Therewas little trouble getting the assignment; in fact, the authorities were glad some one was willing to tackle the case, for it had become a nightmare and a stench, but it was a case of "don't begin unless you can finish it." Others had given it up, perhaps because of the press of other work. I was amply warned that it was a hard nut to crack, and I had a fair chance of making a failure of it. Yes, the railroad and packing-house people would coöperate and do all they could. I was told to go over and see Mr. Powell, the New Orleans agent, who all but went crazy over it, and work out a plan with him.
Before night I was on the payroll of the Yazoo, with a private office and a sub-title of some sort under the auditor, having decided to begin on the perishable freight records, or rather it was necessary for me to have them under my hand, as they were set down each day, though with little confidence that they would yield results.
"I don't know what kind of a clerk I can giveyou, for the whole system is short of help, but I will do the best I can," Mr. Powell assured me, placing at my disposal the voluminous reports on the cases settled, and those that were still pending, unsettled, with the shippers.
There was hardly room for the female clerk and myself to move about in the room after the perishable records were all in there—big volumes of yellow tissue made it look like a storehouse, though they only extended back to the time of the first loss.
In addition to this arrangement it was generally given out that the night business on the wharf tracks had been so largely increased by the heavy movement of fruit that an extra man was to be put on to work opposite Hiram, who went on at four a. m., and came off at three p. m. As the general office was uptown, more than a mile from the dock tracks, it was unlikely that I would be noticed working in the dual capacity of night clerk on the wharf and something or other under the auditor in the general offices. But in this we soon found we had miscalculated.
When Hiram learned the arrangement he wasjubilant. In an incredibly short time he had come to look on my capacity to clear up a mystery as unlimited. The joy of anticipation supplanted fear, but he did not fully recover his old, buoyant, optimistic self.
He never mentioned Anna Bell Morgan, but I was sure he thought of her about all the time he was not busy.
"Ben," he began one night, laughing, "did you send your friend in New York another sample of those steel filings on which we are paying storage? I believe you will soon graduate into the 'Prince of conmen,' or a second-story worker. I tell you it takes a pretty good man to stop me in the middle of the street and subtract three-fifty from my jeans for a half-interest in a barrel of junk."
"No, not yet, but I expect to soon."
But after I had been working in the dual rôle of wharf night clerk and assistant auditor for a week and nothing happened, he began to get uneasy, but somehow did not doubt the final outcome.
We usually ate dinner together, then we would come down to his little office in the corner of thewharf and he would stay with me until his early bed-time.
"How long are you going to stand this night-and-day business? I don't see when you get any sleep?" he asked, evidently edging over for some information, not volunteered.
"One doesn't need much sleep on a loafing job like this. You see, there is little to do here nights, and less in the day time, so I manage pretty well." I had told him little about my office work.
"Why can't I stay here every other night for you, so that you can get more sleep? I can stand it."
"I don't look as though I was getting thin, do I? By the way, who is that fat party I notice about here occasionally, who seems to be interested in loading for Becker & Co.?"
"You mean that fellow whose face looks like over-ripe cow's liver, and waddles, and whose clothes are smelly?"
"Yes, I think that is the man," I replied, smiling.
"That is Becker himself. He buys all the rejects of the city's provision inspectors and almost anything that's got grease or fertilizer in it. He usedto load that stuff during the day, but they got to making a fuss about his taking it through the street and made him handle it at night, when graveyards hold their noses. Gad, I always hate to see him coming."
"Becker & Co., fertilizer works?"
"Yes, somewhere up the river."
The next morning I was late and was hurrying into the building occupied by the auditor, in which I had my office. It contained more than four stories, was about two hundred feet long, with a wide hall through the center of each floor. The room assigned to me was on the third floor, and was reached by narrow stairs.
When I passed the second floor I saw Becker at the far end of the hall talking to a young woman clerk, and I was sure I saw him pinch her cheek, and furthermore, I was absolutely certain that the object of his frolicsome caress was my clerk, who entered the office immediately after me. She appeared to be somewhat flustered, and her cheeks flamed with color.
The incident was not particularly significant, but enough to make me want to know all about Mr.Becker, of Becker & Co., fertilizer manufacturers, and also about the young woman who compiled my data and wrote my letters.
I recalled that our association had been so perfunctory that I failed to remember her name. She took dictation well, was a good typist and her records were neat. Withal she worked hard. Like good oil on bearings, she made the wheels go round without attracting my attention.
Ideal office assistants try to make themselves into humanized machines. Miss Bascom had accomplished this so well that I had to inquire about her name even after a week's service.
My desk was near the hall entrance, while hers was over near the window, partially obscured by stacks of records. She was, on closer inspection, more than comely, and the way she punched the keys of the typewriter indicated she was purposeful—not an accident. That she could allow a greasy, uncouth man like Becker to make up to her seemed absurd. More to amuse Hiram, I mentioned the matter to him that night.
"My Heavens," said he, holding his nose between finger and thumb, "it would take a pretty strongstomach to stand for that fellow—but you can't tell! Maybe there are enough dollar signs on his face to make up for his smelly clothes and age. But, even in my palmiest days of riot, the 'beauty and beast' idea was a shock—too much 'bargain and sale' to suit me"—and I believe he was wondering if Anna Bell Morgan would ever succumb to such a love for the sake of money.
"Hiram, I don't quite sympathize with your attitude toward Miss Morgan. Are you sure you are doing the right thing?"
"Perhaps not," he replied, thoughtfully, as we walked down the wharf. "It may be the pendulum has swung the other way and I am at the farthest point away from her. But after all, that is something one must settle for himself. She promised to wait in absolute silence until I had the matter straightened. And again, perhaps you don't understand—they have a different code here."
I waited for him to continue, looking westward across the shipping in the river at the setting sun, now enlarged into a great ball of dull red fire. Another moment and it would perish from sight behind the waters of the Gulf.
"You see, Ben, down here they have a way of making a man feel he is either something or nothing. If something, he respects women, and must protect them. Women are either good or bad. If good they receive every consideration; it is expected—demanded. The ways of New York would not be tolerated here, and it is perfectly right they should not be.
"Mormonism, and other degeneracy, usually dubbed 'Bohemianism,' doesn't go here. Fathers, big brothers, or next of male kin stand guard for the women of the South. When they put a bullet through a licentious scoundrel the judge shakes hands with them. And it's the same way about honor. If a man's honesty is in question he has no business to compromise a good woman's name by forcing his attentions upon her. When he has cleared himself it is time enough to straighten things out. So, if our love will not stand the strain of waiting it's no good—not love, at all."
The next day at the noon hour I saw my female clerk in a certain situation that led me into all sorts of information. Miss Bascom of the goldenlocks was openly dangling her feminine charms before Chief Clerk Burrell.
I had only to glance through an open door from the hall on my floor into a long room occupied by a lot of clerks of which he had charge as chief. Evidently he was a married man, and of a species easily susceptible.
I would have continued to think it was a case of old-fashioned man hunting to win free board and a little credit at the stores, had it not been reported by a man detailed at my request to see just what kind of smoke Mr. Becker was making during his stay in New Orleans. There was a lengthy conference that night between Burrell and Becker, of Becker & Company, with liberal quantities of gin fizz on the side, in a private room back of a prominent hotel bar.
This was exceedingly interesting and filled with possibilities—a party of three, two men and a woman, an unusually attractive young woman at that, and all were interested in the movement of freight, with this difference, that Becker might be the chief beneficiary, and both men might be rising to the lure of beauty.
I spent most of that night looking up the antecedents of this interesting trio and did not go down to the wharf, but went to bed just before Hiram arose to go to work. Burrell, I found, lived with his wife and two children and was inclined to be sporty; Becker was a rounder, and the girl was just a clerk before she came to me.
I heard Hiram leaving the house and had not been sleeping long before a messenger came from him, requesting me to hurry down to the wharf. I had asked him to send for me the instant the next irregularity was observed.
He was very much excited when I got there, as were also the Government meat inspector and the packing-house representative. The three of them, together as usual, had broken the seals of a Kansas City car of fresh sausages in ten-pound cartons, and about half of it, from the center of the car, was gone. This could be seen at a glance.
The four of us went into Hiram's little office at the corner of the wharf. He was so furious that he had become stoical, even sullen, which was promptly misunderstood by the Government inspector and the packing-house agent as proof ofguilt. In order to protect him and get a full expression from them I took the attitude of favoring their view. He did not quite understand this and felt it keenly.
Each of them was ready, like dogs held in leash, to spring at his throat. But it might have been a sorry leap: Hiram was magnificent under such fire. Surely the Gold-Beater had given him good blood and a fighting spirit if nothing else.
"Strong," I began, in a somewhat authoritative manner, "have you preserved the railroad's seal that was on this car?"
"Yes—here it is—I have been saving and marking every one."
Then it developed that the Government inspector and the packing-house agent had been doing the same thing, and all three were handed to me. After that, at my suggestion, we went out and removed the seals from the unopened door on the other side of the car, which I took charge of after they had been carefully marked. I then suggested they go about their duties and routine as though nothing had happened.
I had decided on a secret, drastic inquisition. Theax must fall now and cut where it would, the details of which shall be avoided, only so far as they concern this son of a man who was given the credit of beating gold—who owned the gold instead of it owning him.
I could still feel Hiram's flesh quiver under my touch when I tried to assure him, by a pressure on his arm, as I was leaving.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was four o'clock in the morning, I began the job by summoning by telephone the rotund and hairless Superintendent Kitchell from his bed, and reminding him of his promise to help me at any time. Besides, this was his funeral anyhow, that was to be held at ten o'clock that morning in Hiram's little office on the wharf.
I then demanded the presence of every man who had handled that car—the loaders, the icers, weighmasters, conductors, dispatchers and the yard-men between Kansas City and New Orleans, something over a thousand miles of road. Those who could not be there in so short a time must telegraph a transcript of their records, in affidavit form. Thesworn records were finally decided on as the only thing possible in so short a time.
"I will come down to the general office and start the necessary machinery, but the time, less than six hours, is too short—it can't be done," he said, evidently lashing himself out of the drowse and comprehending the magnitude of the order.
"The iron is hot and now is the time to strike," I warned.
"All right, we will do the best we can. I'll get the agent and be there anyhow."
"No; that's just what I don't want. This investigation must not attract attention. Your presence there would only advertise it. After we are through you can have all the data, and do as you wish," I insisted, having in mind to assume an attitude that would allow Hiram to work out his own salvation if possible. The only way is to expose a weak or yellow spot, so that he would see it for himself.
Superintendent Kitchell again demonstrated that he was not an accident. Before ten o'clock that morning he had accomplished almost the impossible. The wire that Hiram worked for a while was soon hot with sworn statements from every manwho had anything to do with that car, from its loading until it landed on the wharf. It remained for Hiram, the Agent of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and the local packing-house agent to open the car.
I glanced over the mass of stuff before handing it to Hiram.
The shipping clerk of the packing-house swore that there was put in the car six thousand cartons, each ten pounds net weight, of prime loose sausages. This was verified by the affidavit of a checker, then a second and third checker, before the doors were sealed by agents of the Government, packing-house and railroad agents. The railroad weighmaster's figures on the track scale verified that. It was loaded and iced in zero weather, so that no delay was necessary for re-icing all the way to New Orleans.
A verified transcript of train sheets of all the train dispatchers of both roads showed that the car came in a solid train of perishable provisions, over the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad to Memphis, without longer pause than to change engines at the end of each division, where it was delivered to the Yazoo and weighed again—which weighttallied with the Kansas City weight—and traveled into New Orleans on passenger time. All this without incident or delay of any kind, and delivered on the unloading wharf track at 2:30 a. m.
When I took the records to Hiram and told him what they were, I found him going about his work as usual. His attitude was disconcerting. Were his hands clean? One could have taken him for a man who had been caught with the goods. If guilty, I had little chance to shield him.
He carried his head erect, his stride was sure and determined, but he had a glitter that indicated a tumult inside, with an attitude of suspicious aloofness. The erstwhile mirthful smile on his lips was now supplanted by one of sarcastic severity, but a smile that evidently meant much. I would have given the world just then to know what. However, all he would say was: "Ben, this is a devil of a mess and I am in the center of it."
Afterleaving the sworn records with Hiram I started for my temporary offices uptown. I wanted him to have time to thoroughly digest them.
At that time we had not been at war long and the public mind of New Orleans was in a very excited condition. The big interrogation point was raised on every person whose acts did not bear instant analysis. Pacifists and enemy aliens were promptly and vigorously coerced into outward decency at least. No trifling was permitted.
These continued thefts from the railroad might mean much more than a risky enterprise for profit. I was given to understand that while time enough would be allowed, definite results were expected soon.
When I reached my office, my clerk, Miss Bascom, seemed to be expecting me. Her greeting, though intended to be casual, was so gladsome I wondered if she was trying to practice on me the same brand of coquetry she used on the chief clerk—Burrell—orwas it to be a wheedling process? Surely I was justified in expecting something and I awaited the onset with great interest, convinced that she was playing a rôle. One of Miss Bascom's duties was to prepare for me each day a record of every car that arrived on Hiram's wharf or departed therefrom.
The first sheets of outbound records of the day were of cars from Becker & Co. to Becker & Co., Becker's Landing, Louisiana, and the time of departure was marked 3:30. I began to wonder if it was purely accidental that they were on the top; then came an exciting moment when I recalled that a car of sausages arrived at 2:30. But the insuperable difficulty of making the transfer, replacing the seals, and the like, reassured me.
I gave Miss Bascom the two slips and requested her to get me a memo of the contents of those two cars. As she went about the errand I wondered how such a refined looking young woman could ally herself with that carcass of rancid tallow whose very clothing emitted an odor which advertised his business.
Miss Bascom returned in a few moments and laidthe two slips before me without comment, hesitating at the end of my desk, indicating interest and willingness to be of further assistance. On the bottom of each slip was delicately penciled "Soap Grease." I knew that plebeian soap grease was worth more than prime lard had been a short time ago, but why the precaution of shipping in refrigerator cars?
"Do you happen to know this shipper—Becker & Co.?" I decided to venture, uncertain whether Miss Bascom knew I had seen them together in the hall.
Miss Bascom backed to the end of my desk and laid a very pretty elbow on top, the better to display her figure—palpable acting, so it seemed to me. Her speech had a Southern accent which lends itself to dissimulation. "Yes," she replied, "he is an important patron of the road, and is about the office considerably. Everybody knows him." She did not meet my eye, but looked at the door leading to the hall expectantly. At that moment a boy burst into the room wholly unannounced, laid a telegram addressed to me on my desk, and was gone as quickly as he came.
"I wonder why they ship that kind of freight in refrigerator cars—the rate is much higher," I said, shoving the telegram back unopened.
"I think I heard him tell Mr. Burrell one day he could afford to pay extra in order to receive his freight the same day," she replied with a naïveté difficult to simulate.
"Miss Bascom, stop the work you are now on and prepare an abstract from these records of all freight sent by refrigerator cars to Becker & Co. during the last twelve months," I requested after weighing the chance that she might be working with Becker and Chief Clerk Burrell and the disadvantage of their knowing through her that an investigation was proceeding along those lines.
Miss Bascom seemed unwilling to think the interview ended or perhaps was disappointed it had yielded so little, but finally removed her elbow, and, nonplussed, passed her small white hand over her eyes and hair, so unusually bronze that one might suspect that it was "chemically pure." As she slowly passed behind me to her desk she half murmured to herself, "I wish I were a man."
"I suppose you would be wearing a soldier's uniformif you were," said I, assuming a semi-preoccupied attitude.
"That's on the basis that a uniform makes a dull person look intelligent," she rejoined, looking seriously out of the window over her desk.
I was reading my telegram and was too much astonished at its contents to reply. It was from the chemist in New York to whom I had sent a larger sample from the partnership barrel Hiram and I had in storage.
Thedispatch was very interesting indeed. I was about to go down and show the telegram to Hiram, the contents of which would astonish him more than it did me, at least cheer him up a bit, but when I reached the street something happened to intensify my interest in Becker & Co. I ran into a man I very much wanted to talk with.
"Taylor, you are just the man I want to see," said he. "Come to lunch with me." It was the chief's assistant who grabbed me by the arm and led me into a nearby restaurant.
"I have just left the chief," the assistant continued, after we had seated ourselves, "and he has given me a hard nut to crack; complaints have piled up from wholesale and retail dealers that bad meat, hams and lard—even horse-meat—have appeared in this market, which bear the genuine stamps and tags of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and it has started a devil of a row," he whispered across the table. "You are still working on that car robbery case, andI thought you might pick up something for me. Who is Becker & Co.?" He ended by asking this question so suddenly that I could scarcely conceal my astonishment.
"I know there is a concern by that name, with a plant up the river somewhere. They are quite heavy shippers," I replied easily.
"You can get the freight records and perhaps give me a line on their operations, can't you?"
I knew then that Becker & Co. had been mentioned in some of the complaints. Before parting I promised to have some information for him by the next morning.
I spent the rest of the afternoon obtaining commercial reports on them and making arrangements to have their mail censored, and I did not reach my room until dinner time.
The door was open as usual between our rooms. Glancing into the other room, I saw Hiram lying on his bed asleep, which was something unusual for him, and there was something about his color that drew my attention at once. He did not stir when I came alongside the bed.
He was lying on his back with his head comfortablypillowed and his arms relaxed at his sides like a corpse. His face was bloodless, and his high, wavy black hair intensified by the white pillow. It reminded me of the time I saw him in the hospital at Hampton, Virginia, after his fearful experience in firing on the steamer; but his body had now filled out and was even athletic.
He was either very tired or—or had he lapsed into drink again—or was it drugs?
Though usually a light sleeper, my touch on his wrist did not arouse him; his pulse was regular, and bending low, I could not detect the fumes of liquor. No, Hiram Strong, Jr., was just tired out—worried into fatigue that called for sleep. He was going through the fire that either refines or destroys. Would he stand it? That was my anxiety as I returned to my room to prepare for dinner.
"Ben, is that you?" he called presently in a sleepy voice.
For answer I came to the door, wiping my hands and looking interested.
"I fell asleep waiting for you to come, Ben. I want to tell you that I acted the damned cad this morning." Then coming over, he put two stronghands on my shoulders and looked straight at me with clear eyes.
"Ben," he continued, as though suddenly realizing he was taking himself too seriously, "I know you are on the square with me, I know you are doing everything you can for me, but your movements are maddeningly deliberate. You act as though you were an old-stager at the game and was going sure. But I feel like I was bound hand and foot with these fellows darting javelins into my skin every time they look at me; and you know I can't see Anna Bell Morgan until——" He dropped his hands from my shoulders and looked out of the window. "Perhaps I am expecting too much—you cleaned up that Quarryville matter so——"
"But, Hiram, this is a big matter, reaching God only knows how far. It involves a number of men, clever in crookedness, and perhaps women. There's more to it than a bone-headed, love-sick German and a case of dynamite. The amounts involved are big, and it must move slowly. I know how you feel, but you've got to grin and bear it. But about Anna Bell Morgan, I think you are foolish. If she is the kind of girl you should marry she would want verymuch to stand by you. But if you adopt a drastic code of your own and insist on living up to it, how can she or any one help you in that respect?"
"Ben," he began deliberately, after taking a chair and cocking himself back against the window-sill, "I know that Anna Bell Morgan wants to help me. I am nursing the delusion, perhaps, that she would give one of her hands—make any sacrifice—but I don't believe a real man, under similar circumstances, would bid for help from the woman whom he really loves. If this thought proves a delusion I must stand it somehow, but I don't believe I will ever have faith in a woman again. I am beginning to see things differently now. I can see more and more why the Gold-Beater was given that name by friend and enemy. He fought fair and in the open and took punishment without a whimper. Ben, he made a mistake with me, but he gave me a decent sense of honor, and lately I realize he has given me a good-sized body that will stand real punishment. No, sir, my 'drastic code,' as you call it, has got to go. And now, with that out of my system, I am going to give you a real shock."
Then, with exasperating deliberation, he lightedhis pipe, drew his feet up on the lower front rungs of his chair, meanwhile watching me as I walked back and forth before him intensely interested.
"I am going to quit the railroad and——"
"No, you are not—not now——" I warned. But he interrupted me as I paused in front of him, pointing a finger at him, and I soon saw that I might as well have raised my arm to stay the flood of Niagara.
"I expected you to protest until——"
"But they will think——"
"I don't care a damn what they think now. I've got to do it and you've got to help me," he said with set jaw.
"But just now that would be suicide——"
"No—not after I explain—I don't intend to run away—I am going to stay right here the remainder of my life if necessary and clear this thing up; I've got to. But I can't do it working all day until I'm woozy. Now, you have got to help me."
"But I think you are hasty——"
"You won't think so after I have stated my case. I am going to constitute you the court, attorney for the prosecution and defense, and the jury; in fact,give you all constitutional rights except my right of appeal; that will enable a quick decision and that's what I'm after right now—before we go to dinner," he ended with his wonderfully contagious smile that seemed impossible only a few minutes ago.
He continued to sit cocked back in his chair against the window-sill with his legs drawn up so his feet rested on the lower rungs, blowing smoke at me, as I paced back and forth before him across the room.
"Well—go ahead," I said finally.
"First let me tell you why you've got to help me. You have the know-how and more general experience, and can do it. I take it you are 'in right' in New Orleans. You can help me when you are helping yourself. I believe in you thoroughly—except—except perhaps when you go off on a little tangent, like you did when you put that barrel of iron filings in storage, and made me pay half——" He hesitated, smiling broadly. I did not reply, and he continued, "but even that has its advantages, because it makes me smile whenever I think of it and that's worth something. And that brings me to the second reason why you must help me. There issomething about your long nose that seems to smell out things pretty well, your general attitude toward me and everything, that awakens a sense of humor. If they put me in jail, and you come to see me, I believe I could see the humorous side of that, even. Now do you understand?" he asked, relieved and confident.
"I am waiting to hear why you propose to resign," I insisted, ignoring his complimentary terms as directed toward me.
"I'll make that short enough—as long as I stay at work there I don't have time or ginger to do anything else. I believe that Becker is the head of the stealing—I have got several tips lately and I believe he's the man. Several train-men, who learned I was in trouble, informed me that his place up the river is queer. In ordinary water it is an island, between the track and the river, the switch running to it over piles, and several times when they rode cars into his unloading doors they have seen things they believe will bear investigation. But it's going to be hard to get into the old fox's place. He receives by rail from here and the north, too, but ships out everything by an old boat on the river."
"Now"—hesitated Hiram shrewdly—"that car of sausage that was short the other night sat on track One—exactly opposite two cars that were loaded for him on track Two. The space between cars on those two tracks is so narrow that I was nearly killed one day between them; the time between the arrival of the sausage car and the departure of his cars was only a little more than half an hour, but it was between 2:30 and 3:30 a. m., when no one was there, and I believe the transfer was made in that time—do you follow me?"
"Yes—go ahead. But what about the three seals being intact when you opened the car?"
"I knew you would ask that—but I believe, with help from those 'higher up,' and the seals could be had—stolen of course. There are two hard nuts to crack; one is the seals, and the other is to get into his place—and that's where you must help."
"Now here is another funny thing." Hiram hesitated to bring from his hip pocket an envelope. "Some one who knew my full name sent this to me, care of the office," and he read from a typewritten slip of paper,
"Why does Becker & Co. get freight by rail and ship out only by water?"
I stopped in front of him and reached for the slip to examine it critically.
"Hiram—let me keep this?" It looked like railroad stationery.
"Yes—help yourself."
"Have you any plan to get into Becker & Co.'s plant?" I asked, recalling that I had not mentioned that I suspected them, and that this was the third definite lead in that direction.
"He is a foxy old rat and would take any ordinary bait off a trap and send it to you by mail. The only thing I can think of is a boat—maybe I didn't tell you it is a fertilizer plant and uses lots of dead animals. With a boat to take him some of this stock, one might finally get to carrying his river freight at a cut price and that would open the door wide."
"But boats that will carry even a little freight are scarce now."
"Yes, I know that—but we've got to have a boat. Buy it, build it, or dig one out of the mud somewhere."
"You have made out a pretty good case, Hiram. I will think it over—in the meantime this may interest you," I said, handing him the telegram I had received from the chemist. Though half fearing it a joke, he sprang from his chair and took it eagerly.
Standingin the middle of the floor Hiram read the missive several times. He seemed amazed as well as incredulous. Finally, as he read it with evident desire to grasp its meaning thoroughly, his face lighted up with joy. "Bully stuff!" he exclaimed. Then he read it aloud:
"The larger sample of color received. The market just now is particularly bare of this grade. Can get you unusual price of a dollar a pound. If satisfactory ship Morgan Line, send memo. of weight and will forward check at once."Morgenstein & Brun."
"The larger sample of color received. The market just now is particularly bare of this grade. Can get you unusual price of a dollar a pound. If satisfactory ship Morgan Line, send memo. of weight and will forward check at once.
"Morgenstein & Brun."
"Then it's not steel filings—you never told me," he said finally, laughingly grasping my shoulders.
"You insisted it was filings, your railroad insisted it was junk, and you sold it for junk as instructed, so why the argument?"
"No argument at all, Ben; the Morgan Line steamer sails to-morrow. Sell the stuff and buy aboat. I've saved some money, but boats are scarce and high. I haven't enough—what d'ye say, eh?"
"You haven't found a boat to buy yet, and maybe you will not need one—besides, if Morgenstein & Brun offer a dollar a pound and are in a hurry, it may be worth more—I only asked them for an analysis to know for certain what it was. I didn't ask for a market," I insisted formally.
"But you may miss the only chance—and—we need the money. We've got to have a boat," he said, visibly disappointed.
"So far we are out less than a ten-dollar bill and can afford to take a chance—as I say, we must first decide definitely that a boat is necessary, and then the hardest part comes—everything from a row-boat up is working overtime now."
"Maybe you are right, but if it was up to me I would sell it so infernally quick it would make 'em dizzy," he replied, manifestly consumed with the single idea of releasing himself from suspicion.
"Don't resign, Hiram," I said, hesitating, before going out of the room to dine, "until I have had a chance to speak to the Super to-morrow. I think I will be able to arrange it so that you can be releasedto devote all of your time to clearing up this matter and remain in the employ of the company. You will see the decided advantage of the plan, later."
"All right, Ben—but bear in mind that as soon as I get out of this I am going to quit 'em for good; there's something else for me to do in this town. The railroad game is too strenuous at best for the returns. It's good drill and I'm glad to get the experience and discipline, but the returns are a minus quantity."
During the meal he mentioned his father several times, to whom he always referred as "the Gold-Beater," but he more frequently mentioned Anna Bell Morgan. In fact, had I not purposely changed the subject he would have talked of her constantly. I could not tell him I thought it a great error for him to completely suspend communication with her. A big city offers enticements that a country-bred girl does not always understand at first. I could see he writhed under the stigma of being thought a member of a gang of crooks, and was most powerfully propelled by two most laudable motives. He wanted to redeem himself in his father's eyes, butmost compelling was his desire to be able to go back to Anna Bell Morgan with clean hands. His affection for her was deep and sincere, a mighty thing to him, accounted for in his prominent, broad, round chin, but difficult to harmonize with his conduct during his first score of years.
He seemed to sense my perplexity.
"Ben," he began, with every evidence of chastened bigness, "I have been trying to discover one single good reason why I should impose my personal affairs on you, unless it is because you let me. So far, I have been unable to reciprocate in a single instance. I feel at times as though I am a great care and trial to you—a responsibility the Gold-Beater would assume if things were right. I feel as though I were on my way but with some one else at the wheel and compass, with a disturbing and perhaps ungrateful feeling that the navigator is on uncharted waters, and is himself in doubt. I think I must have a yellow streak up my back as broad as the moral law."
At this I chose to assume a lighter attitude. Scanning him smilingly, I replied, "Can't you see thatjust now, at least, my professional reputation is at stake?"
"That's so, Ben. You take to investigation as a duck to water and I believe you are much better suited for that than sea life. But, my dear fellow, you move so maddeningly slow and deliberate," said he; but I made no reply. I could have said:
"Real genius and cleverness apparently do move so slow and deliberate that most any one would feel as though he could do much better." But I merely laughed as we arose to leave the little French restaurant where we had dined.
There was no difficulty in arranging for Hiram's release and also for transportation good on any passenger, freight or work train of the entire system, in order to work out a solution of the robberies that had spread over the entire system from Kansas City and St. Louis to Chicago, where the consignments originated.
His first suggestion was that he should take a look at Becker & Co.'s plant, and he purposely boarded a train that had a car for delivery to them.
After he left I went to my office in the main building to find both an extended report and a shortone from a man assigned to watch Becker's movements while in New Orleans, and as I began to read I could feel my hair rigidly standing on end.
My clerk, Miss Bascom, had met Becker in a private room, known to but few, back of the bar of a prominent hotel. For the purpose of detecting enemy aliens many dictaphones had been installed by the Government in such places and with a certainty, almost uncanny, the Government possessed itself of information that could not have been gained in any other way.
As soon as I reached Miss Bascom's name in the report I stopped short and looked at her at work over by the window, less than twenty feet away. If she was conscious of my undisguised wonder she gave no sign of it. She worked so fast and dexterously as to give the impression that she fully lived up to the axiom promulgated by well governed corporations:
"If you never do more than you are paid for, you will never get paid for more than you do."
"If you never do more than you are paid for, you will never get paid for more than you do."
As I looked upon her I decided that although Becker was exceedingly ambitious, his taste was discriminating,indeed. Miss Bascom in a good light revealed a velvety skin and a neck, rising column-like from her plump chest and shoulders as though chiseled from rare white marble. A tiny ear peeped from under a plethora of wonderful hair, tastefully arranged, and I noticed that her nose, chin and lips were perfect. I wondered why I had overlooked these points of feminine charm when she first came to me. Seemingly oblivious to everything but the work she was doing, I wondered how she could maintain the attitude after such an affair as had occurred the night before. There was no evidence of fatigue or loss of sleep, or over-indulgence of any kind. I was astounded that a woman of her general charm could fall for the Becker type, and I shuddered at the knowledge that she had gone with him to such a place. My next thought was that she might have given out some very confidential information. There was but one thing to do, and at once—find out how she came to be sent to me.
I rushed through the several pages of close typing, then began again for detail and analysis.
She drank nothing intoxicating according tothe report. His brutal proposal, that came in due course, she met with astonishing diplomacy and succeeded in staving off time and place. But the details, recorded minutely, indicated that she was compelled to submit to his embrace. The record revealed that the young woman had exclaimed, "Don't—don't, Mr. Becker," indicating that the fossilized degenerate of fifty years was trying to caress her. It required little tax on the imagination to know that his big, greasy hands were drawing her tightly to his huge frame. Why had she laid herself liable to his advances? What kind of a game was she playing? I was on the point of calling her over and demanding an explanation, but there was the second report to analyze—concerning Burrell, the chief clerk. I decided to wait.
When Miss Bascom left Becker the night before at the side door of the hotel, he entered the lobby and joined Burrell in a pretty wet dinner, spending several hours thereafter at a questionable resort. Evidently Miss Bascom knew something of their whereabouts, for here she was standing at Burrell's desk in close conversation with him, occasionallylaughing as though recalling some ludicrous incident. There was nothing to do but await events. She was up to something and I determined I would lose no time in arriving at the facts.
WhenHiram returned late that night he looked as disreputable as a bull dog that had been out all night in the rain and mud, defending his title as a neighborhood boss. He had evidenced some cleverness in preparing for such a trip, but when he got through he looked as though he had overdone it. An unbecoming cap of Bolshevik origin, nine cents pre-war push-cart cost, flannel shirt, open at the neck, and covered with mud from head to foot, he reminded me of a smuggler or bootlegger who had taken to the swamps to avoid capture. But his enthusiasm seemed to blind him to his appearance and to the fact that he had not eaten since morning.
"Well," he began, "I believe I am right—not so much on account of what I saw to-day, but of what I didn't see."
"Yep," said I. "Go on with it."
"Their plant is on an island except at very low stages of the river and then it's swamp on one side.It is a big place but mostly one-story. Their switch, of course, is on a trestle built by them, and some one has to come out and unlock a high gate before a car can be set in. The man at the gate stated that they do this so that there will always be a man there to warn the train crew that the trestle is not strong enough to support the engine." He looked at me somewhat knowingly while filling his pipe.
"Well, I went inside on the car we had for them and saw all there was to see—which wasn't much. Their black help live in cabins on the island. Becker is building a big addition—the car we set in contained cement for that purpose, presumably. All of the train-men believe that the place is phony.
"We saw a packet coming down the river and the train boy slowed up a trifle to let me off near a landing, but I made a bad jump, rolled over twice in soft mud and came out like a cray-fish, but I made the packet coming to town and just arrived."
"Fine, go on," I encouraged.
"The fertilizer plant shows nothing from the river but a floating wharf. On the way down we passed Becker's boat going up. It isn't much of a craft, and the packet captain said it wouldn't carryfive tons and has hardly power enough to beat the five-mile current of the river, even when empty. A boat, Ben!—a boat is all we need to catch that fellow, and he's the boy we're after. If some one would offer to carry all the material he will need for that new construction he will fall for it—and say, I believe I am on track of one."
"But you are not sure of anything yet."
"Yes—I am sure they got the two refrigerator cars that sat alongside the car that was robbed of fifteen tons of sausage, and that they use anything that contains grease. Of that I am as certain as any one can be without being able to prove it, and we've got to get him, and we can't get him until we get inside of the plant," he insisted, his jaws coming together with a snap.
"He has a regular castle—moat and all," Hiram continued, "and we can't storm it. His people are all black and speak only Creole."
"What about this boat you are on track of—but wait, Hiram, don't you want something to eat?"
"Yes, I'm hungry as a wolf. I've seen the time I would give ten dollars for the appetite I now have—but wait till I tell you about the boat. Forsome time past there has been an old fellow coming down to the wharf to pick up bananas, those that break from the bunches when they come out of a ship on the carriers. After a while I noticed that he talked good English, Creole, Spanish, French, in fact he seemed to be able to talk with almost any of the rats that work on the fruit steamers. After I had talked with him I asked what he did with the bananas. He said he kept them until ripe and ate them. Later he told me he lived on a boat as caretaker and had not seen his boss lately. Evidently he has run out of money. He hinted that if he could get his back wages he did not care what became of the boat. I saw him again to-day and he says he has starved long enough, and I am going to see the boat in the morning. It is not in the river, but is in the canal just above the Yazoo station. And say, I've got another scheme to make all the money we want after this matter is settled," said he, coming to his feet as though unloosed by a steel spring.
"What is it, Hiram?" I asked, amused.
"Wait until I clean up a bit. Then I want you to come out with me and watch a real hungry maneat. I have a long story, and a good scheme. Your blood will be on my hands if you say it isn't. How much is a thousand feet of lumber?" he called to me through the communicating door, just after I heard his wet, muddy shoes go down like a cord of wood on the floor.
"A thousand feet of lumber is a thousand square feet an inch thick. In boards a foot wide and an inch thick they would reach a thousand feet," I explained.
"That's what I thought, but I can't recall ever having been told."
After seating ourselves in the restaurant, Hiram, his mind filled with many notions, began to talk.
"I never see a cargo of lumber go by that I don't think of it as something immensely valuable. I don't understand it, unless—well—of course, I can't figure out who is to blame, but do you realize I actually don't know what business my—I mean the Gold-Beater—is in? I never knew whether he ran a pawn-shop, a gambling-house, or a real business; my knowledge of his activities is limited to a vague impression I have, an indistinct memory of hearing him talk one night at our house with some man—andhe was some man, too, if the Gold-Beater brought him home—about stumpage, stump land and market conditions. I don't recall much, for then I was about as much interested in it as I would now be in a divinity student's theory on Heaven and the other place.
"I don't know whether it's in my blood, but anyhow, a nice, newly sawed, clean board of timber looks better to me than anything—except a certain girl. I figured it out to-day, that she is the only one I don't want to disgrace. The Gold-Beater has nothing better coming to him—if I have to go to jail in the clean-up of this gang——"
"Come to the point, Hiram. You're wandering all around Robin Hood's barn," said I laughingly.
"I know I'm long-winded, Ben, but I've got to speak my prologue, or you won't understand. You know I have stood on the dock day after day and have seen the river carry down big trees and big logs, some real saw-logs, some days lots of them, and to-day, up the river, I saw a great many floating along down stream. Some of the bayous are full of them. There's a mass of logs in that moat back of Becker's smell factory."
"Well,—what is the answer?" I asked languidly.
"Here's what I propose: Arrest these fugitive logs, cut 'em into lumber and put 'em to work. I saw logs up the river that will make a thousand feet of lumber and they tell me even rough lumber is worth fifty dollars a thousand. It won't take many of them to amount to the hundred and twenty-five dollars per that I'm pulling down monthly from the railroad—eh? You know, just as soon as I get out of this I'm going to marry, and——"
"But they tell me those logs have been in the water so long they are dead sea fruit, rotten in the center?" I interposed.
"I noticed that in some of them, but many are first class—you watch me after I get out. Do you know, I feel sure this river is going to make me some money. I'm going to be out to-night, down on the wharf. The packet men say that Becker's old tub, the one we met going up this afternoon,—called theTurgia—and she is well named—goes up there every afternoon and brings down a load in the night. I've got to find out where she lands and what she brings down. I forgot to tell you he gets dead animals from the city, inbarges, and has to hire a tug to take them up. A good chance for a deal there, if we have a boat big enough to do his work, don't you think so?" he asked, pausing from his food.
"He seems to have an eye for bargains—why not in towing?" I agreed, much impressed with his determination, amounting to a mania.
"Now, there is another thing, Ben. Suppose this old half-starved geezer's story is right, and they owe him a lot of wages, and the boat is something we can use, isn't there some quick, legal way in which we can get possession of it?"
"He would be classed as a seaman, with wages due, and I think there is a Federal statute to reach such a case quickly—I will find out, Hiram."
"Do that, Ben, and if I don't show up in the morning you will know I got knocked in the head by the water-front gang, but I'm going to see what Becker sends down here in the night, or die in the attempt."
I hadto be up that night too, and I had not been in long before he arrived—just before daylight.
"Ben—Ben, awake, and get up! I've got it—I've got it—see here!" he persisted, holding a piece of cardboard before my eyes now dazzled by the sudden light. "Do you know what that is?" he roared, standing on tiptoes while I gazed at it. He was more energetic and enthusiastic than the night before, although he had not been to bed. His eyes appeared to be a bit bloodshot.
Raising up in bed, I took the piece of cardboard and sat blinking at it when, all of a sudden, Hiram lost patience.
"Damn it, Ben, can't you see what it is?—that's a piece of a ten-pound sausage carton, and it came from Becker's place. Now then, we've got 'em," he said with suppressed voice. What he handed me was unquestionably a part of a folding box, one of the corner locks, and a part of the end on which there was tell-tale printing.
"You see, this sausage that was stolen was in ten-pound boxes, and this is part of one of them," he insisted.
"Where did you get this, Hiram?" I finally managed to ask.
"I had to lie on one of the wharfs upstream until after midnight when Becker'sTurgidcame slipping down the current, like a thief, and I had to leg it hard to keep up with her. About a mile below she slid in alongside a Mexican, bound for Vera Cruz, unloaded a hundred and fifteen tubs of something—it went down on the manifest as lard, and I guess it was grease, anyhow. On her deck there still remained five bales of something. I wanted to know what it was. TheTurgiathen slid downstream to the Southern Pacific docks and unloaded there. They billed five bales of waste paper to New York. Yes, I got the name of the consignee—Cassinis & Cassinis, Water Street—but I wondered how Becker collected waste paper up there in that swamp and I didn't believe it was waste paper. It was covered with burlap and baled tight.
"Do you see what this crafty old crook has done? He took the sausage out of the folding boxes, whichhe laid out flat, then baled them carefully and is shipping them to New York to get the best price and put such evidence clear out of the way. Well, it cost me I don't know how many drinks of water-front whiskey to get those watchmen in condition—there were two of them—before I could dig into one of the bales for a sample. I know it was tough on the watchmen, but there you are, and as sure as shooting Becker & Co. got the stolen sausages and we've got to get Becker before he has a chance to try to hang it on me, or some other boob clerk.
"Ben, are you awake? do you understand what I am saying?" he asked, giving my shoulder a tap that made me sway as though kicked by a mule.
"Yes, Hiram, I understand. Was there a Southern Pacific ship at the dock?" I asked, rubbing my shoulder.
"No—the next ship is due to-morrow, and they're always late now."
"I believe you have something really tangible. I'll stop that shipment this morning, but you'd better get to bed. And," I hastily added, "we must have more than empty sausage cartons to make a case against him."
"I know that, and there is nothing doing in the way of sleep for me now. The old man is down at a rummy, waiting to take me up to the canal to see that boat. If the boat looks good to me, will you come and look it over?" he asked, getting up and walking the floor like a caged lion.
"Yes—meet me here at noon, and in the meantime I'll try to learn something about the matter——" But before I had time to finish he was out of the room, going downstairs two steps at a time.
When I told Superintendent Kitchell that morning in his office as much as I thought good for him to know at that time, and especially about Hiram's plans and what he had already accomplished, his face began to glow, and he otherwise evidenced intense interest.
"Taylor," he began, without any attempt now at inscrutability, "I would give ten years of my life to have that robbery matter ferreted out quickly. All the other division superintendents on the system are laughing at me and the General Super and President are raising Hell. It seems to me that the boy's theory as to how to round up the gang is good, and I will help you all I possibly can. I'velooked at Becker's plant several times while passing and I think the boy is right. You can't really get the goods on him without getting into his plant, and that must be done by starting some kind of trade. Do you think he has any chance of getting a boat?"
"He will, or rather may have, something definite about that before night."
"I wonder——" hesitated the man of many troubles; "when I was up in Memphis the other day I met the man in charge of the Illinois division. He happened to mention that the state was killing whole herds of tubercular-infected cattle there. I wonder if I couldn't get a few carloads sent here and let the boy—Strong, did you say his name was?—get in by boating them up to him—but you are not sure of obtaining a boat?"
"I feel sure we can get some kind of a boat."
"Here is something—Ever since we entered the war Central and South America have been revolution incubators, especially for Mexico. Some never hatch but die in the shell, others hatch but die before they can walk, then once in a while, out of the great number one of them grows big enough to buy all sorts of ridiculous stuff theythink they need or want, and ship it down here. Then they get shot, macheted, put in prison or exiled, and a lot of this stuff is never claimed, so we have to sell it for freight charges. We've got a whole warehouse of that kind of junk we should have disposed of long ago. Go down and look it over—anything you can use I will see that you get it pronto. We've had about everything except industry, virtue and honesty."
"Wire the Illinois division regarding the slaughtered cattle, and I will look over your unclaimed freight. I may find something——"
"And do you think," he interrupted, sore to the bone at the thought, "that it involves any one in the offices?"
I hesitated, recalling that I had not mentioned either Chief Clerk Burrell or Miss Bascom, or their conversations with Becker. "Yes—Becker couldn't work without some one to give him information about arrivals and keep him posted at the river."
"Rotten—rotten!" he exploded; "just think of it, a mess like this putrefying right under our noses and we don't get wise until they smell it in Kansas City and Chicago. And now, Ben Taylor, whileI feel sure you are on the right track at last, and are going to make good, you seem to be moving so maddeningly slow and deliberate." He said this with a deep sigh from the depths of his waistband, his chubby hand fingering a number of yellow slips used for official railroad messages and reminding me of the mysterious one sent to Hiram about Becker & Co. receiving freight by rail, but invariably shipping out by water.
"But, Mr. Kitchell, haste in this matter will be fatal to final results," I said casually.
"Yes, perhaps—at any rate I hope that's so, but I'm so damnably worked up over this matter that I am about wild. Then another thing, I don't quite understand why you have so much confidence in this young Strong, though I'll admit he shows good mettle. I recall at our first interview you said he was well connected in the North?" said he, still glancing nervously over the messages on his desk.
"Hiram Strong is well connected. He has inherited a great pride and along with it what seems to be honor. He feels keenly the onus cast upon him in this matter, but has withal a saving sense of humor. He is working out his own salvation andfeels he is heading off an attempt to make him the goat—to him it is simply a matter of keeping out of jail. He has, I believe, demonstrated that he can do head work as well as leg work, and I feel like giving him room to turn around," I insisted, perhaps too testily.
"I wonder if he is kin of this man Hiram Strong, who was reported this morning as coming in on our system at Chicago in his private car. Do you know, Taylor, I wish every private car was in hell—as though we didn't have enough trouble already! Our passenger engines are loaded with every pound they can keep rolling and every once in a while we get a private car of some millionaire pork-sticker or quick-rich, who wants to come down here to shoot ducks or some other fool thing. Do you think it is the same man?" he demanded.
"It might be."
"Do you suppose the boy has got word to him, and he is coming down here to raise the devil?" he asked, eyeing me as though I might have something to do with it.
"As I understand it, from the boy, he was thrown out entirely on his own resources—disinherited—andas far as appearances go, is completely estranged from his father."
"Well, by Heaven, if he shows up here with a chip on his shoulder, I'm going to turn him over to you—do you understand?—I'll turn him over to you. You know all about it, and I've had a stomachful of educating rich men's sons, and all the other troubles I want," he insisted, disgustedly, as I started to go to my office.
"I will be glad to do all I can for you, Mr. Kitchell. Let me know as far as possible in advance."
"I can tell you that right now. He is hooked to Number Seven, and is due here to-morrow at 11:15, unless his old special car makes her late."