of the other man disarmed him.

"Well," he said, "as you're so curious and as I have the tip that you are to be a sampler next season, I might as well put you wise. We are all taken care of by the refiners because we look after their interests on the dock."

The big fellow looked carefully about, but there was nobody near except the frowsy dramatist, who was absorbed in his manuscript. He threw off another big drink of whisky and with it all discretion.

"You see," he said, "a sampler on Government wages would be in a pretty fix if he were let out after seven months and had to stand a chance of loafing for five. So the company passes the word that if the boys do the right thing they will be given work during the off season. I happen to know Gottrell himself and he takes me aside. That was eight years ago.

"'Hansen,' he says to me, 'pass the tip to the boys to sample right,' he says, 'and there will be work for them between seasons.'

"'What do you mean, sample right?' I says.

"'Well,' he says, 'a wet sample may mean she grades 92 and a dry one that she grades 94. A sampler can get a good many of them wet. I don't have to tell you how.'

"So I passed the word," continued Hansen. "At the end of the season half of the samplers were offered jobs with the company. It was easy, of course, for them to find from the records who was getting wet sugar. Not a dry sugar man got a job. You ask Tobin. He was one of the guys who held out for honesty. But it was a hard season for Tobin, with his health bad and three kids. So next season he lined up. So did most of them. Inside of three years there was not a sampler on the dock who was not taking them wet."

"But put me wise," said Gard. "If I am going to get a sampler's job next year you better pass the word to me so I will know how to hold it."

"I guess you know enough about raw sugar," said the sampler, "to know that it drinks up moisture like a sponge when it gets a chance. Well, they are not careful in keeping out the damp air when it is aboard ship, and it often comes handy, not altogether by accident, for a sack of sugar to get a chance to lie on a wet board. The sugar on the outside naturally gets a little damp, and if you will turn a sack over you may find a wet side to it. The first lesson is to take your samples from the wet side of the sack and from the part near the outside.

"But maybe the sugar has been kept pretty dry. Well it is up to the sampler to get a little moisture into his tube. If it is a warm day a few drops of sweat may be gathered by a scrape of the back of your hand. Every drop is worth its weight in gold a hundred times to the refiners. It would surprise you to learn how cleverly the sampler learns to spit a bit of tobacco juice into his tube. You have worked on the docks for a long time. You never saw it done, did you? But they were at it all the time. I bet the Government has paid a million dollars for tobacco juice in the last ten years. Cunningham, here, has grown fat eating tobacco."

"But does everybody on the dock take wet samples?" asked the detective.

"Surest thing you know," said Hansen. "Ask them."

"How about it, Cunningham?" queried Gard.

"I need the work," said the fat man.

"And you, Tobin?"

"I held out a year," said the little consumptive, "but couldn't afford to lose my job."

All the others present pleaded guilty.

"Don't you fellows get anything for it but a little off-season work?" asked Gard.

"Not a thing," acknowledged Hansen with a huge oath. "We certainly sell out cheap and the company makes barrels of money out of the bargain. But the old man has never given us a look in on any of it."

The dictagraph stenographer at the next table had caught every word. He was in a position to substantiate the testimony of Gard who should be able to make these samplers tell their stories in court. Soon the two faded away without being missed, but they took with them a complete case against the Government samplers of this port and against the Continental Refining Company which had been profiting through their shortcomings.

It was a month later and Billy Gard had completed his work. He had gone to Henry Gottrell "cold turkey," and with authority from the department. He had shown that rotund and genial captain of industry just the case the Government had against him. With him he had gone over the record of the business of the refiners since that period, eight years previous, when the wet sample scheme had been inaugurated. He had worked out an estimate of the probable duty that the Government had lost during that time. The actual loss was not, of course, as great as the theoretical, for many of the samples were of necessity honest. Yet it must have run as high as $600,000 as a shortage on the part of Gottrell and his associates.

Gard indicated the possibility of the success of a criminal prosecution, the probability of recovering that large sum of money through the courts. He confessed to the humiliation of the Government that so many of its employees had been false to their trust. He even granted that the Government might, under the circumstances, feel itself somewhat to blame for the conditions that had existed. It is not recorded whether the vision of a girl with frizzly, corn-colored hair came into the mind of the special agent and had to do with his recommendations that the case be settled out of court. But certain it is that the Government authorized him to propose that, if the company should pay the Government $600,000, an amount it would be just able to raise and escape bankruptcy, the case would be dismissed, the samplers discharged, and a new régime inaugurated in which the Government would take pains to protect itself.

Upon this basis the case was settled. Billy Gard had earned his salary.

The next day he was packing up at his hotel in preparation for leaving for Washington when there arrived by messenger a little, square, delicately scented envelope which he tore open somewhat wonderingly. Inside he found this note:

Father has told me all about it. For the third time let me say, "Splendid!" And remember that you promised to come and tell me about it when it was all over.

THELMA GOTTRELL.

Which would seem a perfectly good reason why Gard was a day late in reaching Washington.

V

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SLEUTH

Billy Gard was jogging comfortably from the station to the Commercial hotel in the carryall which, in Royerton, still afforded the only link between those two points, when pandemonium broke out in the slumbrous streets. He met its forerunner head on not two blocks from the station. This bolt that had launched itself from the clear skies took the form of a normally dignified family carriage drawn by two lean bays. But the sedate respectability which surrounded this equipage when it was driven by its proper owner, President Sissons of the Royerton National bank, had been lost in the madness of the present exploit.

For the lean bays were now extending themselves in what appeared to be an attempt to break all speed records that the community had ever known. The dignified carriage was careening from side to side in a way that threatened its overthrow at any moment. Gard's first impression was of a team that had broken loose from a hitching rack and dashed away uncontrolled. But as it flashed past him there was an instant in which the actual situation was photographed upon his brain.

For this team was not without a driver. He had seen the form of a slim young man which leaned far out over the dashboard--pale, refined features that fitted illy into a scene of such vigorous action. But what was more surprising was that this driver, instead of attempting to restrain his horses, was every moment lashing them into new exertions.

"Homer Kester, as I live!" ejaculated the driver of the carryall in consternation.

"Who is Homer Kester?" asked Gard.

"The cashier of the bank," was the reply.

Whereupon the young special agent of the Department of Justice acquired an even greater interest in the situation than he had experienced before, for he had come to Royerton for the purpose of making inquiries into the condition of its national bank, which was under suspicion.

Behind the fleeing carriage came the town constable, who had evidently appropriated, for purposes of giving chase, the first horse he had found by the side of the street. Others had joined in the pursuit and a rabble of small boys and curious townsmen crowded the street. From these the stranger was soon able to gather the story of what had happened in the immediate past.

It had suddenly developed that the cashier was short in his accounts. The directors had awakened of a sudden to a realization that the institution over which they presided was but a financial shell. There was no delay in the interest of expediency. An immediate call was sent forth for the constable. The young cashier went into a panic. In desperation he rushed from the back door of the bank, cut loose the team of the institution's president which stood near, leaped in and fled from the danger that faced him.

It would have appeared that such a procedure would have been entirely futile, that there would have been no question of the apprehension of this criminal. Yet such was not the case, and Homer Kester was a thorn in the flesh of the authorities and particularly of Special Agent Billy Gard for many a day. For he ran his team two miles into the country, abandoned it, but sent it still adrift, caught a cross-country trolley, and with the exception of a single fleeting moment, was not again seen by the authorities for a year and a half.

Gard, in the meantime, was faced with the immediate problem of determining the nature of the crime and representing the United States, that justice might be meted out. In the course of which work he developed the detail of what had happened to the lone financial institution of this country town and revealed a method by which a single depositor had filched it of its funds in a way that almost amounted to the knowledge and consent of the directors.

The trouble was all caused by a young man by the name of George D. Caviness, who was born with a peculiar gift of inducing his associates to perform for him such favors as were better not granted. It would seem that he had taken for his model in life the monkey (if it was a monkey) that had first induced the cat to pull those historical chestnuts out of the fire. But so alluring were his blandishments, so attractive his personality, so popular was he socially, that the town had become accustomed to forgiving his transgressions and allowing him to have his way.

The father of George D. had been a director of the Royerton National bank and at one time a man of means. It was a great shock to the town when, three years earlier, the elder Caviness had blown out his brains. It was a surprise to his associates to find that his estate had so dwindled that there was almost nothing left. The bank was directly embarrassed, because of the fact that the younger Caviness had borrowed, upon his father's endorsement, $3,000 from that institution. Knowing the youngster as these directors did, they called him on the carpet and asked him what he intended to do toward making good.

"I am going to pay these notes almost immediately," he said confidently. "You know that I am now the local representative of a New York insurance company. I am doing a great business. In fact, I can promise a payment to-morrow."

"But," urged a director, "your personal account is also overdrawn."

"That will not be necessary any more," said Caviness. "I am now on a firm financial basis. I am now in a position to throw new business to the bank instead of being a burden to it."

With these assurances the directors parted with young Caviness on the friendliest of terms. They wanted to believe in what he said, as this would save the bank money and themselves embarrassment. Further than this there seemed nothing that could be done, and the boundless optimism of the young man created confidence.

The next day the insurance agent deposited for discount a sixty-day note for $300, given him by a man for whom he had written a policy. He drew $50 in cash, and allowed the balance to be placed to his credit. The directors were encouraged. The insurance man continued such operations, much of his paper being perfectly good. It would appear that he was on the way toward clearing up his affairs, but Caviness spent much money, some of it going toward the entertainment of sons and daughters of the directors. If they stopped him at any time it would have meant the absolute loss of the amount he already owed. As illogical as it might seem, more and more credit was extended.

In addition to the liberties that Caviness thus took with the directors of the bank, he had also established a sort of dominance over Homer Kester, its young cashier. The dominant insurance man had been a leader among their mutual associates from youth, was the social lion of the town, and always patronized the cashier. That timid youth had allowed his friend to overdraw his account when his father was a director, and it therefore seemed safe. This fact made it easier afterward when it was unsafe.

Finally the directors awoke to the fact that George Caviness owed the bank $10,000. Homer Kester, the cashier, so reported. The directors were appalled. This was the end.

Caviness was contrite. He made new notes for the whole amount. These would at least appear in the assets of the bank when the examiner came around. He promised he would in future deposit only cash and certified checks. The hope of recovering some of the money led the directors to keep the account open. There seemed no other way.

But Kester, the cashier, had not reported all the facts with relation to the Caviness accounts. The checking account of the latter was at this time overdrawn to the amount of $3,500. The cashier realized that he had been personally at fault in allowing this. He had confessed his embarrassment to Caviness. The latter had advised that the cashier juggle the accounts in such a way that the shortage would not show, and that he fail to report it to the directors.

Arranging the accounts was easy. As a matter of fact, these overdrafts were already being hid by being carried on the books as cash. The arrangement had become necessary upon the occasion of a recent visit of a national bank examiner. As the examiner had been deceived, so might be the directors. So it happened that Caviness was $3,500 deeper in debt than the directors knew.

Billy Gard was fascinated in developing the psychology of the case--the manner in which this prodigal played upon the cashier and the directors to his advantage. But here the miscreant had come to the end of his string with the directors. He was to be allowed only to pay in money. But with the cashier the situation was different. Caviness now had Kester in his control. That youngster had made a false report to the examiner and the directors. He had violated the law. His position, even his freedom, depended on helping Caviness to make good.

"If I had but a few hundred dollars," Caviness told Kester when they met surreptitiously to talk the matter over, "I could clean up the whole amount. I have a most unusual business opportunity in Philadelphia. You must let me overdraw just once more."

"Not a cent," insisted Kester. "I have already let you ruin me and the bank. I will go no further."

"If you don't," brutally stated the insurance man, "you are ruined by what you have already done, I am ruined, the bank is ruined. This is the one chance."

In the end he went to Philadelphia to grasp this one chance. Billy Gard acknowledged that it was logical that the cashier should allow him to do so. The draft that Caviness drew was for twice the amount he had named but the harassed cashier could not bring himself to refuse to honor it. Caviness had proved himself a psychologist again. Two days later a smaller draft came but with no line of explanation. The chance to recoup might depend upon this money, the cashier felt. He appreciated the greater chances on the other side but, having honored the larger check, he could not turn down the smaller one. It was not logic that he should do so. As the days passed there came other drafts for always smaller amounts. There was still no report from Caviness. Yet what excuse could the cashier offer himself for refusing these small drafts when he had honored the big ones? Finally the prodigal drew, in a single day, forty small checks ranging from one to five dollars.

Despairingly the cashier cashed every one.

It was during the week that followed that the directors had precipitated the flight of the cashier. Billy Gard found the whole case easy to clear up with the exception of the apprehension of the two men who had been the instruments in wrecking the bank.

The special agent had little doubt of his ability to catch Homer Kester, the cashier. There was the almost infallible theory that such a fugitive would write home. There was but the necessity to wait until he should do so and the point of hiding would be indicated by the post mark. There was no need of haste in the case of Kester, it seemed, but Caviness was harder to figure out.

Yet just the reverse proved to be true. Gard's theory for catching a man of the Caviness type held good, while on the fugitive cashier he absolutely failed.

In Royerton it was easy to find many intimates of the insurance man. From these it was learned that the spendthrift often visited Philadelphia and that while there he kept fast company. Some of the young men of the village knew of the places he frequented, the people who were his friends.

"Such a man," soliloquized Billy Gard, "always hides with a woman."

Whereupon the special agent returned to Philadelphia and began investigating, one after another, the resorts and the sporting friends of the missing insurance agent. One thread after another was followed to its end until, in tracing a certain woman to Germantown, the special agent met with a result and a surprise that was beyond his expectation.

A drayman who had hauled the goods and chattels of the woman he was tracing had given Gard the Germantown address. It was eleven o'clock on a sunshiny morning when the special agent reached the address. It was a narrow house in a closely built row and evidently was rented, each floor as a flat. Gard had reconnoitered front and back, had gossiped with the grocer at the corner, with some children in the street. He was looking for an opportunity to approach the janitor of the house to question him informally, wanted to talk to the postman. Then he met the policeman on this beat. He had asked this guardian of the law about the occupants of the flat in question and the two men were drifting idly past when pandemonium broke loose.

Shriek after shriek tore its way through the drawn curtains of the ground-floor flat. There was the crash of broken furniture, the whack of heavy blows, the thud of falling bodies. The policeman and the special agent ran to the door of the house to which the former put his shoulder with good effect. They were thus let into a narrow hall. Off of this were the doors to the flat through which the noise of a vast disturbance continued to come. It required the strength of the two men to break through the barrier, and some delay was occasioned. But when the door was finally forced it was a wild scene that was revealed.

They had broken into the sitting room. Sprawled across its floor was the form of a disheveled woman, frowsily blonde, shapely, clad in a dressing sacque and evidently unconscious. Chairs were upset, tables overturned.