“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 theEvening 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 theEvening 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:
“I'll tell you all you wish to know—if you promise not to use names—in Richards's office later, when Garrettson's disappearance is officially admitted. You should hang round Garrettson's office. Don't lose sight of it for one minute! Your office will keep in touch—”
“Yes; they are sending three men down to work under me.”
“Keep me posted, will you? I am going to Richards's office and watch the market.”
Kidder nodded and hurried to the Wills Building. Robison went to the office of his brokers, stopping previously at a telephone pay-station to telephone to the city editors of theEvening Worldand theEvening Journal. This was his message:
The Evening Planet is getting out an extra about the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson. Send your men to Garrettson's office and also his residence. Hurry!
TheEvening Planetstory was on the street before Robison returned to Richards & Tuttle's office, and five minutes laterWorldandJournalextras were selling in the financial district. Curiously enough, both papers used the same scare-head, and that fact had a great deal to do with the acceptance of the story by many people. The heading was:
And each stated it had information that W. H. Garrettson had been kidnapped and was held for one hundred million dollars ransom. The Wall Street news agencies sent out the news on the tickers. One of them subtly finished:
Those who know Mr. Garrettson state that the two things the greatest financier of our times cannot do are: first, take advice; and second, be coerced. A man who has compelled a President of the United States to come to him for advice, and who has flatly told a reigning monarch, No! is not going to do as he is told by any band of crooks! The worst is, therefore, to be feared!
For one brief dazed moment the stock-market hesitated! Then suddenly the ticker stopped, as it did in the old days whenever a member's demise was announced. The ticker's silence, with its suggestion of death, did in truth strangle bull hopes. Ten thousand gamblers' hearts almost stopped when the ticker did. Then the storm burst, increasing in violence as corroboration came from newspaper extras, from the Wall Street news agencies and the news tickers, from brokers and bankers who had rushed to the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company and had rushed out again to sell stocks. And for one fatal moment the great house of W. H. Garrettson & Company was guilty of the capital crime—in high finance—of indecision.
The stock-market at times suggests a reservoir—: the selling-power is liquefied fear. Like water, all it asks is one tiny crevice—a beginning!—and it will itself complete the havoc.
Inside support—that is, buying by Garrettson's firm—would have been the only effective denial of the alarming rumors. Therefore, in the brief instant that saw absolutely no “support” forthcoming the flood of selling-orders raged down upon the stock-market, carrying with it big margins and little margins and minus margins, fortunes and hopes and reputations.
The price of Con. Steel declined faster and faster as the volume of selling-orders grew larger. It was the snowball rolling down the hillside. From sixty-eight it went to sixty-seven; to sixty-six; to sixty-five by fractions. Then it broke whole points at a time—to sixty; to fifty-five! In fifteen frightful, unforgetable minutes the capital stock, of the Consolidated Steel Corporation shrank in value fifteen million dollars—one million a minute! A psychological statistician would have figured that this million a minute was the tribute of the moneyed world to the great Garrettson's reputation for financial invulnerability; it was the cost of the blow to his prestige, the result of his partners' inefficiency during the one crucial moment of the firm's existence. The partners would have understood death and could have provided against it, stock-marketwise. It is likely that they even might have capitalized their senior partner's demise had it come from typhoid, tuberculosis, or taxicab. But the disappearance of the great Garrettson, the fatal incertitude, the black ignorance, the fearing and the hoping, paralyzed the faculties of the junior partners of Wall Street's mighty firm. And the costliness of their indecision was raised into the millions by the fact that, just as Jenkins, Johnson, and Lane, the junior partners, agreed that Garrettson, though absent, was well, and were about to take steps to check the gamblers' panic, the telephone summoned Jenkins.
“Hello! Is this Mr. Jenkins? Good. This is Dr. Pierson. Come at once to Mr. Garrettson, Hotel Cressline, Suite D. No, not B—D! Say nothing to the family! Hurry!” And the speaker rang off.
His face livid with apprehension, visibly tortured by the still unrelieved uncertainty, Jenkins turned to Walter Johnson, the youngest and—Wall Street said—the cleverest of Garrettson's partners, and repeated the message.
“Was it Dr. Pierson's voice?” asked Johnson.
“I don't know—yes; I think it was. He said, 'This is Dr. Pierson,' and I didn't suspect—yes; I think it was.” After a second's pause, “I know it was Pierson!”
“Then, for Heaven's sake—” began Lane.
“Your knowledge of Pierson's voice, Jenkins, is vitiated by your obvious wish. Call up Dr. Pierson's office, of course!” said Johnson.
“Meantime we are losing precious time—” Johnson had already gone to the desk telephone and asked for Dr. Pierson's office. To his partner he said, the receiver at his ear:
“We have all eternity before us to solve the problem if—” The emphasis on the conditional particle indicated so clearly his meaning that there was no need to say it. “You need not go on a wild-goose chase, and we hoping and expecting and uncertain if—Hello! Dr. Pierson's office? This is Mr. Johnson, of W. H. Garrettson & Company. Is the doctor there? Out? Where did he go? Speak out—I am Mr. Garrettson's partner. Hotel Cressline, Suite D? Thank you.” Johnson turned and said: “Dr. Pierson was summoned by telephone to the Cressline, Suite D, to attend Mr. Garrettson. Hurry call! I'll get the hotel and ask—”
“And meantime,” said Jenkins, excitedly, “he might be dying or dead; and we—”
“Yes! Go! I'll arrange to have a telephone-line kept for our exclusive use. Hurry!”
Jenkins rushed madly from the office and Johnson took up the telephone once more.
“Give me the Hotel Cressline!” And presently, “Hello! Cressline? This is W. H. Garrettson & Company. Yes—Mr. Johnson, Mr. Garrettson's partner. Is Mr. Gar—... Yes—yes—I want to talk to him.... Why not? Is it our Mr. Garrettson... Here! Hold your horses! You will tell me!—or, by Heaven, I'll... Helloh-Hello! Damn 'em!”
“What did they say, Walter?” asked Mr. Lane, partner and brother-in-law of Garrettson.
“He said I could go to hell!” growled Johnson, his face brick-red from anger; people did not talk that way to the partners of the great Garrettson. “He said a Mr. Garrettson, accompanied by a heavily veiled lady, took Suite D this morning at nine-forty-five, and left orders not to be interrupted under any circumstances—no cards sent up, no telephone connection made, no messages of any kind delivered!”
The two partners looked at each other gravely. In their eyes was something like a cross between a challenge and an entreaty, as though each expected the other to say he did not expect a terrible final chapter. In the veiled woman each feared what was worse than mere death—scandal! Of course, much would be suppressed, as had been done in the case of Winthrop Kyle or of Burton Willett, to whom death had come suddenly and under dubious circumstances.
“William is not that kind!” said Lane, loyally. “He has never—”
“I know that, of course. I don't believe it. I don't! I don't!” repeated Walter Johnson, vehemently.
“Neither do I,” agreed Lane. “But—” He looked furtively at Walter Johnson.
Johnson nodded, and said, “Yes, that's the devil of it!” He lost himself in thoughts of how to suppress the scandal; for these men loved Garrettson, admired his abilities, gloried in his might, and reverenced his greatness. They would rather see the firm lose millions than have posthumous mud flung upon the historic figure of W. H. Garrettson.
That was the explanation of why the ordinary precautions for staving off a panic were not taken by the partners. That was why they denied themselves to everybody who brought no news of Mr. W. H. Garrettson; and such was the discipline of the office that no word was brought to the palefaced partners in the inner office about the big break in stocks or of the newspaper extras.
It was the fatal mistake. By the time Walter Johnson, by accident or force of habit, or possibly subconsciously, moved by the telepathic message of the ticker, approached the little instrument the slump in stocks had taken on the proportions of a panic.
“Great Scott! Fifty-eight for steel!”
“No!” incredulously shouted Lane.
“It'll never do!”
“Yes, but—”
Walter Johnson, forgetting that Mr. Garrettson was a man who liked to do things in his own way, rushed out of the private office and began to give out buying-orders to the better-known of the Garrettson brokers—they kept some of these for the effect of obvious “Garrettson buying.” It was all the firm could do to check the decline. No matter what had happened, the house of Garrettson must not lie about it! Silence, yes; untruth, never! And yet silence might be taken as corroboration of the awful stories. He could not say that the great Garrettson was alive and could not say he was dead. He must not mention Hotel Cressline. A trying situation! To the news-agency men, who would put out the news on the Street, from whom also the daily papers would get it, he said, very calmly and impressively:
“I know of no reason why anybody should sell Consolidated Steel. The iron trade is in excellent shape; the company is doing the biggest business in its history at reasonable but remunerative prices, and we consider the stock a good investment. We deprecate these violent speculative movements. They are designed to frighten timid holders. I advise every man who owns Consolidated Steel stock to hold on to it.
“But about Mr. Gar—”
“Not another word!” he said, firmly, with a smile that was a masterpiece of will-power.
The newspaper men translated it: “Not a word about W. H. Garrettson!” And in the Stock Exchange a similar construction was put upon the message. What was wanted was to know whether the great Garrettson was dead or not—the kidnapping was by now accepted as a fact!—and if so what would be done with the enormous Garrettson holdings of Steel. Wherefore the traders sold more of the same stock—short—and the bona-fide holders could develop no conviction strong enough as to the wisdom of holding on, so long as the price continued to go down.
Jenkins arrived at the Cressline in time to find Dr. Pierson engaged in a fight with the office force, who would not show Suite D to him or send up any message. But Jenkins, who in his youth had been a book agent, succeeded in inducing the management to break open the door after repeated knocking brought no response from within.
They found nobody in Suite D. Mr. Garrettson had vanished! But they found on the bureau a long lavender automobile veil.
Jenkins and Dr. Pierson stared at each other in perplexity. At length Jenkins, red and uncomfortable, said to Dr. Pierson:
“I came up as soon as I got your telephone message; and—”
“I never telephoned you!” interrupted Dr. Pierson.
“Why, you said—”
“I didn't say it. I came up here because I got a message from the hotel—or so the voice said—to see Mr. Garrettson, who had been taken suddenly ill in Suite D. His companion, a young lady, was with him.”
“Damn!” said Jenkins, with ah uneasy look. He bethought him of the office, hastened to the telephone and told Walter Johnson all about the fake messages and Dr. Pierson's story.
“That was to throw us off the scent. Con. Steel has broken ten points, and—”
“It's a bear raid then!”
“Yes. But have the bears got W. H. Garrettson? If so, where? Hurry down!”
Meantime in the office of Richards & Tuttle Mr. Robison was carefully following the course of the stock-market. The lower Steel went the higher Robison rose in the estimation of the firm, the customers, and the office-boys.
In one of the interludes between the slumps George B. Richards asked in a voice which one might say sweated respect:
“What do you think now, Mr. Robison?”
The office had been doing a great business and the big room with the quotation-board that took one side was crowded with customers. These customers, with eyes that shone greedily, drew near and frankly listened to the colloquy. They were all happy because they were all short of Steel, and they were all short of Steel because a mysterious stranger had scented a strange mystery ten minutes ahead of Wall Street.
“Yes?” said Mr. Robison, absently.
“What do you think now?”
“What do I think now?” repeated Mr. Robison, mechanically.
“Yes, sir,” said George B. Richards, in the tone of voice of an office-boy about to ask for a day off. Robison stared unseeingly at the broker. Then, with a little start, he said so distinctly that every listening customer heard very plainly:
“I have not changed my opinion. When I do I'll let you know.”
“It looks to me,” persisted Richards, fishing for information, “that they can't keep on going down forever.”
“No—not forever,” assented Mr. Robison, calmly.
“Maybe the bottom is not far off.”
“Maybe not.”
“If a man bought now he might do well.”
“Then buy 'em.”
“Still, until we know just what is back of this break it isn't safe to go long.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Robison, with a polite nod of the head, “don't buy 'em.”
Richards did not persist, and with an effort subdued the desire to say “Thank you!” in a most sarcastic tone of voice. The disappointed customers drifted away. To be told when to begin making money is great, but any experienced stock speculator will tell you that it is even more important to be told when to stop making it. The tale of the Untaken Profit is the jeremiad of the ticker-fiend.
Con. Steel was down to fifty-five and beginning to show “resiliency,” as financial writers used to say, when an office-boy rushed to Mr. Robison's side. The lad's face shone with pride at being the bearer of money-making news to-the most distinguished of the firm's customers, whose paper profits at that moment were about one hundred thousand dollars.
“Mr. Robison!” he said in the distinct, low voice of one who is accustomed to repeating confidential messages in a crowded room. The other customers, who were still hopeful of getting the tip when to cover, looked at the boy's lips and listened strainingly to catch his whispered words.
“Speak up, my boy. I am a little hard of hearing,” said Mr. Robison through his nose, with a pleasant smile.
The customers, to a man, blessed the catarrh that caused the deafness which would give them the tip they all expected.
“The photographer says the pictures came out very fine indeed.”
The looking and listening customers, to a man, murmured, “Stung again!”
“Wait a minute my lad. Here!” and he gave the office-boy a five-dollar bill and a small envelope.
“Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy. He put the five dollars in his pocket, beamed gratefully on Mr. Robison, gazed pityingly at the customers, and looked at the envelope. It said, “Mr. Richards.”
He gave the envelope to Mr. Richards, who had retreated into the private office. The broker opened it. It contained one of Robison's slips, on which was written:
Buy twenty thousand Con. Steel at the market.
J. B. Robison.
Richards rushed the order to the Board Room. It helped to steady the price. Presently Mr. Richards approached Robison and sat in the empty place beside him. Feeling that they were not wanted, two polite customers moved away, ostensibly not to hear; but they tried to listen just the same.
“Your order is executed, Mr. Robison.” Mr. Richards whispered it out of a corner of his mouth without turning his head, all the time looking meditatively at the quotation-board.
“Got the whole twenty?”
“Yes.”
“Good!”
“Do you think—” began the broker in a voice that would make flint turn to putty.
“I do!” cut in Robison. “I do, indeed! There is no telling what has happened. The sharpness of the break was intensified by two facts.” He had unconsciously raised his voice.
A startled look fastened itself on the seventeen faces of the seventeen customers who were short of Steel. The seventeen owners of the faces drew nearer to Mr. Robison, who, apparently unaware of having any other listener than Mr. George B. Richards, went on, nasally but amiably:
“By two things: First, the mystery. What has become of Mr. W. H. Garrettson? Second: If the great Garrettson has disappeared it must be because of a worse-than-death. Many things can be worse than death, in the stock-market—failure, for instance.”
“Oh, but that's out of the question.”
“Yes, it is! So is the disappearance of W. H. Garrettson, one of the best-known men in America, in broad daylight, in a crowded and very efficiently policed city thoroughfare.”
“Yes; but a failure—”
“When the Baring Brothers failed Englishmen the world over wouldn't believe it. They couldn't fail, you know!”
“Do you think—”
“No, I do not. I was merely objecting to the habit of loose assertions so characteristic of Wall Street. I told you to what two things I ascribed the sharpness of the break. Mystery is the greatest of all bull cards, as you all know. It may also be made to work on the bear side. Now it isn't likely that anything serious has happened to Mr. W. H. Garrettson. There would be no sense in murdering him—not even by a stock speculator; but, even if he is dead, the break in the Garrettson specialties has by now discounted that sad contingency. Therefore I should say prices ought to be touching bottom; and what ought to be generally is, in the stock-market. I fancy we'll hear, one way or another, very soon now. If the news is good the price of Steel will rebound smartly. If it is bad we'll at least know what to look to, and with the elimination of the mystery there should be a cessation of the selling. There will follow a rush to cover and then—There you are! I believe it's begun already. Fifty-nine; and a half; sixty; sixty-two! Get 'em back!”
The seventeen shorts in the room rushed to give their orders to cover and gloomily watched the massacre of the bears as melodramatized in figures on the quotation-board.
Sixty-three! Sixty-five! Sixty-seven! Higher than it had been before the newspaper extras came out! Big blocks were changing hands. W. H. Garrettson & Co. were buying the stock aggressively, even recklessly now. Somebody must pay—-and it wouldn't be the firm.
Amos Kidder rushed into the office. “He's found!” he yelled, excitedly, addressing Mr. Robison.
“Where was he?” asked Mr. Robison, very calmly.
“At home—damn 'im!”
“Why that, my boy?”
“He won't talk—says he was in his library all the time.”
“We know better than that. Don't we, Kidder?” said Robison, with a smile.
“Yes; but you don't have to print the official statement as though it were the truth, and I have. How can I say he lied when I can't prove that he wasn't in his library? If I knew the whole truth—”
“The whole truth?” echoed Mr. Robison, with the shade of a smile.
“Don't you know it?” Amos Kidder shot this at Mr. Robison suspiciously.
“Don't make me laugh, Kidder! Nobody knows the whole truth about anything. Take dinner with me to-morrow night—will you?”
“Yes.” There was a smoldering defiance—it wasn't suspicion exactly—in the newspaper man's voice and eyes.
“Good for you! Mr. Richards, please sell my Steel.”
“Now that Garrettson is—”
“Yes, now—at the market, carefully. Have I doubled my money in a week?”
“Yes.”
“I told you I would.”
“An accident is not a fair test of—”
“An accident is not a fair test of anything, because there is no such thing in the stock-market as an accident! The sooner you let that fact seep in the better it will be for the bank account of your children. I must be going up-town now. Good night, gentlemen.”
As early as practicable the next day, after the interest had been figured out to the ultimate penny, Mr. James Burnett Robison was informed by Mr. George B. Richards that he had to his credit the sum of $268,537.71 with the firm.
“I've won my bet!” murmured Mr. Robison, staring absently at the broker.
“You have indeed, Mr. Robison.” Richards spoke deferentially.
“H'm! I hope I can induce Ethel to—Mr. Richards, I'll thank you to sign this paper. There is a notary public up-stairs.”
This was the document:
To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
This is to certify that on July 18, 1912, Mr. James B. Robison opened an account with the firm of Richards & Tuttle, bankers and brokers, members of the New York Stock Exchange, by depositing with them the sum of $100,000. On July 23d he closed this account, which showed a net profit of $168,537.71.
A copy of the itemized statement, showing purchases and sales of stocks and prices paid and received, will be given to any one upon an order from Mr. James B. Robison.
For Richards & Tuttle:George B. Richards.
When Mr. George B. Richards had signed this certificate Mr. Robison said, amiably:
“If you wish I'll give you, in return, a letter testifying to the pleasure it has given me to trade in an office where they let customers more than double their money in one week.”
“Thank you. I hope you are not going to withdraw your account.”
“And I hope you will send and get me a hundred thousand dollars in new, clean hundred-dollar bills to give to the beneficiary of my wager. I told you it was easy to make money in Wall Street. You wouldn't have given me a certificate of sanity a week ago. What?”
“Oh yes, I would. But if you don't think my curiosity impertinent—”
“All curiosity in a stock-broker is a sign of intelligence; and intelligence, my dear Mr. George B. Richards, is never impertinent.” Mr. Robison smiled with such amiable sincerity that Richards felt flattered enough to blush.
“Thank you. But there is one thing I don't understand—” The broker paused; he was about to inquire into the personal affairs of a profitable customer. He did not wish commissions to stop.
Mr. Robison bowed his head acquiescingly and, as though it were his turn to speak, said:
“It is always wise for a man to have a number of things he doesn't understand. It affords occupation during idle moments, gives the mind healthy exercise, and, indeed, maintains a salutary interest in life. Humanity loves knowledge, but is fascinated by mystery. Is life interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because it is so important and you know so little about it. Is death interesting to you? Yes. Why? Because of death you know only the first letter of the first word of the first line of the first chapter of a big, black book—Mystery!”
“Yes,” murmured the dazed broker.
Robison continued, cheerfully: “My dear Mr. Richards, by all means don't understand! I'll drop in later in the day for the hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile pray continue to be mystified and unhappy, but interested, and believe me your sincere friend and well-wisher, James Burnett Robison.” With these words the man who looked like a Paris dude and talked like an actor with the voice of a down-east farmer, whose speech suggested insanity but whose deeds yielded him twenty-five thousand dollars a day, walked out of the office of his brokers.
A few hours later he received ten bundles of hun-dred-dollar bills, which he carelessly stuffed into his coat pocket, and then asked for a check for his balance. When George B. Richards regretfully complied and lachrymosely hoped Mr. Robison would reconsider his decision to close the account, Mr. Robison answered, very impressively:
“My dear Mr. Richards, if you were Rockefeller, would you work in a glue-factory for the pleasure of it? I don't need money and I hate the marketplace. If ever I decide that humanity needs more money than I personally possess I'll come back and take it out of Wall Street through Richards & Tuttle, at one-eighth of one per cent, commission and the state tax. Good day, sir!” And he left, Mr. Richards remembered just afterward and wondered, without shaking hands.
Amos Kidder dined with Mr. Robison that evening at Mr. Robison's hotel, the Regina.
“Americans,” explained the host, “always flock to the newest hotel on the theory that material progress is infallible and that the latest thing is necessarily the best thing. But cooking is not sanitary plumbing; it is an art! I am here not because of the journalistic, Sunday-special character of the filtered air and automatic temperature adjusters of this hotel, but because I discovered it had the best chef of all New York here. The food,” he finished, with an air of overpraising, “is almost as good as in my own house. Have you any favorite dishes or doctor's diet to follow?”
“No, thank Heaven! I'll eat and drink whatever you'll order,” replied the newspaper man.
“Thank you, Kidder—thank you!” said Mr. Robison, with an air of such profound gratitude that Kidder forgot to laugh. “I was hoping you would leave it to me to order the dinner; in fact, it is ordered. Thank you!” And he beckoned to themaître d'hôtel, who immediately hastened to the table and covered his face with a mask of extreme respectfulness. “You may begin to serve the dinner, Antoine,” said Robison, simply.
“Dewey at Manila!” thought Kidder, impressed in spite of himself. His Wall Street work and his friendship with millionaires had accustomed him to all sorts of extravagances, but he admitted to himself he had never eaten so unconsciously well in his life. Emboldened by the dinner and the heartwarming wine, and his own growing affection for the curious man who said remarkable things through his nose and did remarkable things in a remarkably matter-of-fact way, Kidder was inspired to say over the coffee:
“I'd like to ask you two questions—just two.”
“That's one more than Carlyle, who said that man had but one question to ask man, to wit: 'Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?'”
“O king, live forever!” said Kidder, saluting. “Thanks. Shoot ahead.”
“Did you know what was going to happen or were you really betting on the chance that Garrettson's absence meant something serious?” Kidder was looking at Robison with a steady gaze.
“There is, my dear boy, no such thing as chance. Irreligious people have invented chance to fill in a hiatus otherwise unbridgable. Right, my boy!” And Robison nodded.
“Your talks with Richards were mighty mysterious,” said Kidder, with an accusing tone of voice he could not quite control.
“So is the internal economy of a bug mysterious.”
“And your talk about the Lion eating the man and the International Cribbage Board—”
“But not exactly criminal, eh?”
“No; but—”
“Kidder, my rhetorical eccentricities are of no consequence. Suppose you call it a harmless desire to give to myself the importance of the inexplicable, or even an intent to confuse impressions by making the mind of the broker dwell more on the mysteriousness of the customer than on the possible meaning of that customer's trading. Do you wish me to tell you that I have a system for beating the ticker game? Because I sha'n't! But that I go about my business scientifically you yourself have seen. At least you are witness that I have won.”
“Yes; but—”
“What's the second question?”
“There isn't a second if you won't answer the first,” said Kidder, with the forced amiability of the foiled.
“I have answered it. What you really wish is a detective story. Suppose we imagine. The only real people are those that live in our minds. Now let us wonder what happened to Garrettson and why he will not tell. Here is an incident that precipitated a slump which had the semblance of a panic—short-lived though it was—that caused mental anguish to his friends, relatives, and associates; and yet that great genius of finance, Wall Street's demigod, says nothing.”
“He says he was in his library.”
“We know he lies. That makes it more serious. Why does he lie? What compels so powerful and courageous a man as the great Garrettson to lie?”
“I don't know.”
“You ought to; there is only one thing.”
“Do you mean fear of a petticoat scandal?”
“No; because Garrettson does not fear that. Being highly intelligent, he protects himself against all possibility of scandal. No. It is something else. It's fear!”
“Of the alleged kidnappers?”
“No. He doesn't fear men. But he might fear—” He paused.
“What?” eagerly asked the newspaper man.
“Ridicule!”
Kidder aimed what he fondly hoped was a piercing glance at Mr. Robison. He discovered nothing. Mr. Robison had a far-away look in his philosophical eyes.
“It's too much for me,” finally confessed Kidder, hoping that the frankness of his admission might induce Mr. Robison to speak on.
Robison smiled forgivingly, and said:
“You have what I may call the usual type of mind. You look at usual things in the usual way. And yet the application of well-known principles to well-known people seems to benumb your usual mind most unusually. Now what do you gather from the Garrettson episode?”
“Nothing, unless it is that you made a lot of money by what seems to be a most unusual succession of coincidences.”
“Your voice,” said Robison, with a sort of sedate amusement, “exudes suggestions of the penitentiary. The idea of law and order has become an instinct. The lawful is usual. The unusual, therefore, is unlawful. It puts the blessed era of scientific anarchy as far off as the old maids' millennium—or as the abolition of stupidity among bankers and—”
“And newspaper men—what?” Kidder prompted, pleasantly. “Don't mind me. I enjoy it.”
“Kidder, you are a nice chap! That's why I asked your Paris man for a letter of introduction to the financial editor of his newspaper. It gave me what I as a stranger needed in Wall Street. It was easy to get. It is an American failing to give such letters promiscuously, because we are an irresponsible people. I have, I suppose, voiced a suspicion of yours about me?”
“I did not have it. I have it now, however.”
“If we talk about poor me any longer you'll be asking for my aliases and my Bertillon measurements. Now let's get to Garrettson. We know he left his house in his carriage at his usual hour and that he did not arrive at his office. We have the evidence of his coachman—a man above suspicion—of the newspapers, and of the cigar-ashes. We know, for you heard Jenkins call up the house, that Mr. Garrettson was not at home. We know that his disappearance must have been connected with alarming circumstances or his partners would not have been so badly upset as to allow that reputation-shattering slump in the Garrettson shares—led, I am thankful to say, by Consolidated Steel. We know that Jenkins rushed up-town to the Cressline Hotel and found Dr. Pierson, but no Garrettson there, as had been tipped off, thereby increasing the mystery or suggesting that a bear clique was at work and was taking advantage of the obvious possibilities of the situation. Merely out of curiosity I found out that the hotel people had rented Suite D to a man calling himself W. H. Garrettson, who was accompanied by a veiled woman. It wasn't Garrettson, though.”
“How do you know?”
“It was clearly a ruse—having a woman. Don't you see it? The gossip that would—”
“Very ingenious; but—”
“At all events, Garrettson got back. We suspect he scolded his partners, and we know he gave out a statement to the reporters that was, to say the least, disingenuous. We know that, had it been any one but Garrettson, Wall Street would have seen stock-market strategy in his highly inconvenient disappearance.”
“Yes, yes; but—”
“Friend Kidder, let us evolve an explanation that explains. Let us form a syndicate of intelligent men!” He made a motion with his hand as if waving away the necessity of further elucidation.
“Friend Robison,” said Kidder, jocularly mimicking the older man's manner, “you are one of those unusual men whose speeches are better than his silences.Continuez, s'il vous plaît.”
“Intelligent men, deprecating alike violence and the immoderate accumulation of wealth by others. To reduce such wealth would be their object.”
“A band of robbers?”
“No; an aggregation of philosophers.”
“None the less crooks.”
“No; since they would take from crooks, annexing only that class of wealth which is called tainted! They would take plunder from the plunderers, themselves pardonable plunderers. That would give to the syndicate a confidence in itself and a faith in its righteousness that would make success easy. How would they go about making Wall Street contribute to the fund? Now they must have seen that Garrettson's life was a bull factor, and his death a bear card. But they had old-fashioned, unphilosophical scruples against murder. Moreover, the sensational disappearance of Garrettson would serve even better than his death. Problem: How to kidnap Garrettson? Or, better still: How to make Garrettson kidnap himself? Simplicity itself!”
“It I am Dr. Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, consider me gazing on you with admiration. And so—”
“The time would be when the Street was full of people long of Con. Steel and the newspapers full of articles showing the greatness of W. H. Garrettson. If I, who merely desired to trade in a few thousand shares, studied Garrettson's habits, think of the syndicate playing for millions! They learn about his daily carriage trip to his office. The rest is obvious, even to you—isn't it?” Mr. Robison gazed benignantly at his guest.
“No; it isn't obvious to me—or to any one else,” retorted Kidder, sharply.
“You still think I am Delphic or a crook? My dear Kidder, how can you ask me to insult your intelligence by filling in the obvious gaps in an obvious way?”
“Insult ahead.”
“Very well. Mr. Garrettson is sane in everything except in the matter of collecting MSS. At five minutes to nine a man goes to his house—an impressive stranger, well-dressed, cold-eyed, with the aristocratic attitude toward servants that sees in them merely pieces of furniture. He tells the footman in a dehumanized voice that he must see Mr. Garrettson. The footman tells the butler. The butler comes out. The stranger says to the butler: 'I am leaving for Europe this morning. Tell Mr. Garrettson he will see me at once or not at all. Give him this paper and show him this sheet. Make haste!' The dazed butler gives Mr. Garrettson the paper, which is apparently the first page of theKnickerbocker History of New York. The memorandum informs Mr. Garrettson: 'I have, in their entirety, the MSS. of this history, Cooper's “Spy,” Poe's “Goldbug,” three love-letters of George Washington to Mrs. Glendenning, and no less than sixteen signed letters of Thomas Lynch, the one signer of the Declaration of Independence whose autograph is really rare.' Of course Mr. Garrettson would see the stranger!”
“The sheet supposed to be the first page of Irving'sKnickerbocker Historyis a forgery, so well done as to writing, paper, and ink as to make Garrettson's mouth water for the rest. He has the stranger taken into the library and shows him various rare MSS., the history of which the stranger knows, thereby growing in Garrettson's estimation, particularly since Garrettson does not know how carefully the stranger has prepared himself for this same selfchosen test. But the man is a lunatic, for he wishes Garrettson to give him fifty thousand dollars and five fifteenth-century enamels for the MSS., sight unseen. They argue and haggle and fight. Time thus passes. While Garrettson and the lunatic are quarreling, the Garrettson coupé and the coachman are waiting outside as usual.
“As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is the usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man running from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with a horsewhip; also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This attracts the coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street from the Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the coachman has turned his head away from his master's house on the left to the horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé slam—a rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and prepares to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always the office. While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has come out of the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done every day for thirty years.
“Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to the house—a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery, a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him say, 'Beg pardon—here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. H. Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives away, sure that his master is within. His customary route has been studied and it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage arrive at the office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because he was in the library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has in readiness an exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, and even of the coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do come out, Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is driven away—but not to his office! And there you are.”
“Do you really think that is what happened?”
“It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.”
“It is very fine—only it cannot happen.”
“Why not?”
“The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.”
“If you knew the history of our old New York families you would recall the episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English and stiff-necked, one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, thinking he carried his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed in the carriage by the footman before the old lady had gotten in—and usually the old lady got in first and the lap-robe followed.”
“But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the cigar-ashes were there on the floor!”
“The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of making Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled newspapers clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered seeing Garrettson get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of memory.”
“Oh, well—”
“Oh, well, it merely means that progressive people keep posted. Here, let me read you what Henry Rutgers Marshall, an American psychologist, better known to the learned bodies of Europe than to benighted compatriots like you, has to say about this. I copied it:
“Few of our memories are in any measure fully accurate as records; and under certain conditions, which arise more frequently than most of us realize, the characteristics of the memory-experience may appear in connection with images, or series of images, which are not revivals of any actual past events. In such cases the man who has such a memory-experience, automatically following his usual mode of thought, accepts it as the revival record of an actual occurrence in his past life. When we are convinced that this is not the case we say that he has suffered from an 'illusion of memory.'”
“The term 'illusion of memory' thus appears to be something of a misnomer. What we are really dealing with is a real memory-experience, but one by which we are led to make a false judgment—and this because the judgment, which in this special case is false, is almost invariably fully justified.
“A man of unquestioned probity is thus often led to make statements in regard to his experience in the past that have not the least foundation in fact.”
“But, when Garrettson came out of his house do you mean to say he wouldn't notice a different coachman?” Kidder looked incredulous in advance of the answer.
“He wouldn't be looking for a different coachman and, therefore, he wouldn't find one. The imitation was close enough to show nothing unusual, nothing different. A lifelong habit never develops introspective misgivings. No, my boy; Garrettson never noticed. Of course the coachman drove to some place or other and left the great financier a prisoner in the cab.”
“How?”
“By making the door of the coupé impossible to open from the inside, so that Garrettson was compelled finally to climb out of the window, a matter of some difficulty to a man of his years and weight. The rest you know.”
“I don't.”
“I don't, either, if you use that tone of voice. But I imagine that, since there was nothing illegal or violent thus far, the syndicate continued to be intelligent. For instance, they might have made it impossible for Garrettson to escape from the carriage-room of the private stable whither he was taken, carriage and all, except by going through a lot of cobwebs and coal-dust and stable litter. As he emerged from the coal-chute a photographer could take pictures of him—no hero of a thrilling escape from desperate criminals, but just a plain chump, full of dirt and soot and mud and manure, hatless, grimy, and unscathed! A quickly developed photographic plate, a print, and a line or two would, of course, make him keep the entire affair mum on the eve of the most gigantic of his promotions—the Intercontinental Railway Consolidation. Indeed, Garrettson can use the break in prices and the recovery of the market to increase his prestige by pointing out how important not only his life is, but, indeed, his physical presence.”
“But the syndicate—”
“It might have been short a hundred thousand shares of the Garrettson stocks, on which it made an average profit of eight or ten points. Well, my friend Kidder, we'll just about have time to see the last act of Bohême. Come on!”
Amos Kidder, torn by conflicting emotions, grateful for an epoch-making dinner, interested as never before by his host's conversation, talked a great deal about it, but it was only months afterward that he finally knew.
One day he received three photographs. One showed the great Garrettson in the act of emerging from a coal-hole. His clothes were a sight and his face was much more! Another showed Garrettson dusting himself of cobwebs and wisps of stable litter. The photographs explained why Garrettson had not told the reporters where he had spent that fateful forenoon—and why he had not tried to learn to whom he was indebted for his misadventure. Accompanying the photographs was this letter:
Sir,—We send you herewith photographs of the great Mogul of Wall Street in the act of leaving the house whither he was taken on a certain morning. The house number Was removed so he could not identify the house. We are sure you can reconstruct the story of the famous forenoon by what you know and by what you can guess. This syndicate of ours was formed to reduce the tainted wealth of our compatriots, and is still operating successfully. If we ever send you a telegram in code, read it by taking the first two letters of each word—except only the first word, which is always the abbreviation of a name. We take the trouble to tell you this because your paper was of great use to us, as we intended it should be, and because we expect to use you again very shortly. You might compare notes with Mr. Boon, the jeweler. Once more thanking you for your benevolence, we remain,
Respectfully,
The Plunder Recovery Syndicate.
Kidder showed this letter to Richards. “Let us see,” said Richards, “whether we can now read the cablegram that Robison left with the office-boys, with a reward for the successful translator.”
He rang the bell, sent for the message, and applied the test; it worked!
“Mogulgar must stand for Garrettson, the great Mogul of Wall Street,” said Richards. He was one of those men who always are glad to discover the obvious.
“Yes. 'Will vanish two hours Wed.' Well, he certainly did. It proves it really was planned. But I am not sure this was a bona-fide cablegram. Possibly Robison himself faked it.”
“Why don't you find out?” suggested the broker. “I will,” said Kidder, and he did. He learned that neither the telegraph nor the cable companies had any record of the deluge of messages received by Robison in the brokers' office.
“They were fakes, probably to carry out the appearance of reality,” said Richards, with a Sherlock Holmes nod of explanation.
“Yes, yes,” acquiesced Kidder, impatiently; “but what astonishes me is the syndicate's moderation. I wonder what they'll do next.”
“I wonder,” echoed the broker, who really was wondering whether the market was going up or down.
Kidder, however, went up-town and saw Jesse L. Boon. He told Boon all he knew and much that he suspected, and Boon in return admitted that Welch, Boon & Shaw “had lost a few pieces”—but not for publication. Such things are bound to happen, and are charged to profit and loss. Kidder knew better, but all that he could do was to pray that he might again cross the trail of the plunder-recoverer who had called himself Robison.