IV—CHEAP AT A MILLION (continued 2)

The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men; whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and muttered, “He is in his room!”

“What's that, boy?”

“I said,” retorted the studious youth, glacially, “he was in his room—78. He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close it, but he opened it again—after he gave me the dollar.”

The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively.

“Your man!” he said. “Of course we don't want any fuss—”

“We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow isn't violent, you know.”

The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing:

“Only son, too—isn't he?”

“Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard.” The detective, induced thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed inside information.

“Too bad!” murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom. “Too damned bad!” he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million and himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, sternly, “No trouble, you understand!”

One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the lobby just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's permission, went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor telephone operator. From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on Room 78.

Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. The thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him that perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely on rousing the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise awaited the man who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied by some one who had nothing to do with her—and therefore nothing to do with him. Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. Perhaps a million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously the unwise thing to do to go into Room 77.

All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with him. The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across the hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked again. A hotel maid approached him.

“I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?”

“What party?”

“In Room 77.”

“No. I am in 78.”

“I am very sorry—but it is against the rules of the house, sir.”

Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own room, conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much concerned over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to either of his Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever Mr. McWayne's star sleuths.

Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it was not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So long as no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no mystery is laughable—at least, not while in the act of mystifying.

So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two men from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity.

All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock; but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most human beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not “act right” to the watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused of being mad, will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five minutes. People who never think and never imagine are never taken for lunatics. That nowadays is about the only compensation for being an ass.

At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid of the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming the office.

His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for insanity, and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his inventiveness. He merely drew his chair very close to the startled old lady and opened a magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the exasperating undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to yours at the opera.

Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, and at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched fist bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, looked at it, exclaimed, “Gracious!”—and blew his nose loudly and determinedly.

Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose, looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the room. In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked hats and coats near the entrance of the main dining-room.

“I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! He simply drove me out.”

“Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case.”

“Goodness! What a narrow—“.

“Oh, he is quite harmless, madam.”

“It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows—”

“You are right!” agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to encourage generosity.

The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down in the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The mahogany clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom felt a pang of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened—except that he again had made an ass of himself!

A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at Tom, saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last person in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether.

Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way to attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was not a good place in which to do any robbing or murdering.

Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils—the odor he had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, and therefore with love.

This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him—that made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife—that made him thrill obediently at the call of adventure—made him feel that the mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan.

Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within his hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what it said, rushed from the room into the corridor.

He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was among them or whether the man who had entered the library—who probably was the man that put out the light—was among the crowd. But the sleuths and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt could remain? In their minds there was none.

Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a woman's hand:

For T. M.

He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, on which he read, in the same handwriting:

Too late!

He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk.

“I must—” he began, but stopped.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a man saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother.

“About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom.

“We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.”

“What? Has she—Is it vacant?”

“Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll—”

“I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.”

He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous occupants.

“Certainly. Front!”

Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He thought he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but the odor, which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented him from thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. There was no sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the mist of dreams and longings.

He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors to look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife—the mother of his children—the woman whose mere existence will influence his life more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a different man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different point of view.

Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of view would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she be the girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the mysterious person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with whom he might fall in love—adventuress or not? His love of love had not yet changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a definite love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that this affair was being stage-managed for his benefit.

He would forgive everything so long as in the end something happened—something in which there was a girl, whether or not she was the girl. What most irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery so far. The spice of danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of adventure; the call of the unusual; the attraction of the unknown and therefore of the interesting—were no longer quite enough. The glimpse of a face—of a living face—and a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and lips to kiss—these things he now desired.

His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue.

He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New York.

VII

Some men are so picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and so intelligent that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. E. H. Merriwether was one. He employed the ablest experts for his corporations and they got more than their share of publicity; but for himself—nothing. Possibly he realized that ungratified curiosity is a valuable asset; and, of course, he knew that in a democracy the less a man raises his head above the level of the mass the better it will be for his comfort.

He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned with despoiling the public—which, in turn, clearly proved he was not dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers the more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. Everything he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about him were so hard to get that the brightest minds in the profession manufactured a few. They had to be very good anecdotes—and they were.

To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known to be mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, and, besides, devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from reporters, because they had learned to save themselves time by the simple expedient of writing their interviews with him in their own offices, after this fashion:

Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor denial could be obtained at his office.

The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never too busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers.

On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the general and unwelcome public.

At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: “Well?”—but kept on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary.

“I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” said the young man, pleasantly and unimpressed.

The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked, wearily:

“Got an appointment?”

“No; but—”

The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped insolence, said, still without looking up:

“What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see any one to-day. Good day!”

There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an exaggerated and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the stranger without the gate said:

“When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me.”

The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young man, of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight, well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and general air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as good an account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of wits.

The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington.

“My good James,” said the new-school reporter, with a mocking superciliousness, “I would see your boss. Be expeditious.”

The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed dangerously; but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his temper under control. For all that, his voice shook as he said:

“If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I—I'm sorry!” Here Doyle gulped. Then he finished: “Good day!”—and resumed, his writing.

The reporter said, “Look at me!” so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man who dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office.

“My Celtic friend,” pursued the reporter, in a voice of such cold-blooded vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment and respect, “for years the domestics of this office have been rude and impolite to my profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry reporters might feel or what they said about him; but to-day I am the one who does not care, and E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally concerned. I don't give a damn whether he sees me or not. And as for you, in order to avenge the poor chaps to whom you have been intelligently rude, I, to whom you have been unintelligently impolite, shall have you fired. I've got E. H. Merriwether where I want him. If I can end your boss I can end your job—can't I? Oh no, Alexander! I am not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound to happen, for Waterloo comes to all great men who are not clever enough to die at the right time. Now you go and get McWayne—and be quick about it!”

Doyle at times saw things through the top of his head, which was red. He said, a bit thickly:

“When you tell me in plain English, so I can understand—”

“You are not paid to understand; you are paid to use common sense and discrimination. You go to McWayne and say to him a reporter is here and wishes to speak to him about a sad Merriwether family matter.”

Doyle knew from the office gossip that something was supposed to be wrong with Tom Merriwether; so, his heart overflowing with anger because chance had put the one weapon in the hands of an insolent newspaper man, Doyle went off to tell the boss's private secretary. Presently McWayne, walking quickly, came from an inner office, and asked: “You wish to see me?”

“No!” answered the reporter, flatly.

“Then—” began McWayne.

“I don't wish to see you. I wish to see if you have the sense to understand that I wish to do Mr. E. H. Merriwether the favor of letting him talk to me. Do you want me to tell you what I want you to tell Mr. E. H. Merriwether?”

The reporter looked as though he hoped McWayne would say no. Reporters did not usually look that way; therefore McWayne was perturbed. He replied, with a polite anxiety:

“If you please—”

“Tell Mr. Merriwether that I wish to see him about his son's marriage. Tell him that if he does not wish to talk about it, he needn't. You might add that there is absolutely no use in his trying to keep it out of the newspapers. Make that plain to him, McWayne.”

McWayne did not dare deny the marriage. Tom was, alas! capable of even worse things. He did the only thing possible while there was still a chance to suppress the news; he said:

“And you represent which paper, please?”

Reporters do not always know why or how news is suppressed, nor the price; but this reporter laughed good-naturedly, and replied:

“McWayne, the trouble with you Irish is that you are so infernally clever that plain jackasses like myself are prepared for you. I represent myself and I don't want to be paid to suppress. No blackmail here; no threats; nothing except amiability and good-will. Have you begun to accumulate a few suspicions that your taciturn boss is going to talk to me?”

“I'll see!” promised McWayne, non-committally; but he was so perturbed that he could not help showing it.

Doyle, who had made a pretense of resuming his letter-writing, noticed it, and felt uncomfortable.

“And—say, McWayne,” pursued the reporter, “could you let a fellow have a photograph or two? You know we've got some, but we'd prefer to publish those you think the family consider the best. Some people are queer that way.”

McWayne shook his head and went away, convinced of the worst. He returned and beckoned to the reporter, who thereupon said, sharply, to Doyle:

“Open the door—you! Quick!” And Doyle, who saw McWayne beckoning, had to do it.

Four hundred and seventeen reporters were avenged!

Doyle was so angry that he was full of aches. He was tempted to throw up his job. Then he hoped E. H. Merriwether, who was a very great man, would order him to throw the insolent dog out of the office. Doyle would earn a bonus.

E. H. Merriwether, autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, fearless fighter, iron-nerved stock gambler, but, alas! also a father, was seated at his desk. He turned to the reporter the inscrutable poker-face of his class:

“You wished to see me?”

“Yes, sir,” said the reporter, and waited; two could play at that game. The great financier was compelled to ask:

“About what?”

“About what McWayne told you.” The reporter spoke unemotionally.

“About some rumor concerning my son?”

“No, sir.”

“No?” E. H. Merriwether looked surprised.

“No. I wished to know what statement you desire to make about your son's engagement and marriage. If you do not care to say anything we shall not publish any fake interview, no matter what opinion I personally may form as to the real state of your feelings.”

“I take it you are from one of the yellow papers, young man?” E. H. Merriwether spoke coldly; but, within, his heart-tragedy was being enacted.

“You usually take what you wish if it isn't nailed down, I have heard; but that, doubtless, is one of the slanders that automatically grow up about a great man, sir,” said the reporter, without the shadow of a smile or frown.

“If I am mistaken about the newspaper you represent—” Here Mr. Merriwether paused, as if to allow the young man to introduce himself; but the young man said:

“If I told you the name of the newspaper that honors itself by playing fair with you, I suspect you would set in motion the machinery that you—er—men of large affairs use to suppress news. You couldn't reach my city editor, who is a poor man with a family of eight, or the reporter, who is penniless; but you could reach the owner, who is a millionaire. This is my first big story in New York and it will make me professionally. It means a lot to me!”

“About how much does it mean to you, young man?” asked E. H. Merriwether, with a particularly polite curiosity.

“Speaking in language that should be intelligible to you and using the terms by which you measure' all things down here—” He paused, and then said, bluntly, “You mean in cash, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that this story is worth to me—Let me see!” And he began to count on his fingers, like a woman. This habit inexpressibly angers men who find no trouble in remembering numbers of dollars. “I should say, Mr. Merriwether, that it is worth about three thousand two hundred and eighty-six—millions of dollars. If I am to stop being a decent newspaper man to become a blackmailer and general damned fool I'd want to make enough to endow all my pet charities and carry out a series of rather expensive experiments in philanthropy.”

“But—” began the magnate.

“No, sir,” interrupted the reporter, “no money, please. Just assume that I am a damned fool and, therefore, refuse to consider a bribe.”

“I have not bribed you,” suggested E. H. Merriwether, calmly. His eyes never left the reporter's face.

“Then I misjudged you, and I apologize abjectly; but permit me to continue to be an ass and blind to money. What about Thomas Thorne Merriwether, only son and heir of the railroad king of the Southwest?”

“Well, what about him?” The face of E. H. Merriwether showed only what you might call a perfunctory curiosity. The reporter looked at him admiringly. After a pause, he asked:

“Do you know her?”

“Do you?”

“Then you don't!” exclaimed the reporter, triumphantly. “This is better than I had hoped.”

“Better?”

“Certainly; it means a better introductory article. The first of the series will be: 'To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged?' Think of it, sir,” he said, with the enthusiasm of the true artist, “the heir of the Merriwether millions! By the way, could you tell offhand how many millions I might safely say?”

Whatever Mr. Merriwether may have thought, he merely said, with the cold finality that often imposes on young reporters:

“Young man, if you begin your career by being vulgar your ruin will be of your own doing.”

“My dear sir, vulgarity never ruined any career. All the great men of history were at the beginning accused of hopeless vulgarity—by those on whom they trod. I tell you it is not vulgarity that prompts me, but mastery of the technic of my trade. Do you care to have me tell you about my article?”

What Mr. E. H. Merriwether really wished to hear was that Tom was not in love—that he was not on the verge of brutally assassinating all the hopes and dreams of a fond father. What he said to the unspeakable reporter was:

“Yes.”

“Well, I start with this basis—my knowledge of your son's engagement.”

“Where did you get that knowledge?”

“One of the few things a reporter is incapable of doing is betraying a confidence. To tell you the source of my information would be that. Starting with that one fact, my problem is to make that one fact so important as to enable me to write several thousand words. To justify this I must make your son very important. He is not really very important, but you are. I shall slightly over-accentuate here and there”—he waved his hand in the air, and repeated, dreamily—“here and there! You will be the Napoleon of railroads, the Von Moltke of the ticker, doer of deeds and upbuilder, indisputably the greatest captain of industry that America has yet produced!”

“Heavens!” burst from the lips of the imperturbable little magnate.

“You are a stunning study for a novelist. Yours is the great romance of the American business man! Having made you romantic, I wave my magician's wand and quadruple your millions. Yours, my dear sir—if you don't happen to know it—is one of the great fortunes of the world! You've got Croesus skinned to death and John D. whining over his lost pre-eminence!”

“Now look here—” interjected E. H. Merriwether, sternly; but the reporter retorted, earnestly:

“Hold your horses!” And the great millionaire did. The young man continued in his enthusiastic way: “It is much to have the hundreds of Merriwether millions, but it is infinitely more to have all the Merriwether millions and such a father and youth. I thus make Tom, who is really of no importance, of even greater importance than the great E. H. Merriwether. Do I know my business?” And he bowed in the general direction of the elder Merriwether.

“I begin to suspect,” replied the elder Merriwether, “that you do.”

He was watching the reporter closely. He always had found it profitable to let men talk on. A man who talks is apt to show you what he is; and that furnishes to you the best available weapon. You also may learn when it is better not to fight.

“When it comes to picturesque writing about people I do not know, I can assure you, Mr. Merriwether,” the young man said, modestly, “that I haven't an equal in the United States. In your case I shall not be handicapped by either facts or knowledge, which are always fatal to the creative faculty. I shall be free—absolutely free to write!”

Mr. Merriwether permitted himself a frown in order to conceal his uneasiness. This young man was talking like a humorist. The eyes were intelligent and fearless. The combination was formidable.

“Your theory has doubtless many supporters among your colleagues.”

“There are,” admitted the reporter, cheerfully, “other bright young creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a paragon—a clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire.”

“Which he is!” interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly.

“Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention—with a cleverness I'd call devilish if it wasn't my own—to the strange and, on the whole, agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, a hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are—do you know what?—a poet!—a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel, whose numbers are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand purring wheels of your tireless cars.”

“My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr,” mildly objected the railroad poet.

“They do in my story,” said the reporter, firmly. “And to prove it I'll quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great writers always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the creation of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on the map of America—in green!”

“That sounds good to me,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached air of a critic of literature.

He did not know just how to win this young man's silence—perhaps by letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the inauguration of a molasses diet at once!

“Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world—handsome, rich, a fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself inviolate—pretty swell word that?—in-vi-o-late—all these years, opens at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the engagement. High society is more than interested—more than startled. As thinks society, so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of her. What society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article? I leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!” The young man looked inquiringly at Mr. Merriwether.

“I'd read it myself,” said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. “I couldn't help it!” You could see that literature had triumphed over the stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker.

“Thank you! And what do you find at the end of the article? What? Why, a nice psychological little paragraph to the effect that we propose to print the name of the one woman who, of all the tens of thousands who have tried, has won the heart of Thomas Thome Merriwether, whose father you have the honor to be. We refrain, in order to have the parents of the young people formally announce the engagement. By doing this we get the full value of the to-be-continued-in-our-next suspense, for the first time utilized in a news story; and we also increase our reputation for gentlemanly conservatism, which prevents the refined reporter of the—of my paper from intruding into a family affair.”

“Will your paper be damned fool enough to—” began E. H. Merriwether, intentionally skeptical.

“It is not damned folly to extract all the juice contained in the scoop of the century—it is technical skill of a very high order. Now what happens? My esteemed contemporaries, morning and evening, chuck a fit and bounce their society editors. They then rush for the telephone and despatch their strongest photographers, sharpest sleuths, and entire dictagraph corps to the scene. They can't find Tom—because, as you know, he is in—he is out of town. And they can't find her—because I haven't said who she is. There remains you!”

“That won't do them any good,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, decisively; but he shuddered.

“Precisely! I banked on that. But, even if you did see them, what could you tell them? Deny what is bound to be confirmed in the next issue of my paper? You know better than to acquire a reputation for lying in the newspapers. No, siree! Your game is to deny yourself to all inquirers and say nothing. My esteemed contemporaries have now but one desire—to wit: to print the name and publish the portrait of your son's fiancée. Of course you see what happens then, don't you?”

The reporter looked at the iron-hearted E. H. Merriwether, with such pity in his eyes that the great little czar of the Southwestern Railroad for the first time in his life realized he was merely a man—a human being; an ordinary, every-day father; one drop in the vast ocean; one of the crowd temporarily aboveground and therefore exposed to the same sorrows and troubles and sore vexations as all mankind. His millions, his position in the world, his great work, his undoubted genius—could not avail even to rid him of annoyance. Can you imagine John D. Rockefeller living on Staten Island in June and unable to buy mosquito-netting—price, five cents a yard?

“What will happen?” asked the great millionaire, who was also a father.

“My intelligent colleagues, of course, will look for the lady. Where there is a strong demand the supply automatically offers itself for consumption. And what will the seven hundred and fifty alert young men, with great capacities for fictional art, who are temporarily assisting actress-ladies and self-paying authoresses and unprinted poetesses and fertilizer-manufacturers unmarried daughters, do? What will those estimable young artists, miscalled press agents, do when they encounter the demand for Tom's fiancée's photograph? What except 'Here she is!'—six thousand words, thirty-two poses, and a facsimile of a love-letter or two, to prove it! And then—chorus-ladies, poetesses, fair divorcées about to honor the vaudeville—” The reporter stopped—he had seen the look on E. H. Merri-wether's face. He felt sorry. “But it is true,” he said, defensively.

“Yes!” Tom's poor rich father felt cold all over.

The reporter pursued, more quietly: “You know the ingenuity of my colleagues, the great American respect for a millionaire's privacy, and the national sense of humor. Will your son's love-affair be discussed? Will it be discussed with the gentlemanly reticence and innate delicacy of feeling of my story?”

Mr. E. H. Merriwether never before realized that the law against homicide was even more absurd than an Interstate Commerce Commission order; but he had to bow to the inevitable. He was beginning to understand how Napoleon felt on the deck of the Bellerophon when on the way to St. Helena., Do you remember the picture? He nodded—not dejectedly, but also not far from it.

“Well, in a day or two or three, according to conditions; we come out with it. We print the lady's name and her portrait—possibly not the best of all her photographs, but the only one I could—”

“Who is she?” burst from the lips of the reporter's victim.

Instantly the reporter's face became very serious. “I feared so, Mr. Merriwether,” he said, very quietly.

“Look here, my boy!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether, with an earnestness that had in it a threat. “I don't know what your game is and I don't care. I'll admit right now that you are a very clever young man and probably not a crook; but I tell you calmly, quietly, without any threats, that you are not going to publish any damned-fool article about my family in any paper in New York.”

The reporter rose and looked straight into the unblinking eyes of the great financier. Then he said, slowly, and, the old fellow admitted, distinctly impressively:

“And I tell you, twice as quietly and ten times as calmly, without any fool threats, that all the daily newspapers in New York and Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and ten thousand other towns in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Canal Zone, and countries in the Postal Union, are going to publish articles about your son Tom's engagement, and later on about his marriage. Understand once for all, that there are some things all your millions and all your will-power cannot do. This is one of them. It is the penalty of being a public character—or, if you prefer, of being an exceptionally great man. Do I understand that you have nothing to say about your son's coming marriage?”

E. H. Merriwether in less than five seconds thought of more than five thousand possibilities, all in connection with his son's marriage. Then he said, very slowly, fighting for time and a chance to escape:

“My son will marry whenever he and the young lady chiefly interested judge fit to do so. He and I are in perfect accord, as always.” Mr. Merriwether was looking into the too-fearless and too-intelligent gray-blue eyes of the reporter. Then he did what he did not often do in his Wall Street affrays—he capitulated. “Will you give me your word that you will not use for publication what I am about to tell you?”

“No, sir, I won't!” emphatically replied the reporter. “You might tell me something I already know and then you'd always think I had broken my word. I will not pledge myself not to print the name of your daughter-in-law-to-be; but anything that concerns you personally or your attitude toward your son's finacée, or hints of a family quarrel—or those things that offend a sensitive man—I promise not to print. You have some rights; but I also owe certain things to myself and my paper. I've been frank with you. You can be frank with me if you wish. I put it up to you.”

Mr. Merriwether, after a thoughtful pause, said: “Look here! I don't know anything about my son's engagement. I cannot swear he is not engaged, but I don't know that he is. It follows that I do not know the young lady. You don't have to print that, do you?”

The reporter gazed on the financier meditatively. Presently, instead of answering the question, he asked:

“Have you had no suspicion of any romance?”

“Well”—and it was plain that E. H. Merriwether was telling the truth, having made up his mind to that policy as being the wisest—“well, I have of late suspected that such a thing might be possible. It is, I will confess to you, a terrible predicament, because a man naturally cherishes certain hopes for his only son.” On Mr. Merriwether's face there was a quite human look of suffering.

“Of course,” said the reporter, apologetically, as though offering an excuse for a friend's misdeed—“of course a man in love is not always wise.”

“No. And though I have no intention or desire to bribe you, and though I would not presume to interfere with you in your professional activities or influence you by pecuniary considerations, you will pardon me for suggesting—”

The reporter did not let him go on. He rose and said, with real dignity:

“Mr. Merriwether, suppose we drop the matter right here?”

“You mean?”

“I will not print any story yet—on one condition.”

“Name it. I think likely I can meet it.”

“Give me your promise that you will give me an interview the next time I come to see you. It may be in a day or two or a week. I don't promise not to print the story, you understand, but it will give you time to—well, to see your son.”

E. H. Merriwether held out his hand and said: “I will see you any time you come. But let me say, as an older man, that if you should suffer any loss by not printing—”

“Oh no—I shall not suffer. I propose to print my story. I am simply deferring publication; but I thank you for the offer you were going to make. It shows more consideration and, therefore, far greater common sense than most men in your position habitually display before a reporter. I'll do even more—I'll give you a friendly tip.” He stopped talking and looked doubtfully at E. H. Merriwether.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Merriwether, with a remarkable mixture of gratitude, dignity, and anxiety. “I am listening.”

“Find out why he goes to 777 Fifth Avenue. There are some things a really intelligent father, poor or rich, should—” He caught himself.

“Please finish, my boy!” cried the great little man, almost entreatingly.

“There are just a few things”—the reporter was speaking very slowly and his voice was lowered—“which an intelligent father does not trust to others—not even to the most loyal confidential men—things that should be done by the father himself. The number is 777 Fifth Avenue!”

“I thank you, Mr.—”

“William Tully,” said the reporter.

“Mr. Tully, I thank you. I think you are throwing away time and brains in your present position, and if you should ever—”

“Thank you, sir. Don't be afraid. I shall not bother you by—”

“But I mean it,” said E. H. Merriwether.

The reporter smiled and said, “If you knew how often my fortune has been made by men whose story I have not printed you'd be deaf, too.”

“Young man, I sometimes forget favors, but not the possession of brains. I need them in my business.”

“Well, then, suppose you show your appreciation by telling the red-headed person in the outer office that he is to take in my card to you when I call again?”

“Certainly!” And the czar of the great Pacific & Southwestern system nearly slew Doyle by accompanying the reporter to the outer door and saying:

“Doyle, any time Mr. Tully comes to see me let me know instantly, no matter what I may be doing or who is with me. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!” gasped Doyle, looking terrifiedly at the sorcerer.

Tully! Irish! That was the reason, of course; but he was a wonder, all the same.

“Good day, Mr. Tully. I thank you. And don't forget my offer.”

Mr. Merriwether bowed as the door closed on Mr. William Tully and then, walking like a man in a trance, returned to his private office. He rang the push-button marked No. 1, and when McWayne appeared turned a haggard face to his private secretary.

“McWayne, that reporter has a story of Tom's engagement, but he wouldn't tell me who the girl is.”

“I don't believe it!” cried McWayne, with a not very intelligent intention of comforting his chief. At times the male Irish mind works femininely.

“Neither do I—and yet I do. It confirms Dr. Frauenthal's diagnosis. I guess he knows his business, after all. Well, the story will not be published yet. He acted pretty decently.”

McWayne wondered how much it had cost the old man, but he said, “Didn't he intimate—”

“That reporter knows his business,” cut in E. H. Merriwether. “He ought to be a dramatist. Have you heard from your men?”

“Yes, sir. Tom has gone to Boston. Two of them are with him. He suspects nothing.”

“What else?”

“They will let me know by long distance if anything happens.”

“If anything! Great Scott! isn't it enough that—Let me hear what they report—on the instant!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, McWayne—” He hesitated.

McWayne, his face full of sincere solicitude, prompted, gently:

“Yes, chief?”

It was the first time he had ever used that word. It made his speech so friendly, so affectionately personal, that E. H. Merriwether said:

“Thank you, McWayne. I wish you would find out for me at once who lives in 777 Fifth Avenue.”

“Yes, sir,” said McWayne. “That's where—” He caught himself. .

“I am afraid so!” acquiesced the railroad czar, listlessly.

VIII

Within an hour McWayne walked into the private office. His chief closed his jaws—a weaker man would have clenched his fists—in anticipation.

“Breese & Silliman, the real-estate men, say they rented 777 Fifth Avenue, furnished, to a Madam Calderon—an American woman, widow of a Peruvian nitrate king. She came up here and asked Breese about a suitable location. She has a daughter she wishes to marry in America. She talked quite freely about her affairs. The house was for sale, but she leased if, furnished, with privilege of purchase. Belongs to the Martin-Schwenk Construction Company. The daughter is about thirty, dark, Spanish-looking, and fleshy; rather—er—inclined to make googoo eyes, as Breese says, in a kind of foreign way.”

“Go on,” commanded E. H. Merriwether.

“Mrs. Calderon said point-blank that she wished her daughter to marry a nice young man of wealth and position, preferably a blond. I gather that the agents were rather anxious to let the house and probably encouraged her. She has paid quarterly in advance, and her banking references are O. K.; but nothing about her personally is known to any one. That's all I could get.”

“Very well. Thank you, McWayne.”

The private secretary stood beside the desk, hesitated, and presently walked out. Shortly afterward, the great and ruthless E. H. Merriwether, full of perplexity and regret—and some remorse over his neglect of his only son for so many years—went uptown. He desired to know what to expect, in order to be able to think intelligently, and, therefore, to fight efficiently. How could he fight—not knowing what or whom to fight?

He told the chauffeur to wait, and then rang the bell of 777.

One of the four footmen whose faces had impressed Tom as being distinctly too intelligent for menials, opened the door.

“I wish to see Madam Calderon.”

“I beg pardon, sir. Have you an appointment?”

“No. Say it is Mr. Merriwether.”

“Mr. who, sir?”

Mr. Merriwether took out a card. The footman received it on a very elaborate silver-gilt card-tray and, pointing to a particularly uncomfortable, high-backed Circassian-walnut chair in the foyer, left the great little multimillionaire under the watchful eye of footman Number Two. This annoyed Mr. Merriwether. Nobody is altogether invulnerable.

The footman returned, with the card and the tray.

“Madam is not at home, sir; but her brother would be glad to see you, if you wish, sir. He is madam's man of affairs.”

“Very well.”

“If you please, sir, this way.” And the footman led the way to the door of the library, where Tom had been received so often.

“Mr. Edward H. Merriwether!” The emphasis on the first name made the little czar of the Southwestern roads think it was done in order to differentiate him from Mr. Thomas Merriwether. Even great men are not above thinking themselves clever.

He entered the room and took in its character at one glance, just as Tom had done. He became cool, watchful, alert, and observing, as he always did when he went into a fight. He looked at the man who was said to be the brother of the woman who had leased the house—the woman who had a daughter she wished to marry to a blond with money and position.

The man had a square chin and, even in repose, suggested power and self-control. Mr. Merriwether met the remarkably steady, unblinking gaze of two extremely sharp eyes, and recognized without any particular motion that he confronted a man of strength and resource, who, moreover, had the double strategical advantage of being in his own house and of not having sought this interview.

“Be seated, sir,” said the man, in the calm voice of one who is accustomed to obedience, even in trifles.

Mr. E. H. Merriwether sat down. He noticed little things, as well as big. He noted, for instance, that he had begun by doing exactly what this man told him to do. The man intelligently waited for Mr. E. H. Merriwether to speak. Mr. E. H. Merriwether did so. He said:

“I called to see Madam Calderon.”

“About?” The man spoke coldly.

Mr. E. H. Merriwether raised his eyebrows. He did it in order not to frown. There is no wisdom in needless antagonisms. His only son was concerned.

“About my son,” he said.

“Tommy?”

The great railroad magnate, accustomed to the deference even of the self-appointed owners of the United States, flushed with anger. Had things gone so far that such intimacy existed?

“I understand,” he said, trying to speak emotionlessly, “that my son visits this house.”

“Of his own volition, sir.”

“I did not think there was physical coercion; but, of course, as his father—” He stopped in the middle of the sentence.

This never before had happened to this man, who always knew what to do and what to say, and always did it and said it with the least expenditure of time and words; but, as a matter of fact, what could he say, and how?

“That relationship,” the man said, calmly, “often interferes with the exercise of what people formerly called common sense. Will you please do me a very great favor, sir?”

“A favor?” Mr. Merriwether, skilful diplomatist though he could be at times, now frowned in advance.

“Yes, Mr. Merriwether—indeed, two favors; or rather, three. First: Will you please ask me no questions now? Second: Will you please return to this house at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning? And third: Will you promise not to speak to your son about your visit here until after you have paid your second call, to-morrow?”

It flashed through Mr. Merriwether's mind that to grant the favors might expedite Tom's appalling marriage. He said, decisively:

“I cannot promise any of the things you ask.”

“Very well,” said the man, composedly. “Then, I take it, there is nothing more to be said.”

He rose politely, and as he did so pressed a button on the table. The footman appeared and held the door open for Mr. Merriwether to pass out.

The autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad, with unlimited credit in the money-markets of the world, was not accustomed to being treated like this: but, precisely because he felt hot anger rising in tidal waves to his brow, he instantly became cool.

He remained sitting, and said, very politely:

“If you will allow me, sir, to tell you that my reasons—”

The man, who was still standing, held up a hand and broke in:

“And if you will allow me to tell you that I am neither a criminal nor a jackass I shall then proceed to say that nobody in this house has any intention of entering into any argument or controversy with you. I am actuated much less by personal considerations of my own than by a desire to avert from you eternal regrets and—er—unseemly displays of temper.”

E. H. Merriwether knew exactly what he would like to do to this man. What he said—very mildly—was:

“You must admit, sir, that your requests might be interpreted—”

“Oh, I see!” And the man smiled very slightly. “Well, suppose you take Tom to your office with you to-morrow morning, and keep him there while you come here? Tell him to wait for you, because you wish to have luncheon with him. I do not care to discuss my reasons—for example—for not wishing you to speak to Tom about this visit. I do not wish to wound your feelings; but I am not sure that you know Tom as well as a father ought to know his only son. And there are times when a man must be more than a father, when he must be a tactful man of the world, and a psychologist.”

Mr. Merriwether realized the force of this so clearly that he winced, but said nothing, since he could not admit such a thing aloud. The man proceeded coldly:

“If you are both an intelligent man and a loving father, you will promise what I ask—not for my sake, for yours. There are many things, Mr. E. H. Merriwether, that money does not cure, and that not even time can heal. Ask me nothing now; come here at eleven to-morrow morning, and in the mean time do not speak to Tom about himself—or your fears.”

“If you were only not so—er—well, so damned mysterious—” And Mr. Merriwether forced himself to smile pleasantly.

“Ah—if!” exclaimed the man, nodding. “Do you promise?”

“Yes!” answered Mr. Merriwether.

He had made up his mind that Tom would not be abducted. As for worse things, if Tom had not already committed matrimony, he could not very well do it in his father's private office. It was wise to keep Tom virtually a prisoner without his knowledge. And parental opposition has so often served merely to add gasoline to the flame of love that one father would not even whisper his objections.

He bowed and left the room, angry that nothing had been accomplished, relieved that within twenty-four hours the matter would probably be settled, and not quite so confident of the power of money as he had been for many years.

IX

Tom arrived at his home early enough to have his bath at the usual hour. Though he had never been asked to account for his movements, he nevertheless made it a point to breakfast with his father. He would do so to-day. There was no occasion to say he had been to Boston or that he had slept in a Pullman.

As a matter of fact, he had not slept well. The stateroom seemed full of those elusive flower-fragrances that always made him think of her, particularly sweet peas—a beautiful flower, and of such delicate colors, he now remembered, who had not thought of them for years. He really loved them, he now discovered. Their odor always tinged his. thoughts with a vague spirit of romance; and this, in turn, in some subtle way, rendered him more susceptible to the lure of adventure. It almost made him feel like a boy.

For all the stimulating reaction of his cold plunge, Tom looked a trifle tired about the eyes at breakfast.

Mr. Merriwether looked at his son with eyes that also looked tired; said, “Good morning, Tom!” in his usual tone of voice, and hid behind his newspaper. Instead of reading about the absurd demands of the railroad workers all over the United States for higher wages, he was thinking that he had never allowed anybody to do his work for him, because he had always intended that Tom should succeed him. He had at one time fully intended to train Tom for the succession, to have him learn railroading from brake-man up.

Indeed, the boy after leaving college had seemed much taken with the idea and listened with interest to his father's talks about his plans and desires and hopes. But with the great boom, that wonderful era of amazing reorganizations and stupendous consolidations, the great little man had been swamped by the flood of gold that poured into Wall Street.

And gold, as usual, had been ruthless in its demands on the great little man's time. For years he had averaged a net personal profit of a million a month; but it was not that he wished to make more money. It was that his time no longer belonged to himself; it was not his family's, but his associates'—not his only son's, but his many syndicates'. And he had devoted himself to the welfare of his syndicates and had written a dazzling page in the annals of Wall Street.

But what about his son's present and the future of the Merriwether roads? If Tom died, the Merri-wether dream would follow him, but that would be a natural death at the hands of God. If Tom lived and refused to be a Merriwether, the death of the Merriwether dreams would be by slow strangulation. In short, hell!

His promise to the brother of the woman who had a daughter that might prove to be the executioner of his dreams stared him in the face. The situation called for tact and skill and superhuman self-control. He liked to fight in the open; but this was not a battle for more millions; it involved more than the deglutition of a rival railroad.

McWayne had reported that Tom had acted like a lunatic when he could not secure the room in the Hotel Lorraine that had been engaged by Mrs. Calderon and daughter. The only ray of light was that Tom had not talked to the ladies.

“Tom,” asked Mr. Merriwether, casually, “have you anything on special for this morning?”

Tom had in mind a visit to 777 Fifth Avenue, at which he promised himself to end the affair; but he answered:

“N-no.”

“I mean,” said the father, speaking even more casually, because he noted the hesitancy, “anything that could not be done just as well in the afternoon.”

“Oh no, I have nothing special; in fact, nothing at all,” said Tom.

Mr. Merriwether saw in his reply merely Tom's way of not declaring his intention to see the girl.

“Then I wish you would come down-town with me. I have some papers I want you to look over, and we'll have luncheon together. What do you say?”

A prisoner accused of murder in the first degree does not listen to the jury's verdict with more interest than E. H. Merriwether waited for Tom's reply, for at this crisis he realized that he had not been in his son's confidence in those other important little crises of boyhood that breed in sons the habit of confiding in fathers.

“Sure thing!” said Tom', cheerfully.

Though thus relieved of some of his fears, there remained with E. H. Merriwether the determination that Tom had not volunteered any information. The little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern was so intelligent that in general he was fundamentally just. He did not exactly blame Tom for not confiding in him, but, also, he did not blame himself. And this was because he had habituated himself to paying for his mistakes in dollars. What could not be paid off in dollars was never a mistake, though it might well be a misfortune.

They went down-town together. Mr. Merriwether took Tom into one of his half-dozen private offices, made him sit down in one of those over-comfortable arm-chairs that you paradoxically find in busy Wall Street offices, and said to him very seriously:

“My son, here is the history of the Pacific & Southwestern system from its very start. It goes back to the early stage-line days and is brought up to to-day. I had it prepared in anticipation of an ill-advised Congressional investigation. I have thus far succeeded in staving off the investigation, not because I was afraid of it or because it might hurt me, but because the market was in bad shape to stand the alarmist rumors and canards and threats that always go with such affairs. Other people would have quite unnecessarily lost money. As soon as the investigation cannot be used as a bear club I'll let up opposing it. I'll even help it.” He paused and gave to Tom a book bound in limp black morroco. “I want you to read this book because it is written with complete frankness in order to spike certain political guns. You will get in it the full story of what has been done and what we hope still to be allowed to accomplish. When you get through with it you'll know as much about the system as I do!”

The old man had spoken quietly and impressively. Tom was so pleased at having something to occupy his mind and keep it from dwelling on the girl he had never seen and the exasperating scoundrel at 777 Fifth Avenue that his face lighted up with joy.

“You could not have given me anything to do that I'd like better, dad!” he said, with such obviously sincere enthusiasm that Mr. Merriwether felt profoundly grateful for this blessing.

Then came the inevitable reaction and with it the thought: “Have I gained a successor only to lose him to some—”

He shook his head, clenched his jaws, and looked at his watch. It was not yet time to go to fight for the possession of his son. He had much to do before he left his office to go to 777 Fifth Avenue.

“Tom,” he said, “'you stay here until I return—will you?”

“You bet!” smiled Tom, looking at the thickness of the system's history.

“I have a meeting or two before luncheon, but I'll try not to let them interfere.”

“Any time before three, boss,” said his son, cheerfully.

His heir and successor, but, above all and everything, his son! There was no sacrifice he would not make for this boy to keep him from blighting his own career—and his father's hopes, he added, with the selfishness of real love.

Knowing that Tom was safely imprisoned and could not marry at least for a few hours, he was able to concentrate his mind on his railroad's affairs. He disposed of the more urgent matters. At ten-forty he sent for McWayne.

“I'm going to 777 Fifth Avenue.”

“Again?” inadvertently said the private secretary.

Mr. Merriwether looked at him.

McWayne went on to explain: “I've had a man watching it since we found Tom called there, just before going to Boston.”

“Right! I expect to be back in time to lunch with Tom; but if I should be delayed—” He paused.

“Yes, sir?”

“—delayed beyond one o'clock have luncheon brought from the Meridian Club and tell Tom I wish him to stay until I return. This is important.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think that is all.”

“If no word is received from you by—” McWayne paused.

Mr. Merriwether finished. “By two o'clock, come after me. But always remember the newspapers!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'll telephone before two in case I expect to stay beyond that hour.”

“Very well, sir.”

E. H. Merriwether put on his hat, familiar to the world through the newspaper caricaturists—and walked toward the door. Then he did what he never before had done—he repeated an order! He said to McWayne, “Look after Tom!”

“Yes, sir.”

Then he went to 777 Fifth Avenue to learn whether Tom was to be his pride and successor or his sorrow and dream-slayer.

X

E. H. Merriwether drove to the house of mystery in his motor, told the chauffeur to wait, and rang the bell. One of the over-intelligent-looking footmen opened the door.

“I wish to see Mr.—whoever is master in this house.”

“Yes, sir!”

The footman led the way. At the door of the library he knocked twice, sharply, then, after a pause, once, and then twice again. He waited; and presently, having evidently heard some answer not audible to the financier, he opened the door and announced:

“Mr. E. H. Merriwether!”

Why had there been any necessity for signals? Why such cheap theatrical claptrap? To make him think things? These questions in Mr. Merriwether's mind showed that the mysterious master of the house knew the advantage of suggesting the important sense of difference.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning,” answered E. H. Merriwether, and looked about the room.

No girl!

It began to irritate him. The man intensified the feeling by speaking very deliberately, as one to whom time is no object:

“Will you not be seated, Mr. Merriwether?”

“I am a very busy man,” began the autocrat of fifteen thousand miles of railroad.

“Sit down, anyhow,” imperturbably suggested the man.

The autocrat sat down. He said, “But please understand that.”

“I won't keep you any longer because you are sitting. Shall we get down to business?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke almost dreamily—“do you know why I asked you to call to-day at eleven?”

“No.”

“Because when you were here yesterday it was after banking hours.”

“And?” The little czar was in a hurry to finish.

“You, Mr. Merriwether, are one of those fortunate mortals about whom the newspapers do not lie.”

“Oh, am I? I take it you haven't seen a newspaper in twelve years.” Mr. Merriwether, after all, was an American. His sense of humor helped to make him great.

“I've read every line that has ever been printed about you—I had to, in order to study you exhaustively. I find that you are acknowledged by both friends and foes to be an intelligent man.”

“Oh yes!”

“A very intelligent man,” continued the man.

“And therefore?” said the very intelligent man.

“And, therefore, I now ask you to give me one million dollars.”

Mr. E. H. Merriwether never so much as batted an eyelid. He kept his eyes fixed on the stranger's eyes. He repeated, a trifle impatiently:

“And?”

“A certified check will do.”

“Come to the point. I am a busy man,” said Mr. Merriwether.

The man looked at the little financier admiringly. Then he said, “You mean you wish to know why you should give the million, or what you will get for it?”

“Either! Both!”

“You should give it because it is I who ask it. You will get for it what is very, very cheap at a million.”

“My dear sir, we'd do business quicker if you'd play show-down.”

Now that it was a matter of money, of paying, of trading, Tom's father felt a great sense of relief. Still, there was Tom's unhappiness to consider. Poor boy!

“I want you to give me a million so that in return I may give you a daughter-in-law.”

“You mean you will not give me a daughter-in-law if I give you a million, don't you?”

“I am in the habit of meaning what I say. The sooner you learn that, the quicker we'll close the deal. I mean that for a million dollars I'll give you a daughter-in-law.”

Mr. Merriwether shook his head. It was plainly to be seen on his face that every moment spent in this room was a sad waste of time.

“Isn't it worth a million to you?” asked the man, as if he knew it was.

Mr. Merriwether proceeded to look as though it were worth even less than a Santo Domingo mining concession. Then he said, with finality:

“No.”

The man rose.

“Then,” he spoke indifferently, “come back when it is. I'll ask you to excuse me. I, also, am a busy man. Good day, sir.”

Mr. Merriwether rose and bowed. He looked straight into the man's very shrewd eyes, smiled very slightly—and sat down again.

“Do you mean,” he asked, very pleasantly, for his bluff had been called, “Miss Calderon?”

The man sat down.

“Oh no!” he answered, unsmilingly.

“No? Then?” Mr. Merriwether was so surprised that he forgot not to show it.

“I am sorry you are a busy man, because what I have to say can not be hurried. First, you must chase from your mind all thoughts of Wall Street, high finance, railroad systems—and fill it with love!”

Mr. Merriwether looked alarmed. Would it all end with a Biblical text and an exhortation to endow some sort of a Home?

“You can do this,” pursued the man, imperturbably, “by thinking of your son Tom. He is your only son. You should love him. Once your mind is attuned to thoughts of love, you will be able to understand me more easily. Concentrate on love!” The man leaned back in his chair as though he were certain the attuning process would consume an hour, this being, alas! a Wall Street man; but Merriwether said, very promptly:

“I am ready for chapter two.”

“I doubt it. Love! The love of father for son, of son for mother, of son for wife, of son for father!”

“I understand. My mind works quickly. Go on!”

“Do you by any chance happen to know that your son is in love?”

“Yes. Where is the girl?”

“It isn't the girl. It's just girl.”

“Oh, hell! Quit vaudevilling!”

“There is no girl who is the girl. There never was. There doesn't have to be any!”

Quite obviously this man was a lunatic—with the eyes of a particularly sane person. If there was no girl Tom was in no danger of marriage. A million for not marrying an undesirable person, yes, but a million for a daughter-in-law, when Tom was not in love!

“Only,” thought Mr. Merriwether, “in case I have the selecting of her! And if I pick her I don't have to pay.”

“And yet,” said the man, musingly, “Tom loves her!”

Mr. Merriwether's perplexity was fast rising to the dignity of anger.

“If there had been a girl of Tom's own class,” the man went on, as if talking to himself, “why shouldn't he have been seen in public with her?” Mr. Merriwether was listening now with his soul. “And if this girl were of the other class—that financial geniuses, alas! sometimes have to accept for daughters-in-law—a nice, vivacious chorus-lady, or a refined Reno graduate, or worse—she would have insisted on being seen in public with Tom, to show her power and to raise the paternal bid-price for a trip to Europe—alone!”

The man ceased to speak and began to nod his head slowly, his gaze on the rug at his feet. Mr. Merriwether could stand it no longer.

“If there is no girl, what in blazes do I get for my million?”

“Your pick of eight.”

“Eight what?”

“Eight perfect daughters-in-law!”

A thought shot through Mr. Merriwether's mind: Was any form of insanity contagious? He looked at the lunatic. The eyes were sane, cold, shrewd, mind-reading eyes full of a sardonic humor.

“They are all,” added the man, as if he wished to dispel unworthy suspicion, “in love.”

“With Tom?”

“With love—like Tom!”

“With love—like Tom!” helplessly repeated Mr. E. H. Merriwether.

“Your mind”—the man spoke very slowly and distinctly, as if he wished to deprive Mr. Merriwether of every excuse for not understanding him—“does not seem to be working this morning with its usual efficiency!”

“No!” admitted Mr. Merriwether, sadly. “If you'd only use words of one syllable I think I could follow you better.”

“It isn't that. It is that your mind was not attuned in the beginning to the thought of love, and, therefore, could not follow my words. You compel me to spend time in explaining the obvious. Listen! If you wish Tom to become the heir to your name, to your railroad, to your work, and to all the dreams you have dreamed about your work and about your son; if you want him to be your successor, to continue your work, to perpetuate the name and influence of Merriwether in his country—I say, if you wish all this, he must do one thing, and you must see that he does it. And that one thing, Mr. Merriwether, is for him to marry wisely. Do you get that?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, very simply.

“If he doesn't, it will be death to your hopes, a tragic break in the Merriwether succession. No, don't shake your head. Admit it. Face it frankly. I know it. I know that you also know it. Can you expect me to believe that you want Tom to be the fool husband of a fool girl whose influence on him—”

“Tom isn't that kind,” interrupted E. H. Merri-wether.

“All men are that kind. Does history record the case of a man, greater even than E. H. Merriwether, who, when it came to women, was an utter ass? Yes, of a thousand; in fact, the stronger the man, the weaker she makes him—the better his brain, the worse his folly. And the cure? When an intelligent man realizes that he is a hopeless ass over one woman he realizes that his only escape is by the suicide route. No! It's much cheaper for you to pay the million. Oblige me by thinking. Isn't it cheaper to pay a million?”

He held up a silencing hand, as though he wished Mr. Merriwether to spend a full hour thinking of the bargain he was getting. Mr. Merriwether thought—quickly and accurately as was his wont. And he admitted to himself that it was indeed cheap at a million. But there must be value received. Promises, however plausible, are no more to be capitalized blindly than threats. It depends on who promises, and why; and also on what is promised. He thought of offering a smaller sum and of going through the usual preliminaries of a trade, but decided to be frank.

“If you can deliver the goods, I'll pay the million.” And, after a pause, he added, “Gladly!”

“I banked on that when I decided you ought to contribute a million to our fund,” said the man, simply. “I studied you and your fortune and your vulnerability, and I decided to attack via Tom. This was easier and cheaper than a stock-market campaign.”

The man somehow looked as though he had said all that was necessary; but Mr. Merriwether reminded him:

“You must prove your ability to deliver the goods.”

“I thought”—the man seemed mildly surprised—“we had.”

“Certainly not. The million hasn't stirred.”

“You are a brave man, Mr. Merriwether.”

Mr. Merriwether laughed, and said:

“What should I fear? People don't murder a man like me and get away with it—not when the motive is money. Political assassination, perhaps; but not for a few dollars—especially when my heirs would spend millions to see that justice did not miscarry.” He shook his head, smilingly.

“My dear sir, when we decided to go into the gold-mining business—”

“Gold-mining business!”

“Exactly! We thought to save time and effort by getting our gold already coined. Our general staff studied various methods—the ticker, for instance, and legislative attacks on your roads; but we went back to Tom. It is, of course, nearly as stupid to overestimate as to underestimate one's opponent; so, while we provided against every contingency arising from your undoubted possession of a resourceful and fearless mind, we also thought—please take note—that you might display stupidity; and we prepared for it. Such as, for instance, in case you point-blank said No! We have also provided ways of preventing you and your uncaptured millions from hurting us. Of course we could make the stock-market pay us for the trouble of kidnapping you or of murdering you. Don't you see clearly what you would do if you were in my place?”

“Oh yes—I see it clearly; but I don't believe you could do what I could in your place?”

“Nobody is free from vanity, for everybody seems to be a natural monopolist when it comes to brains. You are kidnapped at this very moment, aren't you?”

“People know I am here—”

“Oh yes! We expect to have you telephone McWayne presently not to expect you to lunch, and that we have extended every facility to his detectives for having this house under surveillance. We kidnapped the great Garrettson and kept him out of reach of the great world of finance long enough to enable us to cash in. Not only that, but he never told how we did it. You remember when Steel broke to—”

“You didn't do that!” exclaimed E. H. Merri-wether.

“Oh yes, we did; and I'll tell you how.” And the man briefly outlined the case for him.

E. H. Merriwether listened with much interest. When the man made an end of speaking, the financier shook his head skeptically, which made the man ask: “You don't believe it?”

“No!” answered Mr. Merriwether.

“Nevertheless, it is so. We also might have engineered in your case some deal such as that by which we compelled Ashton Welles to disgorge some of the money he had no business to have.” And he proceeded to enlighten the financier.

“Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether.

“Rather neat!” modestly acquiesced the man. “Suppose we had decided to kidnap you? The first thing to do is to get you here. Well, you are here.”

“How will you make money by that?” asked the financier, smiling.

“We don't expect to. We have not planned to make money by kidnapping you. Nevertheless, you must admit it can be made a very expensive matter for you. But please let me kidnap you without interruption!”

“I beg your pardon!” said Mr. Merriwether, gravely.

It struck him that the possession of a sense of humor makes a crook ten times more dangerous. It was what made the reporter, Tully, really formidable.

“We assume that you foresaw the danger to yourself in coming alone to this house. You'd employ private detectives to watch it at ten dollars a day a man, exactly as you have had your son watched the moment we decided it was time for you to begin the watching. McWayne, your efficient private secretary, is ready to move to your rescue. I don't see what else you could have done to protect yourself that we have not provided for.”

“The police!” mildly suggested Mr. Merriwether.

“And the reporters!” mocked the man. “Pshaw! We know what we are doing. Why, we have rehearsed your kidnapping and even your death. Our ablest members have in turn impersonated you—put themselves in your place and fought us. I will not bore you with more details, and I admit that the human mind cannot foresee accidents; but we have studied how your mind would work. Suppose you assume that you are kidnapped and beyond the possibility of help from your friends. Shall I tell you what we have done to make Tom marry one of our eight desirable candidates?”

“If you still wish that million.”

“Having decided to attack through Tom, we studied him and his ancestry on both sides. We easily learned that he had never had a serious love-affair, and that he was imaginative and adventurous, like yourself. There were many young women who would have liked to become your daughter-in-law—too many. That was Tom's trouble. But our problem was really made easier by that. We simply had to turn his thoughts to love and to one girl. We therefore did.”

“How?”

“We got him here. I piqued his curiosity and made the affair an extraordinary one by saying all we wished him to do was to answer one question. As we had rather expected, he would not come; but, of course, we had foreseen that, and so we got him here in one of our own taxicabs.”

“How?”

“We telephoned him that the doctor said he should come instantly, and that you were not really in danger. We don't believe in lies; but we took pains that no other cab should be in front of the club when we telephoned him from the corner drug-store. Attention to details, my dear sir, always brings home the bacon. Having roused the spirit of adventure in a remarkable way, I then asked him the great question. What do you think it was?”

Tom's father shook his head.

“It was this: Where did you spend your summer at the end of your freshman year? He told me. Then I gave him a box made to order for me by a French expert, which would deceive other experts so long as we did not try to sell it. Anybody can imitate the goldwork of any period. In all the museums of the world you will find fakes. Attention to details! I was prepared to have him show that box to local experts. I assumed he would do so, being a Merriwether and, therefore, intelligently curious.”

“Box with what?” asked Mr. Merriwether, also intelligently curious.

“Wait! When your son told me where he spent his summer at the end of his freshman year I knew he was then about nineteen—too young to think of marriage, but old enough to think of love. He had for the first time in his life been free from home influences and direct parental supervision. He was bound to regard himself as a man of the world and think of innocent flirtations as a manly art. Being in that frame of mind, and at the same time being a nice, rich, good-looking chap, all the girls would naturally make a dead set for him. Their numbers would keep him from having one love-affair. All love-affairs at twenty are much the same. A boy always begins by being in love with love. Indeed, I believe twenty-year love to be exclusively a literary passion—that, is, boys get it from reading about it. Of course I studied time, period, locality, and manifold probabilities; and, therefore, I sent him on a mission that suggested love—love for the one girl that Fate intended him to love and to marry. In order to fix, accentuate, and accelerate his love-thinking I used the perfume of sweet peas.”

“How does that work?”

“I picked out sweet peas because they are found everywhere. Their odor is strong and characteristic. He must have inhaled that odor thousands of times when he was flirting with pretty girls the summer he spent at Oleander Point with Dr. Bonner.”

“Yes; but about suggesting—”

“I advise you to read up on the psychology of odor associations. You will learn that there is a very close relation between the olfactory sense and the desire to love. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that memory, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than by almost any other channel; and, also, that 'olfactory impressions tend to be associated with a sum-total of feeling-tone.' This has been known for thousands of years. A very interesting paper was written by Mackenzie, of Johns Hopkins. If you read it you will know more than I can now take the time to tell you. The Orient understands the value of perfumes in lovemaking, and I could tell you amazing things; but I will refer you to Cabanis, Dadisett, Hobbes, Jaworski, Jwanicki, Schiff, Wolff, and Zwaardemaker. If you wish, my secretary will prepare an exhaustive bibliography of the subject for you.”

“No, thanks,” said Mr. Merriwether. “But I still don't understand—”

The man sighed. Then he said, “I'll tell you, of course.” He then told Tom's father about the message in the dark that Tom had carried.

“But he couldn't believe it!” exclaimed Mr. Merriwether.

“No; he couldn't—but he did. Of course I have taken you behind the scenes—-that is, I have opened your eyes and turned your head in the proper direction and held it firmly there and shouted, 'Look!' And of course you see the machinery standing still and you can't imagine it in motion. You are not as imaginative as I thought you were.”

“Huh!” said E. H. Merriwether, thoughtfully. Then after a pause he said: “I see the wheels revolving. Ingenious!”

“More than that, practical! My object in having Tom fall in love with love, suggesting that there was one girl born to be his bride, accentuated by my use of the sweet-peas odor as a leit-motif, was to have something to offer you which would be cheap at a million. The next step was to make Tom do foolish things—for effect on you. First, to make you fear Tom was crazy. I had a girl who knew young Waters talk to him about Tom's new and alarming queerness and suggest that he telephone to Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Of course Waters wouldn't telephone—and of course I did. And, of course, if you had disbelieved or suspected you would have sent for young Mr. Waters and he would have denied the telephone, but admitted the queer actions of Tom and the fact that people were talking about them. That would have allayed any suspicion you might have entertained. So I stage-managed the opera scene and the Boston trip to make you fear the worst. In that frame of mind you could be induced to come here voluntarily. I sent Tully to you. You had to come!”

“Very clever!” said Mr. Merriwether, with a thoughtful absence of enthusiasm.

“Therefore,” continued the man as if he had not heard the other's interpolation, “your son, being full of the thought of love and, even worse, of marrying the mate that Fate selected for him five million years ago, is now ready to marry any girl that smells of sweet peas. We thought that, instead of vulgarly extracting the million from you by torture or threats, we would place you in our debt by perpetuating the Merriwether dynasty. Hence the preparation of eight very nice girls—three of them in your own set, three others children of people you know, and the remaining two equally desirable but less historical, as it were.”

“Who are they?” If Mr. Merriwether was to pay a million he might as well see the label.

“Cynthia, Agnes, and Isabel, daughters respectively of Gordon Hammersly, William Murray, and Vanderpoel Woodford. Any objections?”

“No; but you can't—”

“Yes, I can. Also, Louise Emlen, daughter of Marbury Emlen, the lawyer—”

“He's a crook!” interrupted Mr. Merriwether.

“He doubtless interfered with one of your deals; I see you respect him. He's a crank, but she is a brick. And a Miss Lythgoe, daughter of Professor Lythgoe, of Columbia, the most beautiful girl in New York. Ramona Ogden; her father is Dr. Ogden, the lung specialist; her mother was a Jewess. The remaining two are of humble birth. But all of them are healthy and beautiful, plenty of honesty, brains, and, above all, imagination. Any one of them will not only make Tom happy, but will make him a worthy successor of a great man. And such grandchildren as they will give you! I envy you!” The man spoke with such fervent sincerity that E. H. Merriwether merely said:

“It is a risky business, even though the chances appear to be—”

“That's why we ask one million dollars—because we have eliminated the risk. Very cheap. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Merriwether, grimly.

“Then, will you kindly—”

“Yes; I will kindly tell you that you are a damned fool! You've wasted my time. I'm going to my office, and if I don't have you put in jail it will be because I don't want the publicity. But don't push me too far or I'll do it anyhow!” And Mr. E. H. Merriwether rose.

“Sit down!” said the man, with a pleasant smile.

“Go to hell!” snarled the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, and looked at the man with the eyes that Sam Sharpe once said reminded him of a mink's when it kills for the sheer love of killing.

For all reply the man clapped his hands sharply twice. Four men—the over-intelligent-looking footmen—came from behind the heavy plush portières. Also, the ascetic-looking man who had held the glass of acid in the taxicab and had brought Tom into the house the first time. The ascetic-looking man held a cornet to his lips, and his lungs were filled with still unblown blasts.

“Three weeks ago, Mr. Merriwether,” explained the mysterious master of the house, “this worthy artist began to practise on his beautiful instrument at exactly this time every morning. This was in anticipation of the morning when you should be here—the idea being to drown your cries. The neighbors have complained and I have promised to play pianissimo; but a few loud blasts, which will do the trick, will be forgiven. Attention to details, Mr. Merriwether! Ready!”

The cometist inflated his lungs and held the comet to his lips in readiness. The footmen seized Mr. Merriwether by the arms and legs, one man to each limb.

“Doctor!” called the master.

A sixth man came from behind the portières. He had some tin cans in his hand—plainly labeled ether—and also a cylinder of compressed laughing-gas and an inhaler.

“Expert! Anesthetics!” said the man, curtly, to Mr. Merriwether. “We propose to take you out of this house if we kidnap you. If we decide to kill you we have arranged to do it right here at home. I think we'll kidnap you. A week or two will make you amenable to reason. We realize, of course, that every day you spend under our hospitable roof will make it a little bit more difficult to get the million into our clutches. Would you like to know how we propose to kidnap you and get away with it?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with a pleasant smile.

“Tell our Mr. E. H. Merriwether to come in,” said the man to the cometist, who thereupon disappeared and presently returned, followed by a man made up to resemble the great financier.

The task was rendered easy by the famous flat-brimmed hat, with the crown like a truncated cone, so familiar to newspaper-readers through the cartoonists' efforts. The resemblance was not striking enough to deceive at close range, but it probably would work at a distance.

“Walk like him!” commanded the master.

The fake Mr. Merriwether walked up and down the room with the curious swaggering, jockey-like jauntiness of the little railroad man. From time to time he snapped his fingers impatiently in the same characteristic way Mr. E. H. Merriwether almost always used when giving an order to subordinates.

“That will do!” said the man, with a broad grin at the impersonator of the little financial giant. The double left the room—still walking à la E. H. M.

“I have had that man—an actor of about your build with a gift of mimicry—coached for weeks to imitate you. We told him it was a joke and guaranteed him an appearance before the most select audience in New York at one of Mrs. Garrettson's world-famous functions. We pledged him to a secrecy so natural, under the circumstances, as to rouse no suspicions. A few minutes ago we sent a footman to tell your chauffeur to go away and return at one. He wouldn't do it. The footman said the boss said so. Your man retorted that he took orders from only the boss himself—especially when countermanding previous orders.

“So our Mr. Merriwether went out to the front door, yelled 'One!' in your voice, and snapped his finger at the intelligent chauffeur, who thereupon beat it. But the sleuth remains. It makes us laugh! But, after all, since we have provided for him, it would be a pity not to go through the entire program. Does this bore you?”

“Must I tell the truth?” asked Mr. Merriwether, anxiously.

“Yes.”

“I can stand more.” In point of fact, Mr. Merriwether was sure the situation was serious for him. That is why he joked about it.

“Over six months ago we opened an antique-shop on Fourth Avenue. We had the usual truck. Also we have had this antique-dealer—who is your humble servant—go from house to house on the Avenue offering to buy or exchange those antiques of which people have grown tired. We even asked you. We have offered such good prices and such excellent swaps that we have taken antiques from some of the wealthiest houses on the Avenue. Also we have made a practice of importing antiques from Europe, which we auction off every two weeks. The money we get we deposit in various banks, and then we buy bills on Paris. The banks now know us. Remember that—it is important. Well, we also have an exact copy of your motor, even to the initials in the door panels. Pretty soon we send for our Merriwether motor and our E. H. Merriwether emerges from this house and gets into his car and off he goes—and the watching sleuth with him.”

“But if there should be two, and one stay?”

“Then number two will see not long afterward an elaborately carved Gothic chest taken from here into the antique-dealer's wagon—a wagon now known to the traffic squad. We carry you away and lock you in a small sound-proof room, to get to which people would have to move out of the way a lot of heavy pieces of furniture. There is no question of our ability to kidnap you and to keep you a prisoner. I tell you we have paid attention to details persistently and intelligently. Meantime what does Sam Sharpe do to the stock-market? And Northrup Ashe? How much will a month's absence from your office cost you?”

“Not half as much as it will cost you when I get out.”

“And if you don't get out?”

For reply Mr. E. H. Merriwether grinned broadly.

“My dear Mr. Merriwether”—the man spoke very seriously now—“we had not really expected such unintelligent skepticism from you; but, as we prepared for everything, we, of course, prepared for even crass stupidity on your part. In demonstrating our power to do what I say some painful moments will be your portion. This I regret more than I can say. Just now our problem is to prove our complete physical control of you and also our utter indifference to your feelings. I am going to do what will make you hate me to the murder point. In deliberately making a violent enemy of a man like you we pay ourselves the compliment of thinking ourselves absolutely fearless. I propose to have you spanked—to whip you as if you were a bad little boy. We shall at first use a shingle on you—undraped. You may begin when ready, James.”

“Sir,” said one of the footmen, very respectfully, to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, “will you kindly take off your coat and waistcoat, preliminary to the removal of your trousers?”

Mr. E. H. Merriwether tried to smile, but desisted when he saw that the men's faces had taken on a grim look—as if they knew that after the whipping it would be a fight to the death. They somehow conveyed an impression that, though they would not stop at murder, they nevertheless appreciated the gravity of the offense.

“We know,” said the master, solemnly, “that for every blister we raise you will gladly spend a million to clap us into jail. Do you really wish to be spanked and to hate us for it for the rest of your life?”

“No.”

“The alternative is the million—or death.”

“You can't kill me and get away with it.”

“Oh yes—even easier than kidnapping. I'll show you how we'll do it.” He rose and took from one of the drawers of the table a small, morocco-covered medicine-case, opened it, and showed Mr. Merri-wether a lot of small tubes tightly stoppered. “Cultures!” explained the man—“typhoid; bubonic plague; anthrax; Bacillus mallei—that's glanders—meningitis; Asiatic cholera; and others. This, for instance—number thirteen—is the virus of tetanus. Inoculation with an ordinary culture would take days; but with this virus it will take hours. What a wonderful thing science is! You know what tetanus is?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Merriwether, calmly, “lockjaw.”

“Exactly! Well, this will lock your jaws, and all your millions won't be able to pry them open for you, and all the antitoxin injections won't help you. You will have your consciousness almost to the last—and you will not make yourself understood. The risus sardonicus, which is a most unpleasant sort of grin resulting from your inability to smile naturally, will linger in the memory of Tom to his death. You really ought to have a moving-picture film of your last hours taken as a warning to those stupid millionaires whose plunder we would recover. And, of course, I have here seven poisons, of which prussic acid is the mildest and slowest. Will you please assume the fact of your death?”

“I'll do that much to please you,” said Mr. Mer-riwether. He still believed that murder would not be profitable to these men and hence did not believe they would go that far.

“Would you like to know how we propose to dispose of the body?”

“I might as well see everything,” he answered, in a resigned tone of voice. The man looked at him admiringly, and said:

“Come on!”

They led the great E. H. Merriwether to the cellar. There he saw that the furnace coal had been taken out of its bin and put in the adjoining compartment. The plank floor had been taken up, and what looked like a short trench—or a grave—had been dug. Outside stood a pile of crushed stone, some bags of cement, some bundles of steel rods, a section of five-inch iron soilpipe with a mushroom-head trap at one end, and concrete-workers' tools.